Tuesday 9 January 2007

10-01-2005_10-31-2005

Thursday, October 27, 2005

Progress report
Sorry I haven't been here a few days, it's been a good week so far and I've been out working every day so haven't been near enough to an AP to post an entry, and evenings - well, evenings it seems that I just can't be bothered, once I've cooked dinner I just want to chill and read news...
But it's been a good week, with a lot of jobs to keep things interesting, and some of the best conditions I could ask for. I mean, my boss is excellent nowadays (hehehe) and the hours are flexible. I get to travel all over the place for work, have time almost every day to buy something special for dinner from someplace, and have time to have haircuts, breakfast in unusual spots, lunch with the Prawnheads, and coffee in Cambridge St.
Just keeping you all informed, will post this once I'm near an open AP or back home tonight I promise. Oh - where am I now? Well, it's 8:30, I'm sitting at Fisherman's Harbour on the south side, watching the morning fishermen and eating sausages that I bought from Elmar's the other day, wholemeal toast, and fresh brewed black coffee - did I mention that I love freelance work?
Ciao all!
Categories - ::/:: posted at 9:59 PM Ted
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Saturday, October 22, 2005

ad lib
I am officially at liberty. Yesterday was my last day at my ex-employer, and I'm now a freelance IT consultant. Doesn't feel any different. Probably because I've done this before, ran an IT support and hardware sales company about ten years back and this feels a lot like a lot more of the same. But next week will feel different I'm sure, because most of the jobs I've got lined up so far are all over the place, and I'll be travelling instead of sitting in a comfortable air conditioned office, but I don't think I'll mind.
And of course I'm available to help if you need anything IT related done, my readers and friends are always going to be my favourite people to help.
Categories - ::/:: posted at 10:46 AM Ted
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Monday, October 17, 2005

rob the millionnaire
gone! first time evah that the australian mjllionnaire show gas given away the million bucks!
Categories - ::/:: posted at 9:11 PM Ted
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Wednesday, October 12, 2005

Mused
Schapelle C has had a reduction of her sentence. Her lawyers are appealing it. I'm confused...
"We want the reduction increased" they say. "No, we want her found not guilty!"
And there I am, wondering - if they reduce the reduction to infinity then are they her lawyers or the prosecution's lawyers?
Categories - ::/:: posted at 11:29 PM Ted
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With resignation
Well, I've gone and done it. As of Monday 10th, my two weeks notice is ticking away. I consulted with my doctor and he agrees that work is just too much to cope with, given the symptoms I'm experiencing. I enjoyed my job when I started in 2000, and worked because the job gave me great satisfaction, but since 2003 somewhere I have to say that work's culture changed and strangely enough, since then I've had a dramatic increase in health problems. Yes things like that can really get you down.
Places change. It's part of life, and it's sad but it happens. My advice to others has always been get over it and deal, and I'm over it already and dealin'. My friends have already found me some part-time and freelance work I can do, and I may even rescuscitate my IT business if I find I enjoy the self-directed life again.
Also my book on prostate-friendly foods is going ahead and should be online soon, and while that's not going to put the money in the bank it's one thing I'm looking forward to having the time to polish it up and add recipes to it, and especially I'm looking forward to getting my results in March or April and proving that the right foods can prevent prostate cancer.
As it is it's about six weeks since I started eating prostate-friendly and all the pains and unusual swensations have stopped. That is just an amazingly good result, so I'll share my experience and people can talk to their doctors about it and perhaps then use some of those same foods for themselves.
And I'm still pushing for a Big Day Off where all Australia just refuses to come in to work for a day and show John "I love you my people (frequently and with vigour)" Howard what we think of his bending the whole country over... His work reforms are a bunch of crock, and spending our tax dollars to try and justify them and make the palatable the populace is the biggest liberty taking of all, he should be locked up for doing that. Remember that we live in the best country in the world and once our current crop of politicians are gone that's what it will be again.
Categories - ::/:: posted at 12:07 AM Ted
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Saturday, October 08, 2005

My Serenity review - no spoilers
Good movie, makes me want to see the Firefly series. All the best hackneyed themes of applie pie and wholesomeness are in there, along with a lot of bum-gripping-the-seat kinds of action and tension. And some delightful surprises. A lot of droll lines delivered nicely, and a lot of places where things could have been tidied up or improved with better scripting or direction but it still gave me a good evening's entertainment. Go on see it, it's shiny.
Now for a bitch session. Yes we saw it at la premiere, yes yes yes, I know they are a pack of bastards but they're also the only game in town, the Greater Union offering just isn't in the hunt. Yet...
Why I say that is because there is a clear demonstration that Hoyts find La Premiere to be a saleable product - that demonstration being, that La Prem is still going. Any manager with an ounce of smarts would have given it the chop at the first sign of a dip in income.
So they find it worth continuing to use it. But if I was charging people double prices on the pretense that the 50c worth of popcorn and 75c worth of ground coffee or postmix syrup actually cost $5 and $4 respectively and therefore I was actually "cutting me own froat to give you the best, guvnor" then I'd make bloody sure that the coffe machine and postmix were working and the popcorn wasn't more than a week old at the worst...
Look, here's an example of cutting corners: They have a postmix machine labelled with the brand of a well known soda water. Hang on, they have soda water syrup? No? So what makes this soda water that particular brand name not just tap water with CO2 through it? As it turns out, nothing. I could taste the bloody fluorine in the water.
So if Greater U were to put a little bit more effort into their premier seating arrangements I'd be there like a shot and Hoyts could go get knotted. Come on let's see some of that famous comeptition enter the marketplace!
Categories - ::/:: posted at 8:20 PM Ted
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Odo look - quick, it is new Finnish Saurce!
Then she shows me the "ing" and we are laughing.
Categories - ::/:: posted at 10:39 AM Ted
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Thursday, October 06, 2005

Published!
Got a letter to the Editor published in The West Australian in the Wednesday 05 October issue! Yay. Now back to work. Or in this case, back to being ill, because I'm home sick again.
Doctor says that too many illnesses in a short period, and work stress, are the main contributing factors, that I'm on the point of clinical depression. Why does that make me even more depressed? hehehe sorry but bad jokes seem appropriate at the moment.
Work has been hectic and I've been feeling that I just can't concentrate enough, apparently that all these different stresses reinforce each other, and so I've applied for stress leave. Will see how enlightened my workplace is...
Categories - ::/:: posted at 8:22 AM Ted More Comments: (3)
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Wednesday, October 05, 2005

I did this, believe it or not

Yeah I had a German blog on twoday for a while. I *am* Austrian by birth after all. (Hi Arnie!)
Categories - ::/:: posted at 10:08 PM Ted
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Oh yeah - Happy Birthday TEdALOG!
Today is the second anniversary of TEdALOG Lite and I actually started it with articles harvested off my earlier manually maintained blog. So the real birthday of my blog is now shrouded in obscurity, foxed by a dodgy memory.
I have a recollection that the manual blog started sometime September 2002 or even earlier, then I lost the archive and had to rebuild from the website, and while I was at it I tried this newfangled Thingamablog software, and my blogs have been TAMB blogs ever since.
Yay for TEdALOG(s)!
Categories - ::/:: posted at 5:06 PM Ted More Comments: (2)
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More thoughts on Islam
One of the Muslim spokespeople is apparently quoted as saying (and sorry, I have this from discussions with friends yesterday so I can't say where or when or who) that the world would be at peace when it is all converted to Islam.
One word for that: BULLSHIT.
Iraq is mostly Muslim and the Shi'ite wrere busy killing and opressing the Sunni who were busy sniping at the Shi'ites. Ask them where an "all Islamic community" was peaceful...
end trans.
Categories - ::/:: Edited on: Wednesday, October 05, 2005 4:46 PMposted at 4:41 PM Ted Comment made, yay!
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Tuesday, October 04, 2005

again...
again, dammit...

You scored as Jayne Cobb. The Mercenary. You are in this for the money, plain as that. You like things simple that way, but mainly as anything else confuses you. You get the job done, and don't care what people think. Not as long as you get paid anyway.
The Operative
75%
Jayne Cobb
75%
Hoban 'Wash' Washburne
75%
Zoe Alleyne Washburne
69%
Inara Serra
69%
River Tam
63%
Capt. Mal Reynolds
63%
Shepherd Derrial Book
56%
Simon Tam
50%
Kaylee Frye
50% Which Serenity character are you?created with QuizFarm.com
Categories - ::/:: Edited on: Wednesday, October 05, 2005 4:25 PMposted at 7:49 PM Ted
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Monday, October 03, 2005

Bali Bumming
So I'm reading The West Australian. Yes I'm going to say Bali bombing but not for the reasons that the West did. They (and The Australian) seemed to be more concerned at getting a lot of pictures of blood and misery on the front cover, to the point where I felt that people had not only been terrorised but also had their basic freedoms like privacy trampled on.
I digress. As Toxicpurity said there are people dead here, it's not some sideshow so papers can sell more copies. I'm all for news, all against cheap sensationalism. This looks like sensationalism not journalism, sorry.
But what really really REALLY pissed me off in The West was the page 9 article where Australian Muslims said "Don't blame us for these bombings it's not us" and to The West I have to say this - do you call that *balanced* reporting do you? What a load of bollocks. Sorry, you make headlines with pictures that say (sorry everyone cover your eyes naughty words coming) what a pack of utter aresholes these bombers have been, and then publish that as well. Can you editors spell "fence-sitting crap"?
And secondly to those same Muslim leaders in Australia I say - WHY?
Why should we not blame you, you whose religion breeds the very extremists who stand up on Australian TV and say that a woman's place is in the harem, who believe that Allah will triumph even if there's not a person left standing on the world, - why should we not blame you equally for these extremist bombings? After all, who stopped in Balu and asked "Hey are you one of those American supporting Asutralians or a good Aussie whose leitmotif is equality?" Did those bombers give a rat's arse?
Tell you what Muslim people in Australia - stand up for those words, stand up to the fundamentalist and extremist leaders who have created the environment in which life is so cheap and rabid zealotry so admired. Stand up to them, and tell them that you aren't going to take it anymore, that you want the hard line softened to modern enlightened debate rather than stupid, stupid loser extremist actions like bombings.
Go on, do that and we'll believe you are seriously not "like the others over there..."
Categories - ::/:: posted at 8:07 PM Ted More Comments: (5)
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Sunday, October 02, 2005

It must be love
Just started watching the start of Sharks On Trial on Nine, and Had one of those "firing on sixteen cylinders" bursts of amusement.
"Geez," I said to Trish, "I was killed by an average white shark. He wasn't a Great White Shark of course, cos I'm still alive. Totally average..."
The expression on her face should have warned me, but the commentator was spruiking his next dramatic line and I just went with the flow.
"Sharks in the spotlight!" he enthused, and I followed right in with "Yeah, it's a pretty pathos-filled sight. Have you ever seen a 'roo's big sad eyes in the headlight, well it's worse with a great white because of course they can't even jump out of the way..."
(something about "sharks have rights") and I told Trish that it's sad that sharks have such poor rights, but their lefts aren't much better because they can't make the gloves stay on.
That about when the cushion hit me. Trish reckoned I should have a show on the telly because then she could switch me off. And I had to blog it right away cos it's not often that I get a good series like that strung together.
On a serious note, sharks have a place in the scheme of things, and one of the things they are there for is to keep us from getting too cocky in the water, they're sort of like border guards I figure.
If you are aware of your surroundings and treat them with respect, you'll usually be okay. It seems to me that the majority of people who are getting taken by sharks are people who are taking their safety for granted. And it's not. There are all these people around the world blithely risking their lives on extreme and adventure sports and they are not aware that nature will kill you.
I'm thinking of the BASE jumpers, snowboarders, casual surfers, and so forth. Hey pardon me but if I go bushwalking I take precautions and keep my attention firmly focused around me! I will not be that person who stepped on a dugite while daydreaming and trusting that "the authorities" will have cleared all the dangers away for me.
What I'm saying is NOT that anyone who indulges in extreme and adventure sports is a dickhead, far from it. But I am saying that these are all sports with risks, you need to be aware of those risks and stay focused, otherwise you will find out that one of the main risks is death...
Just look at the number of people who surf every year, and don't end up smashed on rocks or eaten by sharks, so we know that some people are paying attention. I'm just saying don't blame the sharks, blame the people who are lulled into a false sense of security and stop paying attention. It's our own responsibility to look after our own lives. If we manage to look after one other life as well as our own, that's a bonus. Don't you be the one relying on someone else to look after you, trust only the person with your best interests at heart...
And Trish must love me, cos that cushion was the only thing I've had to dodge despite my lousy jokes...
Now g'wan git out there and enjoy the spring weather!
Categories - ::/:: posted at 8:00 PM Ted
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Memememememe meme
Thanks skribe... There goes my last ten minutes of free time for this weekend...
Which File Extension are You?
Which OS are You? At least I'm not an Apple OS...
Categories - ::/:: posted at 6:54 PM Ted
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