Category: Old and Uncategorised

My brain is shot, totally and utterly shot. I’ve spent the last two work days* wrestling with the unreasoning beast that is the W3C Platform for Privacy Preferences Project (P3P), and the horrifying Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 implementation of the same. Throw in the mindlessly brutal IBM beta release privacy statement generator and it’s a wonder I can stand upright, let alone type. Man it’s tough surfing the bleeding edge*.

On the plus side though, we now have functioning privacy statements, and (when Michael over in technical gets around to editing the HTTP headers in header_mod on the Apache server*) we’ll have compact privacy statements on our cookies, and no longer look like evil spammers when we ask people to lower their security settings.

Talking of evil spammers though, I’ve received another one of those emails promising love and happiness and delivering only disapointment and more spam*. This one is from “crushlink.com”, and informed me that not only does a mysterious “someone” have a crush on me, but that they apparently still have a crush on me. Stretching credulity even further it then gives me “a clue” – that the person involved is “between 15 and 19 years old”.

I only know one person “between 15 and 19 years old”, and as a) she’s smart and b)things are apparently going quite well with the cute guy from the video store *g*, I was highly suspicious. So I did some poking around online, and found, yup, it’s a scam. A scam set up by a certain Johann Schleier-Smith* to harvest email addresses and sell them on to Evil Spammers Inc. So people, spread the word about crushlink.com! Or launch a denial of service attack. Either way.

Nothing much else is going on. Spent an enjoyable afternoon sheltering from the 33 degree heat* in a cafe in Mt Lawley with Rebecca and Dom on Saturday, but apart from that, nothing. Ho hum. I probably need to get out more 🙂

Later:

Woo-hoo! Just checked the machine (I hardly ever get any calls, so I don’t check it on walking in as a matter of habit) and my Shivaree CD is here. Yey!

That’s all.

* Yes, I know P3P hasn’t been bleeding edge for at least a year, but c’mon, allow me an enjoyable mixed metaphor for once.

* Yes! It’s techno-geek buzz-word bingo!

* If one was foolish enough to fall for it, which I’m not 🙂

* Allegedly allegedly allegedly allegedly allegedly (say it enough times and it acts as a charm to ward off lawyers) allegedly allegedly allegedly.

* Heat, not Masons. A cafe won’t keep them away.

I happened to catch the begining of Girl Interupted on Sunday night. Winona Ryder has an opening mononlogue where she asks “Have you ever stolen anything, even though you could afford it?”. Oh how I laughed!

Then some 16 year old rappers tried to intimidate me on the train. They failed miserably 🙂

I found some corn holder things! Giant ones! Yey!

I’m not going to talk about Bali 🙁

I had an interesting morning yesterday, sitting in a mechanical chair while bursts of high energy photons were shot through my cheeks. No, it wasn’t some kind of bizzare science experiment, I was at the dentist for my six monthly checkup having my teeth x-rayed.

I don’t understand why people seem to be so terrified of going to the dentist. Well, actually I do, it’s because they stupidly wait until there’s something wrong before going, so end up needing dozens of fillings all done at once. If you go for a checkup every six months, then there’s nothing to fear, because any problems can be caught early. If you do need a filling, it’s only a very shallow one and the whole job will be over in ten minutes. Heck, you don’t even need anaesthetic…

Well, OK you probably do. I* just have a far greater phobia of people sticking needles into my gums than I do of the momentary pain of having a tooth drilled. Even when they have to drill right down to the nerve it’s not too bad so long as you keep your mind on something else. The only tough bits are when the assistant runs the air puffer over the hole – that feels kind of like someone bashing a supercooled icicle through the tooth and into your jaw with a sledgehammer. But come on, it’s only for a few seconds, and once it’s over you can at least eat, drink and talk nomally. Well worth it I think.

Anyway overall I’ve had a fairly healthy week for once. Last Saturday (uh… not yesterday, the one before that) I went up to Fabian’s for some AD&D playtesting. In a bid to actually get some exercise I decided that rather than call for a lift from the Midland terminal I’d walk up to his place. Which I did without any major difficulties. It’s only about five kilometres, and apart from the last one it’s all flat. Then I won at Trivial Pursuit, which was gratifying 🙂

Then on Friday I needed to get my tax done, and get renting the unit sorted out (yup, I’m renting the place, this way I don’t have to worry about moving for the next six months at least :). So I got up early and walked into Maylands to the tax agent. Unfortunately as soon as they called up my records the entire computer system crashed (apparently it didn’t like my HECS debt*) so I had to leave my receits and things with them with a promise that they’d process them as soon as they got the network back up. So from there I walked up to Beaufort Street and into Mount Lawley to the real estate agency. Unfortunately I was a good two hours early, so I ducked into a bookshop I found hidden away next to the Astor and bought a couple of books. I then sat on a bench outside and read them while munching on chicken flavoured rice crackers, which is a quite salubrious way to spend a few hours.

Anyway once my appointment rolled around it didn’t take too long to get the rental agreement sorted out, so I walked back home via Walcott Street. A total round distance of close on seven kilometres.

So, in the last week I’ve walked roughly twelve kilometres more than usual. Too bad I have no motivation to do that every week 🙂

On the subject of walking though, I’ve been seized by an insane urge to walk at least part of the Bibbulmun Track. The motivation for this is undoubtedly Bill Bryson’s A Walk in the Woods which I read last week. This is Bill’s account of his attempt to hike the Appalachian Trail (the longest wilderness walking track in the world) with an overweight, reformed alcoholic schoolfriend named Katz. Since most of the book is about how appaling the conditions are, the horrible people they were forced to endure along the way, the danger of being eaten by bears and how after months of effort they managed to cover less than a third of it before giving up, I have no idea why this would inspire anyone to try and do something similar. But nonetheless it has had that effect on me. At least I wouldn’t have to worry about bears*.

Anyway in an odd bit of synchronicity I went for a wander around Bassendean* after having my teeth irradiated and found a very cool book exchange. That’s not synchronicitous in itself of course, there are cool book exchanges all over the place if you look. What was synchronicitous was that in the downstairs section there was a prominantly displayed official guidebook to the northern half of the Bibbulmun Track going out for only eight dollars. The only way this could have been more of a sign was to have a bright light shining down and angelic choirs singing, so naturally I purchased it. It’s pretty good, plenty of maps, elevation diagrams of each section, and even highly detailed walking instructions for the entire northern track (like “proceed down the slope 200 metres and turn left at the burnt tree, no not that one, the one on the left”). Considering Bill’s complaints about the pathetic maps for the Appalachian Trail I feel seriously spoiled.

So yeah, it will probably come to nothing (like most of my plans) but for now I’m going to walk the Bibbulmun track damnit! *g*

(If* I change my mind I can always post the book off to Mr Bryson with a note attached saying “Look! No Bears!” It might inspire another book 🙂

Thats all I’ve got to say. Over and out.

* Think student loans people

* Apparently male Emus can be pretty dangerous in the breeding season though. How about that?

* Not just the location of my Dentist, but the home of Rolf Harris!

* By which I mean “when”

Is this funny or what? 😀

There are three football codes in Australia, Australian Rules Football, Rugby League and Rugby Union. Aussie Rules can be told apart from the Rugby codes fairly easily, AFL players wear tighter shorts, don’t run with the ball as much and the goal posts are completely different. The difference between League and Union however is a mystery lost somewhere in the vague hinterlands between Sydney and Brisbane. A mere Sandgroper can’t even begin to grasp it.

The reason I mention this is that yesterday (Sunday) was the NRL (Rugby League) Grand Final. It was between the Roosters (who may or may not be from Sydney, I don’t know and can’t really be bothered to find out) and the Warriors, from New Zealand (rugby is completely ridiculed outside of Queensland and New South Wales, so the league roped in some Kiwi teams to make up the numbers).

Anyway, Grand Finals demand grand entertainment. Unfortunately the league couldn’t manage this, and decided to make do with Billy Idol.

I kid you not, Billy Idol. Yes. Him.

So, they flew him out at enORMOus expense, held all sorts of press conferences, and to get the whole thing moving on the day, brought him into the stadium riding on a hovercraft* while the opening chords of White Wedding boomed around the stadium courtesy of the house band performing on the central stage.

So, Billy zooms around the field a few times, then hovers up to the stage where he struts up to the microphone in true rock star style*. “ARE THERE ANY ROOSTERS FANS HERE?!” he yells. “YEAAAHHHH!!!!!” scream the crowd dementendly. “ARE THERE ANY WARRIORS FANS HERE?!” he continues. “YEAAAHHHH!!!!!” answer the crowd even more dementedly. “DO YOU LOVE FOOTY?!?” he bawls. “YEAAAHHHH!!!!!” howl the crowd, now losing it completely. Billy gives a punk style sneer, grabs the microphone….. and the entire stage goes black and the band fall silent as the power cuts out.

Billy Idol is left standing there for five full minutes while technicians race around in the darkness screaming at each other. Then he and the band have to troop (or possibly hover) off without getting to perform, as the NRL powers that be have sent down the word that they have a game to play, they’re not prepared to wait any longer, and get those damn musicians off the field!

Now, I have nothing against Billy Idol. I sing along to Rebel Yell when it comes on the radio just the same as the next guy*. But come on! Could the timing possibly have been better 🙂

* Somehow.

* Assuming the next guy is also a total dork.

Halloween is coming, and I don’t care 🙂

Here in Australia, or Perth at least, no one makes a big fuss about All Hallow’s Eve. If you know someone who’s seriously into partying, they might take advantage of the night to throw a bash (with costumes naturally), but that’s about it. If you’re smart you might buy a few packets of lollies (that’s candy for Americans and other such dialectally divergent folk 🙂 just in case someone turns up trick or treating, but you’ll probably end up eating them yourself because it’s just not a tradition down here. Halloween is basically just another night.

The reason I’m thinking about this is that the net seems to be going Halloween ballistic. The email newsletters I subscribe to are suddenly packed to the gills with all sorts of Halloweeny content. The sites I visit are pushing all sorts of Halloween related deals and offers. There are special offers on costumes, pages and pages of ‘traditional’ pumpkin recipes, advice on how to throw the perfect Halloween party. There are even specially designed costumes for babies, a concept so deranged that I find it difficult to comprehend. I completely fail to see how any sane person could think that dressing their infant up as a pumpkin would be a good idea. Those Yankees are craaazeee!

Their online stores are good though, which is why I’ve just ordered some books from Amazon. As a geek with pretensions of linguistic grandure, I thought it was high time I actually learnt some Latin, so I’ve ordered a few textbooks. I mean I already know some Latin, you can’t be an intelligent English speaker and not pick up some large chunks of the language, but I’d like to formalise my knowledge. They were dispatched on Friday, and should be here within eleven days. Or so they say…

As regards my last foray into the world of online shopping however, I thought for a while there that I would have to go all grim and burn down the Sanity store in Hay Street. They did give me my promised refund. However it was a refund for $8.27. As the actual amount they charged me for not delivering my Shivaree CD was $30.33, this left me round about $22.06 in the lurch. I sent them off a rather terse email to this effect, and much to their credit they quickly refunded the rest of the money, but still. It makes me wonder if they’ve been short changing me in-store all these years as well.

But I’m not too annoyed, as I just managed to get my hands on a copy of the remarkably rare Corrupt and Immoral Transmissions promo CD the band put out some years back on eBay (that is I got my hands on it on eBay, the band didn’t release a CD exclusively on eBay, although that could be a neat promotional trick). I am yet to actually pay for it, as Paypal seems to be down for maintenance at the most inconvenient times, but I’ll get it done this afternoon. Then (after several weeks of waiting no doubt) I’ll finally be able to listen to the tracks Scrub and the band’s cover of My Boy Lollypop, which should be um….. interesting, given Ambrosia’s unique vocal talents.

Channel 9 broadcast Dinotopia as a mini-series this week, and I taped it. I finished watching it last night, although frankly I don’t know why. The effects were great. Yes, that’s what I’ll claim, I watched it for the effects. I certainly couldn’t have been watching it for the plot, script or acting, which were in various degrees predictable, clich

You know you’re getting old when songs that were hits when you were in high school are getting used in chain store commercials.

The song in question is Two Princes by the Spin Doctors (off the album Pocket Full of Kryptonite*), and the chain store in question is the ubiquitous K-mart. Apparently getting sick of the eighties track they’ve been using for the last few years (the name and artist momentarily escape me – something by the Steppers I think) they’ve jumped forwards a few years, and grabbed a hold of the “doob-ba-doop, dooba-doop ba-dooby-dooby duba-duba-duba-duba-duba-duba-duba-duba-duba” bit, which is annoying because it was one of my favourite songs of 1992-93. Heck, it was so popular that even the severely pissweak cover band they booked for our graduation ball played it!* And now it’s reduced to a funky backing track for cheap leisure wear adds. Damn but that’s depressing.

Similarly depressing is the fact that Get Your Juice by Starburst seems to be hovering at about 18 on the charts. What’s so disheartening about this is not only is it a pathetic rip off of Kylie Minogue’s latest single (stripped of even the small amount of talent that makes that vaguely listenable) but it’s not even a real song! It’s a promotional campaign for a confectionery company!

About a month ago “teaser” adds started appearing on TV with skimpily dressed women gyrating around on giant bits of computer generated fruit, alternately moaning (you could hardly describe it as singing) and whispering seductive phrases such as “Come and get your juice boy!” then licking their lips*. After a few seconds of this wiggling it cut to a colourful “Starburst!” logo. Since the company has been running adds suggesting that Starburst is a band (as opposed to a range of sweets) for some years, I instantly recognised this as a further development of this rather stupid trend, and dismissed it from my mind, as I am generally wont to do with such trash.

Not long after this however the next set of adds started, which were longer, showed more of the so called “video clip” (revealing it to be ripping off Holly Valance as well as Kylie, which frankly doesn’t bother me one iota), and finished with a voice over man groaning “You’ve heard the song, now go and get the hot new single Get Your Juice from Starburst!*”.

It was at this point that I started to worry. “Surely” I thought, “Surely they can’t have released that derivative piece of horse doo-doo* as a single?”. Unfortunately they have, and according to the weekly ARIA chart I get in my email, it’s actually selling quite well. Which just goes to prove you’ll never go broke catering to the lowest common denominator. In the last week or so the adds have expanded again to finally include the product, a new range of “extra-juicy” jellies, but the damage has already been done. The modern music industry (not to mention the modern music buying public) just sickens me.

To complete my total disillusionment with the world of music, I got an email on Friday from Sanity explaining that the extended delay in shipping my copy of Rough Dreams is because they don’t actually have any copies, don’t plan to get any copies in the foreseeable future and they have no intention of fulfilling my order. They are refunding my debit card*, but this is still a major – well, annoyance isn’t quite the word all things considered. What gets me is that they actually had the CD advertised for order on their website, and I pre-ordered it, which I would have thought would involve them reserving a copy before the ones they imported sold out. If they imported any at all that is, and if they didn’t import any why did they put it on the website in the first place? Grrr!!

I went into town after work on Friday and scoured the CD stores trying to track down a copy – with no success. I think the few copies that made it to Perth were snapped up by other Shivaree fans in the first week after release, while I was happily sitting at home twiddling my thumbs waiting for Sanity to do what I paid them to. So now I guess I’ll just have to order it from Amazon or somewhere, and pay for international delivery. Bastards!*

Friday wasn’t a complete dead loss music-wise though. In my Shivaree motivated wanderings from CD store to CD store I managed to pick up two great albums going fairly cheap. The first is Flaunt It by Sigue Sigue Sputnik, a relatively obscure eighties group who recorded some of the most deranged sounds of that whole rather deranged decade. They’re sort of like sexually ambiguous New Romantics* with a campy tryhard cyberpunk edge who got in a nasty road accident with a drum machine and a mobile film library. You can’t really describe their work as music, it’s more like an assault by Japanese techno commandos with big hair, armed with electronic machine guns and the sampling deck from hell. It’s so unlistenably bad that it approaches a kind of magnificence by stealth. In other words it’s great! 🙂

The other is Complete B Sides by the Pixies. There’s some great stuff on this, including the famous version of the lady in the radiator song from Eraserhead that they used to end their concerts with. But the three standouts for my money have to be River Euphrates, The Thing (basically just a jazzed up remix of the fade out from The Happening but very funky none-the-less), and the weirdly laid back “UK Surf” version of Wave of Mutilation, a song that you wouldn’t think could work as an acoustic ballad*, but does. Throw in the video clips for Here Comes Your Man and Allison and it’s a pretty good deal for only $17.00. Go JB’s HiFi! 🙂

Finally (before I go and do the washing up) I must note that Helen has accepted my offer of a date, conditional on me making it to the UK at some point, and us still both being pathetically single. Cool 🙂 Until then I suppose I can at least claim some slight amount of cred by saying that I asked a girl out and she said yes. Of course whatever cred I do claim will go out the window when my listeners ask “So what happened?” and I have to explain the circumstances and that said date hasn’t actually gone ahead yet, but still it’s got to be better than nothing 😉

Anyway better go. Gotta get this place cleaned up. A pox on entropy I say! A pox 🙂

* On second thought they might have sung Little Miss Can’t be Wrong off the same album, but still.

* Did I mention that these women were coloured? Like purple women in purple clothing on giant blueberries, and red women in red clothing on giant strawberries? Yeah. No kidding.

* It seems incredible to me that adds can call a single “hot” when it’s only just been released, and hasn’t even charted yet. It’s even more incredible that saying its “hot” seems to ensure that sufficient numbers of people will think its “hot” enough to rush out and buy it – thus sending it up the charts and making it “hot”. It is just me who finds this entire process vulgar in the extreme?

* Not the actual word I used, but I’m trying to keep this log fairly clean 🙂

* Frankly I would have got seriously grim all of a sudden and set fire to their Hay Street store if they hadn’t.

* So much for keeping things clean eh? 🙂

* OK, more sexually ambiguous that usual New Romantics 😉

* Well as close to an acoustic ballad as the Pixies can get I think 🙂

I should not watch Rage. Or at least the top 40 they play on Saturday morning. It just depresses me.

For instance, in what can only be described as blasphemy of the highest order Atomic Kitten have covered Blondie’s The Tide is High. I say “covered” but I should say “produced a weak, banal and insipid pop karaoke version completely lacking any of the life, spark or fun of the original”. They don’t even have a Mariachi band for crying out loud! That song is nothing without trumpets, violins and moustachioed men in sombreros. They’ve even added new lyrics, presumably in an attempt to distract people from the fact that they’re talentless hacks who when unable to come up with anything original see fit to rip off the work of far superior artists strip it of all spontaneity and drag it down to their own “sing by numbers” level. I’d rather listen to Holly Valance!

On second thought I’d rather listen to the real song (to call it the “original” suggests that the Atomic Kitten version has some kind of musical value). Thank Bob I have a “best of the eighties” CD around here somewhere… Aaaaaah! Urge to kill fading… fading… Growing! fading….

Oh for the love of sanity…

I got this email today at work from one of our clients who is revamping her website, and it just about made me beat my head against the walls at her sheer…. either stupidy or audacity, I can’t tell which. Her original specification, which we quoted on, and she approved called for two separate pages, one for the competiton, one for the email newsletter registration. Both of these have been created, and uploaded to her site. So what she’s proposing is like agreeing to pay a painter $1000 to do half a room in red, and the other half in white, then once it’s finished telling him to strip off all the paint he’s just put up, and redo the entire room in pink. Stupid sure, but would you then expect to pay only $500 for the entire job because the end product is half of what you originally asked for? Like Hell!!

Honestly, I sometimes wonder if the entire human race apart from myself and my friends are complete and utter imbeciles. Then I turn on the TV and see yet another repeat of Everybody Loves Raymond and realise that they are.

Whimper

Hmmmm, tell me about it. I’m 26 and in the same situation. No girls anywhere near my horizon. Working in IT as I do the odds are against me, we’re still a very much male dominated industry*. And it’s not like I have any kind of social life, apart from occasional openings. So when it comes to meeting women, basically I just don’t.

I can at least say I’ve been asked out, once, but that only happened because the girl in question was seriously deranged*. I played the “just want to be friends” card (which wasn’t even true in fact) to get out it. So nothing happened there, which everything considered is no bad thing. Nonetheless I just wish a nice, mentally stable girl would display some kind of interest in me at some point. And if she happened to be a (in the words of Stephanie) “brunette science chick*” so much the better 🙂

I tell you what Helen, if I ever save up enough cash to make it to the UK, and we’re both still in the same situation, we’ll go on a date. Nice restaurant, bouquet of flowers, the whole production. That way we can both claim at least one date and feel slightly less pathetic. Deal? 🙂

OK, I’m going to go listen to Kasey Chambers and get all depressed now. That hidden track’s a killer eh?

* Well seriously emotionaly disturbed anyway. Severe self esteem problems coupled with an inferiority complex that she’d cover for with pathological lying and obssesive one-upmanship. Not the most attractive qualities in the world.

* Examples of “brunette science chicks” from the world of television include Miranda Fieglesteen from Mysterious Ways, Jorja Fox’s character in CSI and that Vulcan from Enterprise. Of course in the latter case that “once every seven years” thing would be a bit of a drag 😉

I’m not gonna watch much TV tonight. I’m sure everyone can figure out why. If I never see that footage again in my entire life, I’ll die a happy man. I can handle the towers on fire if I have to, I can hack the clouds of dust enveloping lower Manhattan – but the plane tearing into the building in that massive gout of flame, the towers imploding downwards – I just have to turn off the TV when that comes on. It makes me sick. And you just know they’re going to be playing that over and over and over again, just like they did last year.

Thankfully Channel 10 is doing the same, sane thing they did last year and running normal programing. Seinfeld at the moment (same as they went to last year), which could be seen to be in slightly poor taste. But at least it’s something apart from endless brooding on tragedy and classical dirges with George Dubya sound bytes over the top. Gah.

Anyway I forgot to mention something rather, well, not actually exciting, but about as exciting as my dull life ever gets, that happened to me last week. I was on the bus going back to Subiaco railway station after a hard day’s work at the office, sitting in the seat just behind the rear door because the one I like (other side, two seats up) was occupied. So, I’m sitting there calmly reading Resurrection Day by Brendan Dubois (excellent book by the way), and we’re pulling up to the station and there’s this huge WHACKK!! noise, and the window I’m leaning against shatters!

OK, the buses use safety glass so it didn’t actually shatter it just crazed all over and went opaque. But I was showered with tiny glass fragments (that managed to cut up my hand when I tried to dust them off a few minutes later). The driver had apparently managed to side swipe a “No Standing” sign. Various people yelped and gasped and stared at me, and then – after a stunned second or two of gazing at window – I satisfied them with a loud “Bloody Hell!”. Then the bus pulled up at the stop. So we all got out.

Bit of an anti-climax I know, but that’s what happened 😉

I suppose I could sue or something, but the miniscule cuts on my hand have healed up rather nicely, so there’s no point. Unless I wanted to claim emotional trauma or something, but hey, it takes more than a brush with a “No Standing” sign to traumatise the Wyrm! (spiders on the other hand will do it every time. Or those Lollypop Guild munchkins from the Wizard of Oz. They’re just creepy!).

Oh, I’d better put in a weeping madona update before I go. They actually let some scientists from one of the universities have a look at it and, sure enough, a mysterious “someone” had bored a hole in the head, filled it up with oil, then scraped away the varnish on the eyes. Told ya. Bet all those weeping supplicants they showed on the news feel like fools now.

Don’t worship statues people. Not even ones that weep. It’ll all end in tears 😉