Christmas party

We had our work Christmas party last Friday. Was a whole lot better then last years...


This year we were in a club, looking out over the beach. Good food, free bar.
Thought I’d leave off posting an entry until I see what sort of fallout resulted.
Not a lot it turns out. Looks like all the wayward kids decided to ‘get a bit’ of discretion.

The thing I’ve noticed about a lot of Christmas parties is a desperate rush by a load of people to ‘get with’ someone from work. As though the rules are changed for one night.
Ordinarily it takes a couple of days for someone to end up with a 'post party rep' but a new record has been set by one girl who had started as a receptionist just a week earlier. The party started at one in the afternoon and she had a reputation by eight o’clock that night.
I think history is caught in a feedback loop that’s slowly tightening.

There was a fancy dress theme.
Some of the boys did it, as did quite a few of the girls, and everyone else dressed nice.
As usual, there was a guy who dressed up like a woman, and he won a prize for best costume.
Why is it almost always the guy that dresses up like a woman that scores the prize for best effort? The decision was made by a group of girls. Are women not bored of seeing men dressed up as parodies of women?

There were mechanical surfboards pitching young guns off into the scenery, video games, and a fortune teller booth. I lined up a fellow sceptic to accompany me into 'flaky land.'
Fortune teller reckons I’m going to have a close relationship with in six months. I pressed him for more details and it will be a proper relationship, not just copping off in an ally behind the pub. I said that if I found true love within the next six months, I'd track him down and write him a cheque for a thousand dollars.
Let’s call the end of June the cut off.

So how was your Christmas party?

Christmas party

We had our work Christmas party last Friday. Was a whole lot better then last years...

Link to last year’s party

This year we were in a club, looking out over the beach. Good food, free bar.
Thought I’d leave off posting an entry until I see what sort of fallout resulted.
Not a lot it turns out. Looks like all the wayward kids decided to ‘get a bit’ of discretion.

The thing I’ve noticed about a lot of Christmas parties is a desperate rush by a load of people to ‘get with’ someone from work. As though the rules are changed for one night.
Ordinarily it takes a couple of days for someone to end up with a 'post party rep' but a new record has been set by one girl who had started as a receptionist just a week earlier. The party started at one in the afternoon and she had a reputation by eight o’clock that night.
I think history is caught in a feedback loop that’s slowly tightening.

There was a fancy dress theme.
Some of the boys did it, as did quite a few of the girls, and everyone else dressed nice.
As usual, there was a guy who dressed up like a woman, and he won a prize for best costume.
Why is it almost always the guy that dresses up like a woman that scores the prize for best effort? The decision was made by a group of girls. Are women not bored of seeing men dressed up as parodies of women?

There were mechanical surfboards pitching young guns off into the scenery, video games, and a fortune teller booth. I lined up a fellow sceptic to accompany me into 'flaky land.'
Fortune teller reckons I’m going to have a close relationship with in six months. I pressed him for more details and it will be a proper relationship, not just copping off in an ally behind the pub. I said that if I found true love within the next six months, I'd track him down and write him a cheque for a thousand dollars.
Let’s call the end of June the cut off.

So how was your Christmas party?

Bondi to Bronte swimming event 07 (part two.)

This is a follow up to the photos I posted last week….

library/post/bondi-to-bronte-swimming-race-07

It’s taken me a week to get the videos cut up (filling in the spaces in-between bursts of gainful employment.)

This event was held on Sunday off Sydney’s Eastern beaches.
The course is drawn between the first two Surf Life Saving clubs in the world.
Starting in front of Bondi Surf Club, it runs out from Bondi, around McKenzies point and down the coast into Bronte Beach. A distance of 2.2 - 2.5km (depending on the positioning of the buoy off McKenzies point).

I was pretty impressed watching this mass of people swim out of the bay, down the coast, and then back in to shore.
There were young ones, oldies, chunky and thin.
They were carefully watched the whole time by the ‘water safety’ folks.

The embedded map has the coarse drawn on it, and clicking on the pins opens a video up.

Use the controls to zoom in and out, and drag to reposition the map.

View Larger Map

Weekend wondering

This weeks question…
Which are more irritating, moths or flies?


Answers to last weeks question from a variety of sources…
Who would win a drinking contest between lil Red Riding Hood and lil Bo Peep? (The drink is Tequila Slammers.)


Let me hear it for the Peepster!

• No contest. Little Bo Peep, everyone knows its the quiet ones you have to watch out for.
• I go with Little Bo Peep...definitely the quiet shy ones you do have to watch out for...lol
• I'm going with my Peep. 'Bo', you may not realize, is short for 'Booze'.

Make a noise for Red from the hood!

• Little Red Riding Hood of course.
• I think red riding hood with her "oh my what big.... you have" isn't so innocent and would probably throw her shots over her shoulder when bo beep wasn't looking.
• What a silly question! everyone knows red riding hood can drink bo peep under the table. jeesh!
• Bo Peep loses her sheep on a good day, I doubt she can hold her liqueur:) ::smiles::
• She isn't red riding hood for nothing you know!...lol
• Red Riding Hood, no question. (Bo-Peep drinks wine coolers and gets sleepy or weepy)
• Lil Red Riding Hood hands down. She probably carried Grannie's hooch in the basket too and enjoyed many samples on the way through the forest.
• I'll go for Red Riding Hood to win (no matter what the drink) - I see her and the Big Bad Wolf having some serious drinking sessions and that'll get my girl over the line.
• R.Riding Hood. Takes courage to stand up to the big bad wolf. Besides, have you ever known anyone in a fru-fru petticoated dress who can drink anyone under a table?
• Red riding hood

Weekend wondering

This weeks question…
Which are more irritating, moths or flies?

Answers to last weeks question from a variety of sources…
Who would win a drinking contest between lil Red Riding Hood and lil Bo Peep? (The drink is Tequila Slammers.)

Let me hear it for the Peepster!

• No contest. Little Bo Peep, everyone knows its the quiet ones you have to watch out for.
• I go with Little Bo Peep...definitely the quiet shy ones you do have to watch out for...lol
• I'm going with my Peep. 'Bo', you may not realize, is short for 'Booze'.

Make a noise for Red from the hood!

• Little Red Riding Hood of course.
• I think red riding hood with her "oh my what big.... you have" isn't so innocent and would probably throw her shots over her shoulder when bo beep wasn't looking.
• What a silly question! everyone knows red riding hood can drink bo peep under the table. jeesh!
• Bo Peep loses her sheep on a good day, I doubt she can hold her liqueur:) ::smiles::
• She isn't red riding hood for nothing you know!...lol
• Red Riding Hood, no question. (Bo-Peep drinks wine coolers and gets sleepy or weepy)
• Lil Red Riding Hood hands down. She probably carried Grannie's hooch in the basket too and enjoyed many samples on the way through the forest.
• I'll go for Red Riding Hood to win (no matter what the drink) - I see her and the Big Bad Wolf having some serious drinking sessions and that'll get my girl over the line.
• R.Riding Hood. Takes courage to stand up to the big bad wolf. Besides, have you ever known anyone in a fru-fru petticoated dress who can drink anyone under a table?
• Red riding hood

Re-Dub

Earlier I posted a image...

post/here-are-some-more-postings-of-shots-taken-with-my-newish-caplio-gx100

...and there was a comment made about re-dubbing it as B&W, so here it is...

Peeled B&W

Weekend wondering

This weeks question…
Who would win a drinking contest between lil Red Riding Hood and lil Bo Peep? (The drink is Tequila Slammers.)

Answers to last weeks question from a variety of sources…
Is purple the new black?

Yes

• hell yeh get with it,,lol x
• I don't know - but I love it!

No

• No way...
• Hmmm, i think not. I have far more black than purple in my closet. Purple does not slim, in fact a chubby person in purple may look like a grape. Purple does not match everything like black does. Even the word purple is icky sounding. Nope, not the new black...can't be done. :)
• No Dave. With all stereotypes put aside, Hispanic and Arabic are the new black. ^_^ But purple's good too...
• Definitely not. Black is the the black.

Ummm

• I get tired of hearing that such and such a colour is the new black. Black is classic and cannot be replaced. So stop trying! (I adore black;)
• who cares. what does it mean anyway?
• I'll Play. A Tomato sandwich beats an apple any day, although apples have more divirsity, spread with peanut butter, bake, numerous recipes that far outweigh the tomato.
• Is this a fashion question?
• With my fashion sense, I'm the last one to offer any kind meaningful answer.

Weekend wondering

This weeks question…
Who would win a drinking contest between lil Red Riding Hood and lil Bo Peep? (The drink is Tequila Slammers.)

Answers to last weeks question from a variety of sources…
Is purple the new black?

Yes

• hell yeh get with it,,lol x
• I don't know - but I love it!

No

• No way...
• Hmmm, i think not. I have far more black than purple in my closet. Purple does not slim, in fact a chubby person in purple may look like a grape. Purple does not match everything like black does. Even the word purple is icky sounding. Nope, not the new black...can't be done. :)
• No Dave. With all stereotypes put aside, Hispanic and Arabic are the new black. ^_^ But purple's good too...
• Definitely not. Black is the the black.

Ummm

• I get tired of hearing that such and such a colour is the new black. Black is classic and cannot be replaced. So stop trying! (I adore black;)
• who cares. what does it mean anyway?
• I'll Play.
• A Tomato sandwich beats an apple any day, although apples have more divirsity, spread with peanut butter, bake, numerous recipes that far outweigh the tomato.
• Is this a fashion question?
• With my fashion sense, I'm the last one to offer any kind meaningful answer.

A request to widen the focus of the N95 group.

Our knowledgeable colleague Snoyt, has suggested that the N95 group change to include other N series devices.

I would rather that an alternate group be established (I think that this has already be acted on?) for the following reason.

Nokia have a bad habit of releasing a 'landmark' design, and then splintering their product range with devices
that are slightly similar but don't actually drive the market in new
directions.

The N95 is a 'landmark' design, and it is my feeling that the N95 will continue
to lead the market (much like the 6600 did) until Nokia get tired of
screwing around with customers, and make another proper leap in tech.

This should take at least an other couple of years.

The N95 is only now starting to properly penetrate markets and will be around for a while yet.

Watch out for the 'cash in' devices to propagate such as the Navigator and the N82 ;-)
Discussion of these devices will be a waste of time as they are just be 're-packaging' designs.

P.S. Besides, you think I'm a bit churlish. You should listen to the N91 guys complain.

Feel free to comment, or leave the group if Nokia's latest piece of jewelery is more you cup of tea.

What the hells is Nokia playing at...

The new Maps app doesn't allow the user to track their position on a route.
A route can be calculated, but there is no option to track the position on that route, and the 'jump to location' button removes the route from the display.

Oh yeah, I get it. Not enough people were signing up to pay for downloaded voice directions.

Well, removing a feature is going to make me reach for the credit card, right?
Wrong.
Just one more reason to be Uber pissed at Nokia.

Bring on Google, and bring on Android.

P.S. Or buy a cheap handset, and a Tom Tom cause that's going to be a lot cheaper then shelling out for an N95.

P.S.S. Or someone writes an app that gives us back the tracking functionality.

Big fat thunderstorm this evening

IMG_1584 copy

Bondi to Bronte swimming race 07

Here are some photos and I’ll post a more detailed entry with videos later.

This event was held on Sunday off Sydney’s Eastern beaches.

Rain came again...

Rain came back

Weekend Wondering

This weeks question…
Is purple the new black?

Answers to last weeks question from a variety of sources…
Which is better, Tomatoes or apples?

Simple

• Juices from both can be used in alcoholic beverages but tomatoes look real pretty.
• Apples, no contest!
• Apples! Cuz they crunch! I like how tart they are. Tomatoes are too squishy...
• I'm not to hot on them by themselves. They need to be an ingredient. Preferably in desserts.
• it all depends on the purpose. Apples are a lot harder so you're more likely to knock a person out when you throw one at them.

Complicated

• The Victorians called the tomato, a "love apple". So I guess it depends on how you feel about love. (They also thought it was poisonous, and grew it as a decorative plant)
• Apples or tomatoes? Since I'm particular about each, I've no pat answer. Also, my answer would depend on whether the fruit's cooked or eaten raw. What kind of tomatoes? What kind of apples? Is it a star of a dish or a supporting cast member? Are you sorry you asked?
• Apples for eating, tomatoes for throwing:) After all, I'd rather leave a person rather messy than knocked out. And while I love eating both, apples always win out as my favourite, so throwing those would be rather hard... ever so tasty are they.
• first there is the question of what they are better for...You could make a sandwich out of apples, but, they probably wouldn't be as good as tomato sandwiches. Both are good in salads. So, I still need to know what they are better for...?

The sun came back

IMG_1494

Bondi to Bronte swim

Wow 12 to 20 is a big leap! (more rant)

Nokia could do themselves a favour and continue to use the N95 base as a testing ground for the iPhone killer.
They don’t need to do anything to the hardware. The iPhone (and most of the market) is going to take a couple of years to catch up to the N95’s spec sheet, but the operating system needs a lot of work.
What the heck have the Symbion guys been doing all this time?
Why do we still have a confusing layering of menu/submenu?

I don’t necessarily need to change the aspect of the screen by rotating the handset (apart from shutting up the iPhone fan boys,) but moving through menus, or around the calendar by tilting the phone and not needing to unlock the keyboard would be good.
I’m pretty tired of the keypad unlocking itself when those two spongy buttons on the front of the slide are accidentally pressed (actually bugger that why can’t I use the camera shutter and gallery buttons to unlock the keyboard?) so unlocking the keypad with a gesture would be nice too.
Allowing people to create their own unlocking gesture would be an interesting security feature. Can’t repeat the right gesture, phone doesn’t unlock.
What about a spin on the desk to answer the phone (automatically jumps into speaker phone mode,) and spin in the opposite direction to close off the call?
The dpad is really crap so how bout using gestures to play games?
Move around web pages?

I don’t need a touch screen and I agree with Nokia’s argument in the past, that touch screens won’t replace keyboards. The mouse didn’t replace the keyboard but it’s pretty indispensable these days.
I reckon there is a lot Nokia could do with the functionality that is in the current range (hiring and interface designer that isn’t stuck in the eighties would be a good start.)

Wow 12 to 20 is a big leap!

The new clock is good. I’ve been hankering for multiple alarms since the days of my 6600.
Finally there are thumbnails in the Video Centre though they could be much larger. I was wondering why most of my video icons were so dark when I released that the thumbnails were being generated from the first frame. What tit decided that the first frame would make a good preview icon? Most produced films fade up from black. There is a reason why YouTube uses the middle frame.
Visual radio has been improved and I was able to download references to all the stations in my area (this couldn’t have been in the first update six months ago???.)
There is a nice grid overlay function in the cam now (was this there before???)

There is the story I read of the N800 that had had the latest N810 software installed and suddenly the processor is running quicker. There was also a hidden FM radio tuner.
Then we find out about the N95 accelerometer.
This all smells like deliberate ‘hobbling’ of the product so that a new and improved N95 (i) can be released and Nokia can sell a new device to the great unwashed geekdom.
There is a much older story of how TV remote controls all have the same innards, but the manufactures add buttons to the casing to access the extra built in functuality, as the price of the TV the remote is attached to rises.

A lot of companies seem to be ‘taking the customer for granted’ in this way.
Vista had all sorts of new functionality promised for it, and most of the useful stuff such as a new file system was cut out. All we saw from the final release was some extra graphics and a confusing splitting up of a single product into lots of colourful boxes.
Apple users have started de-installing Leopard and returning to the previous version of the operating system as expectations haven’t been met.
Adobe recently made a comment that if they had realised the extent that Apple was going to de-feature the new version of their ‘low end’ video editing system, they would have released a Mac version of the updated Premier Elements.

So what is the moral of the story?
Don’t buy another Nokia device until it has had at least a couple of firmware revisions (probably about twelve months after the device is released onto the market.)

So here are my predictions for the New Year.
Someone will realise that Nokia isn’t putting a lot of effort into taking advantage of the hardware of the N95 and will find even more speed and extra battery longevity.
Some and maybe a lot of the dpad functionality will be replaced with accelerometer function calls.

Weekend Wondering

This weeks question…
Is purple the new black?

Answers to last weeks question from a variety of sources…
Which is better, Tomatoes or apples?

Simple

• Juices from both can be used in alcoholic beverages but tomatoes look real pretty.
• Apples, no contest!
• Apples! Cuz they crunch! I like how tart they are. Tomatoes are too squishy...
• I'm not to hot on them by themselves. They need to be an ingredient. Preferably in desserts.
• it all depends on the purpose. Apples are a lot harder so you're more likely to knock a person out when you throw one at them.
  

Complicated

• The Victorians called the tomato, a "love apple". So I guess it depends on how you feel about love. (They also thought it was poisonous, and grew it as a decorative plant)
• Apples or tomatoes? Since I'm particular about each, I've no pat answer. Also, my answer would depend on whether the fruit's cooked or eaten raw. What kind of tomatoes? What kind of apples? Is it a star of a dish or a supporting cast member? Are you sorry you asked?
• Apples for eating, tomatoes for throwing:) After all, I'd rather leave a person rather messy than knocked out. And while I love eating both, apples always win out as my favourite, so throwing those would be rather hard... ever so tasty are they.
• first there is the question of what they are better for...You could make a sandwich out of apples, but, they probably wouldn't be as good as tomato sandwiches. Both are good in salads. So, I still need to know what they are better for...?

Thank god there is Gin in the house again

This is a picture I took this afternoon and is the first of
series as I attempt to take a picture a day and post it here.

It’s not much of a picture, and it wasn’t much of a day (but
we can’t complain if it rains.)

Sydney grey

St George is no more.

I cancelled my account with the big old green dragon today.
Enough is enough.
I’m bloody sick and tired of being screwed by banks.

I switched to St George more then twenty years ago when I was tired of being screwed around by Westpac.
The dragon used to be great, it was a building society back in those days. Good home loans, branches that opened on Saturdays, friendly staff, good internet banking, lots of auto tellers, and they didn’t charge us for using other peoples ATMs. All gone now, and charges that are levied on pretty much any transaction that one has processed. They’ll even charge us for not having enough money in a saving account.

It was a bit weird commiserating with the teller. I think she remembered the old days too. I didn’t get a bank cheque to transport the funds that I was removing. That carried a ten dollar charge, which the bank also levies on its employees the teller informed me.
Pretty ironic that St George’s previous CEO has left to work at Big Red (lol.)
Thankfully there are still plenty of options for banking these days.

This is the first day of our summer, and I’ve started a group to celebrate.

ozsummer07.groups.vox.com