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» Rhapsody in fluoro«

A couple of weeks ago I dropped by the Capital Football office to buy some equipment, find out what my FFA number is, and ask them if they've worked out whether or not I owed them money for my annual fees yet. Lately I've been doing so fairly regularly, with the following (fairly predictable) results:

  1. Damn you've lost weight;
  2. Your FFA number is some ghastly long thing you'll never remember, so try not to lose this business card AGAIN; and
  3. We still haven't figured it out, but rest assured you'll be the first to know.

While I was there I decided to get my hands on a whistle that wasn't a Fox 40. I've now learnt how to blow, and quite effectively, your average, common or garden-variety Fox 40 whistle, but it was touch-and-go for a while there, and I've developed a kind of baffling dislike of the breed. Also, every referee in Canberra uses the brand, sheep-like, which often causes problems on multi-pitch parks. But it turns out Capital Football only sell Fox 40s. Go figure. If you're lucky you can *sometimes* get one of those awful Fox40 Pearls, which have a different tone but sound woeful.

However, I did find out that there was a nice bloke (a referee over at the ANU) who was planning a massive online order for a bunch of Acme whistles. I remember Acme whistles! When I first signed up, back in my salad days (when I was green and went well with balsamic), all new referees were given a free "starter whistle", but my refereeing father disliked them, and bought me a deeper, louder, nicer Thunderer. I loved that whistle, and kept it for ten years ... before it fell through a hole in my kit-bag one black day, and I was forced to learn how to use these new-fangled pea-less things.

So, I got in touch with this nice referee whistle bloke and asked him for a Thunderer and a super-loud T2000. We met today and he provided me with both, allowing me to wax nostalgic and boring for a short while. He then revealed that he'd gone a bit crazy while ordering online (I'm the same with stationery), and had bought far more than we'd all ordered ... so he was giving some away for free.

Long story long, I walked away with an additional (day-glo green!) T2000 and this weird pipe thing that's apparently quite popular in South America. It's a bit harder to blow, but it is ever LOUD! And it's day-glo yellow. A colleague and I wandered to a secluded part of the CBD this arvo and practised with them until shame and self-conciousness forced us back to the office.

So I now have a bunch of whistles, some of them fluoro. I can't see the multi-pitch scenario threatening me again, because in my arsenal I now boast:

  1. T2000, which I think will become my primary whistle now
  2. Tornado, which would make a good secondary whistle — it fits well into a pocket, not too bulky
  3. Thunderer, for when I want extra control, or just feel nostalgic
  4. Fox40, if I otherwise want a loud whistle
  5. Metal Rugby Thunderer, if I've dropped all the others in the mud
  6. Metal holy-crap-it's-old Thunderer that belonged to my Opa (also a ref, and apparently a semi-pro footballer back in the Old Country)

The new guys are all arrayed on my desk beside me, and I can't wait to use them when football resumes. Yes, we refs can get that excited about whistles. Sad but beautiful, no? Okay, maybe just sad.

» 01.07.2009 @ 1836 | soccer | comments (0)

» Like you didn't love it«

So I've been having real trouble with the kitchen tap lately. It's old and dodgy, but I can usually "stop the drop" if I turn the "cold" handle hard enough (this used to drive my ex crazy, since it turned into a habit — and her taps didn't need such treatment).

So this morning I'm turning and turning, and the tap is dripping and dripping. I keep turning, and the handle starts to emit a squeaking moan, the restrained cry of tortured metal that's too old and too dignified to scream. Still the tap drips, and still I turn. I turn and turn, and the squeak becomes quite alarming. Somewhere below, in the dense, unfathomable heart of the ancient plumbing, a knocking noise begins. At this, my room-mate[0] rushes into the kitchen. "Careful!" he shouts, "don't faucet!"

Boom-tish.

[0] Note: I haven't a room-mate. I live alone, and every night I cry lonely tears of joy in celebration of my freedom.

» 29.06.2009 @ 1548 | navel | comments (0)

» Falling off the Linux wagon«

So it's after eleven on a Saturday night and I'm dealing with computer problems. I guess after all this time as a project manager I needed to restore my geek cred. Plus we got drunk last night, so I can't afford another Night Out On The Town until next payday, which is nearly a month away.

I don't have a home computer, as such. What I have is an ancient laptop that I use for watching DVDs, set up atop an entertainment unit with a large flatscreen monitor (this makes up for another lack, that of television). I could theoretically use it for 'net surfing (like I am now), but it's a bit of a pain, what with it being attached to an entertainment unit and all.

Basically, my laptop developed a major problem, in that whenever you attempted to access a file, Windows would wipe the file's directory. One of the uses to which I put this laptop is to play music I've bought from iTunes, so you can imagine how pleased I was to see my library culled. I tried to fix the problem, and somehow managed to make my hard disk non-bootable. So I installed a second instance of Windows XP and backed up as much as I could, then abandoned the poor thing for a couple of weeks.

Yesterday a mate gave me a copy of Linux System Rescue CD (while we were drinking; I did well not to lose it!), which I used to wipe my hard disk and start again from scratch with a clean install of Windows. Naturally, my "clean install" (I have lost my original installation discs, but another mate gave me an "enhanced" copy which includes a bunch of useful tools and tweaks) is a little buggy — it includes some setting on the display adaptor which makes any (legally purchased) copy-protected DVDs I try to play think I'm stealing; to watch them, I have to (illegally) decrypt and rip the buggers, which gives me a good little chuckle but is also a right pain in the arse. Less annoyingly (since I don't use it that often), it also does not include any drivers for my laptop's NIC.

So, I hopped back into Linux System Rescue to try to find out some more about my NIC and download some drivers. I've been on it for a while now and, I must say, I miss Linux. I ran it as my main OS for several years on a previous computer, more out of elitism than any real need (though it was nifty for programming projects), but (apart from some UNIX projects at uni, and tooling around on friends' Macs) I've not used anything other than Windows since 2002, and I quite miss running Linux. I'm not enough of a geek to take full advantage of the thing, but it must be said, Linux is fun. It's fun to use the command line. It's fun to play around with Vi. It's fun to test out various Linux equivalents of familiar applications and work out what they do better and worse and what possibilities never even occurred to you while running Windows. I've really missed it. So while I'm downloading RealTek network card drivers, I figured I'd download Linux as well.

Of course, before embarking on a dual-boot Linux project, one must first ask: what should I use? I started my Linux life with Mandrake, back in the day, and hated it with an unholy passion. I found RedHat quite serviceable, but its package handling drove me crazy, and besides, I just wanted to try something new. Ubuntu doesn't appeal, and I've no explanation as to why. After some industrious but aimless clicking, I stumbled across this Linux distro quiz, which recommended openSUSE, Fedora (né RedHat), and Linux Mint. SUSE may have changed in the last ten years, but Back In The Day it had a bit of a scary reputation for a non-techy like Yours Truly, so I'll pass on that one; I'm rejecting Fedora out of hand because I want to try something I've never used before, so: Linux Mint it is. I've also placed my grubby paws on straight Debian, so I've something to fall back on if Linux Mint doesn't work out.

So when that finishes downloading, I can hop back into Windows, try to get network connectivity going, and burn a Linux Mint CD. Because I'm an incorrigible (if incompetent) geek, I'll probably then stay up all night trying to get Linux to work on an ancient laptop. I'll be super-mega-happy excited if I can get wireless networking and my remote control working, too — the latter looks promising. And I'll be one of the happiest men around if I can find some way to get games working (I play MVP Baseball 2005 with a wireless controller from my couch, and pretend I own an Xbox. My final issue is the ability to run iTunes on Linux, but apparently I needn't worry. Cool.

» 21.06.2009 @ 0042 | webby gadgets | comments (1)

» I went on the Internet 20090617«

So, I'm still at the office. There exists no good reason for me to be here still: I simply couldn't get enthused about my work an hour ago, and I can't get enthused now. I've very little work left to do, and if I'd just get it done I could leave very very soon — could have left before seven. These things are easier to bear when you've someone else to blame, but there's some interesting stuff on the Internets these days.

  • How to Build a Universe That Doesn't Fall Apart Two Days Later, a speech by one of my favourite authors of all time, Philip K. Dick, gives us some interesting insights into the way the great man thinks.
  • Jay Heinrichs' How to Teach a Child to Argue arguably gives us some interesting insights into the way Mr Heinrichs thinks, too, but that's a topic I'm not so interested in. The article also provides, however, a jolly good read and an intriguing argument (ahem) for the benefits of raising children as rhetoriticians. The article, and the now-defunct weblog, are interesting enough to make me want to buy his book.

» 17.06.2009 @ 2012 | work webby books navel | comments (1)

» Come play, let's play away«

So here is the film supporting Australia's bid to host the World Cup. Although I enjoyed the cameo from Mr Rudd, the whole thing just seemed a bit ... well ... boring. "Come play" is seriously the best we can do? If you visit the website, it talks about Australia being the world's greatest playground. Well, that's not a bad pitch, but it doesn't seem to come through in the vid at all.

And there's something about the film that just seems to suggest its creators weren't that confident they could rely on the enthusiasm of the average Aussie. I think it's the exaggerated stunts; football, the film seems to argue, cannot possibly be interesting unless you can pull off a triple-backflip-and-half-pike before punting the ball over the shoulder of a quivering model in a bikini. While there's some effort to show off some spectacular Australian locales (particularly those that lie nowhere near any potential match venues), on the whole the film just doesn't manage to get me interested in the game itself, let alone excited about the prospect of Australia hosting it. I don't know the process FIFA use to determine a winning bid, but hopefully it doesn't rely too much on our lacklustre advertisers.

» 16.06.2009 @ 0127 | soccer webby films | comments (6)

» More from the Internet«

I mentioned some cool-looking 'blogs last entry; it seems only right to point out that the awesome Zoe is back in action. Also:

» I went on the Internet ... 20090608«

So it's time to clean out the hyperlink bucket again. Here's some stuff that caught my eye recently, and classified as Awesome:

Tube Bar prank calls
A series of recorded prank phone calls that were the inspiration for Bart Simpson's famous jokes.
Comfort Food: My Life With Lasagna
An entertaining and touching short story from Double X magazine, written by Amy Bloom. I'll have to keep an eye out for her books.
Burned by the Angry Mob
A 'blogger's tale about ... well, a whole lot of stuff, really. But it's very funny, so go read.
Crush Test Dummy
Very funny post about (among other things) the dangers of going without sex, from someone who looks like a very entertaining 'blogger. Someone to keep an eye on ...

In addition, I've come across an interesting-looking 'blog: Back in Skinny Jeans, and its sister Noshtopia, which I suppose are the sort of 'blogs the always-amazing Shauny was talking and thinking about while writing her secret 'blog (and later amazing book) Dietgirl. I wish I'd started reading things like this a long time ago.

» 08.06.2009 @ 2314 | webby weight-loss | comments (0)

» geek out with programming updates«

So we didn't work nearly as effectively as I'd planned today. However, the plan to bash through the week's workload today at least gave me a reason to get out of bed and open up the ol' laptop on a public holiday. So once the workday failed to pan out, I used this magical extra time to do some programming instead. Some of what I've changed affect only the CMS, which means the extra functionality will be of interest only to me unless I decide to clean this baby up and make her into a genuine light-weight alternative weblogging product that anyone can use. Which will probably never happen. All the updates:

  • Fixed annoying bug I'd not noticed before that was preventing all but the latest ten posts from showing.
  • Installed captchas on every entry to guard against spambots. These are special captchas, a project of Carnegie Mellon University, and are a great idea.
  • New CMS functionality — can delete individual comments straight from the web interface, without having to access the database directly.
  • New CMS functionality — can now delete all comments associated with one post, in case of "take off and nuke from orbit" spam situations (I used this repeatedly today).

» 08.06.2009 @ 2258 | work webby navel | comments (0)

» Yee-haa!«

So, inspired by last night's tomfoolery, and a frustrating day of slow testing (yes, I know it's a public holiday, the project team reminded me), I've started working on my CMS for the first time in, oh, two years. Most exciting development: I've finally added the ability to delete spam comments from the web interface. Most annoying development: it turns out that I'm getting hit by dozens of spam comments every day.

It's time to start learning how recaptchas work.

» 08.06.2009 @ 1904 | webby navel | comments (1)

» seeking your forgiveness«

So I've been working incredibly long hours lately, and thus not getting much sleep. Weekends would normally provide a chance for a little bit of relief in this area, but I spent Saturday refereeing football — then went out with bro and some mates to see Terminator Salvation, which was entertaining but didn't impress me much (never trust a director who invents a stupid nickname for himself), followed by an evening of fireworks and pool at the Uni Pub, which impressed me a great deal. There were two outcomes from my Saturday: firstly, I slept all day Sunday and consequently Sunday night at this very laptop, and secondly, we created something beautiful.

In fact, beer and pub pool impressed us so much that, inspired by an unconscionably awesome tweet from the great biorhythmist, we started riffing on bad Goldfinger puns. The results, set lovingly in a handcrafted website possible only thanks to a certain 'blogger's sleeplessness, will be forever recorded at The Goldfinger Pun Treasury.

» 08.06.2009 @ 0653 | work webby films navel | comments (1)