Well, I’ve had quite a weekend of acquisitions.

Firstly, and most excitingly… I’ve finally (after 2 years of looking and saving) gone out and bought myself a properly sized bed. I’ve been hanging over the edge of my single for years now, and on Saturday I finally went down to the local bed shop and bought myself a Queen size thingymagig. Of course that means I’m going to struggle for space in my room, but there’s no way I could have survived physically or mentally on a single for much longer. Space is a sacrifice I’m willing to make. So the bed should be delivered on Thursday, so that means only 3 more sleeps on a single! In preparation I’ve tidied the room and removed the actual bedframe, so all I’ll be on for the next few nights’ll be a mattress on the floor, but I’m not complaining…

Secondly, after receiving an alarmingly high Telstra bill on Wednesday, I decided to be proactive about it, and went out and got myself a new phone on Friday. I may be going out on a bit of a limb – I’m now with Three (Hutchinson) instead of Telstra, and signed up to another 2 year plan, but it would be insane to keep paying $80 a month for voice and sms on Telstra when 3 offer 3G services as well as regular voice and messaging, a nicer phone, and comparable call costs on a $29 cap (which includes $120 worth of credit each month), plus $10pm for the phone. Anyway its a very pretty Nokia E65, and it seems to have everything under the sun inside it. I’m just hoping the battery life beats a couple of days.

Finally, Samo sold me his old bluetooth DiNovo keyboard & mouse combo on Friday. It’s being a little fickle with Vista, but it is so nice to finally have a wireless keyboard, and better the numpad on the side is a separate unit, which also acts as a media remote. So now with my bed on the other side of the room to the computer I should beable to set up a nice little home theatre kind of jig. Should be nice.

Anyway

Pete

It’s funny how small things amuse small minds, and equally amusing that seemingly random lines and shapes can invoke vivid memories and recollections. Take for example the speed graph of the torrent I was downloading this afternoon:

And the outline of Devils Peak / Table Mountain in Cape Town:

A single glance at the graph and instantly, with no time to interpret the graph in any obscure way, I recognised the scene. I was thrown into deep reverie about my 9 months spent in the shadows of that mountain. Sometimes I really marvel at the human mind.

Pete

I’ve never been the biggest fan of the Nine Inch Nails, although there is one massive exception. The song ‘Hurt’, the last track on the album ‘The Downward Spiral’ is one of the most stunning songs written in the last twenty years – although admittedly that probably has a lot to do with the fact that Johnny Cash covered it in spectacular fashion in 2002, less than a year before his death in mid 2003.

Anyway today I uncovered a…. different cover of the song that I must admit I didn’t foresee ever being made. In my mind it is equal parts respectful nod to a great song, and satirical take on a song begging to be poked fun at. Either way it’s confrontational, and still a very decent 4 minutes of music.

So without any further ado, let me introduce Kermit the Frog, singing under the moniker ‘Sad Kermit’, and his version of Trent Raznor’s ‘Hurt’.

(Oh, if you’re interested here’s a link to NiN’s original, and Cash’s moving cover)

Pete

Considering Monash students have a forced day off today, I thought I’d take the opportunity to post, and have a good old whinge about the inadequacies of the university in not being able to fix a power outage that occurred at midday yesterday, resulting in the cancellation of all of yesterday afternoon’s classes, as well as all of today’s classes. However, the top story on the BBC website shows I have a lot to be grateful for – a university shooting in the US resulted in 33 dead overnight. A power outage, even resulting in the hospitalization of two workers, is small potatoes when compared to a tragic event like a shooting.

I don’t mean to sound smug or anything, but its times like this that I thank the mighty FSM that we live in a country with such strict gun laws.

Pete

When I made this ultimatum earlier in the year, I didn’t honestly expect much from it – I certainly didn’t expect the Blues to win five games on the trot, including the NAB cup final (all talk of the cup being a poisoned chalice will end HERE).

So when my shiny (but hatless!@#!@#) membership arrived in the post a couple of weeks before the start of the season proper, I was a little dismayed at the prospect of having paid good money for what has turned out to be sweet F.A. in the last couple of years – unless you count wooden spoons to be trophies worth keeping. It turns out that I really should have had a little faith in my beloved Blues, at least for the start of the season.

Saturday afternoon saw Carlton stage a club-record comeback, after being 48 points down to the Bombers late in the second quarter, and having Rex Hunt bring out the fat lady before quarter time. Smellanor and myself, perched up in the Southern stand were fairly dismayed, reserved to a thorough beating pretty much as soon as the match started, but the thirty minutes after half time saw one of the best, most promising quarters of footy I have seen Carlton play in years. O’hAilpin stood up in the backline and shut Lloyd down convincingly; the midfield was stunning (although interestingly at its best without Stevens); and Fevola fired on all cylinders, kicking four goals in the third quarter for eight in total. Brad Fisher, Marc Murphy and Ryan Houlihan all played like men possessed, and lo and behold – with all the pieces in place, Carlton was playing football. Within 22 minutes of the third, Essendon’s 5 goal lead of halftime had been nullified. The Blues were in front.

The final quarter was far closer, going goal for goal at times, but was marred by bad umpiring and shoddy push-in-the-back calls that almost gifted Essendon the match (incidentally, I think the new rules on the matter are good for the game, they just need to be standardised and policed properly).

But the best part of the match – the part of footy I had been missing so much for years – was the ecstasy and relief after the final siren sounded and the realisation that we had come back to win by 3 points…. It was absolutely stunning. I can’t remember feeling so alive at the football – certainly not in the last couple of years anyway. I was shaking from an overload of adrenaline and partially hoarse from yelling for two hours, but so unbelievably happy. The comparisons to the ’99 prelim final were inevitable, although perhaps a little unjust.

What a match.

Pete

Ahh mid semester breaks – the poison chalice of the university year. For the last six weeks, uni students the country over have been looking forward to the week long break in early April as a chance to kick back, and maybe catch up on work assignments due throughout the semester. Me? I decided I’d get really studious and knock over preparation for a mid semester exam, two prac reports and an executive summary of a literature review within the week.

Today is Sunday, the 10th and final day of our midsem break, and guess how much work I’ve done? Exactly.

Anyway to stave off the depression that is sure to hit when I come to my senses, I have some spectacularly funny videos from the British Comedian Harry Enfield. WOMEN ESPECIALLY – PAY ATTENTION (the second one in particular, although larger is hilarious):

Pete

My little brother jetted off to Byron Bay this morning for the annual East Coast Blues & Roots festival, held over the Easter weekend each year. Anyway I came downstairs just as he was leaving, but had enough time to cram in the daily newspaper quiz with him and dad. One of the three-pointer questions asked what the TRE in SPECTRE (Ernst Stavro Blofeld’s evil organisation in the 007 universe) stood for. Embarrassingly both dad and I stumbled at this question, although we agreed that the T and the E were probably terrorism and extortion.

Oh, for those playing at home, it turns out the organisation is the Special Executive for Counterintelligence, Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion.

Anyway It should have been a case of no points awarded, move on. However, for the rest of the day I couldn’t get that bloody trivia out of my head. I think it’s just the insanely cool name – I mean how much cooler would Al-Qaeda be if it clearly stated its goals to the world, proudly and with its heart on its sleeve. Instead (after another little jaunt with Wikipedia) it turns out that the name ‘Al-Qaeda’ refers to the Arabic for ‘foundation’ (also the meaning of the name ‘Peter’, but anyhoo). BORING – no wonder they can’t manage much sympathy in the west.

For those still following, let me elucidate using the wonders of the computer age:

Stunning. And not at all nerdy.

Pete

Although today wasn’t a particularly cold day, it was the first day pretty much all year that I have conciously and purposefully worn closed-toe shoes in preference to my ever-so-comfortable thongs. And as a result, my feet are incredibly sore, even though I was on my feet for a relatively short amount of the day. So, dear readers (and especially the podiatrists and thongologists out there) I ask you:

In 1500 words or less, explain why the hell Pete’s feet hurt so bloody much (extra credit for including the fact that he has been carrying around 20kg of books for the better part of the afternoon, and the inclusion of diagrams illustrating forces acting on Pete’s buff body).

Due date: now.

Pete

Although I consider myself a pretty good driver, I don’t think I’d necessarily volunteer myself as a model driver for young kiddies or recently released felons. The truth of the matter is that I have a somewhat colourful driving record, although none of my various…… misdemeanours have ever made it past my guilty conscience. And I really think some of them should have gone further. I wonder how that grandma in Durban is….

Anyway that all changed today. Finally, my first ever demerits along with a whopper of a fine:

I still find it hard to believe that I was doing 75 along Alexandra Ave. That road is so congested it’s much quicker to ride a bike along the river, and sometimes I wonder whether walking into town would be speedier. Oh well, there’s this week’s wages…

Pete

I was having lunch with Claire today, and among our ridiculous conversations, bitching and general chatter she told me about her new laptop which she had taken ownership of last week. That was all well and good, but I had to admit surprise when she told me that she had forked out over $200 for the student edition of Office 2007, when she was aware of a much cheaper, more feature filled option that was still quite legitimate.

A couple of weeks ago Monash sent an email to all students outlining a new promotion of Microsoft’s. Usually commercial plugs aren’t tolerated or broadcast by the university, however this had good reason to be shouted to the heavens – it seems the fatcats at Microsoft Corp have finally realised that software piracy is quite a difficult beast to quash, and young people, in particular university students were the biggest culprits when it came to this cyber crime (yarrrrrgh).

So, Microsoft are trialling something quite…. impressive really. The fully featured, Office 2007 Ultimate edition ($1,042.80 according to Centrecom) for a paltry $75. The catch (and it’s a small one) is that no actual software CD’s are distributed – everything must be downloaded – but the suite is exactly as promised.

Unfortunately for most people, the promotion is limited to university students currently studying at an Australian uni. You need your uni email address to register, but if you happen to fit that mould, head over to itsnotcheating.com.au, and sign up. I’m pretty sure that it only works for a single computer, but I’m sure there are enterprising folks out there that don’t really need or want Office, and could sell the key on eBay for a healthy profit. Not that I would ever condone that sort of behaviour……

Pete