Register this!

This is what you are required to bring to the RTA office in NSW, if you want to register a vehicle registered in another state. It is even more complicated if you accidentally, lazily let your rego lapse for about 3 weeks.

1. A blue slip - which certifies that the state of NSW has forced you this year and every year, to be extorted by a registered mechanic in to verifying that your 4 year old car still road worthy. Dammit! It's German;
2. A green slip - third party insurance obtained from one of the multitude of insurers who will cover you for compulsory third party. If you hit someone, you must be insured in order to pay for their health care. This is NOT the same thing as comprehensive car insurance;
3. ACT drivers license - which must be changed to a NSW license - you need proof of your address;
4. Proof of identity - your NSW drivers license and a credit card;
5. Proof of address - your NSW drivers license or a lease will do;
6. ACT license plates from the car - new ones will cost $34;
7. Ownership papers - THE receipt that proves you bought the car;
8. ACT registration renewal form - preferably one you have already paid (a past one); and
9. All current owners of the car at the same time!

Yeah. Now you see why I'm being slack.

Best Cover of 2007

Guess what this song is...

Register before you...

Why do websites insist that you register before you use basic functionality, like commenting on someone's blog? You are just posting a comment, not asking for another persons hand in marriage or buying a house. Just a damn comment. It's ridiculous.

Latest thing I've been forced to join is multiply in order to comment of Georgina's blog (which I love reading).

The 'blag is going to... well you know. I want to embrace technology but it has to be because I want to use it, not just so they can collect my details and push their user numbers up for VCs.

Users!

Web developers should be using the web!

If you want to build something that people want to use.
If you want to build something with the coolest technology.
If you want to keep up.

You have to use the coolest sites out there that web users are using.

Right now, you should be out there on the Interblag tweeting, blogging, vlogging, 'networking, flickring and spacing out.

How could you possibly be building the best web apps if you aren't out there using them?!

Adam Hills @ the Enmore

Adam Hills performed at the Enmore tonight. He does a lot of improv and audience participation and this time it resulted in him pulling up every single person who came after the show started (about 25 of them). He used them to form a choir, led by Katie Noonan (from George). They sang a great version of The Muppets' Manamana (a song The Muppets wrote for me actually).

If you get a chance, go see Adam Hills. He is worth it.

Any one who finishes a show by dancing on the roof of a car to Footloose, totally rocks!

Please don't take my sunshine away

After a few requests for the view from my work in Milson's Point, without the fog and rain, I have decided to take some shots on a beautiful sunny day. I even waited for the pollution to go away first.

Looking over Luna Park's Big Top to Walsh Bay

The Blues Point Tower

Lavender Bay

Search Engine Smackdown!

How well do you know the web?

Play it!

My current favourite ditty

Meetup for me

Google would never hire me so I will remain in the ranks of non-Googler losers until it's unique and rare to not work for them.

Google v Meetup

CodeCon 2007

Stick insect guy from my work and a few other Linux dudes have a geek coding camp every year.

Check it out... CodeCon.

My New Tat

Do I look tough?

The G's and Sydney Buildings

On Sunday, there was a 3.5 hour walk that took in a lot of Sydney buildings. Here are the photos...

Centrepoint above the trees

An old church between some big shiny new buildings

The G's near the Sydney Opera House

Looking up at the buildings

Trim the cat

Matthew Flinders was an 18th century explorer who circumnavigated Australia and drew a map of it. That is not why I like him. I like him because I recently discovered that his best friend was a kitty named Trim.

Trim was born on a trip to Sydney. As a kitten he jumped ship, reconsidered and swam back and reboarded by climbing a trailing rope. Flinders adopted him and they traveled the world and were exiled to Mauritius together, where some hungry slaves kidnapped and ate him.

There is a statue of Flinders with a complementary Trim statue on the window of the building behind him. Below are the pics...

Matthew Flinders statue

Paw prints at the base of Flinders' statue

A plaque about Trim

Trim's statue

In Orbit Bar & The Summit

Mei, Irene, Jen, Joyce and I spent 5 hours at the top of Australia Square drinking cocktails in the Orbit Bar. They serve Grey Goose so I was pretty happy.

The bar and restaurant revolve around the core of the building offering the best views of Sydney. The photo is a view of Wally (the bridge that is in every Sydney photo). It takes approx. 1 hour and 45 mins to rotate the full 360 degrees.

The cocktails are good. The wine list is not bad and the food is delish!

Blame it on the rain

The view from my window at work, looking south towards Sydney city. This was taken during a big rain storm that passed by and obscured our view of everything for almost an hour. That is Luna Park directly in front of my work.

Quest to discover a fellow lion

“If I could tell you what it meant, there would be no point in dancing it”

I am constantly looking for the reason why we bother. Why we exist. What the purpose is for me having to get up each day and commute two whole train stops across a large body of water to work, in order to afford to drink in the Orbit Bar with my gfs.

It is not an original quest or even a noble one anymore. In all honesty, the amount you are allowed to be introspective is inversely proportional to how old you are. Aren't 30 years olds supposed to be selfless, concerned about making house payments, putting food on the table and saving for retirement? I promise Mum, I will get around to it.

Until then, I'm looking for some kind of explanation with all the introspection I can gather. Now, those who know me well will know that my work ethic is pretty ok but when it comes to soul searching... I take the road most traveled (the one with potholes and cliff notes). Thus (oh yes, I slapped myself for using that word)... thus, I have decided to look for meaning in the stars. Do not worry, this is not one of my NASA faked the moon landing rants. Instead it's astrology!

I am a Leo. Apparently we are magnanimous, generous, hospitable, caring, warm, authoritative, active and open. Also hard-working, ambitious and enthusiastic, however we are prone to laziness and can often take "the easy way out". Sometimes known to be exuberant, extroverted, generous with a natural dramatic flair and very creative. They are typically very self-assured, and love taking center-stage in whatever arena they are in. Blah blah blah...

If you are a Leo too and do not identify with the bossy, lazy, bathes with own saliva and other kitty characteristics then please let me know. I need a good number of exceptions to the rule in order to render it defunct. I simply can not be 1/12 types of people. That's just so ENTJ!

Maybe the search just involves cutting down the options until there is but one truth.

“The universe, they said, depended for its operation on the balance of four forces which they identified as charm, persuasion, uncertainty and bloody-mindedness.” - Terry Pratchett

Stick with it

A guy I work with brought in a shoe box today. He took out a eucalyptus branch with fresh juicy leaves and the accompanying eaters - a couple of cool stick insects (Eurycnema goliath).

The female was twice the size of the male.

They don't move much.

He can fly. She can't. She has cool wings that let her glide to the ground if she falls from a tree.

She climbed on my hand with her little hooky claw things. The hand pictured here belongs to her owner.

Where do we go, sweet child?

There was a time a few weeks back when everyone who blogged was doing so. Lately, it has been Colin and I holding up the side. Thr33 ch33rs for Micr0$0ft! To be honest, this is a good thing in that obviously everyone is actually living their lives and have no time to sit in front of a 'puter and vomit up their life on to the Interblag. It is also bad in that I have no idea what you are all up to.

In the words of the Floyd...

"Hello, Is there anybody out there?"

VS.NET 2005 is driving me to quote The Big Lebowski!

I paraphrase... "Microsoft! F*** me. I mean, say what you like about the tenets of National Socialism, Dude, at least it's an ethos."

Today I spent an entire 8 hour work day installing, reinstalling, swearing and installing again VS.NET. Currently the machine has VS2002 (yes, .NET1.0 so kill me now) which I'm guessing is causing me the pain. Maybe the 1.0 to 2.0, with 1.1 step is kicking me. Ideas???

The problem is that the VS.NET 2.0 installation is stalling at the last step on the second disk and just stalling. Doing nothing, just stalling. If I kill it off, then I can run the damn app but I can't service pack it since "the last installer is still not finished". I've restarted, uninstalled, used a different set of disks, copied the installer to the HD incase it was the CD drive, run regiis with every argument known to woman, repaired and even reasoned but still nothing.

Tomorrow I'm going to throw the machine out the window at the delicious view of the harbour.

Paddington

We spent Saturday morning on a lovely walk to the Paddington Markets. They are worth it even though it was a lot smaller than I expected and lacked large quantities of food. This is not due to me being misinformed but more to the fact that I grew up in Darwin where there are crafty markets, farmers markets and sunset markets and at each and every one there are copious amounts of hot, delicious food!

There were some really cute artists with great framed prints - not the pics of Sydney for the tourists or the three-set of roller painted canvases for trendy Paddy terraces but really kewl individual, original stuff. A lot of clothes too - from cheap and nasty to funky and pretty.

After the markets, we walked down off Oxford St and in to the suburb of Paddington. This must be the nursery of terraces... where they spawn from. Even one block away from the main street was quiet and relaxed. Locals with green canvas bags walked by beautiful terraces with their doors open, showing off polished wooden floors and neatly trimmed minature poodles (in black of course). It's a pretty part of town and if I can find myself a terrace with parking (yeah right) then that's where I'm aiming to buy in the next 18 months.

Giles outside a Paddington house with a white picket fence

A packet of cigarettes growing on a vine we passed