October 2008 Archives

Very short. Very to the point. Done in like less than 15 minutes. Deadlines. Must make deadlines.

Basically I just say Happy Halloween / Happy Election Day to the USA, leaving for a week on a vacation, podcasting break coming in November for 2-4 weeks, missing my grandparents and family and some very short sound clips from "Zombie Killer" by Leslie Hall and Waaaaaaaaall-E.

There's more but I can't be bothered right now. This is about 4.5 MB and a bit under 10 minutes. Skype me, leave me stuff, or don't. I don't care anymore/right now.

Listen or subscribe.

No podcast today.

This is what happens when you dance around naked after I tell you about 20 times to either get in the shower or get dressed. Yeah, I'm a jerk.

I'll try my best to do a podcast episode tomorrow but I can't promise anything. I'll be gone for the next week, so no updates after Wed until next Thursday.

Been lazy. I'll admit that much.

For those who might not be subscribed to my podcast, I posted a short little announcement to tell you Americans to get off your asses and go vote on November 4. No comments are necessary so I didn't make a dedicated comments page here.

I'm not sure if you know or not but voting is mandatory here in Australia. I think it should be the same in the USA. I am expecting a better turnout compared to the previous years though.

I've been up since 5:30 am and I'm still dead-ass tired but I need to get used to waking up early again. Gilbert's pretty bad about sleeping until the afternoon and when he's sleeping that late, so do I (when I don't work). I've been going to sleep super late too.

I am missing the rain like crazy. Sometimes, like back at home, I miss it raining for 2 weeks straight. The grass outside is all brown and crunchy. I don't think it's "legal" to go water the grass because of the drought here.

With this being said, I'm going to crawl out of bed and do something. I'm not 100% sure what it is, but that's what I'm going to do. Something. Not sleep. Just... something.

I had intended for idioPod 47 to be a reflection on time. It's one of those times where I do find a topic to talk about. And that's... odd, isn't it?

What would happen if I could twist and bend time to suit my own needs? Sounds a bit selfish, right? You betcha.

Besides that, I talk about:

• An unintentional, unsolicited plug for Nick Thomas (who has updated his website)
• Mild unhappiness with the new design of idiologic
• Question: What would I do with an extra hour of time every day?
• Question: What would I do with only one month to live?
• Question: What are three things I'd do differently if I could go back in time?
• Question: If I could live in one season for the rest of my life, which would it be?
• Question: What time of the day is my absolute favorite? (You'll be shocked)

The background loop and sounds are from Lisa Lopes's "Breathe" from the album Supernova and the forest sounds that I mixed in with that (because the loop was getting pretty irritating after a while) are well, from the forest. Actually they're from Apple. :)

Length: 27 minutes 38 seconds
Weight: Approx. 12.7 MB

And it's downloadable here. Or alternatively, you can just subscribe to the feed and make your life so much easier.

Have something to say? Then Skype me or hell, leave me a comment here, yeah?

Ok, I forgot the fact that I had a camera half-way through the day. I also didn't get up early enough. I forgot to charge my camera's battery too. Not the best day to do a photo blog. But I didn't want to be a liar again.

Sunday was also a bit uneventful too. :) But anyway:

Sunday is usually cleaning day. So I woke up thinking I was going to clean. Here's a picture of the before:

And here's the after:

Yeah, you see how well that worked out, right? (Yes, it is the same photo!)

My friend and I were supposed to do the beach thing that day and he sent me a message telling me he would be ready around 5:30 or 6:00. A little after, he said his plans were changed. So it would be 2:00 instead. That was fine. The weather was a bit gloomy and cold but a promise is a promise.

I looked outside and saw this:

So I grabbed a coat (and it's a good thing I did) and went to the train station. And I waited for my friend because we were supposed to meet up there.

I sat there and waited for the train. It stopped then left, and my friend my friend wasn't there. I sent him a message and asked where he was. He didn't answer right away. I was like, oh shit, I'm going to freeze to death here. A few minutes later, I got a message and he said he fell asleep on the train. This friend doesn't lie but I was like yeah right. He was actually about 6 stops away. So I jumped on the train and met him there.

We all know how I love to go to the beach so that's where we went:

Yeah, not the prettiest weather. And it was very windy and very cold. We sat on the rocks and talked about things. About his recent breakup and his ex. I was trying to give some feedback. It finally got to the point where we were quiet for about 15 minutes and I said, "Oh sorry, I was listening to the waves. It's so quiet here." We climbed around on the rocks and I'm surprised I didn't fall between them.

After this is when I forgot that I brought my camera. We were absolutely freezing and went to have some food near where I lived. It was Indian food and it was really good. One of the main reasons I bring my camera is to take pictures of the food I eat but I never do. Since the weather was still really crappy, we ate and I headed back home. We'll do it again when it's a bit warmer. (On the train my friend was falling asleep so I could see he was tired anyway.)

So that was my day. Yeah, I told you. Uneventful. I didn't take a picture of my friend either. ;)

Hi folks. I'm still here. I actually didn't mean to put that much of a gap between my entries. I just lost track of time there for a second.

Speaking of time, it will be what my next podcast episode will be about. A lot of what-ifs. A bit of a revisit to idioPod 28: Q's and A's. Just dealing with time and not many questions people have asked me. I was going to call idioPod 47 "Time Won't Give Me Time" because I heard it from a song when I was a small lad. But then I discovered that it was from Culture Club's "Time". And I hate that song like I hated about 90% of what they did. Except "Do You Really Want to Hurt Me" and about 3 seconds of it. So it will be called "No Time For Time". So there's your preview. I'll go to work on that on Monday or Tuesday.

ALSO, tomorrow I'm going to [try to] do another "A Day with Ben". You may remember that I did one half-assed in June. I'll do my damnedest to get another one done. I'll admit that I originally got the idea from Elissa. (I've been following her for years but not in a stalky way.) I definitely don't go into much detail though.

The weekend so far sucks. All I did was go look at a very, very small place then go grocery shopping. I came home and threw some chicken wings and legs on the grill. And now here I am. Not exciting, right? I was supposed to meet a friend today but don't think I will do that. Or was that tomorrow?

I think that's it for now. I'll have to find something to post a picture of before I go to make this entry a little more read-friendly. How about a picture of my backyard? You can gather exactly what kind of person I am by looking at this photo:

Mmmmaybe not. I know it's not exciting but it's one of the most recent ones I've taken. :)

Welcome to the 46th episode of idioPod titled "Computer Crackdown".

This podcast is a podcast about dreams, hopes and the future. OK, possibly not but it talks about some of the things that have been irritating me lately like my long hours in front of the computer, being lazy and other issues. You know my podcast does have some issues, yeah?

I also talk about some other junk:

• Being lazy, being computer-crazy and fixing that little problem
• Bits and pieces of the weekend
• My dogs at Dogster: Andy and Felix
• Still on for Brisbane, my holiday plans... just in early-2009, fears of full-time work
• Nick commented about my diet... what diet? LOL
• Money woes: Paying US bills with Australian dollars (which is weak now)
• My bearish appearance and my horrible dietary habits, sugar galore (got me some A&W Root Beer- which IS a big thing!)
• My style is so cramped... (my bedroom's style)
• Thanks for the comments, well wishes, emails and stuff like that. My podcast download statistics are pretty unbelievable.
• Mmmm, my orange chicken rocks. American Chinese food is good stuff.
• Have something to say? Let me know!

Are you too shy to talk to me in person? Perhaps you don't have thousands of dollars to blow on travelling across the world? Then click this lovely Skype button:

Want to subscribe to the feed, then just go here. If you want to just listen to idioPod 46 here, right-click (Mac users with a 1 button mouse: Command-Click) here.

It makes my heart glow when I see things like this in the news:

Officer 'attacked with sex toy'

Yeah, it's full of great family fun.

That's all I got today. Enjoy.

After my last "thing" about Opera, I thought that I'd write something "real" before I head to bed. I have a busy day ahead tomorrow so I was thinking that I'd sit here for not and... yeah, so here I am.

Today I downloaded Trace for my iPod Touch and have played the hell out of it. It reminds me of Kirby's Canvas Curse but made with pictures that I draw on my iPod when I'm bored. Still, one of the most amusing iPod/iPhone applications I've ever played with. (It's a free download. You can grab it here.)

I also grabbed Aqua Forest which is a free download right now. (I can't promise it will be when you make it there.) I kept making clogged drains and drawing in poop logs. Ah, how much fun is that. It's a physics simulator thing that has a lot to do with water and steam and stuff. And some, uh, white globby stuff which I'm not going to mention what I think THAT is. But it's a bit fun if you ask me. It's like Enigmo, but if you ask me, it's easier and there's no point to it. So it's right up my alley. You can grab that one here.

Anyway, they were cool highlights for the day.

The weekend is approaching and I'm going to take this Friday night easy. I'm just going to go to sleep early, wake up early and go to the mountains to look at a house. It will be a bit weird living about an hour away from the city at first, but I don't think he'll buy it.

So yeah, that's it. It's just been me and my iPod Touch and my horrible temper. I sorta slammed down my Macbook today. One of the things I hate is when people are being Sir Points-Out-The-Obvious-alot. And like a broken record. Totally irriattes me. Some people just don't know when to shut the hell up. Apparently I don't work enough. I guess in Chinese culture, the more hours you work the better person you are... which I so don't believe in. Maybe that's why I probably won't retire until I'm like 84. ;)

Anyway, goodnight.

The good people at Opera have released an update to their web browser. And uh, that's awesome. You might be asking yourself why that's so awesome and why I have even mentioned it here.

Did you know that I extensively test my website with Opera? Well I do, and I always have. I know that if it looks OK (or acceptable) in Opera, I know that it will most likely look good in other browsers.

They've added some cool stuff too like Opera Link (which lets you synchronize custom search engines and typed history), Feed Preview (which lets you see it in a clean and efficient layout formatted for your window size when you click the feed button), Speed Improvements, and a few other things. They've created an ad for the launch which I like:

I have to admit that it's a lot better than the crap Microsoft is churning out lately. Even those stale "I'm a Mac" commercials... but anyway... download it if you want. I like it. And I'm honestly not just saying all of this because I'm getting something out of it. I think Opera is software that's treated like a red-headed stepchild.

Download Opera 9.6

OK, so I unintentionally lied. I actually did post this today. So here you go:

So I was a bit mellow when I did this podcast. I spent a lot of time detailing my weekend that got off to an absolute crappy start. But the good news is that I started feeling better after that, thanks to one of the people who I least expected it from. And that is my partner. Yeah, so sweet of me to say that. But he did make everything OK. I'm glad that he was around.

Including that, I talk about:

• Seriously aggravated over the "Nag-a-Thon" over the weekend
• The rest of my weekend really didn't suck that much
• Will I be moving, again? Possibly to a beach! (or mountains)
• My own personal finance crisis needs resolved
• I think my best friend in Texas, Brandi, is super-mega pissed at me
• Re-evaluating the specialness of my relationship
• Mental health talk (mine)
• New Year's Resolutions... again, revisited
• VP Debate: I saw it... Palin's hot, but dumb as a sack of door knobs & gay marriage in the USA and Australia
• Only 1 podcast a week for a while and contemplating a one-month break soon from podcasting

Anyway... this thing is about 10.4 MB and is 22 minutes and 40 seconds long. You can listen to it here or happily subscribe to it here.

I had planned to post idioPod 45 this morning but totally forgot to upload it. I have to leave in a little bit so I'll most likely post it tomorrow. That's all I can say for now.

Oh, and it's titled "A Sorta Mellowed Out Mood".

I'm basically playing tech support today for my friends today who either...

a) Aren't answering their phones, or
b) Don't have a phone that works to answer.

It's amazing that if something has an Apple logo on it, I must be able to fix it. Oh yeah, and PCs that are like Paris Hilton they have so many viruses and STDs. It's funny, I kind of forgot HOW to remove viruses from PCs and I've had to explain that I am a Mac person now and all I'll probably do is reformat the hard drive and/or dig out the recovery disks. I did make the mistake that I owned that computer before (and sold it a few months later to Brandi).

I don't really feel like getting up to go, but oh well. I am sitting around waiting for my other friend to send me a text message because I sort of made conflicting plans. And if I don't go to my OTHER friend's place to fix his electronic equipment, I'm missing out on some chicken tinola. So... yeah, I'm in a pretty tough spot.

So with that said, I'm off. Stay tuned tomorrow for the later than usual 45.

UPDATE: I actually did post the new iP. So there you are.

Sunday night and I'm running one hour behind. Though it's 10 pm now I'm still working like it's 9 pm. But I guess that's fine. I'm pretty tired at the moment and will head to bed soon.

The weekend went OK I guess though I spent half of Saturday being pissed off and totally embarrassed and like shit. I guess there are some things you don't really need to be told. Especially when you know they're true. That is one of the things that I hate. When someone keeps pointing out the obvious stuff, like I don't know, all your flaws.

Nah, not talking about my partner this time. I'm shocked about that but he WAS the one that made me feel better. And I am never prepared for that. But I have to say that it was pretty nice. So maybe I need to give him a little more credit for being supportive than I give him and not so hell-bent on exposing every single flaw that seems to spout out of me.

On Saturday, I actually had a good day after I left my friend's house. I was a bit saddened and upset that someone had the nerve to tell me what they thought in front of my face. But still, I'll be OK with that after a while. Now I just have to figure out how to "fix" that problem...

Oh yeah, Saturday. I went shopping and I'm looking for a new phone. I don't think I'll get an iPhone though. I just don't really see the point. I'm wanting a LG Viewty or any phone with a GPS thing. The good news with my iPod Touch is that it made me WANT a phone that is touch screen. But I don't see the point of having both. So far, it seems like the best deal is with my current provider. Their pre-paid plans are going to shit, so, yeah. That's something to look at.

Sunday, or today, I went to Mount Dandenong (which are a bunch of mountains, rain forests and stuff) and just hung around there. I wanted to tackle the 1000 Steps again but by the time I got there, it was like 4 or 5 pm. I came home and sorta sat around and just chilled the hell out for a while. I wanted to go to the beach but after a while I just forgot about it.

So, I'm still a bit upset but oh well. I have to figure myself out by the time I have to take that damned vacation. I am thinking of just writing it off as a loss and not going. Honestly.

I have a lot of things to do this week. My next podcast will be this week and I really need to review my life in detail. I need to get my shit together and get my priorities down. I think some shit is going to hit the fan somewhere, and it will be a splattery mess.

Talk with you guys later.

In the tradition of not lying to you, there really isn't a podcast episode today! That and I pretty much knew that there just isn't much to say right now. Between now and I guess a week ago, there really isn't much to say. And honestly, I have no idea why I'm here typing this. I really don't.

Oh, and if you haven't seen the beta of Idiologic yet, it would be a good time to go see it. I have most of the color coding done so that it does change colors depending on what day it is. I'm really hoping to have it done by the time idioPod 50 comes along. (Remember, I'm only prepared to go up to 59... so I need to work on that.)

What I can tell you is that I have sorted out what day goes to what color. And we have to remember that it is going by the day HERE in Australia (or wherever I might be):

Sunday: Blue
Monday: Red
Tuesday: Green
Wednesday: Orange
Thursday: Yellow
Friday: Purple
Saturday: Brown (as of right now)

So I thought I'd share that with you.

It really does feel like a slow news day, you know? But I will update you on some personal things. My finances are getting uncontrollable. That's mostly from me taking a vacation that I really, really shouldn't be taking. I am running out of money in the USA like crazy and have to keep dumping money from my PayPal account to cover my credit card bills. I also cancelled my World of Warcraft account because of it. This is the most debt I've been in with credit cards. I absolutely hate it. I went from having it paid off to almost to its limit in a few months. So that is my stress right now...

The weekend is here and I'm outta here. I need to do the work thing and just chill the fuck out for the next few days.

Hi folks. I honestly can't remember the last time I wrote anything here. It says the 26th is the last time I really wrote anything really new so I thought I'd say a few things about what's going on with me and my website and just general stuff. First, I'd like to say:

There will be no podcast episode made later this week. You know, unless I'm abducted by aliens or something.

Secondly, if you haven't visited my website in progress yet, you should. I've gotten a little bit of feedback on it so far and most of it has been about the colors. I decided that I'm going to make 7 versions of it. Uh, no, not like making 7 website. I am just going to give the same website 7 different looks because it takes no time at all.

Every day of the week, there will be a color theme. The red, blue and green ones are already working. And this is where it gets interesting, really.

Every color represents a mood of mine. And I thought about what mood I wanted to associate with each day. I don't mean "anger" or "stress" or anything. I guess you'll have to see. There will be a little story behind each one. And for those who aren't daring enough to go see the preview, I bring you these snapshots:

You won't see all three versions there. You'll see one that corresponds with what day it is here so if it's Sunday, let's say, then it will have the blue theme. The red Twitter thing is going away, by the way. I absolutely hate it. There's a workaround, but I'm going to skip it.

I insist that you visit it. The webcam is up and I have been uploading new pictures for the webcam. So visit it, and let me know what you like or don't like about it. More colors are coming soon.