Dortamur's Other Domain

Wallpaper Meme

2009-09-30T06:23:11Z

* Anyone who looks at this entry has to post this meme and their current wallpaper.
* Explain in no more than five sentences why you're using that wallpaper!
* Don't change your wallpaper before doing this! The point is to see what you had on!

I'm a big fan of Noir, Pulp, Steampunk, etc, and so Automata, by the Penny Arcade guys, was right up my alley - black and white noir detective story, with a splash of colour, featuring a minority race of mechanical beings? Hell yes!

This wallpaper, though, was by the amazingly talented guy behind AppleGeeks, inspired by the Penny Arcade concept. I love the style, and the texture - and wish he released a hi-res version (or prints) of the poster version.

As a wallpaper it also works very well, as the textured background peeks out around windows, and Regal often peeks out at the RHS of the screen behind windows.

I change my wallpaper very rarely, and I suspect this one will be here to stay for quite some time.

Click through for the hi-res version, and check out the original post over at AppleGeeks.

Another creative person animated the Automata comic to music, which is also pretty spiffy and worth a look.

Experiments in Home Theatre Frequency Testing

2009-07-23T03:18:55Z

As most of you have probably figured out, I'm a bit of an Audio enthusiast. The quest for audio nirvana is never-ending, and my latest foray into improving my home theatre was to delve into the guts of system testing and tuning! I recently acquired a SPL Sound Level Meter, and armed with the Bink Audio Test CD to play certain frequencies, set out to test, and tweak the configuration of my system, fiddling with speaker size settings, cross-overs, parametric equalisers, etc...

I mainly wrote this all up to post on DTVForum, but decided to throw it in LJ, with some tweaks, to ~~bore you all to tears~~keep it for my own reference, and in case anyone does find it as riveting as I.

Here's a brief summary of some of my observations:

When my AVR (Yamaha RX-V3800) has Speakers set to Large, and your input source is Stereo, it does not use the Sub (tested with Neo6, and Straight modes). Setting the LFE out to Sub/Front/Both made no difference - it always sent the full frequency signal to the speakers! While I haven't done any 5.1 specific tests, I would assume that with Speakers on Large, the 3800 would still send the .1 LFE discrete channel to the Sub.

Setting speakers to Small, and the LFE out to Sub, it did reroute low frequencies to the Sub. However, there was a fair overlap and it caused a dB spike around the cross-over (85dB at 80Hz, 90dB at 90Hz, from a 75dB average). Changing the cross-over frequency didn't seem to make any discernible difference to this cross-over spike.

I ended up tweaking the cross-over on the Sub itself, and got the spike down to 82dB. It really was a compromise in reducing that spike versus negatively impacting the frequencies either side of the cross-over.

My speakers are Krix Phoenix L/R, Centrix Centre, Seismix 3, and Equinox Surrounds. In "Large" mode, the Phoenix & Centrix gave strong low frequencies. The Centrix began at about 31.5Hz, Phoenix at 25Hz. The Seismix 3 had similar power, but went lower, recording 52dB at 20Hz.

I think the strong bass-end of the Phoenix is causing the cross-over complications. These aren't "small" speakers, and even set to small, the 3800 was still sending them sound several notches below the cross-over, and they were playing it back.

I had a go at levelling out the response by manually adjusting the Parametric Equaliser for each channel (although I treated L & R together, since I couldn't easily get the test tones going to one channel). This helped a bit, but I still have small spikes around the 40-50Hz, and the 80-90Hz.

And then there's a marked dip at 160Hz. Well, it's worse than that - 160Hz varies in volume between 60 and 70dB depending on where you are in the room. There's a marked difference moving half a meter in any direction. This seems to only be an issue when playing the test tone out of the L&R, as the same tone played from the Centre is a healthy 76dB. 320Hz also had a dip through L/R and not C.

I'm guessing that some of these discrepancies and side-effects have to do with my room accoustics. Given that all speakers show some effect at 40/80/160/320 (1250Hz had a dip, 630Hz seemed fine), I'm guessing dimensions of the room are coming in to play. The room is approx 4m wide by 8m deep - the front half is sunken a step, so the main seating is at the back of the first half, with extra seating behind. There's plenty of lounges, book cases, & a piano, but no specific sound treatment to the room - yet!

Hey, whaddya know! The wavelength for ~80Hz is ~4m! D'oh!

And that would contribute to the Cross-over spike issues at 80Hz too...

Comparing my results & manual Equaliser tweaks, the 3800's YPAO auto-calibration seemed pretty spot on - although I haven't compared too closely, nor done a full freq check. I also haven't done any freq tests on my surrounds.

Lastly - manually playing freq samples, recording levels, and tweaking is bloody time-consuming!
Hmmm, that turned out to be not so brief - at least I didn't include tables of numbers & graphs!

So, for future reference, anyone building a theatre: Don't make your theatre dimensions multiples of each other! Having a room 4m by 8m does nasty things to multiples/fractions of 80Hz!

Now I need to go and research room accoustic treatments...

Bass Odyssey: Week 2-3

2009-07-06T02:54:23Z

As I suspected, my practicing has been sporadic. Not a huge surprise, given that I didn't have any free time before suddenly deciding to learn a new musical instrument. Still, when I do practice they've been pretty solid. It seems the best time during the week is between when I get home after work, and dinner time. On a good day, that can give me a solid hour. Unfortunately, a late day at work, after work activities, or an ambitious dinner I've volunteered to prepare can nix a practice for a day very quickly. On the week-ends, I'm managing to get a solid few hours in on at least one day.

Week 2 I started attempting to play well-known songs (to me) from bass tabs found online - there's quite a wealth of community-crafted tab music. Even better are Guitar Pro files, which include tabulature, as well as the musical score, which I can fire up on my Eee using TuxGuitar. In theory, this is great, since I can fiddle with tempo, and add/remove parts, so I have other parts of the song to play along to. Unfortunately, the Eee really struggles to render Midi in software, so rather than sounding like tinny Midi music, it sounds more like strangled chickens half the time.

One of the problems with TuxGuitar is that I can't easily adapt different instruments to a 5-string Bass. There's an option to change the instrument, along with its tuning, but if I change, say, a Cello from a Bach Concerto to a 5-string Bass, then it keeps the fretting, and screws up the actual notes! It would've been much more useful if it kept the correct notes, and had a bash at adapting the fretting/tabs to the different instrument.

I think it was Week 2 that I discovered the joys of using headphones to practice. It means I can practice without annoying the family (or neighbours), and without being self-conscous about clangers. The down-side is that it's another cable in the mix. Using the Eee for accompaniment and guides, means that I have a cable from the Eee to the Amp, the lead from the Bass to the Amp, and a lead running from my headphones to the Amp. All in all it can get a bit of a tangle - especially if I decide I need to move more than half a metre.

Week 3 started with my first jam session with another "live" musician. I dragged my Bass up to Andy's place and we spent all Saturday afternoon butchering the classics. Most of the time we spent just picking through songs we both knew really well, trying to find easy stuff that we might have a chance of reproducing to a degree that it's recognisable.

I find it really interesting breaking down songs you think you know really well. Guitar Hero/Rock Band do this to a degree - when you're playing along to a guitar or bass line, all of a sudden you realise how simple it is, or how complicated it is. Doing the same on real instruments takes it even further, resulting in some surprises about songs you thought would be easy, and turn out to be tricky, or vice versa.

It's actually the easy ones that can be really impressive, and we found two such songs in our search. Second Solution, by The Living End, for the lead guitar, is pretty much the one finger pattern shifted around the fret-board (obviously the solo is a bit more killer). Are You Gonna Be My Girl, by Jet, is even easier, with most of the song being the one chord, with a bit of a flourish or two.

Not that we're anywhere close to playing either song in full yet...

Bass Odyssey: Week 1

2009-06-21T05:11:26Z

About a month ago I celebrated my Birthday, and was presented with a wad of cash from a group of friends. I managed to wield enough willpower to put this money towards something a bit different and more long-term than usual birthday bling, and a few weeks later, bought myself an Electric Bass Guitar.

No, not a Rock Band peripheral - the real deal, complete with Amp and the extras (case, leads, strap, tuner, etc). I went over the budget I originally had pencilled in for myself and got a Cort 5 String Electric Bass (Artisan C5H I believe it is) along with a 90W Behringer Amp. I wanted a 5 string from the get-go, and wanted an Amp with some decent grunt (ie; not the 10W practice amps they usually start you off with), and got a good deal on the combination.

Did I mention it's awesome?

The Bass is a matte black with a thin strip of white pearl around the edge. It's quite subtle and neutral, but still stylish, and I think suits me quite well. I'm still fiddling with the sound, but with the included tone & pickup balance you can get quite a range of tones out of it - and in general it sounds great!

So I've had it a little over a week now, picking it up two Thursdays ago. I've managed to practice on and off, adapting the scales I knew all those years ago for classical guitar, and learning new ones. It's closer to classical guitar than electric lead is (which was one of my reasons for going Bass over normal Guitar) - the fingering techniques in both hands are very similar, and plucking rest-stroke style is still very natural to me (after a 15+ year break). I've never used a Pick before, so plucking is all good. Walking scales and arpeggios is also more familiar to me than chords. Muting is something I've not had to tackle before, so that can be quite challenging.

So, one week in, and I'm finding some things easier than expected, and some things harder. I can do scales just fine, and have adapted to the extra lower string and missing top two strings just fine. Playing along base root notes to other songs is harder than I expected - I think mainly because I'm still very rusty at identifying actual note positions across the fretboard, and am still new to having to judge and translate intervals.

On the flipside, I can play the full bass line to Muse's Hysteria. Yeah, my technique isn't the greatest, but I can hit every note, it sounds reasonable, and is very recognisable. The bass line is an almost non stop barrage of notes, with little pauses. The rhythm is simple, but it just doesn't let up.

In some ways, I'm finding it easier to play Hysteria For Reals than in Rock Band, which is strange. In Rock Band, there's lots of HO/POs, so by the end of the song, my right hand (strumming) is fine, but my left hand (fretting) is falling off. Playing on the real Bass, plucking every single note, I'm not really noticing any fatigue in either hand. It's a mystery.

Hysteria is an awesome song to practice, though, since it's pretty intense, and mixes a good range of other techniques into it. Hurrah!

I'm intending to write here regularly, maybe once a week with a bit of luck, on how I'm progressing (or not). I was going to write up a bunch about why I'm pursuing this, how it came to be, inspirations, future goals, why 5 string, etc, but this post is already large enough, so I'll save them for another post.

Rocking Birthday Long Weekend

2009-06-01T13:00:59Z

This weekend just past was not a long weekend for me - I work for a University, you see.

But the weekend before, it was long, and awesome, and drama-filled, and I'd like to tell you why...

Prelude: Wednesday, May 20th

Before the weekend, on the Wednesday evening, I was at home, feeling a little glum, because something I had ordered for myself had not yet arrived, and I really wanted it before the weekend. I'd ordered a copy 2 months earlier - it hadn't shipped due to lousy suppliers. I'd ordered a second copy a coupla weeks back - for a friend. I'd ordered a third copy for myself - it had shipped.

And so, after dinner on Wednesday, I was overjoyed to receive an early birthday present from my loving family - Rock Band 2! It was even gift-wrapped! Yep, they'd hijacked it, opened it, and wrapped it up. I believe this was also the only present I received that actually was wrapped.

Rock, Work, Rock: Friday, May 22nd

I took the day off on Friday - there was a party about to happen the next day, and I had a pile of housework I had to get done. Yes, there was some menial stuff, but it also involved rearranging furniture and other non-standard activities. Still, I ended up playing Rock Band 2 most of the morning (unlocking stuff for the Party - an important task!)

In the evening, we all (myself, the Missus, the Kid, the Brother and the Sister-inlaw) went out to the awesomely loud The Living End, Sound The Alarm concert, with supporting acts Gyroscope and Tame Impala.

All the acts were top notch, but it was interesting noticing the differences between each of them. First up was Tame Impala, a pretty recent WA band with one EP under their belt - you've probably heard them on Triple J. Their music was tops - they only played 4 tracks, but with a heavy dose of prog rock improv, so the whole set went for about 30-40 minutes, if not more.

I thought they were awesome (hey, I haven't been to too many concerts), but Andy kept joking about them still growing into their big instruments, not having a Lighting Man, having family for Roadies - the parallels to Rock Band band progression were amusing. We all enjoyed their sound, though, popped out to pick up their EP after their set.

Gyroscope were up next, and wow was there an obvious difference in stage presence. Tame Impala were stellar musical performers, but Gyroscope had the whole stage act down - full light show, crazy mad lead singer crowd-surfing while still playing - and singing. The intensity of their performance was amazing.

While I enjoyed Gyroscope's songs, the stand-out moment of their set for me was when they bridged into an awesome rendition of Midnight Oil's "Beds are Burning" - that really struck a chord and got me singing and dancing (in my seat) along. I guess I'm showing my age - but now I can see that The Oils in their day would have been awesome live and loud.

After another break as Gyroscope's kit was taken off stage and the main event was prepped, The Living End hit the stage in full force. They opened with "Sound the Alarm" and medleyed through several of their other hit songs. They played an awesome set of about an hour and a half, including many of their well known songs, both old and new. Being the tour for their recent album, White Noise, they played many songs from the album.

While hearing their songs live was great, some of the more stand-out moments were when they played some instrumental music, including Chris fevereshly soloing away while the other two took a break, and an awesome solo from Scott on his upright bass.

One thing that fascinated me was the different tones between the bands. Gyroscope was a full-on wall of sound, with their rhythm, lead & bass guitars pumping out sound almost constantly. In comparison, The Living End was louder, yet less cluttered, with punchy drums, the upright bass underlying it, and the clear lead guitar. That's a big part of why I like TLE (and quite a few other 3-piece bands) - their ability to deliver a big, full sound, but with clarity to the layers.

It was also fascinating seeing a concert like this after playing too much Rock Band, and many geeky jokes were bandied around. Tame Impala not having progressed to having Roadies and Lighting Guys, Gyroscope's copious and energetic Big Rock Endings, and several guitarists "Rocking Out", guitars pointed to the sky.

Oh, and James, after a very long tiring day, dozed off to the soothing body-shaking bass of The Living End's performance...

Paaar-Tay!: Saturday, May 23rd

So Saturday arrived, and given my distractions on Friday, there was still a fair whack of housework to do. As a result, I was still busily prepping the Chilli Con Carne in the slow cooker when the first guest arrived (guess who) at 3:15pm.

BTW: Dyson Vacuum Cleaners rock!!

It was a Trilogy of parties in one, to celebrate the Turner Twins birthday in addition to my own. The afternoon remained fairly quiet, although half a dozen more people rocked up. Most people hadn't RSVPed, so I didn't really have much of an idea what the turn-out would be.

It was pushing 7pm, dinner was being set out (Tacos, Tortillas, Lasagne, oh my!), when all of a sudden almost everyone else rocked up! Yeah, they know how to time it! We went through all 30 Taco shells, a pile of tortillas, the lasagne vanished quickly, and the taco salads needed refilling several times - but we had enough to satiate everyone!

All in all, the party was awesome! People had fun, with chatting, joking, board games with drunk gnomes, Wall*e (on shin*e Bluray), Wii games, and yes, Rock Band 2 - finishing up with the last rockers departing for home at 2am.

Slack Birthday: Monday, May 25th

I usually go to work on my birthday (when it's a work day), but this year I thought, buggritt, I want a nice quiet day off for my birthday, so I booked Leave. And so my actual birthday was nice and low-key - I stayed at home, slacked off, spent time with the missus, and popped out for a little window shopping.

We watched Dollhouse together, watching the last handful of episodes of the season. All in all we both really enjoyed it, and look forward to the next season.

Later in the arvo, I ducked out to visit a music shop in Rockingham, on an early scouting mission. I'm interested in getting back into music and pursuing something a little different. Thanks to the generosity of my friends and family, I also have a wad of cash that should nicely dent a musical purchase if I find the right one and go ahead. Mmm, shiny.

We had Fish & Chips for dinner. Slack! Relaxing.

It was a really good thing I took the day off (for me, anyway). 11:40pm the night before I responded to a work server alert, and was up till 1am dealing with a Denial of Service attack on our main server, and shifting services to other servers. Around 1am things seemed stable, so I turned my phone off and ignored it the entire of Monday (it's a work mobile). Later on I checked it, to find about 80 SMS messages alerting me to servers bouncing up and down.

Fallout, and Family: Tuesday, May 26th

Tuesday at work was chaos, dealing with the fall-out. As it turns out, that DOS attack was students, legitimately trying to access certain systems. Seems someone alerted us Friday (when I was already on leave) as to the possible high load on Monday. *sigh*

To make matters worse, I spent a peaceful Monday under the belief that my backup server guru was spending his Monday running around fixing things - except he was off for a family emergency that day. So my poor boss had to deal with exploding servers, and none of the usual technical staff to fix them.

But wait, there's more! At the peak of the crisis, my programming offsider handed in his resignation to my boss! Argh!

So, yes, Tuesday back at work was drama-filled.

Tuesday evening was a pleasant visit to Mum & Dad's, including even more Birthday Lasagne. Om nom nom.

Phew! And that was my exciting rocking birthday long week-end (with a little bit either side)!

Daylight Savings

2009-05-18T04:00:33Z

Ok, so everyone else seems to be posting their $0.02 about Daylight Savings, so here's my take on it. ^_^

Frankly, I'm surprised people are so passionate about this topic - surely there are many other issues that are more important? Or is it because that people were hit with this trial against their will, and then given a personal say on whether it continues or not?

For me, personally, I didn't mind Daylight Savings, and for my lifestyle, it was beneficial. I could work a long day, get home, and still have time to mow the lawn. Yes, we tended to have dinner later, but that opened up more time between work and dinner for doing "stuff", whereas typically that time is a period of not long enough to do anything, ergo typically wasted.

An even better plus was the "Darkness Savings" in the morning. With the sun getting up earlier & earlier, meant that I'd be woken up earlier (often by cats demanding food), so having an extra hour of darkness meant more sleep. Yes, I'm not a morning person.

However, after all that I voted "No", since most of my close friends and family have good reasons for it messing up their lives, and really, I don't care either way. Also, back to the passion thing, a lot of the Pro-Yes people come across as more abrasive and abusive than the Pro-No people. It's a lifestyle choice, people - there's no right or wrong answer, only personal opinion!

If it's such a divisive topic, then stick with the "don't mess with it" solution. At least then we don't have to fiddle with clocks, or computer timezone files.

And my Xbox 360 will keep the correct time (since MS were too slack to update its timezone settings).

Movie Impressions: Slumdog Millionaire

2009-05-12T01:13:53Z

I finally got around to watching Slumdog Millionaire last night, and the short summary is, it's very good!

The storyline was pretty much what I expected, which is good considering I had pretty high expectations after all the hype this film got. There were no huge surprises, but it was very well told, and was interesting. The cast, mostly young kids with little to no English, did a really good job as well, making you forget this was just actors in a movie, and immersing you in the story.

However, the presentation simply blew me away! The visuals were simply stunning (apparently shot on prototype compact digital HD cameras), the editing of the storyline excellent, but the real stand-out for me was the amazing sound and music. This would have to be one of the best films I've ever heard, with a simply fantastic use of the entire sound stage, both front and surround. Busy scenes didn't just have sound portraying what was shown at the front, but included a hive of activity all around. This is what a surround track should be like! Fantastic!

The music complemented the story and scenery very well, and was also a fantastic full 5.1 sound mix. Both the sound & music were also very dynamic in range - quiet dialog was crisp and clear (the only problem being the occasional strong accent muddying english dialog), and when loud sound kicked in it was extremely powerful.

If you have an appreciation of sound & music, I highly recommend catching Slumdog Millionaire on a decent home theatre. While watching it on a normal TV would give you a good movie, the audio is an exhilirating experience. We watched it off Bluray, with high def audio, and it made my home theatre shine.

Slumdog Millionaire won a slew of Oscars, and while I hadn't seen many of the other contenders it was up against, I believe it rightly deserved a lot of them. I can certainly see why it was nominated for cinematography, editing, sound & music, and won most of them.

Cinema Rant

2009-04-22T03:47:50Z

Why is it so hard for a massive cinema complex to maintain a base quality standard in film audio-visual presentation?

Being Cheapass Tuesday, and currently kid-free, we decided to splurge and blow $20 on "Fast and Furious". We ended up going to Hoyts Carousel, where the screening was in #1 (one of their large La Premier cinemas).

The trailers buzzed by, and the sound quality was a bit crappy, but I'm not too fussed about that. It seems quite common for trailers to be in Pro Logic with the main feature kicking in with digital surround.

The main feature starts, and immediately I notice there's no bloody sound coming from the right side. How?? How can such a prime screen, with thousands of people going through it today, screw up the sound balance so badly? Sure, the centre was still blisteringly loud, but as soon as music kicks in (often prominent left/right, while the centre carries speech & local sfx), there's a wall of sound from the left and nothing from the right!

I mean, I am a bit of an audio buff. I'm not a hard-core audiophile, but I know I spot sound issues a lot faster than most people. But this was just so obviously unbalanced that I'm sure anyone with two functioning ears could spot it! I know some people call this "fussy" - to me this is as fussy as someone objecting to nails on a blackboard is fussy - it really just clashes and unbalances me! It took me a good half an hour to adjust and block the "hole" in the sound-field and start to enjoy the film itself.

Oh, and the picture wasn't exactly the most crisp either. It was ok - maybe the crispness of Bluray on my puny 1080p screen at home has spoiled me. Some of the action scenes were hard to follow, but I don't know how much of that was shaky-cam vs blur vs massive FOV-filling screen. Not so fussed about that compared to the sound.

At home I have better, properly (in comparison) calibrated sound, and a great, crisp screen (albeit not as FOV-filling), a pause button and cheap refreshments - why am I at a Cinema? Because this movie wasn't out on Bluray for rental yet, and we wanted to see it.

Not all Cinemas have problems - I wonder if that is because some of them actually hire people to maintain and test their gear, or maybe their gear is still functioning as it was when installed. Reading Belmont have had a good quality track record (given the many Swancon screenings I've gone to there), and Hoyts Freo have always been good (newer Cinema, only been there a few times).

The movie itself was enjoyable - tough guys, fast cars. Some annoying shaky-cam for some on-foot chase scenes - every film should really have a rollerblading camera man (see Crank!). The company was tops, and after we had a lovely meal, so all in all the evening was enjoyable.

Achievement Unlocked: Rock Band Overdose

2009-04-20T04:03:23Z

The Usual Suspects got together Saturday night for an impromptu Rock Band session, and one overly enthusiastic person was gunning for us to all do The Endless Setlist. And so, at 5pm we started - 5 players sharing the fun across Expert Guitar & Bass, plus Hard Vocals & Drums.

The Endless Setlist consists of all 58 Tracks from the original Rock Band game. That's the entire main setlist, and all the bonus tracks, in a somewhat random-ish order - except they did end up saving a lot of the nasty songs for the home stretch. If played without any failures or stops, that's about 4.5 hours.

So we started at 5pm, and blazed through the early tracks. We paused between each song to shuffle who was doing which part, took loo breaks, etc. About 1/3 of the way through we stopped for dinner (Tacos, with Roo mince, done slow-cooker style. Yum!), then it was back to the Rocking.

There were only a few songs that kicked our ass, with the first one to cause real problems being Freezepop's Brainpower. Harmonix's pet Synthpop band is just punishing on real fake instruments - especially for drums - and as we limped to what sounded like the end of the song with our drummer down for the count, there's a string of simple double-beat-pause outro notes that just killed us time-wise.

The endurance-fest of Green Grass & High Tides (Outlaws) tested us, but with well-timed Overdrive we battled through and conquered it.

We feared Foreplay/Longtime (Boston), but it was no problem, and was loads of fun.

By far the worst was the second last song, Run To The Hills (Iron Maiden), with its Triplets-fest for all instruments, and annoying vocals. It's not even a very enjoyable song to listen to, let alone struggle fake-playing. It was late, we were all tired, and this song was just a bitch. We almost failed at this late point, but eventually managed to 5-man play it: with one person doing the Drums foot pedal separately from the rest.

So - suckers for punishment, we completed the Endless Setlist from Rock Band on Hard (it goes by the lowest difficulty)!

Dortamur
OzPsy
Rewnad
Jadinna
Bubblepopper (only 4 of us could be logged in, but Bubblepopper was our awesome drummer for most songs)

Twice we had to pause for emergency drum repairs, as the red pad broke down twice - different wires each time. Next drum kit I buy I'm going to count the screws on it first (although a kit without crappy wires would be even better). By the time we stopped, a wire on my blue pad had also gone dodgy.

To even access the Endless Setlist, you need to have earned over 500,000 fans. We had well over 600,000 fans when we started, but since you lose 24,000 fans every time you fail or restart a song, we actually ended up only having barely 200,000 fans by the end. We only earned back 48,000 fans from completing the set...

All in all, it took us nearly 9 hours (including rest breaks & dinner), with us finishing just before 2am (after which we played a little more to wind down, plus some LBP, stopping around 3:30am).

Un-Daylight Savings

2009-03-31T01:07:01Z

So after a long busy day yesterday, it's dark, I'm hungry, and tired, and it feels sooo late. I look at the clock, and it's only 7pm.

Gah! Stupid Un-Daylight Savings!

The End of the Dental Tunnel

2009-03-16T05:44:52Z

I have long roots, apparently. Amazingly long roots - at least, according to my Dentist.

On Friday I had the third and final attempt at root canal work on one of my molars, and this time it's all done, and the filling on top is a bona fide permanent one. I've had so many temporary fillings on that tooth (which is missing a good 1/3 of the protruding amount) over the treatment period that each week was poking and prodding yet another shape and texture. "Mmmm, new teeth." This one should, with a bit of luck, be here to stay.

It's quite a strange (and painful) experience to be jabbed deep in your jaw by a sharp pointy rubber stick, that someone has jammed through your tooth, after 3 weeks of drilling (think Bruce Willis on a spiky Asteroid) (rubber is probably more conducive to healing & reducing infection than nukes though). Apparently my roots were as long as 24mm, whereas the "norm" is 20-21mm.

With the root canal all done, the end of the dental tunnel is approaching, but I'm not quite there yet. I still have one (hopefully) more session to do a few fillings in other teeth. Then I should hopefully have a reprieve for a few months, and if my molar is still behaving, they'll stick a crown on top.

All in all, while I can't exactly say it's been fun, I'm glad I've gone through with it - after 20 years of no dentistry, and bad brushing habits, I do feel a lot healthier and happier. My teeth are still pretty wonky, and I'm missing one molar, but overall they're cleaner, and I can eat with less worries about pain, or bits of tooth breaking off as I chew (not a pleasant sensation).

I haven't added up the financial total, but our Medibank Private cover has footed well over half the bill, which has been great (even if we are paying them scads of danger money every month). The dentist admin people do a great dramatisation of "Your bill total is X" (*gasp*) "of which Medibank pay Y" (how generous) "leaving you to pay the gap of Z" (that's reasonable).

Take care of your teeth people! Regular cleaning and dental visits will save a lot of pain and hassle in the long run!

Mum would be so proud...

LOLCats Rule the Interwebs

2009-02-04T01:47:16Z

I received one of those E-mails, you know the type, with dozens of "Motivational Posters" images attached. While they were, on the whole, mostly amusing, there was only one that made me Laugh Out Loud...

It's true. LOLCats Rule the Interwebs.

A Pleasant Visit to the Dentist

2009-01-22T07:24:13Z

Well, everything is relative, isn't it? When I was last at the dentist a few months back, they yanked one of my teeth out with a pair of pliers, and 2 large syringes of numbing stuff - which still didn't stop the pain.

The time before was a "simple scale & clean", which seeing me twitch constantly in pain, they proceeded to stab me more than a dozen times to make it more bearable.

Comparatively, yesterday's trip to the dentist was pleasant. Another scale and clean that, while a little wincey in places, required no painkillers, 2 needle jabs around where I was to have some fillings - which I didn't even realise were needles till my side of the mouth started going all numb - and the fillings themselves, while vibrating my skull something chronic, were quite bearable.

What's more, I've been suffering from a nasty cough and rivers of mucous, yet I managed to breathe through my nose and not cough at all for the entire procedure!

James also had a less than torturous experience, also having a scale & clean, and two fillings, with no needles - he's paranoid about needles. I wonder where he gets that from?

To top it off, expensive private health cover footed most of the bill!

So it seems like my dental health is already much better than it was, and I don't seem to be getting the agonising toothache every time I eat since getting the two fillings.

Next visit will be the start of root canal torture (put off from this session, which was put off from last session). This time fer sure! *sigh*

Weekend Overdrive: WoW, GenghisCon, Rock, Ikea...

2009-01-12T07:38:24Z

Friday night, our Guild hit Naxx 10 for the first time. Despite being rather undergeared, we took down the first two bosses (a big bug, and a cult mistress), and got the third (a massive spider) down to 15%. Yay! It was fun, and I healed quite effectively all things considered! Yeah, Blah Blah World of Warcraft...

Saturday, James and I attended our first ever GenghisCons! We keep meaning to go along, but being a January Event, it usually gets lost in post-Christmas/New Year recovery, and beginning of year panicking. As it was, we were rather disorganised, but we managed to get there by 10am -in time for Scones & Juice with Grant Stone, Librarian Superhero. We hung around GenghisCon all day, escaping just before midnight (after dragging James away from his roleplaying campaign)...

After going to Swancon for many many years, GenghisCon was an interesting change of pace (and budget) with its very laid-back, fun activities. There was quite a comprehensive program, across many venues, with subject matter including "Mangoes!" (yum), gaming (LARPs, Settlers, etc), web comics, etc...

I was quite amused (and not at all surprised) to find the "Retro Console Room" severely dominated by a Rock Band 2 setup (PS3, Japanese version. Red, RED, REEEDD!!!), and the party nature of Rock Band really shone, with people of all types of skills having a go - Singing, Guitaring, Drums. At one stage the theatre was packed with people, all singing along.

Rock Band 2, for the actual gameplay and presentation, looks pretty much identical to Rock Band 1. However, the song selection screen was a vast improvement, showing each part difficulty for each song, and allowing a quick flick-through by alphabet letter. When you have a song list measured in the hundreds, scrolling through a single song at a time is quite painful. That said, most of the songs picked ended up being from bands near the start of the alphabet...

James had an absolute blast at GenghisCon, particularly enjoying the LARP Tournament (beating each other up with self-made foam weaponry), plus a Warhammer 40k tabletop RPG campaign. Plus, trust my son to track down a computer with Halo on it... *sigh*

In the evening, Rebel Empire (aka Jedi Boot Camp) put on a demo, with different glowy sabre filled fight choreography.

And of course, John sang...

We didn't go back on Sunday, due to a bunch of other stuff we had to get done. One thing we did do was assemble James's new shelves, fresh from Ikea. I believe this is the first actual Ikea product I've assembled in person, and I can see why there's a lot of Ikea fans and addicts out there. The construction was quite straightforward, and resulted in a solid, sturdy chunk of furniture!

After the monstrosity was assembled on the Lounge floor, we then started to plan how to get it into his room. Luckily, it wasn't too heavy, so James and I shuffled it around, and managed to get it through the hall, into his room - even getting it the right way around!

Edit: Oh, and we watched Ocean's Thirteen Sunday Evening on teh blurayz, courtesy of QuickFlix. I thought the start was a bit slow (at least, slow to hook me), but things picked up and all in all, was very enjoyable!

Hopefully James has finished off assembling the extra cupboard & drawers, so we can finish off assembly and bolt it to his wall tonight!

Dentists

2008-11-19T04:37:01Z

Twenty years on, and a trip to the dentist is still torture.

Trying to rinse & spit when you can't feel your lips is quite challenging.

Television programming for the pre-preschool kids is truly surreal - even moreso when you feel like you're constantly drooling, but you're not, and your speech is slurred.

Great Australian Road Trip Update

2008-10-18T10:10:11Z

We're home!! And a day earlier than planned!

"What about all those On Tour Journal Posts you promised?" you may ask. Well, due to a combination of limited internet & bandwidth, overambitious journalling goals, and, well, being on holidays, I haven't managed to even get Day 1 up.

Never fear, I have been keeping a daily journal as we went (I even wrote this in advance this morning), taking lots of photos, and recording GPS data, so will soon be boring you to tears with the nitty gritty of our adventures, complete with photographs & interactive maps! Woo!

Just give me a few days to pass out, and remember what normal life is like...

Sean Williams Unleashed

2008-09-20T07:50:07Z

On Wednesday we had the good fortune to go to a local book launch and signing for Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, the novelisation of the computer game, featuring none other than Sean Williams, the man himself! As always, Sean was entertaining, enthusiastic, and verbose, fielding many questions about how the book came to be, and trials and tribulations along the way. (First draft written in one month! The man is a writing machine!!)

As an added bonus, we managed to drag my Boss along, who's been a long-time fan of Sean's other work, yet hadn't met him in person before. We have quite a few work servers named after characters from Sean's work, thanks to her - including Qualia & Acheron (see Resurrected Man, by Sean Williams). I think they were both pretty excited to meet and chat. She also got Sean to sign several of her books.

The event was held at the Fantastic Planet bookshop in Shafto Lane, and I believe organised by The Big Book Club. After the Q&A and book signing there was general socialising & chit chat with Sean in a bar nearby (which we unfortunately couldn't hang around for).

Apologies for the crappy quality photo - taken on my Nokia phone, indoors, it came out less than optimal - although at least the Geotagging worked! Hurrah!

Geek Bling and Travel Blogging

2008-09-18T01:50:26Z

After booking the car in for a service, while riding the Courtesy Bus to work, I whipped out my new Eee and threw together a Perl script to log GPS location data as we go, which can be easily turned into a KML file for Google Earth or Maps. Muahahahaha!
And here's a link to the full map! (Looks like LJ won't let me embed the map... Grrr!)
We're going on a long Road Trip soon, and I've been keen to Geo-Blog our trip, making use of GPS location info and other technology. We got the EeePC (901 Linux model) largely to help with this, giving us a decent yet portable way of typing up diary entries, as well as manipulating photos as we go. The Eee is a great piece of hardware, but the OS isn't without its faults, but being Linux under the bonnet, there are solutions. My biggest problem so far was getting the Eee Bluetooth to talk to my Mobile to get GPS data, since the Bluetooth the Eee used was pretty limited in which BT functionality it supported - so the original Bluetooth is in tatters, and I'm fiddling with Bluez at the command prompt - but it bloody well works, which is tops!
I have all the pieces - it's just a matter of gluing them all together with an interface that's quick and easy to use while on the road (rather than futzing about on the command line).
I also need to figure out if I can get Internet through our Vodafone plan, since I'd rather not rely on random Wireless spots for uploading Blog & Photo updates (altho I saw a kismet app to auto geo-tag unsecured wireless points as you drive around. ^_^)
I also wish I could find a decent free "offline" Linux map app, since viewing maps on the Eee screen is a ton easier than on the pokey Mobile screen...

Movie Impressions: Get Smart

2008-06-27T03:08:51Z

You take a classic old TV series, and turn it into a reimagined modern Hollywood Movie - sounds like a cash-in recipe for disaster, right? That was my fear going in to seeing Get Smart, based off the 60s spy/comedy about bumbling Agent Maxwell Smart and his partner, 99.

However, this movie was fantastic!

Ok, so it's unlikely to win any Oscars, but it was thoroughly enjoyable. Yes, it was loaded with name-actor cameos, and many many references to the original TV series, items, in-jokes, situations, catch-phrases, yet it all came across as being the right amount - never overdone, and in most cases, used in situations which suited it.

I also enjoyed the story, which was a decent spy-genre plot, and I was surprised that it actually felt more realistic than some other big-name movies this year. There was absolutely no "flying through the air in a tin can, slamming into the ground, and walking away totally unscathed" bits, (*cough*IronMan&Indy*cough*) and most other suspension of disbelief moments could be easily excused as comedic.

I haven't seen much Steve Carell material, and one of my other fears was that this would be a "Steve Carell" film (like Jim Carrey overpowers so many of his roles by being Jim Carrey). He did a great job, though, as Max, being true to the spirit of the original Don Adams role, without being strait-jacketed by it (*cough*Superman*cough*). Anne Hathaway also did a great 99 - again with glimpses of the original Barbara Feldon role without overdoing it. The supporting cast also did a wonderful job.

If you enjoyed the original TV series, you'll probably enjoy this. If you've never seen the original, then you probably won't get a lot of this. I do recommend going in with low expectations (always wise for any movie these days), but I hope, like me, you'll be pleasantly suprised.

Oh, and I think there's lots of potential for one or more sequels - but I fear Executive Bunnies would make any sequel a steaming pile of cash-in rubbish. Then again, this film turned out well and I was expecting rubbish, so I shall treasure that tiny bit of optimism.

A Moment Of Scrabble Epic Win

2008-06-17T06:49:42Z

It was Mum's birthday on the weekend, and after a massive and delicious feast, we had a leisurely game of Scrabble. I'm not that good at Scrabble, and am quite used to not even coming close to winning. I have witnessed Scrabble Epic Wins by other people, but never found that glory myself.

So it came to a point late in the game, where Brother Tim (we were playing mostly-teams) and I were stressing over what we could put down - our best was a 3 letter word for bugger all score, and we were already way behind in the points. There was this lonely J up the top edge of the board, right near a triple-worder, but we just didn't have the letters.

Except, we had most of the letters of quite a cool word. I checked the spelling in a dictionary, and found we had most of the letters for an awesome word! But we were missing a U. So we ditched 3 letters, picked up 3 more - and scored a U. Woot! Now all we had to do is survive a complete round of the board without anyone else snapping up that tasty J...

And they didn't! Muahahahaha!!

So I started to place out our letters around this J, putting down 2 before it:
B I J
Everyone's going "eh?"

I then pick up the next 2 letters and put them down:
B I J O U
"Aaah! Good one!"

I then pick up another letter, and put it down:
B I J O U X
"WOAH!!"

69 points, Dude!
Definitely the best word I've played in a Scrabble game, and it won us the game!

How Vangelis Put Me In Hospital

2008-06-03T09:53:48Z

I've been suffering from a minor earache for a couple of weeks, and it'd been pretty stable. Seemed like a winter-cold that I just had to shake. So, last Thursday night we sat down to watch Bladerunner - the shiny remastered "it's really the final final director's cut now mmkay" version, which also happens to have full remastered DD 5.1 sound.

We're watching the film, basking in its glory (Look ma, no wires!), and my ear starts playing up even more. Y'see, there's these lovely shots of the city-scape, the occasional flying car putting by, with this whimsical, haunting Vangelis music playing - and this deep, strong, throbbing bass hum, which, thanks to the new Subwoofer, we can not only hear but feel. Yes, it seems this hum is a constant city background sound (but not at street level it seems).

After half an hour, the pain in my ear became unbearable - I paused the movie, walked around a bit, and it eased off a little. I took some painkillers & went to bed - except I couldn't sleep. The earache didn't get any better, and really was unbearable.

So, off we went to the hospital, and after the usual "oh, you're not dying, so you can wait hours & hours", we finally got in to see a Doc, whose diagnosis was "Yep, that ear is not happy". So he packed me off with some antibiotic eardrops, and we were home by about 2am, completely buggered, and still in pain. (They were somehow out of ear painkiller medicine.)

Ok, ok, so it wasn't strictly Vangelis, since the hum seemed to be the city-scape, more than part of the music, but that sort of scene was accompanied by his music the most - and I still think Chariots of Bloody Fire (the Theme) is repetitive overrated garbage.

I never did end up getting any ear painkillers, although the antibiotics and general Panadol have helped make it bearable. Y'see, I popped out to the Pharmacy on the Friday, and got there at 7:05pm (it was hurting more as the evening chill kicked in) to find they shut at 7. D'oh!

We went shopping on Saturday - and found the Pharmacy "closed due to power outage". D'oh!

By Sunday I couldn't be bothered trying again...

Movie Impressions: Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

2008-05-29T01:26:54Z

Well, we finally got to see the new Indiana Jones on Tuesday. Finally? It was out less than a week - and yet the Internet roared with reviews and opinions. Unfortunately I did read a few small spoilers beforehand but I still thoroughly enjoyed it.

We took Mum & Dad along as well, and they both enjoyed it too, although I think Dad was finding it a bit hard to suspend disbelief in a few bits. ^_^

Some random spoiler-filled thoughts and opinions:

Several scenes from the first part reminded me of Iron Man. The army convoy through the desert, and of course, the man-in-a-tin slamming into the ground then getting up and walking away. For both flying-tin-men my suspended disbelief wobbled precariously, but recovered. Movie writers really need to read up on inertia, g-forces, etc...
Had no problem with the Alien theme, especially given the 50s scene. And I mean, really, the opening sequence was in Area 51! I've since read lots of complaints about how Sci-Fi is Un-Indy, and more X-Filesey. Hello? Indy is X-Files, except set in the 30s/50s, with more of a comic-book feel.
Certain scenes reminded me a lot of Destroy All Humans (a console game in which you play a Grey-ish alien in Commie-paranoia 50s melting faces). I really should go back and finish that game...
Shia Le Bouf - yeah, I read about him being Henry Jr Jr before seeing the movie, but I still enjoyed it, and the reveal was still entertaining. A lot of other places reckon Shia did such an awesome job in this film - I felt his part was very similar to his Transformers role (disgruntled Teen with image issues thrust into Alien-related adventure thanks to older family member's archaeological endeavours), but then, I enjoyed that role too.
The Crystal Skull - the prop made me giggle/cringe whenever it came on scene. To me it so looked like a cheap glass skull filled with aluminium foil.
Magnetic Properties of the Skull - Attracts non-magnetic metals? Wildly non-linear strength? Dampened by cloth, but not lead-lined casing? Just keep chanting: Movie Physics, Movie Physics.
Dad chanting "No way, no way" over and over when they went over all the waterfalls. I think Dad's disbelief suspension chip blew. ^_^

This was a good Indy sequel! The 50s setting worked for me, and while there were many implausible elements, there were in all the other Indy films too! (We rewatched all 3 in the week leading up to seeing #4.)

"Bullet" Betty Vareska: The Directive of Six

2008-05-21T10:42:40Z

Saturday night I went and got myself a bit of Culture, attending an amateur play/musical entitled "Bullet" Betty Vareska: The Directive of Six. John (not that John - another friend of mine) was the musical director, and Jarrad was the, well, he was the usher.

Along with knowing who to heckle in person, the play is a Noir story, with a solid Jazz musical sound track, complete with songs and dance numbers - so how could I resist?

Throughout the whole play, John and his 3 fellow band members were on stage, performing live not only the songs, but also background jazz music, character themes, etc - as well as some interaction with the actors directly in certain scenes. The feel it gave to the whole play was fantastic!

The story was suitably twisty, with deceit, betrayals, and quite a high body count by the end. The twist to the plot near the end wasn't entirely surprising, but the story kept you guessing - and very entertained. The characters had a great mix - along with the titular Betty, the Private Dick who never misses, there was her sidekick, Davey Bogart, the alluring Cordelia, the suave yet homicidal Rupert, and a host of other colourful characters.

All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed myself, although I think James enjoyed himself even more. I think his stint in high school Drama has made him appreciate things like this more - plus there's that whole getting more mature and understanding innuendo & such better.

I do have a few minor quibbles though, which I'll write here because, well, isn't that what Blogs are for? -_^

My main beef was that Betty herself, as the titular character, was outshone by some of the other characters. She was a bit too infallible, a bit too perfect - yet not respected by anyone other than the mafia oh no! She was the best - and she knew it, and flaunted it. I also felt the actress playing her wasn't as strong as some of the other lead performers. As the play progressed, her character did improve, mostly thanks to the meddling of Rupert - who was a simply awesome character.

On the flip-side, Davey Bogart was more your typical Noir PI - well-meaning, humble, likeable, fallible, but just trying to do the best he can. Davey's story was tied to Cordelia, the beautiful, alluring, but deadly jazz singer. Yep, she was your staple Noir femme fatale. Both actors did a top job, both with the acting and singing.

The other minor quibble I had was with the sound mix. While I like things loud, some parts were louder than others, so some voices dominated, and drowned out other voices and instruments. Similarly the volume level of SFX was a bit haphazard.

And one day, someone will invent a wireless microphone that doesn't drop out! ^_^

Overall though - top play, awesome music, and a great time was had by all!

And I wish I could play Jazz Piano...

Some further links:

Looking for a Web Guru

2008-05-21T09:20:19Z

We've been running on only one Web Guru here at Murdoch Uni ITS since the start of the year, and are still actively looking for a talented individual interested in joining a small enthusiastic development team. However, the hunt has been much harder than past years, with Murdoch's usual recruitment methods not giving us any appropriate candidates.

So I'm spamming friends and social communities! Muahaha!

If you know of any friends who might be interested in this position, please let them know, and get them to contact us. (Of course, if you yourself are interested, you're allowed to contact us too.)

We're looking for someone with a decent grasp of supporting, enhancing, creating, and fixing web apps in an Apache environment. Perl/PHP is useful, although we're happy to take someone who's good at picking up different languages, and doesn't mind us saying "No, don't do it in Java, .NET or <random favourite opensource platform/language of the Month>". MySQL, Oracle, XML, XSLT & JS/AJAX skills are also valued.

There's also some non-Apache work, such as Java portlets in an Oracle Portal platform, an IIS server for some 3rd party Windows specific apps, etc...

The office is also within easy walking distance of the famous Murdoch Campus Asian Food aka "Curry Shack" for all your spicy lunch needs. ;D

So, if you know anyone who may be interested, please let them know. Feel free to shoot me any questions...

Throwing Stuff Out

2008-04-23T11:09:58Z

The older I get, the more willing I am to throw stuff out. It's taking a while though - that urge to keep that wossname "just in case" was strong, and still is, but as time goes by and the crap piles up, you start to see reasons why keeping everything isn't necessarily a good thing.

Taking this week off, one of my goals was to throw stuff out. We have a shed full of crap, and a spare bedroom full of crap, and my study full of crap - plus various other piles around the place that really need a good throwing. So far I'm part-way through the study, which means paperwork and old computer bits.

Today I sorted most of the paper into broad categories - I learnt long ago that sorting papers quickly grows into way too many piles for any table to manage, so this time it's a few broad piles, then I'll sub-sort from there (interestingly, the largest "category" pile was "Building the House", which was a one-off event - and that didn't include mortgage paperwork). There's also the rubbish & recycling boxes, which I'm endeavouring to throw as much as possible into. I still get that "hey, this is a cool bit of square cardboard, just think of the possibilities" urges, but I'm much better at then ditching it with nary a pause. I know by now I'm never going to get around to using it, and if I really need a bit of cardboard desperately, I can go buy some.

I traditionally keep all bills and stuff, so that if ever I need paperwork of Telstra trying to diddle us or something, I'll have it handy - but do I really need 2003 bills? Bank statements? Receipts for DVDs? Do I really care that my home loan interest rate went up 0.25% 3 years ago? Imodium that expired 5 years ago? Coax T pieces? JAFWA programs?

What do you keep? File away for safe-keeping? When is it Ok to ditch stuff?

Do you pay that bill then burn the paperwork straight away? Toss it in a pile? Meticulously file it away? Time-locked destruction vault?

I have a lousy memory, so I guess part of my hoarding nature is to keep some record of what happened in the past. Bits of paper and props that jog my memory as to an occasion. I was there, I did that, I paid on Visa. I also was brought up where we had to count our pennies, keeping stuff for future use, recycling, crafting. But I need to find a balance - keep the good stuff, ditch the stuff I'll never need, never use, and will never be assed filing away properly.