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[Jan. 29th, 2010|07:20 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  annoyed | ] |
| [ | music |
| | My Life Would Suck Without You, Kelly Clarkson | ] |
Today I discovered that pressing down on the right-hand side of Bianca's panelling clicks the mouse. Co-incidentally, this is exactly where my right hand rests when I'm using her trackpad.
She is also giving me a blue screen of death if I try and get her to hibernate. Though I haven't tried to troubleshoot that as yet.
I did not need this on the day before I fly out to New Zealand. *grumble*
-Mmaster |
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[Jan. 26th, 2010|07:22 am] |
| [ | mood |
| |  amused | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Bring Me To Life, Evanescence | ] |
Yesterday:
*Mm is preparing to leave the office
Mm: I'll see you Wednesday.
Aman: I'll be in tomorrow, as well, if you want to swing past.
Mm: Yeah, right. It is a public holiday. Even if some people don't believe it, because they aren't a citizen...
Aman: *laughs* Oh, yeah! I hadn't thought of it like that.
Happy Australia Day, all.
-Mmaster |
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| Ok, my work has made me a data nerd. I can't tell whether this is a good sign or a bad one. |
[Jan. 25th, 2010|02:23 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  cynical | ] |
| [ | music |
| | In This Life, Switchfoot | ] |
I was reading The Sun Herald and came across this article:
Consumers being 'abused' by text message price rort
Which features this 'interesting' comparison:The 25 cent cost of a text, for 160 bytes, means Optus and Telstra effectively charge $1560 per megabyte. If comparing with a $30 internet plan with a download limit of 10 gigabytes, the charge per megabyte is 0.3 cents, including free email. I'm trying to get my head around this; I keep stumbling over "This comparison sucks incredibly", but I find myself unable to clearly explain why. I sort of go, "They're completely different!" and then stall.
...In other issues relating to that article, the 'cost per message' table at the bottom makes no mention of cost to receive messages; it's possible that it's included, but not explicit one way or the other. In the US, at least, receiving messages and calls incurs a cost (not just making them), which is (generally) a cost that does not apply in Australia.
-Mmaster |
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| Two moments with Chris. |
[Jan. 25th, 2010|08:46 am] |
| [ | mood |
| | amused | ] |
| [ | music |
| | www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGn3-RW8Ajk | ] |
*Chris and Mm are having a coffee break between browsing stores selling vinyl records
Chris: Y'know, the record player my parents got me was cheap, but at least it got me back into records. The shop had Kenwood record players for $100, and I'm like, "Dammit!"
Mm: ...
Chris: I think I was born in the wrong decade.
Mm: Which is why he works with computers.
Chris: ...Well... It work with computers because there's nothing better. But! If the computers all died tomorrow, I'd happily drop them and become a steam train driver.
Mm: *laughs* Whatever makes you happy, dear.
*Mm is reading a quiz of "Facts about Australia"
Mm: "What percentage of couples cohabit before marriage?"
Chris: One percent?
Mm: No, it'd be higher than that. *flicks to the answers* "Seventy four percent."
Chris: Well, twenty years ago I would have been right!
Mm: And he's just a good old-fashioned boy, isn't he?
And now? I need to get dressed and head to work. Yays.
-Mmaster
EDIT: Now I'm curious. Anyone know if there's a graph somewhere over time of "Percentage of couples cohabiting before marriage" in Australia (or something similar)? Admittedly, it might be a little difficult to get exact values, since the survey is more likely to be "What are your future plans?", but even a guideline would be interesting. I tried the Australian Bureau of Statistics' website, but the best I seemed to come across was "This year, x% of couple were co-habiting." My attempts to Google it are just bringing up American religious claptrap (example). *facepalm* |
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[Jan. 24th, 2010|02:21 am] |
| [ | mood |
| |  sleepy | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Bad Things, Jace Everett | ] |
...Oops. I kind of just finished watching the first season of True Blood.
Sadly, this isn't even a comment as to its quality or lack thereof. Just that when it hits midnight, and there are only two episodes to go, it seems silly not to finish the set.
I am going to be paying for this hardcore, come the other side of morning. Whee.
-Mmaster |
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| They lie like rugs. |
[Jan. 21st, 2010|11:34 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | annoyed | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Taking Chances, Glee | ] |
I wasn't aware it was possible for our buses to suck that much. Of course, it was largely in my head, but they still sucked in their own right as well.
An important early note: my watch is about five minutes fast. This has the dual advantage of "oh, the time on the schedule is past, but my watch is wrong, so there's still a chance" and "oh, there's only ten minutes to the next one!". Of course, it does have the not insignificant disadvantage that even buses that are on time still seem late. Ha. On time buses. It is to laugh.
I left ProgSoc around ten past ten (according to my watch), believing (with no particular certainty, since it's a long time since I last partially memorised a timetable) that the 437 left at quarter past. See a bus that may or may not be a 437 flash past.
Get to stop, and discover that the scheduled time was actually ten past. My watch now shows twenty past. But it's all right! My watch is only five minutes fast, and buses are often well more than five minutes late!
...Apparently the previous bus was the 437. Sigh. Recheck the timetable. Next bus is at half past. Excellent, only ten minutes wait. (Fifteen if you're looking at any clock other than mine, but who would do something silly like that?)
10:30 comes and goes. As does 10:35, the time any other clock would have expected. I check the timetable again. The bus after the 10:30 bus is due at 10:37, and the next one after that is due at 11ish.
10:37 comes and goes; a bus finally pulls up around 10:45. I haven't figured out whether it was the missing 10:30 bus, the missing 10:37 bus, or a moderately early 10:55 bus.
Then, as the driver is driving through Norton Street, instead of turning left at the intersection, he continued on his merry way of going straight ahead. A very talented mechanism for freaking out a busload of passengers.
I finally walked in the door about a quarter past eleven. This means that I spent a little over an hour getting home, and a good twenty-five minutes of that hour waiting for a bus to appear in the first place.
Told you it sucked. Now, I need to go to wash and then bed. It's nearly midnight, and I have work in the morning.
-Mmaster |
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[Jan. 21st, 2010|07:05 am] |
| [ | mood |
| | bemused | ] |
| [ | music |
| | You're Having My Baby, Glee | ] |
Well, I was wondering why my PIN wasn't working. I've found a possible cause.
I've been signed up to a UTS Online 'course' entitled "UTS:ENGINEERING-SAFETY INDUCTION". On the announcements page, there is a note "Once you have passed the quiz, you will have your PIN enabled."
Whee.
The questions are really high calibre, though:
......
-Mmaster |
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| This is why I play casual games. |
[Jan. 15th, 2010|11:07 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | sleepy | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Papercut, Linkin Park | ] |
Tonight, after work, I went and hung out at EGG.
RobJedi was playing Bayonetta, which I understood none of, and was having trouble following the action onscreen. This meant that I was less than rapt when he forced the controller into my hands while he went for food. "It's just button mashing!"
Mm: What am I supposed to be targeting?
Will: See that glowing red thing?
Mm: Yes, I see that that's the target, I just have no idea what it is.
Will: It's her. You're fighting her.
Mm: If I'm fighting her, then why isn't she fighting back?
Will: Because the difficulty setting is set to "Very Easy".
When he saw the misery on my face, Will came over and said "You don't have to play," before forcibly removing the controller from my grasp.
Then I taunted Blair with a recipe book. That was entertaining. He kept drooling. It didn't even have pictures.
-Mmaster |
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[Jan. 12th, 2010|10:18 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | amused | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Rain Street, The Pogues | ] |
Shoulder Angel says: Oh god oh god the pain:"I know how that feels, and it MHz." I want to stab whoever came up with that pun.
Morgan says: "I feel like roadkill on the Information Super-Highway"
Shoulder Angel says: *winces* I think my one's worse, but that's pretty bad.
-Mmaster
EDIT:
Morgan says: tomorrow i may entertain a few sick members of 'the Harem" as EGG calls them
Morgan says: poor girls
Shoulder Angel says: I thought you went to EGG on Wednesdays?
Morgan says: in the nights
Morgan says: but it seems my days belong to the girls
Shoulder Angel says: I hope you keep them all happy, and there's no jealousy to be had...
Morgan says: Well you know I'm just one man...
Shoulder Angel says: I'm sure you're very capable.
Morgan says: I am heartened by your confidence in my prowess |
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[Jan. 10th, 2010|12:43 am] |
| [ | mood |
| |  hot | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Your Guardian Angel, The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus | ] |
I have a pedestal fan. And I got it for $13 instead of $35. I'm so proud.
Unfortunately, the temperature is still so hot that even the fan doesn't seem to be letting me sleep. Yays.
Time for a large drink of water, I think.
-Mmaster |
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| Okay, so maybe I *wasn't* crashing. |
[Jan. 8th, 2010|11:59 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | amused | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Along Came Bialy, The Producers | ] |
Chris: I know what we could do for Valentine's Day.
Mm: Go to the EGG Painting and Modelling Day?
Chris: ...No.
Mm: What, then?
Chris: A nice, romantic train ride.
Mm: Somehow, I knew "train" was going to fit into this somewhere.
*Chris grins
Mm: If it makes you happy. What kind of train is it?
Chris: The only kind there is.
Mm: Tangara?
Chris: That's not a real train!
Mm: But they have air conditioning!
Chris: No, they don't.
Mm: I thought they did.
Chris: Maybe I've just been unlucky.
Mm: Anyway, what's this train trip you're barracking for?
Chris: It's so awesome. You take the "Southern Aurora" to Gosford and back!
Mm: Okay. Just so you know, for your next birthday, I'm buying you an anorak.
Chris: ...
-Mmaster
EDIT: I recounted this conversation to my father. When I relayed the line about "Tangara?", his response was "You fink." |
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[Jan. 8th, 2010|11:06 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | sleepy | ] |
| [ | music |
| | The Sydney Festival site is desperately trying to play sound | ] |
I haven't decided whether I won or lost today.
I got to work around 9am, and worked pretty solidly till 2pm when I broke for lunch. I was re-creating one of my reports, previously made in Excel, in Reporting Services. By 2pm, I had the content in place, and only needed to get the formatting sorted.
On the other hand, I spent a couple of hours fighting with the formatting when I came back. No matter what combination of magic I tried, it never seems to come out the way I'm expecting it to. It appears correct in both previews, yet comes back from the Export with missing footers, tables stretching over extra pages, and random blank sheets in the middle of it.
I'll ask Fabian how to fix it on Monday.
After work, I headed to EGG to hang out with them for a while. 75% of the discussion went over my head, the remaining largely being RobJedi interrogating me about films I have and haven't seen. I went through the IMDB Top 250; I'd seen 32, he'd seen 132. Whee...
Tomorrow will be some combination of going to the travel agent to book New Zealand, going to EGG to watch them play Brutal Legend, and going to the Sydney Festival First Night.
But in the mean time, I am exhausted, and am now going to collapse. 'Night.
-Mmaster |
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[Jan. 7th, 2010|10:24 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | amused | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Birthday, The Crüxshadows | ] |
Chris and I are planning on going to New Zealand in the first week in February. We dropped past a couple of travel agents this evening to discuss options.
Guy: I should ask, what's your budget for this trip?
Mm: Well, I can afford a total of two grand.
Guy: Including food? How much do you spend on alcohol?
Mm: I don't drink alcohol. Chris does, I don't.
Guy: Really? I double my budget with alcohol. "I'm spending $100 that day... So it'll cost $200."
He was good. Listened to what we were interested in (even if NZ isn't really the place for museums and the like), and the amount of time we had, and sketched up a potential itinerary based on actually having time to see something at the places we wanted to go to.
Unlike the guy in the second place we visited, who heard us say "New Zealand", took one look at the brochure, and said "You don't want that, that's for old people!" Then got down some coach tour booklet and didn't really suggest anything remotely open-ended, or appropriate to our taste.
I relayed the conversation about alcohol to ProgSoc.
Thomas: Well, duh. It's New Zealand. What else are you going to do?
Mm: Gasp at the pretty scenery?
Tom: Something inappropriate with sheep?
Thomas: Whatever makes you happy.
-Mmaster |
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[Jan. 6th, 2010|02:10 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | amused | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Springtime for Hitler, The Producers | ] |
*Mm and the EGG boys are watching The End of Time
Mm: *groans* They have been waiting decades for a chance to use that line.
Phil: What line?
Mm: "There is no longer the human race. There is only... The Master Race!"
Phil: They really have.
...And now I have Springtime for Hitler stuck in my head. This is never a good sign.
-Mmaster |
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[Jan. 5th, 2010|10:18 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | amused | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Don't Tell Him It's A Musical, The Dr Horrible Commentary | ] |
Justin: Margaret, why are you reading FHM?
Mm: They gave it to me as I was walking through Central.
Justin: Ah.
Mm: It's interesting, actually - the girls are all wearing much more clothing than I would've expected for a men's mag.
Justin: That's because the ones that have the amount of clothing you're thinking of are sold in the plastic sleeves, to make sure that the kiddies don't find them.
Mm: That'd do it. *flicks through* I'm amused by the page where they describe a particular motorbike as "The widowmaker".
Justin: *reads* "This is the angriest motorcycle ever built. It will seek to kill you at every opportunity with its light-switch throttle and tetchy race-bike handling. It's therefore impossible not to love and fear at the same time - exactly like being married to a supermodel." If that were what all car reviews were like, they'd probably be worth reading.
Calsanne: Men's magazines are much more informative than women's. Men's magazines go all the way down to the science of attraction: "You have to hold her close for this long to encourage the chemicals to start behaving in this way in her brain." I was looking through, and it's like, "I'm learning so much!"
Chris: I like the page where they run over so-called 'tough' gadgets with a tank. The only one that survives is the harddrive, surprisingly.
-Mmaster |
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[Jan. 4th, 2010|01:43 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  nerdy | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Suspension, Mae | ] |
I will be taking a postgraduate nursing subject this semester. Since the only real reason proffered for why I might want to not study it is "They might use some terms you aren't familiar with", I picked up the Oxford Minidictionary for Nurses. On the off-chance it's handy at work, it's currently sitting on my desk in front of me. I've been flicking through it while queries run etc.
I'll bet you never knew there was an opposite for the word "inbreeding", but there is:outbreeding n. the production of offspring by parents who are not closely related.
Also, this gives new meaning to "adding insult to injury":insult n. an injury or physical trauma.
...I am such a nerd.
-Mmaster |
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| "Peace on earth and goodwill to all men." "We're the US government. We don't *do* that!" |
[Dec. 27th, 2009|11:43 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | cheerful | ] |
Christmas!
Things people gave me:
* Liz threw some money in for me buying myself a "12 Days Of Christmas" Lush pack
* Will gave me a scarf and brooch
* Parents gave me some wine glasses to use for parfait, some fabric with an IOU from my mother to turn it into a pair of pants, Band Hero, and the 2009 Chaser annual
* Chris gave me an XKCD book, the XKCD "Witty" tshirt, New Super Mario Bros Wii, and an iTunes gift card
* My nieces gave me a Lush pack
Did you get anything exciting?
-Mmaster |
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| *bounces* |
[Dec. 24th, 2009|10:46 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  excited | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Santa Never Made It Into Darwin, Bill & Boyd | ] |
(8) Santa never maaaade it into NOoooRAD! (8)
http://www.noradsanta.org/en/index.html
:D!
-Mmaster |
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| Life. Be in it. |
[Dec. 23rd, 2009|08:51 am] |
| [ | mood |
| | tired | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Makes Me Wonder, Maroon 5 | ] |
* Mum: We need to pick up some turkey from the shops, for Christmas dinner.
Mm: Are you going to pick up some grease, as well?
* UTS is interesting. They rejected my eRequest, yet pushed what I wanted through. Except that they didn't include Stats as an elective, and instead shoved it on the end (so I still had one elective remaining). When I rang the Student Centre, the girl was like, "That's really weird, I don't know what they've done." Then she fixed it, thank goodness.
* My passport application that I rushed about completing on Friday has now been processed. Much quicker than I anticipated.
* It's two days till Christmas.
It 9am too early to go back to bed? I have a headache.
-Mmaster |
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[Dec. 17th, 2009|11:15 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  worried | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Dogs Of Damnation, Keating! The Musical | ] |
Grarrgrgh.
Tonight, for no apparent reason, my eyesight started going incredibly wonky. Initially, there was this bright spot as though I'd been staring at a lightglobe. I blinked a few times, and it switched from that to this sparkly curve at the left hand side of my vision - as though I was looking through crinkled cellophane or something. I'd hold my hand up beside me and be unable to see the fingers, because the sparkles were blocking the vision.
It went away within half an hour or so, but it has me a little spooked, so I'm going to head to the optometrist tomorrow morning and see if they have any bright notions. Chris was suggesting that it was exhaustion catching up with me (as he points at the bags under my eyes).
When I got home, I told Mum about it. She said it had been happening to her for years, and no-one had ever given her a satisfactory explanation. ...That sounds promising. "The closest thing I've ever had to a suggestion was that it was a migraine without the actual headache." ...Right.
Also on tomorrow morning's agenda: hopefully actually get my passport application submitted. I was sitting on it because it hadn't been filled out, and then because I couldn't afford it - but now both of those have been fixed, so I have to take it in and find out what else is wrong. Whee...
Arranging my day is going to be made more interesting by the fact that there is a bus strike, just to get in the way of everything, so I'm going to have to either catch a train or a cab into the city - while carrying Khet. Oh dear.
I guess I should heed Chris' concern and head to bed soon. I just want to finish reading a couple of things before I crash - assuming I can stay awake that long, anyway.
-Mmaster
EDIT: Back from OPSM. According to the optometrist, after having checked for evidence of anything more serious, it was probably a visual migraine. "If it starts happening close together, see your GP." Right-o. |
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