Go See ..

Juno. It was funny. Go Tomorrow. Buy the soundtrack. Eat Cheesecake.

Things my brother said

My brother is so entertaining, heres a sampling of the gems he has dropped since Ive been home.

" If people want to do something patriotic they'd shoot their parents in the head when they turned 70. "

It is a succinct argument relating to a nightly news feature on the 2.1 kids/per lady birthrate we are experiencing. Ill keep you updated as more be come available.

By the way

If you hadn't heard I sprained my ankle severly.  Its gone from grapefruit to tennis ball size in a week.  I have been subsisting on the kindness of friends who drive all the way out here to pick me up on their way to dinner.

The injury has prevented anything else from occuring so I am  not very interesting good bye.
 

oh your god its december

Half a month flew by there didnt it. Its 3 am and in six hours I am putting a turkey in the oven. Right now its resting comfortably in the brackish solution I prepared earlier this evening. Tommorow is second Thanksgiving in Blacksburg a tradition I stole form Cincinnati. Credit lays at 33 E. Alot of things I'm thankful for are in Ohio.
     No one is getting any presents from me.  Id like to say because of my principles but it is because I am poor.  The existence of the blog and my destitution have a common origin in my wanderlust.
     I finally saw BRAND NEW on thursday after six years of Jude Law and the semester abroad.  Ill see ya later and remember to tell all those english boys you meet about me. 

This is fun

Read about what the administration was doing in the 90's on the bush war time line.

Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney, speaking to the Discovery Institute in Seattle, says the first President Bush was right not to invade Baghdad: "The question in my mind is how many additional American casualties is Saddam worth? And the answer is not very damned many. So I think we got it right, both when we decided to expel him from Kuwait, but also when the president made the decision that we were not going to go get bogged down in the problems of trying to take over and govern Iraq." 8/14/1992

g'day

I'd did stuff over the weekend. I went to the Zoo and went hiking pictures to be posted. Maybe later Ill elaborate.

Here a comic I found out about today.


http://www.mikhaela.net

Itunes 6 Forever

I finally got sick enough of the new itunes to downgrade back to 6. I dont have a iphone, cover flow doesnt work well on my old laptop and the sound quality sucked. 6 is also wicked fast when it comes to API calls which means the sweet java script hacks I wrote to create playlists are really quick. I had forgotten it took minutes to create artist play list named by album on 7; 6 does it like snap.
Album art is now needed for everything I got using the ITMS store Get ArtWork dealy but oh well

New Thing

Theres a link over there in the left column to Keith Olbermann vidoes on youtube sorted by date. He as able to articulate the general patriotic outrage I feel during most of the day so take a look if you care.

Google Links for USB Audio Phillips Aurillium PSC805

I am trying to game google a little and get the ubuntu support forums to place higher in searches for support on the Phillips Aurillium PSC805 usb audio device. There have been a couple of good posts and I did some hackery to try and get mine working and I am hoping to get more people to post to get the card working without a full fledge driver.

So for alsa support of the Phillips Aurillium PSC805 usb audio device see the following forums:

		Multiple Sound Cards toran	34 Minutes Ago by loboc	2	195	General Help
		Phillips PSC805 not working! general.chaos	49 Minutes Ago by loboc	5	172	Multimedia & Video
		Philips Aurilium PSC805 ocdude	1 Hour Ago by loboc	3	388	Hardware & Laptops
		usb sound device problem alan_daniel	April 21st, 2007 by staticsage	4	552	Multimedia & Video
		Stripped down media server? twolfson	February 22nd, 2007 by punx45	3	198	Multimedia & Video

Phillips Aurillium PSC805 Linux Alsa
Phillips Aurillium PSC805 Linux Alsa

Im not really worried were the CEO of Cigna is going to find a job

WHIZ

I am a 29 scoring rock whiz. I am also a trivia nerd and enjoy stuff like this. I am glad I know more about American government than 70s rock.

He was my congressman til i moved : (

This article has a a couple of links to some neat candidate matching quizzes

Guess who you think your going to get

Man I hate thornleigh

If your bored then your boring right? It rained all weekend here so I did a lot of nothing. I made two trips to the mall because apparently no one in Australia has a desire to purchase name brand electronics at low low prices after 6 PM on a Saturday. I rolled into the empty parking lot and traipsed through the mall in vein looking for headphones as everything was closed but the movie theater. I ate a quick dinner in the sparsely populated food court with some cinema patrons. I conquered the mall the following day finding a decent pair of headphones to replace my tattered and now mono travel warriors.

Sunday was clear enough to warrant a run and I got lost in the outskirts of the Berowra Valley Regional Park which is like a block from my house. I need suggestions for an activity this weekend as it is my last. I am thinking about going to the zoo because I haven't seen a marsupial the whole time Iv been here.

Hey Virginians go vote Tuesday. The entire legislature is on the ballot. Here is a summary article in the Roanoke Times

Ideals what a novelty

From a speech given
Oct 29, 2007
St. Anselm's College, Manchester, N.H.

The long slow slide of our democracy into the corporate abyss continues unabated regardless of party, regardless of the best interests of America.

We have a duty -- a duty to end this.

I believe you cannot be for change and take money from the lobbyists who prevent change. You cannot take on the entrenched interests in Washington if you choose to defend the broken system. It will not work. And I believe that, if Americans have a choice, and candidate who takes their money -- Democrat or Republican -- will lose this election.

For us to continue down this path all we have to do is suspend all that we believe in. As Democrats, we continue down this path only if we believe the party of the people is no more.

As Americans, we continue down this path only if we fail to heed Lincoln's warning to us all.

"At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected," he asked, "if it ever reaches us it must spring up amongst us. It can not come from abroad. If destruction be our lot -- we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of free men we must live through all time or die by suicide."

America lives because 20 generations have honored the one moral commandment that makes us Americans.

To give our children a better future than we received.

Read the full speech here

I dont think they would have cared

If you were a touring band oversees would you be curious if there were any of your countrymen in the audience. I'd ask every night but apparently none of the bands last nite were'nt interested. I felt bad though masquerading as a kiwi so I didnt respond to "Are you ready Auckland" etc. Not that I usually respond to things like that. Seems like an easy rally cry, I mean everyone one in the audience is from around the place your playing. Why not go out on a limb and yell something about vegetarianism or capital gains tax.

The show was really good, in that none of the bands made me want to leave. Rise against was the highlight of the night. You should go see them in Japan because thats where they are going next.

Killing time until my flight, I wonder if theres a place that sells burritos. Thanks Auckland, your mundane existence was a nice break from my own rote day to day.

Auckland Takes it To the Max

So Today I rode this bike I rented from like the most hippyiest dude I ever talked to and rode around waiheke island out in auckland bay. It was like kelly's or middle bass island in lake erie except instead of glaciers its geologic origin involves volcanoes. There were vineyards wineries and beaches. It seemed like canada and the tropics as the foliage varied from palm to conifers There were some sweet trails but mostly I stuck to the roads, the steep winding roads. Like everything else in this hemisphere the bikes brakes were backwards with he rear tire on the left. Nearly killed me. I dont know if that was by design or hippy influenced. When i made it back to the rental stand some other throwback chatted me up about math, time descarts and russell. ( English major + weed) 30 years = Awesome bike rental conversationalist.

Right now its saturday night and its pouring outside. I guess tonitie I have to hang out in the hostel bar because theres no way I am heading back out on the streets. Last night I did and met some Irish girls in an Irish bar imagine that. Two of them left me and their friend to talk to some irish guys for like 2 hours then spoent the rest of the night complaing about talking to the the irish guys for so long. Speaking of hostel bars I am shocked that so many hostel staying backpackers bring drinking clothes. I mean like heels and dresses or dress shoes and button up shirts.

Tommorrow is Taste of Chaos Day!!!!!!!! Its going to be so good unless someone on stage says rockland or worse rauwkland which would ruin the concert for me. I hope rise against doesnt judge me for wearing shoes that were made in Thailand.

I walked around Auckland today. Not that many touristy sites to see. I am going to try to get on a ferry to the bay islands tomorrow and then on Sunday its Taste of Chaos Day. Have a good weekend.

I saw old stuff this weekend

St Kilda had old stuff. You can see it too at picasaweb. I also tried to go to a show this weekend but It got late and I got lost.

I am getting ready to fly to New Zealand but i dont know what im going to do there. Kill time like I do everywhere else. Still havent gotten MAtlab back so no worky.

Two people read this. Good for you. Its like a game for me to guess which two. You can go prisoners dilemma style and rat each other out in the comments.

Am i posting this ironically?

Hipster Olympics

Dont Touch Our Inter-Webs

The blogonauts over at dailykos have spoken and they demand that At&t Pay for their misdeeds. Dodd shoots up based on his position on telco amnesty for spying on Americans. Im sure this poll is like the least scientific and representative one one available. It voluntary and on the internet. But 12,000 democracy nerds might hold some kind of sway.

This is getting interesting as comcast the crappy cable company available in Blacksburg was charging money for taps. They also have been blocking p2p traffic which means i cant download Ubuntu in VA.

The company that refused to wiretap, Qwest is not available where I live. They are claiming that because of that they have been blackballed on government contracts.

Just because your buddy is a cop doesn't mean when you get to break the law. Go to aclu.org to spam your representatives in Congress. Hopefully someone will find a way to sue, unfortunately it wont be brought to court till well after Bush is out off office.

Im carving a pumpkin!

I am going to miss Halloween and its misogynistic costumes.

PS i also miss New Jersey

Setting Myself Up

John Edwards is the coolest. Platitudes aside in addition to his health care plan which is my personal favorite among the dems, He announced some federal government reforms today. So if you are a member of the proletariat (you probally are) give them a read.

The best part in my opinion is the plan to use public funds for senate and house races. That way lawmakers can read the laws there passing and maybe a book or two rather than attending some pancake dinner put on by Lockheed Martin.

Wow imagine that!

Hey you should read this too.

turns out contraception prevents unwanted pregnancies.

Over My Med Body

The part where he explains less than than stellar coverage done by medical school on the subject makes me wince a little. I mean he's a OBGYN and it seems like contraception was like a handout day in class.

Mitt Romney vs Cthulu

Mitt Romeny pledges to protect you from scary things.



Read this about the paranoid delusions of those in the conservative movement who fear Bearded men coming to take our freedoms away so better they take them away to protect us.

Im not saying radical Islam doesn't exist. I'm not saying they don't want to kill Americans. But will someone over there in the conservative universe explain to me the mechanics of how the inevitable Islamic subjugation of America is going to take place.

Other Stuff:

Concert on Friday: Music Good, Cliquey hipsters bad.
Party on Saturday: Conversation Good, Sleeping til Noon Bad.

Getting Lost

Brother can you spare a Melway. Every weekend I go to a show and every weekend I end up at some gas station trying to figure out where the hell I am. Google Maps is all good until the street changes names. i get lost running errands for work too. The only thing that saved me yesterday was seeing the Target Logo in the distance on the side of the Mall that is near where I work.

Like all jobs I have taken my current exploits has become interesting, wait the other one, tedious. I have proved that I am good at counting things and putting them in boxes. We are almost done and begin shipping product on Tuesday. Then I get to go to New Zealand.

This weekend is wide open. Its supoosed to be rainy and crummy so I am planning on doing indoor things like concert going. I ll rant on monday about the musical stylings of Eat Laser Scumbag, Group Seizure, The Trophy Wives, The Losers over at the Old Bar in Fitzroy.

Malaise and Short Shorts

Its a hemisphere in mourning as both Australia and New Zealand lost there first elimination games in the Rugby world cup. If you are wondering what Rugby is its like if football wasn't designed to sell beer. Australia lost to England because they could keep from fouling them in front of there goal posts. I believe New Zealand lost because they were dressed in All Black and the sweltering welsh heat was to much to bear. By the way the world cup is being held in France but some of the games are being played in wales which makes me think if it were held in Great Britain games wouldn't be played in Wales. Maybe they would be crafty welsh double dipping on Rugby.

Now my melancholia stems from other sources than international sport. The only prescription was five seasons and two vignettes of Daria which I watched over the past week. Because mtv is lame for too many reasons to list here they have not released Daria as a dvd box set. My fix was supplyed by vintage video captures from 1999. You young punks today have it so good with your radeon all in wonder cards HD rips. Back in my day we watched 196 kbps real media rips encoded on ISA wintv cards download over 36 kbbs modems advertised as 56k. Watching the show was a documentary in the decline of MTV as the closing credits of Daria slipped from obscure and interesting music like Cake before they blew up to voice overs promoting fanatic and buzz clips of Lifehouse. There were so edgy they couldn't be gap or American eagle they shopped at both. I'm hanging by a moment waiting for Daria to come out remastered.

Another good salve for the rash of isolation is screaming perpetual adolescents. Continuing my trend of exploiting the urban setting of my residence I took a drive up the street to Fitzroy north of Melbourne's CBD. At a place called the Evelyn Hotel I saw the Amity Affliction. The show was pretty good. My only complaint is this band called deez nuts who disparaged melody for rapping over derivative punk riffs managed to incite a piss poor mosh pit that devolved into one guy kicking people. So on the oft chance deez nuts obsessively Google them selves and Lifehouse you suck. If you have to ask people to mosh its because your music is neither rhythmically persuasive and moving. You suck and I hope you get that hat broken in.

I am a poor poster

So week number whatever in Australia.

Nerd News

I put Ubuntu back on my computer after flirting with Debian since something broke in California. Ubuntu just gets more attention meaning it works with out me having to hack through unstable. If you like tv check out Miro and Bit torrent Rss Feeds

Keeping Busy

The Rugby and AFL finals occured over the weekend and I went over sombebody's place and watched them. One on Saturday on Sunday. It totally killed my laundry throughput and both games devolved into blow outs but its nice to be not in my apartment. If anyone in blacksburg actually reads this thing consider potentially running with me when I get back. I have been getting into it and would like to continue.

Work

I had a slow week or two here. I tried to get back into my research but my Matlab License ran out. I emailed about it like a month ago and no one got back to me.

Politics

General rage and disappointment. Mike Gravel was on the news hour on pbs and announced an effort for a national sales tax which I like. Too bad he wont get any play on the majors. Heres hoping Iowans like Edwards then at least health care will get a chance to become a single payer system. Clinton and Obama have plans that are not as ingenious as Edwards in their design to transfer Health Care in this country to a Universal Single Payer System.

Okay maybe my next post will be more coherent. Perhaps a treatsie on why conservative groups on facebook are so small.

The Weekend

Friday was AFL semi final day so I went to the bar with the trivia kids to watch Geelong play Collingwood. It was incredibly fun and crowded. There are a few photos posted at the photo gallery

Saturday I drove to Belgrave to see the Hot Lies at this little club called Ruby's Lounge The band was really good and the drive out there was another adventure in suburb navigation. Google maps thinks it knows the names of roads and usually its pretty good, but N Rd is actually North Rd there Google, no need to abbreviate. I think I am going to go back out there next Saturday to hike in the Dandegong "Mountains".

Im 85% American

Remember the Spark. They had these tests and you could be like 70% pure ("Have you ever licked another person's eyeball?"). Well I happened upon this report and its accompanying test. Its about civic literacy in the united states. I scored an 85% 51/60. The best University average from their recent study was Harvard at 69 percent. Not to brag but yes I'll brag I haven't had a class in this stuff since highschool thank you very much engineering degree.

Take the Test (No Wikipedia Cheaters!)

http://www.americancivicliteracy.org/resources/quiz.aspx

PS I went to the spark and they cleaned it all up and no more purity test, totally lame. Still has plenty of cliffs notes for you cheaters

Hey wait a minute

So I am a proponent of socializing US health care and I have my reasons but these articles by Tim Noah over at Slate present a much better researched argument than "c'mon" Start at the bottom and work your way up.

Health Care Primary Archive:
Aug. 2, 2007: "Giuliani's Tepid Health Reform"
July 5, 2007: "Edwardscare: An Elegant, Laudable Trojan Horse"
July 1, 2007: "Health Costs Screw Business, Too"
June 19, 2007: "Obamacare: Better Than It Looks"
March 13, 2007: "A Short History of Health Care"
November 8, 2006: "Time To Socialize Medicine"
March 9, 2005: "Socialized Medicine, Part 2"
March 8, 2005: "The Triumph of Socialized Medicine"

Well I'm an idiot

 
Anne has informed that the videos do work on picasaweb and I am an idiot. My favorite is the one of the Australian juking this guy in the corner.

People of america go to the bit torrent site of your choice and download all of the the chaser's war on everything you can. Its on public television here and unlike the satire by this guy it is incredibly funny. So check em out on youtube and download the episodes. Dont worry its publically funded so no ones going to come after you.

Things that are also better in Australia

Cars: Europe + America + China + Japan means alot of variety

Talk Shows: Rove is pretty funny and he is only on once a week so no filler. Also he is not old as the television itself which is nice.

Radio: Triple J Another public endeavour. All music No nickelback. No commercials and no Michelle Norris (accento sobre la i as in me shell norris)

Things Not So good

Breakfast: If you want to make a killing come to australia and open a bagel shop. Mail me a bagel I'll mail you vegimite. Probally totally illegal to mail food in to australia though.

Word

I finally posted photos over at picasa from the past couple weeks. I uploaded some videos but apparently they dont work like one would hope at picasa. Google bought youtube but nobody thought to synergize that into the picasa world.

Other technological issues going on my little world:

Thunderbird (an email client) doesn't get along with full hardware acceleration in windows. So no cursor affects for me.

Debian is really cool until an update breaks networking.

Boring computer stuff i know.


Theres going to be an election here in Australia with a wide variety of issues at stake. However this is what i just heard on the radio.

Opposition Position in Queensland: The government needs to do more to educate people about the danger of throwing rocks at cars.

I think that could become a consensus issue.

Less than a week

So in less than a week I will be at the MCG watching Veee doo ka as Dom would say and his Soccer Roos taking on Argentina in an international friendly. I already went to a sold out AFL game at the MCG and its was insane. A coach and player for Essendon were retiring and it was there last game. If you hang on my posts with bated breath I apologize for not updating. Work has been super busy. We have been pulling Saturdays too. so weekends have been about recovery and not tourism lately.

Here is what I'm doing here btw

So I am interning at VSL and currently I am in Melbourne making sure panels get cast to the correct specs. Today the lifting rig I designed a few weeks ago cleared its saftey rating test and arrived at the plant. The hangers in the picture are upside down. Its cool to see something you did the math and drawing on in actuality. It is to replace nylon strapping which is hazardous to use as the concrete might wear the straps down. Now shunting these panels around the plant can begin in earnest. Those are the panels in the background and thats Paul one of the guys here at the plant.

Melbourne - Its not thornleigh!

So Monday I went into the office for work in Sydney and ended up in Melbourne by Monday Night. I spent all week pulling some long hours at the fabrication plant learning what I'm going to be doing for the next few weeks. I am decidedly not good at getting up early. Once I got over the cold and sunrise I got acclimated to the day to day out there and am ready I think to do what they expect of me. Maybe this upcoming week Ill get home while the sun is still up.

I am living in Richmond a stones throw away from the Melbourne Cricket Ground where are the AFL in the city is played. I spent Saturday walking around the area. Its a mix of working class and hipster Bohemia that's pretty good for bars and restaurants. Speaking of bars Saturday night I hoped a bus to the next suburb up the main drag here Collingswood to go a rawk show at the Tote Hotel. The show was great but nobody talked to me. There was an older creepier dude there alone as well so I dodged that bullet. All and all I like the area better than thornleigh just because there is more going on and its within walking distance.

Sunday was a adventure in laundry. The washer in the unit is old and busted so I went seeking new hotness. After going to the store for food and coins I found a laundrette and then later went and got dinner with gavin. Next weekend I plan to do more touristy stuff in downtown melbourne so Ill have pictures then.

Man Its like a roller coaster

A boring one where you have to do work. I had a bad weekend last week I got a migraine and stayed in. Then we had a really busy at work week getting some drawings out. So I was really suprised when I recieved a car on Friday. One of the guys at work left to go home, Hong Kong I think. He had this company car in his possesion and now its mine for at least 3 weeks. I put it to good use today Taking a drive on the Pacific Higway to Manly. Its a super cool beach town similar to San Clemente in California. The car is a little Nissan Sedan pictured here with Manly's Beach in the distance. The drive took about 45 minutes with lights and traffic. Driving on the left took about 3 turns to get used to. Manly was fun to walk around there were people out and about. The water was cold, I only got in ankle deep. If your interested the photo set will be here if its not already.

One Week

 
Week one is over and the ridiculously warm weather continues. It rained today but yesterday I caught another parakeet lookng bird outside of work. I got a long weekend coming up so we see if I have more interesting posts and pictures at the end of it. For the first weeks worth check out the web album . Its mostly downtown Sydney including Kings Cross (think grenich village) Chinatown and the Royal Botanical Gardens. I check in with you next week maybe before that if the internet goes live at my flat.

Sydney

Oh its winter in Sydney. Pack a coat. Have you got warm clothes?

BAH!

Its like 50-60 degrees farenheit here most of the time. Apparently warm clothes in Australia means a sweatshirt. Not to knock there winter but if parakeets dont migrate its not a winter. I'd have to take a two hour train ride into the blue mountains to see any snow. If I owned skis it might be worth it.




Downtown Sydney was neat. Its like New York without the overwhelming feeling of the populace. I did get yelled at by some chav-y girl in kings cross because she happened to be on street that i was investigating to see if it had an outlet. Im staring over you not at you. I need to go back to explore the rest of it. Maybe ride the monorail through epcot.

This is a T rex

I went to DC and I lost my keys. It was nice to get a shot of democracy pride. The capitol was super cool as we got a staff led tour. If you are ever in DC go see your Congressman he or she wants to see you I promise. As for the keys if you see them give me a call.