24

What a way to start the morning.

A warm Sara with kisses and cuddles and more…

Then the present stash - which within 5 minutes of waking up included the following:

• Bag - excellent new shoulder/work bag - very very cool
• The new Augie March CD
• The latest OC CD ( :P )
• Some gift vouchers to help me get some new drum sticks
• The latest copy of B&W
• Narnia DVD
• last but not least, a little keychain with a monkey on it that says “Christian”

Ahh - So happy!

Posted by Christian Posted in: General No Comments » 29 April 2006

New Graphics Card

There’s nothing like the smell of a fresh graphics card in the morning.

For quite a while now my AGP R9600Pro has been glitching to high-heaven. Usually whilst I’m trying to play some Need for Speed or Call of Duty. So eventually it died - and not even windows could start without some serious glitches. The remedy of course was to yank Sara’s 4MB PCI graphics card and use that. But having to occasionally wait for the screen to refresh when opening full-screen images and the total inability to watch full-screen movies got the better of me.

My dilema was that I wanted the greatest and best graphics card. Which meant PCI-E. Unfortunately my motherboard doesn’t have PCI-E - and to get a new motherboard meant new CPU and RAM too - ie. a completely new computer. I just couldn’t budget that at the moment.

So I just purchased an Nvidia 6600GT with 256MB of DDR3 RAM - I guess this will just have to do :P

Posted by Christian Posted in: Computers No Comments » 20 April 2006

GTD

I’ve been on a real Getting Things Done (GTD) kick the last few weeks. It all started about 6 months ago when I printed out one of those work-flow diagrams showing the rough GTD steps for my desk at work, then 3 months ago I added Lifehacker to my RSS Reader. Then about 1 month ago I purchased this book from a closing down bookstore called “Work Smarter, Not Harder”.

So how does my GTD method work? Well it changes over time - but my rough model is a free Backpack account which I use for my larger “todos”. I chose Backpack because it was easy to setup and it’s easy to access from anywhere I have a computer. Also the “developer” in me started to day-dream about the API and programming a small app for my work PDA - so my backpack would always be synched with me. The truth is though the PDA is so bulky I don’t always have it with me.

Secondly, at work, I carry my Moleskin with me at all times and a pen. On days where I don’t start with my feet running I’ll try and jot down a days worth of todos.

Of course - If you’re a true GTDer (is there even such a thing?) you’ll notice that neither of these are directly related to the ideas of Collecting, Processing, Organising, Reviewing and Doing. I have to start somewhere though.

My problem in the past with these sorts of tricks/strategies is I usually give up after a while. Hopefully this one will stick with me

Posted by Christian Posted in: Books, Computers, GTD, Profession No Comments » 20 April 2006

Future Home

i really need to save for one of these

Posted by Christian Posted in: Computers, General, Security No Comments » 18 April 2006

V for 1984

the story of this weekend began as a fairly conspicuous phone call around 5:45am on Saturday morning. It was the furniture guys. Sara and I jumped up quick-sharp to clear out the living room and to move her car so they could shift our stuff into the living room. By stuff I mean 1 x 3 seater couch, 2 x arm-chairs, 1 x 6-seater dining table, 6 x dining chairs. It’s amazing how much new stuff can make a room look so much better. The dining suite is a nice, simple dark wood whilst the couch and armchairs are all a dark blue/navy colour - non of this micro-suede stuff that appears to be popping up everywhere.

We still have our old couch in the living room as well and are considering a beer, chips and PS2 games night. Noone would be allowed to drive, as you’d all have to get *pished*. (Especially you Amy!)

In preparation of said night Sara and I have begun our Tekken tag training regime. Mainly it consists of me kicking her ass then her spending some time practising moves, then a re-match, repeat ad infinitum. Slowly and surely the girl is learning.

Saturday night we had the lovely nichola over for dinner before declining an invite to V as we were feeling fairly exhausted from having to wake up so early for the furniture guys. In the end Sara’s brother+gf came over and we watched Lemony Snicket’s a Series of Unfortunate Events and ate M&Ms.

To sate my curiosity about V we decided to catch it on Sunday afternoon. Unfortunately most of the movie was spoilt by some fucking losers up the front making a sound reminiscent of a whale’s mating call - through more than 85% of the flick. Surprisingly enough, regardless of how many people stood up, looked around, appeared to get irritated, or even mentioned the fact that they couldn’t catch most of the movie because of the sound - Sara and I found we were the ONLY people to complain. We got 2 free tickets to the Cinema, but admittedly I don’t think we’ll be going to see V again, which I feel is a real shame because what I saw of the movie I thought was fairly cool.

Of course the countless 1984 references couldn’t be ignored, specially as I’m actually reading the novel as we speak, but to tell you the truth, I wasn’t nearly as scared of “the finger” as I am of the “Thought Police”. Good to know heaps of other people have also mentioned the similarities. I’m also glad to know that I’m not the only person (thanks Bruce) who recognised that John Hurt played the V version of 1984’s Big Brother, whilst in back in the *real* ‘84 he played the original 1984 hero, Winston.

Still - was pretty entertaining.

Posted by Christian Posted in: Movies No Comments » 2 April 2006