by simon baird

Tuesday, December 30, 2008

A message from Rolandoland...




ATTEN-SHUN!
Royal Spikey Commando reporting. We are up to our spikes in trouble here saving these Rolandos! Now we are getting reports of stranded Rolandos in the explosive reaches of Fire Canyon!

We will need to employ special tactics to save these poor fellows. The mighty Finger helping us pass on this note has saved 24 Rolandos so far, but victory is not certain. Will you not join our cause as well and help lead the Rolandos to victory?

This Rolandogram is brought to you by ROLANDO, the platform gaming experience created exclusively for iPhone and iPod touch.

http://appstore.ngmoco.com/rolando

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

A short list of iPhone games worth installing

Jelly car
Trace
Dizzy bee free
Virtual pool lite
Sol free (cards)
Pacman lite
Darts
Moonlight lite (mahjong)
Labyrinth LE
Mazefinger

Not free:
Topple
Tower defence

Thursday, December 11, 2008

The thing about movie channels...

It's random discoveries that make it worthwhile, movies you'd never
rent or seek out, or even know existed. Eg this is on now:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083067/
Unfortunately Shaun wants to watch Daddy Day Care.

i love my toki doki lock screen theme

Tuesday, December 09, 2008

last.fm top of 08

don't worry about the tracks chart, it's just all Coldplay with a few MGMT.

http://www.last.fm/bestof/2008

Friday, December 05, 2008

Wiki Linking Game

Also known as Wiki Racing. I learned about this from Greg. The rules of Wiki Linking are as follows:
  • Two topics are agreed upon, a start topic and and end topic. Each topic should be something that you'd expect to have a Wikipedia entry.
  • Contestants begin at the Wikipedia page of the start topic and must finish on the wikipedia page of the end topic according to the following:
    • Only left click and back button are allowed
    • Only follow links ending in wikipedia.org (no references or external links)
    • No keyboard, no copy/paste or other tricks and no searching within the page either
  • To explain a bit better, each contestant has their own computer. Prior to the start they get their browsers on the start page. Someone calls out "GO!" and the race begins. Whoever gets to the end page first is the winner.
The winner can pick the next target. And optionally the end target could be used as the starting point for the next round. Or whatever. Make up your own rules and variations.

It's fun and educational! Optionally add alcohol and music according to your preferences.

When you get the target page first call out "bingo", or "in your face, suckers, i WIN!!" or something similar and brag by showing everyone your history in the history drop down and how many steps there were.

Optionally record particularly successful rounds on your blog along with the time taken. Losing players should also show their browser history for general ridicule. Players with a broad general knowledge will be successful.

To give you some idea, here is an example round
Start: Donald_Bradman
Finish: Needle_nose_pliers

A winning player might have done it this way:
Donald_Bradman
Royal_Australian_Mint
Engravers
Steel
Tool
Pliers
Needle-nose_pliers

That was in fact a real game by Glenn who won on his debut in about three minutes.

A harder one (though you should be able to make up your own by now):
Thom_Yorke to Hibiscus

Update I reworded a little above to explain it better.

barbie bitch slaps bratz dolls

http://money.cnn.com/2008/12/04/news/companies/bratz_dolls.ap/index.htm?postversion=2008120406

Monday, December 01, 2008

Thursday, November 27, 2008

a conversation

me: ...big storm... black sky... flooded building...

s: yeah, that's really cute. look, i don't know if you've heard about the storms down here... let's see.. any roofs ripped off? giant gum trees snapped like twigs? widow makers, we call them nowadays. no? what about cars... any cars washed down river? no? what about hail... golf ball, cricket ball or rockmelon...? no hail you say? tsk. so a little bit of rain was there? did you hear some thunder? aw, how special...

me: lolz

coincidence

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2008/11/26/memoriam/
http://www.basicinstructions.net/2008/11/how-to-express-condolences.html

(i only read three comic strips. today two of them are about dead cats...)

i just thought, perhaps you don't know about banksy...

http://banksy.co.uk/outdoors/horizontal_1.htm

Mogwai in March

http://premier.ticketek.com.au/shows/show.aspx?sh=MOGWAI09

Wednesday, November 26, 2008

firefly

i've been watching firefly. finally. last night i watched 'out of fuel' with evan, the one with the flashbacks. loved. it. i was enjoying the series up until now but this episode was a level above. now i can see the great crime it was to cancel that show. and the other thing is that tv shows usually get good in the second or third season, where the characters start becoming more three dimensional and the writer/s start to get comfortable enough to push things a bit. oh well.

(where is shepherd in the above btw?)

look ma...

hands free on iphone with music playing. when a call comes in the music gently fades out and the ring tone fades it. i squeeze the clicker near my chin and talk. after the call the music fades back in. this works best when listening to in rainbows.

also i have direct from iphone last.fm scrobbling working again. it's not the same one i used to have. it's a more basic one that does scrobbling only. called scrobble. find it in cydia. i guess i will write an iphone review and app recomendation post some day. in short though, i still feel kinda the same as i did on 10 jan 2007.

Tuesday, November 25, 2008

movember

...is drawing to a close. and not a moment too soon. looking forward to a shave. if you're wondering, i currently look pretty much exactly like this guy. howard moon.

um...


if nothing else i hope this blog is an honest blog. and because of that i have to come clean about the joanna newsom link in a previous post. the correct and honest title should have been "joanna shows a little more awkward cleavage that she intended to". by way of an apology here are some more savoury pics of our enchantress.

feist with angel wings (and colbert)

will stephen get his christmas wish? will elvis survive the bear attack? can leslie be any cuter?

if you liked that then how about this stocking stuffer

Monday, November 24, 2008

joanna newsom at fashion party

link

on saturday

A week ago I gave the guy at Pet Sounds about 200 cds and about 30 records. I want him to buy them. He said he'd have a look at them and give me his price. He told me in general he pays between $1 and $5 for cds but is selective about what he will buy. No problem I said. Today I called him.

Me: Hello, I'm the guy who gave you those boxes of cds last weekend. How's it going with those?

Guy: Ah look I can't say at the moment.

Me: Right, okay. Have you been too busy to look at them? Shall I call back in a couple more days?

Guy: No, I've looked at them.

Me: Well? How much then?

Guy: Well you know how it is in retail, there are ups and downs. Not many people are spending money. The economy and all that. Sometimes things just aren't moving. Other times... [blah blah... more irrelevant rambling..]

Me: Okay, sure, but given the present situation vis a vis the current world as it stands at this fucking point in time and in particular as it pertains to you and your second hand music retail business*, what is your price for my cds?

Guy: I dunno I'll have to take a look at them for you.

Me: ... [deep breath] ... Okay then. That would be super.


Is this guy planning to screw me? He seemed trustworthy, but it's been said I am a poor judge of such things.

* possibly not my exact words...

for cat people

http://www.basicinstructions.net/2008/11/how-to-modify-your-pet-behavior.html

Friday, November 21, 2008

a flock of festive flurries

from left: leopard, gutsy gibbon (dbl), vista (dbl)

Merry Xmas y'all!

Monty Python on YouTube

http://au.youtube.com/user/MontyPython

(thanks Rob)

For 3 years you YouTubers have been ripping us off, taking tens of thousands of our videos and putting them on YouTube. Now the tables are turned. It's time for us to take matters into our own hands.

We know who you are, we know where you live and we could come after you in ways too horrible to tell. But being the extraordinarily nice chaps we are, we've figured a better way to get our own back: We've launched our own Monty Python channel on YouTube.

No more of those crap quality videos you've been posting. We're giving you the real thing - HQ videos delivered straight from our vault.

What's more, we're taking our most viewed clips and uploading brand new HQ versions. And what's even more, we're letting you see absolutely everything for free. So there!

But we want something in return.

None of your driveling, mindless comments. Instead, we want you to click on the links, buy our movies & TV shows and soften our pain and disgust at being ripped off all these years.

Harry Partch

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=P8NIpPhXpfQ

"some thirty five years ago i began experimenting with musical scales different from the piano scale. and for theoretical and practical instrument building purposes i determined on a fourty three tone to the octave scale. here is the scale on my chromelodian, an adapted reed organ"

"the diamond marimba has thirty six blocks placed in diagonal rows so that one stroke of a mallet will play either triads, or full chords. right hand strokes are major, while left hand strokes are minor."

Thursday, November 20, 2008

ten years of penny arcade

http://www.penny-arcade.com/2008/11/19/ten-years/

I didn't believe it at first but... there it is...
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/1998/11/18/

Some recent highlights:

jessie's girl:
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2008/10/24/

trick or treating:
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2008/10/15/

mega man 9:
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2008/10/1/

seinfeld/gates:
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2008/9/15/

wow:
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2008/9/12/

baby sitting:
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2008/8/4/

happy birthday freya

..for yesterday

and welcome to the universe. it's a pretty cool place to be.
and also happy birthday scott for today. sorry, no video for you. :) you got your present a day early i guess.

(watch here to remove annoying youtube logo...)

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Monday, November 17, 2008

lost in translation

A very good joke, praise!

from Many aspects of life by zhiming

Sister priest on board the vehicle, the priest on his way up the handle in white thigh nuns, Sisters of the smiling priest said: Do you remember the Bible said that the section 129 is? Blush Father of the open hand. Father hurried home to open the Bible 129, see reading: "in-depth that you will no longer be a great happiness!" Claims that the priest: God, ah! Renna killed who are not good business! "

http://interestone.blogspot.com/2007/12/blog-post.html


Ps, Google Reader now has "Translate to my language" as an option for feeds. It's ace.


http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2008/11/translate-feeds-in-google-reader.html

blowin' in the wind - first ever performance

"it ain't a protest song or anything like that 'cause i don't write protest songs. i try to make em, i mean, i'm just writing it as something sorta, that's something to be said for somebody, by somebody"

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=mAlQrgmBqIk

Friday, November 14, 2008

Thursday, November 13, 2008

awesome orb spiders photo by stephen fry

see here



additional bonus spiders:

one i met in mt tamborine, see here, scroll down



eating a bird

<strong>Yum: </strong> A huge spider devours a bird in Atherton, near Cairns.

giant one in japan (scroll down a bit). (i like this photo because of the girls spidery legs)



its little sister at tate modern



this post brought to you by the word "procrastination"

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

flying machine

john likes flying. he was very excited about this:



you can buy one in a kit for $60,000 US

it has four engines and no tail which means its stability depends on the counter rotation of its two props.

we all laughed and called it the spinning aerial suicide device and so on.

john laughed too but you could tell that he was a little sad that we were making fun of it.

http://www.acecraftusa.com/

http://au.youtube.com/results?search_query=GEN+H-4

i wish that some day john will get his dream flying machine and zip around the clouds with a happy face and no one laughing.