Old Musings - July 2002

Apology
No update long time. Me sorry.

Trip to America
About a month or so ago, management came along and requested people to volunteer for a trip to Dallas. This was rather urgent. I put my name in the hat and ended up being selected. At the time the exact dates were still unknown. I was told that I should prepare for a departure as early as a week or so. Two weeks later, the odds on the trip going through plummeted from a 99% certainty, to 50-50. From there it just kept on going downhill. I would love to be able to say that I didn't make any updates because I was too busy working over there, but unfortunately the trip never went through. :(

Last week another trip was waved under our noses, and they again asked for nominees. Still no word on who won that though. 

Parental Unit Visitation
The planet Earth had made another complete rotation around Sol,  which means that it was time for my parental units to once again make a visitation. And indeed, so it came unto pass. They came, they saw, they left. Interestingly enough, they left behind a couple of maps of Christchurch - I wonder if they were trying to tell me something?

Pet Peeve
Don't you hate people with web sites that go on about how they have such a great 'this', and that they have just purchased a new 'that'. Geesh - when will they learn that no-one cares?

New Toys
If I had to make up a lame reason why I haven't updated my web site for so long, then I might blame all my nice new toys I have purchased recently. My first toy is an AV receiver. I was sick of having to listen to my DVDs in plain-old stereo, so I purchased an amplifier (a Denon AVR-1602 to be exact) which was capable of decoding the full 5.1 surround sound hype that is labelled on every DVD. I must say, it makes a huge difference sometimes. Every time someone knocks on a door in the movies, I have to think twice to avoid getting up to answer it!

Of course, now that I have a better sound system I had to go out and get some more DVDs to test it out - and this time I even got some music DVDs - to put it through its paces.

While I went shopping,  a couple of weeks ago, I noticed that the PlayStation 2 had dropped in price. I had never really played much with the current generation of the console machines but was intrigued. The last time I played on such a box, it was on the old Atari 2600 - the console made famous by Pac Man (and to a lesser extent, Mrs Pac Man and Pac Man jr). I thought it was about time that I got with the 00's so I splashed out. I also purchased a copy of Grand Turismo 3 and you wouldn't believe how much time I have been wasting since then! Why, just yesterday I spent five hours finishing off the Arcade mode version of the game :)

Weather
The weather over the last couple of months has been interesting to say the least. I can't remember the last time it rained, but for the last two weeks, Wollongong has been knocked around by the worst gale-force winds in forty years. Trees have been blown over, branches snapped off, roofs lifted off and swimming pool floatation devices blown up against letter boxes (that's the one that happened here). 

Social
Last Friday, I decided to organize a night of cards, DVDs and questionable takeaways. The turn-out was good which normally spells disaster for voting on DVDs to watch, but this time the decision was made quickly. Not that it really made much difference though. A fire at the local power substation resulted in yet another power blackout (I've stopped setting the clocks on the microwave and VCR, 'cos it just happens so often around here - one could almost say you could set your watch by it <g> ) so we started watching the DVD by candle light.

Of course, the more astute reader would point out that DVD players require power, normally in the form of AC mains, to use the DVD-playing ability (as opposed to their 'door-stop' functionality, which is typically not affected by the lack of sinusoidal voltage). This is the conclusion that we also came to. Unfortunately, before we could finish our hydro-electric power station, which we were constructing out of of old lemonade bottles, a couple of cable ties and a roll of tin foil, the power came back online.

Despite the lack of a continuous AC supply, we had an entertaining night. DVDs were watched, Cards were played and questionable takeaways were questioned.

The next night, I went around to Dave and Doug's place to watch the first match of the Bledisoe cup being played at Jade stadium in Christchurch. The view from their place was lousy (who would have guessed? After all, we're only 2103 km away) so we ended up having to watch the game on TV like everyone else.

My word, don't you all look rather cold down there! It definitely makes me appreciate the Australian "winter". Just seeing everyone in the stadium shivering away in their hats, scarves and thick winter jackets almost made me think about putting something over my T-shirt. Almost.

Wohoo! NZ won! 

Web Update
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