Your result for The 3 Variable Funny Test...
( contain little in the way of surprise... )
Current Location: Effingham Street
Current Mood: 
tired
tiredLeave a comment
Exit, pursued by a bear.
24 November 2009 @ 10:02 pm
22 November 2009 @ 10:04 pm
Reduced to dot-points as the simplest way of summing it up before I forget to do this completely. Might do something at greater length now that I've got a framework to built on.
Thursday
Thursday
- last-minute luggage panic hits reality check;
- it's okay not to take jeans to the tropics;
- small dramas catching trains;
- explosive sniffer - the price of the company I was keeping?;
- plane'o'bogans. "Careful, they'll hear you!";
- bus drivers as sit-down comedians;
- beef, coffee and sugar - what other local industries do you need?;
- lovely rooms, but possibly not worth being charged twice for;
- pizza surprise & accidental candlelight dinner;
- sensible plans for early night foiled by too much talking and inability to settle.
- sleep-ins for some, restless sleeplessness for others. Also, traffic noise and stupid loud people ordering coffee;
- surveying the terrain;
- time-disjunction and loss of a day. Where has the time gone?
- relief on realising brain has failed and there's still a day I forgot to include;
- Bicentennial Walk, sea eagle, mockable swimming area & Airlie Beach;
- Team Blonde broken?;
- more pizza;
- the spa bath is approached with caution, and conquered;
- chairs are not for sleeping on, however comfy they might be for reading.
- another early rise after another late night;
- rest day, except for numerous trips to shopping centre;
- it *does* get hot in the tropics;
- Sunday plans finalised - a cruise it is!;
- sore necks, tired feet, relearning some old skills;
- mobile phone almost cast - literally - into exile. Or, at least, the swimming pool;
- awesome Thai, plus Baileys. I've had worse nights in;
- romantic comedies, Harry Dresden, Dirty Harry, more Baileys and sleeping on the couch. Why did I bother with a bedroom again?
- early rise, on purpose this time;
- shuttle bus to Abel Point Marina;
- Long Island & South Molle stopovers. Lots of photos from the boat to pass the time;
- further elaboration on Hamilton Island's riff-raff policy;
- Whitehaven on Whitsunday. Trying to remember how to swim and get by without my glasses. Also - stinger suits, the great equalizer, and reckless goanna photos;
- lunch on board. Disappointed that I eat too lightly to really take advantage of it;
- trying not to fall overboard when leaning out for photos. Real islands!
- Hook Island, underwater observatory, carrying too much baggage, never tour with children and old people, cranky trepidation over snorkelling;
- semi-submersible and flat-bottomed boat fun;
- "Are those rocks natural?"
- snorkelling. God help me. Hard work, steep learning curve, and ultimately something I'd love to try again. Trying not to stress my snorkel-buddy;
- practising without glasses, cruise on to Daydream Island for the rainforest walk;
- finding Nemo, the Bond Villain resort, walking around the island;
- home, tired, but not exhausted. Naps for some, hostile confrontations with the spa for others. Relax by doing dishes and washing instead.
- cleaning up and checking out. Surprisingly easy when we're both naturally neat and tidy people;
- Team Blonde revised;
- Airlie Beach revisited and souvenir shopping;
- the most annoying thing about me;
- tropical heat;
- bus drivers as sit-down comedians, Pt II;
- return to the airport detention centre;
- security surprises;
- blown away at the airport.
Current Location: Effingham Street
Current Mood: really only a week ago?
21 November 2009 @ 06:26 pm
Costumes I will not be wearing to science-fiction themed parties, Part One.
( Read more... )
( Read more... )
Current Location: Effingham Street
Current Mood: 
amused
amused21 November 2009 @ 06:11 pm
Free silver penis implants for all Cubans | The Courier-Mail:
CUBA'S government has offered its first free penis implants, part of a program set to be expanded across the communist island, an official newspaper reported.A twist in the culture wars that I doubt even Nick "the Fruit Loop" Minchin saw coming...
It is likely not what Karl Marx had in mind when he imagined a society transformed "from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs'', but Juventud Rebelde reported the silicon and silver penis implants were set to become more common.
Current Location: Effingham Street
Current Mood: bemused
21 November 2009 @ 01:44 pm
21 November 2009 @ 10:50 am
20 November 2009 @ 09:39 am
19 November 2009 @ 07:50 am
For frequent travellers, Translink recommend you use the tickets shortly to be hit with a 40% price increase before being discontinued entirely twelve months later.
Current Location: Effingham Street
Current Mood: 
cynical
cynical18 November 2009 @ 09:09 am
Anticipating a high level of lolcat consumption today to deal with being back at work.
Current Location: Nathan
Current Mood: amused
amused11 November 2009 @ 09:15 am
The spreadsheet of death. The only way to have made this any simpler would have been knowing in advance how complex it was going to be and building a relational database to cope with it.
I'll know better for next year.
I'll know better for next year.
Current Location: Nathan
11 November 2009 @ 09:07 am
Peter Garret: getting ready to fire his lazah. Question is, will he aim at the Queensland Government or the Mary River?
Current Location: Nathan
Current Mood: amused
amused10 November 2009 @ 11:13 am
Via ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif)
ishtar_artemis:
BBC NEWS | Technology | Worm attack bites at Apple iPhone:
ishtar_artemis:BBC NEWS | Technology | Worm attack bites at Apple iPhone:
Worm attack bites at Apple iPhoneProbably one of the funniest things I've read all year.
Ikee infected phone
The worm changes the wallpaper of the phone
The first worm to infect the Apple iPhone has been discovered spreading "in the wild" in Australia.
The self-propagating program changes the phone's wallpaper to a picture of 80s singer Rick Astley with the message "ikee is never going to give you up".
Current Location: Nathan
Current Mood: amused
amused09 November 2009 @ 10:51 am
Former Democrat standing for The Greens | The Courier-Mail:
Oh. That's ... I'm not sure what that is. Surprising? On the one hand, it would be good to see Bartlett returning to federal politics, but on the other ... the Greens? One of the Democrats' (and Bartlett's) strengths was a willingness to look at issues from a broad perspective and deal with what was achievable. That's not a trait one normally associates with the Greens, who have a tendency to exploit the fact they'll never be in a position where they have to implement some of their policies.
Former Queensland Democrat senator Andrew Bartlett will stand for The Greens for the seat of Brisbane at the next federal election.
Mr Bartlett's candidacy will be announced by Greens leader Bob Brown today.
Oh. That's ... I'm not sure what that is. Surprising? On the one hand, it would be good to see Bartlett returning to federal politics, but on the other ... the Greens? One of the Democrats' (and Bartlett's) strengths was a willingness to look at issues from a broad perspective and deal with what was achievable. That's not a trait one normally associates with the Greens, who have a tendency to exploit the fact they'll never be in a position where they have to implement some of their policies.
Current Location: Nathan
Current Mood: tired
tired07 November 2009 @ 10:34 pm
Better the broken Windows than life with the Mac monks:
Using Windows is like living in a communist bloc nation circa 1981. And don't change it. I admit it: I'm a bigot. A hopeless bigot at that: I know my particular prejudice is absurd, but I just can't control it. It's Apple. I don't like Apple products. And the better-designed and more ubiquitous they become, the more I dislike them. I blame the customers. Awful people. Awful. Stop showing me your iPhone. Stop stroking your Macbook. Stop telling me to get one.
Current Location: Effingham Street
Current Mood: amused
amused06 November 2009 @ 01:48 pm
06 November 2009 @ 11:41 am
Save the planet by cutting down on meat? That's just a load of bull - Telegraph:
No, I am not going to become a gradual vegetarian. In fact, the whole proposition is so irritating that I am almost minded to eat more meat in response.I'm not sure I entirely agree with Boris Johnson, but he does a good turn of phrase.
Every weekend, rain or shine, I suggest that we flaunt our defiance of UN dietary recommendations with a series of vast Homeric barbecues.
We are going to have carnivorous festivals of chops and sausages and burgers and chitterlings and chine and offal, and the fat will run down our chins, and the dripping will blaze on the charcoal, and the smoky vapours will rise to the heavens.
We will call these meat feasts Pachauri days, in satirical homage to the tofu-chomping UN man who told the human race to go veggie.
Current Location: Nathan
Current Mood: amused
amused06 November 2009 @ 10:42 am
- 19:24 Screenshot from World of Warcraft. #wow - twitpic.com/occx7 #
- 19:26 Funny. Of all the rulers in WoW, Thrall is the only one characterised in a way that actually inspires loyalty. #
- 20:11 Annoying how whatever the average queue time is to enter a battleground, I always wait at least five times longer. #
- 20:11 Not terribly sure why I'm taking a warrior back into a battleground, mind you. It's just asking for multiple deaths and humiliation. #
- 20:12 Oh dear. Here we go. #
- 20:41 Woot! Victory!!! #
- 20:44 Screenshot from World of Warcraft. #wow - twitpic.com/och1j #
- 20:45 This is probably the first character I've had that's actually managed to make Barbarian Chic work for them. #
- 20:50 Screenshot from World of Warcraft. #wow - twitpic.com/ochco #
- 20:59 Hah. Eat that, Paladin! #
- 21:07 Oh, f***ing great. They've decided it will be a *Hide* the Flag match instead... #
Playing on the Horde side was just so very, very different and it seems to come down entirely to the players' style. I entered Warsong Gulch four times, with different combinations of players, classes and opposition. and the experience was much the same each time: no central plan, no-one coordinating the attack or defense or providing scouting messages. The chat channel was almost entirely silent, except for a brief bout of hilarity when an Alliance player suffered the ignominy of being killed by a throwing knife.
Instead, players just knuckled down and did what was needed, splitting automatically into two or three groups (attack, defense, and general skirmishers), linking up to form small groups of two or three so no-one was left alone and vulnerable, switching easily between supporting our flag-bearer to hunting down the opposition's, and rallying in small groups of mid-bracket characters to fend off attacks by the Alliance's 19th level twinks and even bring them down several times. Defenders would enter general melee if the Horde flag was captured, but would return to the flag room as soon as it had been regained and resume their defensive role.
It was worlds away from my Alliance battleground experiences. I'd often assumed that the Horde victories were the result of better discipline and group work, and to an extent that still seems to be true ... but not quite in the way I thought. There's no pool of tactically-clever people coordinating things, and the discipline and teamwork seems to come straight from the individual players themselves. Which, in many ways, fits in very neatly with the Horde ethos.
Current Location: Nathan
Current Mood: 
thoughtful
thoughtful05 November 2009 @ 10:52 am
Translink is Brisbane's self-styled "world-class" public transport system. Or, at least, that's the claim they tried to make after recently announcing a fare increase of 40% that's likely to cost me an additional $600-$1000 per annum to get the girls and I where we need to go each day, on top of the close to $2500 per year I already pay. "World class", in this case, being an exceptionally creative euphemism for describing a system consisting of irregular and overcrowded buses that are invariably late (when they bother to run at all), and trains packed like cattle cars that service only a handful of tiny corridors in the Brisbane area, with some lines breaking down every second week.
This is the only information Translink provide on a school bus service that may or may not run past the girls' high school, buried deep in a 29-page PDF document that you can only find to begin with by drilling down several levels into the site. There's no route map, and not even a list of major stops that might let you hazard a guess as to where the bus actually runs. If you're not sure if a bus runs past the school at all, the Translink site suggests you ask the Education Department rather than them. After all, what would the coordinating agency for public transport in Queensland's south-east corner know about things like getting children to school on their services? The guiding principle behind the whole thing seems to be "roam your neighbourhood streets, put your children on a random bus, and have them call you to let you know where they end up".
The sheer worthlessness of the information annoyed me enough that I emailed Translink, politely pointing out that their information was cryptic to the point of being useless, and including the sample above as a case in point. Now I'm almost dreading the response, partly because I suspect it's just going to be an annoying brush-off, but also because I'm afraid it will be written by the same Lovecraftian entity responsible for the timetabling information.
The moral of the story: "world class" doesn't necessarily mean of this world.
This is the only information Translink provide on a school bus service that may or may not run past the girls' high school, buried deep in a 29-page PDF document that you can only find to begin with by drilling down several levels into the site. There's no route map, and not even a list of major stops that might let you hazard a guess as to where the bus actually runs. If you're not sure if a bus runs past the school at all, the Translink site suggests you ask the Education Department rather than them. After all, what would the coordinating agency for public transport in Queensland's south-east corner know about things like getting children to school on their services? The guiding principle behind the whole thing seems to be "roam your neighbourhood streets, put your children on a random bus, and have them call you to let you know where they end up".
The sheer worthlessness of the information annoyed me enough that I emailed Translink, politely pointing out that their information was cryptic to the point of being useless, and including the sample above as a case in point. Now I'm almost dreading the response, partly because I suspect it's just going to be an annoying brush-off, but also because I'm afraid it will be written by the same Lovecraftian entity responsible for the timetabling information.
The moral of the story: "world class" doesn't necessarily mean of this world.
Current Location: Nathan
Current Mood: aggravated
aggravated05 November 2009 @ 09:38 am
Pondering the Telstra split « Groupthink:
Telstra is so much more than just a telephone company. Telstra, like Vegemite and Hillsong, is an Australian institution and part of the national psyche. For that reason I take Family First’s role in deciding the future of Telstra very seriously and I have put a lot of thought into how I will vote on its structural separation later this year.It says something about Steve Fielding's contribution to the Australian political dialogue that based solely on the first paragraph (and skipping over trivial things like the author's name) I couldn't tell whether this was real Fielding or @FakeFielding.
Current Location: Nathan
Current Mood: amused
amused04 November 2009 @ 02:49 pm
Was a busy weekend, and I wasn't feeling especially chatty while playing. Looking at where most of these screenshots were taken, I was probably deep in a Barrens-induced fugue state. I was also flicking between characters, which confused Tweetcraft and threw the auto-tweet functions our of sync with the screen-captures.
SATURDAY
SUNDAY
SATURDAY
- 11:30 Unnerving: Barrens chat is currently an articulate discussion of various fantasy series. #
- 11:47 Still torn between amusement and irritation when a bear parries my attack. #
- 11:49 Mounted Night Elf player just made a point of doubling back to spit on me. Those Alliance guys are so classy... #
SUNDAY
- 15:01 Screenshot from World of Warcraft. #wow - twitpic.com/ntnan #
- 15:01 Not your average look for an Orc Warrior... #
- 15:08 Screenshot from World of Warcraft. #wow - twitpic.com/ntohm #
- 15:08 Screenshot from World of Warcraft. #wow - twitpic.com/ntoj5 #
- 22:17 When they say "Get the key from X" I wish they'd be clear that they mean by picpocketing rather than looting their corpse. #
MONDAY
- 19:11 Screenshot from World of Warcraft. #wow - twitpic.com/nzkkr #
- 21:02 Mcthug has earned the Represent achievement on Saurfang. #wow #
- 22:31 Screenshot from World of Warcraft. #wow - twitpic.com/nzvqj #
TUESDAY
- 00:15 Screenshot from World of Warcraft. #wow - twitpic.com/o04fx #
- 15:48 Screenshot from World of Warcraft. #wow - twitpic.com/o3laa #
Current Location: Nathan
Current Mood: 
exhausted
exhausted