Point and Click

Seems like all I do is moan on this blog, so I've got up early to post something, as I'm always upbeat in the mornings. I had pancakes for breakfast, filled with salad (because that's what needed finishing up: lettuce, tomato, cucumber etc), so healthy! Except all the butter coating the pancakes says otherwise.

I'm running out of programs to watch with dinner, having gone through 2 seasons of Arrested Development, 3 of Black Books, Darkplace, Firefly, FLCL, and most of the movies I brought. Right now, I'm on Bucky O' Hare (he goes where no ordinary rabbit would dare), after which I decide whether to watch my way through Kenan and Kel... or just not.

Oh, I did get an email from google just there now, telling me they're excited to announce that finally the nexus one is available in the uk! grrrrrrrr...
Yes, yes, I know I'd rather have a droid, I'd rather have any android phone really, I've got ideas for a few killer apps and a will to learn how to make-em.
If I had a smartphone I'd want lots of surfing time, but I don't have one, and I don't make many (if any) calls, which Australia's mobile services don't seem to cater for. I did ask at a 3 shop recently to find out what deals they do, and the best they could offer me, the lowest use prepay (pay as you go) offer, was to top up the minimum ($10 probably, though it could be $20) every month, and what you don't use always expires at the end of the month, so you have to top it up again. The only way to not get charged monthly, is to sit on an empty sim card and assume the first phone call you make will cost $10-20.
I had £5 on my phone in the uk for about 3 months, always available even if I never used it, most of it was still there when I left for Australia.

So I'm sitting in the computer barn at west campus, waiting for the banks to transfer some money into my account, then I can go buy the laptop power supply, use the laptop to restore the flash drive, open the flash drive to get my files, take the files to uni to work on, finish and submit.
Feels like I'm in a point and click adventure.

ARGH!

ARGH!

Spent a while last night on wave being all happy and funny, making jokes and adding comments. Then something happened (to either wave or my browser or the university internet) that unsynced wave and undid all I'd just done, which put me in a bad mood, and I didn't feel like being happy and funny all over again, and my blood sugar level was low, so I yanked my flash drive and stormed out of the library in a huff, and went home to have a 1/4 bottle of port and loose consciousness at 9pm.

This morning I awoke at 5am, quite happy. Shower, breakfast, coffee and a book for a few hours before heading out, went by Oxfam Books and bought three new Jules Verne books which I'm looking forward to with great anticipation. Then I headed into Uni to work on my Dynamics team project and MY FLASH DRIVE IS CORRUPT! I've been using it for everything: internet/camera pictures/important uni documents (as the uni computers reformat themselves after every logoff). I made a backup but that was at least a week ago, I think before Virtual Instrumentation Programming so there's a chance I've lost everything I need to submit by tomorrow. Besides, the backup is on my laptop, which I can't get on 'till I buy another power supply.

I think my technical despair must be a form of homesickness.

Snap, Crackle and Pop

Unfortunately my laptop's power supply died today with a snap, a little crackle, and then a loud pop that tripped the whole building's fusebox (not just ours), so we had to call for a tech guy (from the company that maintains the complex) to come fix it. Anyway power's back up to the house now (after I had to have peanut butter sandwiches and salad for lunch, what with no kettle or hob working), but I'll still be sans-laptop until I can get a new power supply. Hoping Özdamir Göl will give me an extension on my Virtual Instrumentation Programming submission (which is due Friday), he seems a good sort and he knows me, plus this has to be a reasonable excuse (the only time I've ever really had one).

The temperature's dropped now, to almost Scottish summer levels. The sky's grey more frequently and since I only really go between home, Uni, and Central Market, I've stopped slathering myself with sun-cream every morning (bet I'll still get burnt). 

Oh, and update on the red pepper growing in the back garden: it turned out to be a chili (surprised me a little, but was still very tasty). The main problem plants seem to have in our back garden is the number of trees and large bushes in the surrounding gardens, taking up all the soil with their roots. Sunny says he has had all the soil taken out and replaced, but nothing grows (except that chili apparently, and the small wilted sprigs of mint). I'd like to think it's nothing that can't be solved with a bit of "you know what" in the head department.

...sorry, I think that's a Mrs Doyle quote... there aren't too many (or any) opportunities for me to be a bit silly nowadays.

Food and Fencing

Well I can't say I'm not eating well, as much as half my protein intake is fish (which my flatmates have started complaining about, I need to find a different way of preparing it that doesn't smell as much as frying). I eat a lot of fruit, drink a healthy amount of wine (a bottle every few days), and finish every meal with a small drink of port before coffee and dark chocolate. Last night I had a sort of kangaroo bolognese with a Pinot Noir from the Adelaide hills. Highly enjoyable.

I do all this alone however, as my flatmates are always asleep (yesterday lunchtime one emerged from his room admitting that he had gone to bed late Friday night and just missed Saturday completely. After telling me this he grabbed something to eat and went back to bed). Everyone I meet in my course lives around Mawson Lakes, and I don't really know them very well. The only ones I've made friends with are Indian, and it's difficult to fit in when the rest of the crowd are speaking, and sharing jokes, in Hindi.
I get on well with the guys in my fencing class, I got to go on the strip for my first time during last week's practice (which is where you get wired up and have an actual match, with buttons on the tips of the swords triggering alarms to indicate who hit who, where, and when). It was a lot of fun, I was doing well until I noticed that everybody else had stopped what they were doing and were watching my first time, and somehow into my head popped the voice of mouse saying "Morpheus is fighting Neo!" which was ridiculously melodramatic, and made me loose.
I won my second fight, though it was against a much smaller, younger novice I'm not claiming to have beaten him with skill. Definitely had a lot of fun, looking forward to getting back on the strip. As for making friends, I only see those guys once a week for a couple of hours, so I don't know them well enough to (for example) go for a beer with them, which in my mind is what University clubs are for.

So I'm frequently quite bored. I can't make any noise at home, given that my flatmates are always sleeping, so I can't really practice violin at all. My internet quota's been reached, the speed's gone down to almost dial-up levels, so no more skype 'till next month. I'm left with the choice between reading (with coffee) and playing computer games (with headphones).

One thing I do always look forward to, is shopping at central market, and as I'm out of butter, bread, and a few other things, I headed over there today. Sure I could've headed to a supermarket, but it's just more fun to browse the fancy cheeses and fine beers, smell the rich coffee and the fresh basil, explore the narrow extremities,  play with the rabbits in the pet shop, chat with the friendly shopkeepers, and unfortunately I found out when I got there that the 26th is ANZAC day. That means Central Market, and the whole city in fact, is shut (includes big supermarkets).

So no bread 'till tomorrow, and that also means no fencing tonight.

Deus Ex

I've just finished playing through Deus Ex.


Well what was I supposed to do with an old laptop? I can't exactly play Portal or ME2 with 200Mb of RAM can I? So I've been trailing through all the old greats: Theme Hospital, Diablo 2, Dungeon Keeper, Starcraft, GTA Vice City, a bunch of stuff on emulators, etc, and Deus Ex.

To make it different to all the previous plays, I only used one hand (with my thumb scrolling the touchpad), randomly abandoned all my weapons a bunch of times, and forced myself to avoid most guards, rather than picking them off systematically until I have the building to myself, and can search for goodies in comfort. Also, who knew the riot prod was such an epic weapon?


Now on to System Shock 2!

The Tortoise and the Hare

Day 3 of Virtual Instrumentation Programming, and everybody else has caught up with me. On Monday and Tuesday I basically ignored the lectures, as they were really simple (first you move your mouse to the start button on the desktop and click it, navigate through to 'all programs' and select LabVIEW, now let's take some time to explore the start up screen, etc), and since the lecture slides can be downloaded, I zoomed through them, and completed all the problems with great ease, even though my laptop's specs are below the minimum requirement for the software.

Aaaaaaaanyway, everybody's caught up now, and although I know what I'm doing, and can solve the problems faster than anyone (including tweaking the settings to give pleasing visual effects to my programs) I spend my time twirling my thumbs while my laptop grinds away in front of me.

On the up-side, I have all sorts of games on my laptop.
On the down-side, that only makes it go even slower.

The original wave

Here is the original wave, the predecessor of this blog.

Unfortunately you won't be able to see the wave if you don't have (or aren't signed into) a wave account. For those of you this applies to I'm sorry, I'll try not to give background info to my posts so you know what's been going on so far.