Steve Irwin is dead

He was killed in a freak stingray accident while filming a documentary near Cairns. A stingray's tail spine stabbed him in the heart and killed him. OMG!!

Milly was telling me literally last night about how totally awesome he was on the Frank Skinner show when Frank tried to set him up to look stupid over his baby/croc incident. It went a little like this:

Frank: So croc's are quite dangerous unpredictable right? [Shows video of croc eating one of Steve's cameras off a pole]
Steve: Oh absolutely yeah, crikey mate!! Never trust a croc for a second!!!
Frank: So what are you doing here? [Show's baby dangling video]
Steve: Oh yeah jeez, crikey, I got into more trouble than Michael Jackson over that!!!
Crowd: [Huge laugh].
Frank: [Unable to suppress grin].

Frank's not an easy guy to impress but by the end he was totally won over by Steve and they parted with affectionate back slaps, etc. Something like that anyway.

Steve, the world is a little less bright without you in it. Condolances to his wife, children, family and friends.

Lisa Mitchell

She is good. Probably shouldn't be on Australian Idol though. I can't see it being good for her career, especially if she wins.

Freaky Albert Einstein robot video

I've never seen a humanoid face look this real. The future is coming fast. And this is nearly 12 months old.

Op shop scores

Here's what I got this morning... Diesel Jeans (fit perfectly, $12), Country Road pants (ditto, $9), Abercrombie and Fitch shirt (NEVER BEEN WORN, $9), a few other shirts ($3 or $6). Click photo for a closer look. The book is organ music including Blur (Country House), Pulp (Common People), Bon Jovi, Oasis. Hang on.. It's this. Now I'm not sure what I was thinking with the stripey one with the zipper. My judgement may have been clouded by an overdose of caffeine.

See here for previous scores.

Interesting article about YouTube phenomenon Lonelygirl15

I just read this article about YouTube video blogger "Lonelygirl15". Is she real or fake? I haven't seen any of her videos but either way it seems cool. Via stereogum.

Wow

We live in a world where you can buy this. At Costco...

(Via Neatorama).

I Killed The Prom Queen coming to Townsville

All ages gig, this Saturday, 26 of August and the Aitkenvale PCYC. Not really my musical cup of tea but they're pretty hot right now I think. I think I have to go. It will be weird since that's where I go to circuit class.

Update
The poster was gone later that morning. I think some screamo* fan has it in their bedroom.



<sup>* i think...? or maybe they are metalcore. or post-hardcore.

Update
okay, it's metalcore. See here...</sup>

Spam poetry

Weird huh. Could it be that the supreme beings are sending me messages through spam emails? What if I miss something important? OMG!!! Lycurgus???

Well, as I say, I was a little dazed when I came up and she wasstriking about and screaming so. We went out for a row after we got there. And then she began to cry, and I decided I couldnt talk to herany more about it there. Dont be so much of a moral and mentalcoward. Newcombs build to show what would follow in the caseof a girl of the size and weight of Miss Alden? Ever hear of people being resuscitated after they have apparentlydrowned? Well, you left her to wait until she had to threaten you becauseof her own terror and misery. I told you that afterwards I realized thatthere was nothing else to do. But you wanted to get rid of her just the same, didnt you? Why, Miss X and my life in Lycurgus, and what wed be up againstin case we did go away this way. Besides I was afraid if I went near her . And then I decided that if I wanted to save myself Ihad better swim ashore. But with that particular incident the court was adjourned for thisday. How was it that you couldget so calm and calculating the moment you set your foot on land? As far as from here to this end of thejury box or that end, or half way, or what? I dont know whether I did or not, replied Clyde, catching aglance from Jephson. Themoment she was dead to run away to that other girl. Well, then I thought I might run away, but I didnt like to thinkabout that very much. Besides, it had my camera withthe tripod outside. It seems to me that any one might ask that. And a perfectly good boat, strong enough to hold three or four up,within fifteen or twenty feet! You mean your lawyers have explained it foryou! And asthey did so Clyde chilled and stared. You received one on an average of every two days, didnt you? I wasnt exactly gay, I guess,but I thought it would be all right whichever way things went. Her bag was packed full ofthings, but there was room in mine. Well, I had thought about her too, but I thought she was betteroff and could stand it easier. About as far from here tothat end, I guess, he lied, stretching the distance by at leasteight feet. About asfar as from here to that railing beyond your table, I guess. Yet cautiously replying,I wouldnt be able to say.

Get Dancin'

Thanks to an anonymous Disco Tex and his Sex-o-lettes fan for this treat. As he says, ignore the video and Get Dancin'!!!!! Turn it up loud. :)

motorbikes

This morning I went for a lesson on one of these: It's called a Honda 400cc something-or-other. My one was blue. The instructor was very good. I basically rode around in circles in a fenced off area of carpark for about an hour in first and second gear. For variety I threw in some stopping and starting. I managed not to drop the bike or cause any major catastrophy. At one point I had to dodge a forklift that was cutting across my track. I don't think that was supposed to be part of the lesson though. My instructor has one of these: It's called a Triumph Rocket III and is the biggest and most powerful motorcycle ever produced. It has a 2.3 litre engine! I wonder if I can ride that for my next lesson. Probably not.

Interstella

I added a post about some of our gigs over on the web site. You can read it here if you like. Photos coming soon.

The groundskeepers at Rowe's Bay are real turkeys

I played the par 3 course. I scored two fours and a three right here (yeah baby) plus quite a few fine 7s and 8s. Kept the same ball for the entire nine holes. This bush turkey was raking leaves near the carpark. It was very methodical thorough and looked like it had been working for a while. I don't know why it was doing that. Perhaps it was hiding some incriminating evidence.

CoolClock

I made this totally sweet javascript analog clock. Geeky types like me can design their own clock just by editing a little bit of javascript. Works best in FireFox. To use in your blogspot blog you can add this to your template in the <head> section:

<!--[if IE]> <script type="text/javascript" src="http://simonbaird.com/coolclock/excanvas.js"></script> <![endif]-->
<script src="http://simonbaird.com/coolclock/coolclock.js" type="text/javascript"></script>

Then do something like this to make a clock:

<canvas id="c2" class="CoolClock:chunkySwiss:65"></canvas>

Also available as a TiddlyWiki plugin. For more information go to CoolClock.

Mark Ryden

I learned about him from tonight's episode of Miami Ink. Check out his art, it's cool. If you like it then you can buy his coffee table book for just US$495.

cuteness

Certain other bloggers have recently posted photos of themselves or indeed their pets, perhaps implying that themselves or their pets are in fact cute. That may be so but as everyone knows the true measure of cuteness is fluffiness. Take for instance Dazey. Now she is cute. But paradoxically she's also sassy. I try not to let it show but I do have a favourite. Don't tell Zooey (and I do love her too) but if the house was burning I'd rescue Dazey first.

random youtubing: caterpillar with fur and giant robot suit

It's a caterpillar! It's got fur! A bug you can cuddle! It's so cool! It could be your pet. Plus look at it's legs. It walks exactly like Catbus! OMG it's a baby Catbus!! And here is some stoner guy's thoughts on the furry bug and another bug he once found. Brilliant. (I love YouTube...)

Also check out the ultimate nerd toy. I like his guns and his target practice setup.

Update: That damn cute mini catbus is totally poisonous! I'm serious:

... venomous spines ... extremely painful reactions... numbness, tingling, rashes and blisters, ... chest pain and anaphylaxis.

Okay, no cuddling the mini catbus.

Miami Ink

This is my new favourite show. It's on one of the Discovery channels. It's a "reality" show about a tattoo shop in Miami. Nothing much happens except people come in and get tattoos. Once they went fishing. The guy on the right is the coolest. Also I like Yoji the apprentice. If you have pay tv then check it out.

Aw... my first real inject

It's a special moment for any ruby programmer when they create their very first real inject. I don't mean in some sample code but in a real live program. It just happened to me and I'm very proud. :) Here it is:

#!/usr/bin/ruby

require 'uri'
require 'net/http'

LINE_MATCH       = /\/\/DATA\|\|\|/
FIELD_DELIM      = /\|\|\|/
NAME_VALUE_DELIM = /:/

url = 'http://www.jcu.edu.au/app/timetable/?subjectslist=CP1010&campus=Townsville&sem=2&doit=yes'

data = Net::HTTP.get(URI.parse(url)).to_a.grep(LINE_MATCH).map do |line|
  line.strip!.sub!(LINE_MATCH,'').split(FIELD_DELIM).inject({}) do |hash,pair|
    name,val = pair.split(NAME_VALUE_DELIM)
    hash.merge(name.to_sym => val)
  end
end

p data

I'm writing a hack to scrape timetable data from an existing web app and convert it to iCalendar format. I have the ruby iCalendar gem so I think I'm almost done. ...happy dance...

gpokr.com

Speaking of poker, this is cool. More info here.

Poker Night 3

The night went on later than previous poker nights. The third game finished about 2am. First game was won by me (the best one to win since it had the most players), second by my brother Nathan, (visiting from Sydney), third by my brother Daniel. Some may claim there was some family collusion going on. To this I point out that Nathan knocked me out in the second game (pair of kings vs pair of queens) and I knocked him out in the third (flukey straight on the river vs two pair). Despite some email sledging neither previous winner Michelle or Alex C made it to the winners circle, though Alex came second twice (second wins your entry fee back) and took home two bags of salty plums, so he wasn't too far out of pocket. Michelle had some bad luck when she bet hard on a four card "straight". Oops! Derek picked up a second place against Nathan, and Alex S was chip leader for a while in the final three on the last game, but she couldn't close the deal. Losers enjoyed a game of (erotic) 31 Bustop. We now know the rules governing when you can re-raise and also are getting a bit better at handling side pot confusion. So all-in-all a good time was had by all and blah blah etc. Next poker night some time in September maybe.

Hail Google Overlords

I just tried Gmail Mobile. I read some email and sent a message from my phone. It's pretty cool. The page says you can view attachments like pdfs, images and word docs on your phone. Wow. I wonder if I can send a photo as an attachment.

Update:
No sending attachments. I tried viewing pdf and word doc. Works nicely.

zune, regina spektor

Microsoft is going to launch an iPod competitor. It's called Zune. More here. But I really just wanted to show you the little cartoon and music here. The sweet tune caught my attention. It is Regina Spektor. Conan likes her. So does Julian Casablancas, so she must be good. Hang on a sec... Try this. Note to self, still haven't found any Françoiz Breut. She doesn't exist on iTunes, YouTube or my usual torrent fetchers. Might have to (gasp) purchase a cd...

The wonderful expressivity of why the lucky stiff

Oh rapture! Oh, delicious zesty snacks! Oh, steamed uncles in a cabbage display! OH, LAMB MEDALLIONS!

If you like that try some more of why's prose.

Oracle PL/SQL function to split strings into tokens

I was trying to find how to split or tokenise (tokenize) a string in Oracle SQL. Technically you can do it directly with just instr and substr but your statement becomes very long and hard to read, mainly because you can't reuse the result of an instr. I found this which was interesting but not what I needed, so I wrote my own function to do the job. I'll post it here in the hope that it will be useful to someone.

create or replace function get_token(
   the_list  varchar2,
   the_index number,
   delim     varchar2 := ','
)
   return    varchar2
is
   start_pos number;
   end_pos   number;
begin
   if the_index = 1 then
       start_pos := 1;
   else
       start_pos := instr(the_list, delim, 1, the_index - 1);
       if start_pos = 0 then
           return null;
       else
           start_pos := start_pos + length(delim);
       end if;
   end if;

   end_pos := instr(the_list, delim, start_pos, 1);

   if end_pos = 0 then
       return substr(the_list, start_pos);
   else
       return substr(the_list, start_pos, end_pos - start_pos);
   end if;

end get_token;
/

Example usage:

select
   get_token('foo,bar,baz',1), -- 'foo'
   get_token('foo,bar,baz',3), -- 'baz'
   --
   get_token('a,,b',2),        -- '' (null)
   get_token('a,,b',3),        -- 'b'
   --
   get_token('a|b|c',2,'|'),   -- 'b'
   get_token('a|b|c',4,'|')    -- '' (null)
from
   dual
/

Notes

• Remember that the index starts at one not zero just like strings in PL/SQL.
• Empty tokens are counted. You get null if you ask for an empty token.
• You also get null if you ask for an index greater than the number of tokens.
• The delimiter defaults to a comma but you can specify any delimiter. A delimiter of more than one char should work also.

Update 22/8/12

When I wrote this I didn't know about regexp_substr. (Or maybe the version of Oracle I was using didn't have it). You can do this much easier using the regexp_substr method. Have a look at the regexp_substr docs or see some examples in the comments below. For example:

regexp_substr('abc_def_ghi','[^_]+',1,3);

==> ghi.

would you take $1000 a month to do what you were already doing?

Netscape is reportedly offering money to lure successful digg posters over to post at the new netscape.com a digg rip-off. There are some interesting comments on the article. Would you take the money? I would...

theory on movies

I have a theory that a movie based on a play has a higher chance of being good. Plays have to work without action scenes. The dialogue must be sound and snappy otherwise the play will bomb. This is obviously not the case for movies, eg [insert example bad movie here]. Here is a list of movies that helped me form my theory:

• Hurly Burly
• Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead
• SubUrbia

I have another theory that states that any movie with Parker Posey in it has to be good, at least when Parker is in a scene. (See third example above). This leads me to believe that Superman might be worth seeing. It hits one out of two of my good movie indicators.

I saw Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest. It was pretty good. The action scenes have taken a leap towards the completely ridiculous but it didn't bother me like it did in Charlies Angels II. And the voodoo lady... wow! How is it possible that a woman with back teeth and red eyes could be so incredibly beautiful? I don't know but the voodoo lady was worth the price of admission for me. My one gripe: Davy Jones had too many tentacles. Surely he would have had just eight.

Animated music thing

• Kinda cool. Bouncing balls playing fantasy instruments.
• This one is a Japanese learn-to-speak-English program dealing with being mugged. Very, very weird.

RIP Syd Barrett

• obituary
• stereogum
• fluxblog
• bike.mp3
• octopus.mp3
• terrapin.mp3

Thom Yorke - new song live

If you're like me and the sound of Thom holding any tuneful vowel sound longer than 4 seconds has a reasonable chance of inducing involuntary goosebumps no matter how unlistenable the song then click here to see Thom live and accoustic on the Henry Rollins internet TV show. (Did that sentence need commas?) And it's almost listenable. Apparently he has a new solo album coming out soon. Via Stereogum

Jack Black's Talent

I'm a huge fan of Jack Black and Tenacious D. School of Rock is one my favourite movies. Let alone his comedic talent, his musical talent truly would slay demons. Hope you enjoy this as much as I did. I'm sure I hummed this tune for days after just one listen. It's his song about King Kong from his spot on SNL (a show that, thanks to the miracle of bit-torrent, I no longer have to watch via three year old repeats on Arena TV). Brought to you by some guy on youtube.

Disco Tex and his Sex-o-lettes

There's a Pet Shop Boys song on their 1996 album, Bilingual, that goes "It's the greatest show with the best effects since Disco Tex and the Sex-o-lettes". Well I never really knew that Disco Tex and the Sex-o-lettes were real, until Saturday when I found this: I don't have a record player so I can't tell you what they sound like. But judging by the cover and the Pet Shop Boys lyric it's going to be pretty special. Probably better live though. I don't generally dig through op-shop records. This one was on the top. So it's quite lucky that you're getting to see it. :) Check out the Amazon Reviews.

Sure-fire get rich scheme #127

It seems like Christian rock bands don't have to be that good to sell records. I know this since a certain now-closed Salvation Army store in my neighborhood used to tune regularly to Live FM. I would listen carefully while browsing the shirt rack on a Saturday morning. Live FM will play below average quality music if it mentions loving Jesus. Hollywood is not unfamilar with the Christian dollar. For example Narnia - I would suggest (without any evidence mind you) that the marketing of that movie involved strategically engaging the backing of influential Christian groups and spokespersons. And that Mel Gison movie about torturing Jesus made $611 million. I wonder how many people went because their pastor/TV evangelist recommended it? (Once again speculation. For quality, researched articles please try another blog.. ;). Anyway my get rich scheme is to make Christian video games. I only wish I'd thought of it first. These guys are going to be very rich! Daniel is trying to download the free demo. Stay tuned for a mini-review. Via The Raw Feed.

one last thing

Go socceroos. I'm recording the 1am game. I figure I can watch it at 7am and still make it to work roughly on time. And if it's a slow game I can watch on double speed, though I must remember not to turn on the news.

Update
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!! Oh that was horrible.

Scooter fuel economy

My fuel gauge is coy. It's a five LED display that prefers to give gentle hints about how much petrol I have left rather than just come right out with it. So I noticed last time I filled up that my mileage was exactly 17000 kms. I thought, "Aha! I will remember that, and use it to calculate my miles per gallon or whatever the youngsters are calling it these days". So I rode for a while until the gauge intoned to me that just maybe it was that time again. When I pulled in to Shell on the way to work my mileage was exactly 17200 kms. "How about that" I thought. "This will make my sums a little easier". The tank seemed pretty dry. I filled it right up so the fuel was a couple of millimetres from spilling out. It was exactly 7.00 litres. I was a little startled by this. I thought perhaps God doesn't trust me with decimal arithmetic. So anyway, I crunched the numbers in Excel, double checked with Matlab, and I can now reveal the following analysis:

Distance: 200km
Fuel:     7 litres
Economy:  3.5 L/100km

I also discovered my round trip to work is 13 km, so that means I should fill up every 15 work days, with a 5km margin for error, (unless I take trips to the shops or the video store). Now that's some applied mathematics. A Honda Jazz is supposed to get 5.7 L/100km. A Prius is supposed to 4.4 L/100km so my scooter beats them by not by that much considering it's a scooter.

tiddlyspot.com

tiddlyspot.com is a brand new web site that Daniel and I put together, starting last Friday. It's a little hard to explain. First you need to know what a wiki is. Yeah? Ok. Then you have to know what TiddlyWiki is (not too hard, it's a wiki that runs in your browser). Then I can explain that tiddlyspot.com is a easy, free service for creating and hosting a TiddlyWiki. Stay tuned for more on this later. Trust me, it is extremely cool. Plus I am getting to learn ruby which is a bit like trading in your crappy analogy for a really awesome red one with a top speed of say 300 km/hr.

geeky stuff

Long time readers might have noticed my super home media thingy in the photo in my previous post. A slight update on that fine piece of kit is that I fixed by bandwidth problems between upstairs and downstairs. I can now watch any video and share iTunes libraries from upstairs. I will try to explain with a diagram. Old configuration (problematic): [Upstairs PC] <--wireless--> [ADSL Box (kitchen)] <--wireless--> [SHMThing] The wireless card in Upstairs PC was a bit flakey and causing drop outs in connectivity. Now I have this new configuration: [Upstairs PC] <--good old wired ethernet--> [ADSL Box (study)] <--wireless--> [SHMThing] I moved the ADSL box from the kitchen to the study with Upstairs PC. If I position in right I can get a good signal strength to downstairs. And now everything is cool. Except I need to get some more disk space upstairs (more room for mp3s, torrents and dvd rips) and down (more room for recorded tv shows).

My new recliner

Once I had the idea of writing a blog called "op shop treasures". In it I would describe and photograph all the beautiful stuff I've found at local salvos, endos, vinnies, lifeline, etc. Milly and I love to tour our favourite spots on a Saturday morning. There are so many amazing things we've found. I think Townsville is probably better than a capital city since there anything slightly cool or valuable is likely to be picked up fast and resold by professionals from trendy used clothing/furniture/bric-a-brac stores. Nearly all my clothes (and I only buy top quality), a lot furniture, my drum kit (incl Zildjian cymbals and a Ludwig snare, $100 total), etc, etc, have all come from the smorgasbord of delights that is Townsville's op shop world. Yesterday we found: blue recliner, excellent condition with matching love seat; a large glass topped coffee table. I can report the recliner is extremely comfortable. I'm trying to demonstrate this in the third photo. The recliner and lounge was $220. I know, seems like a lot but keep in mind that they in very good condition. And the colour matches our dark blue wall perfectly. The coffee table was a bit expensive for a coffee table, $150, but it is cool because you can display small items under the glass. Milly has put her collection of Japanese plastic miniature thingies under the glass. The effect is very artistic especially when you scatter various remote controls and coffee table clutter on top of the glass.

How to catch fish

This is how to catch fish! This video shows a small boat on a river. Hundreds of quite large fish start leaping up around and into the boat. The guys on the boat are ducking a dodging to avoid getting whacked in the face by fish. Very weird.

My house now visible in Google maps

Woohoo! At last. Also they have street maps of Townsville! To date the Townsville photos, take a look at the bridge. The bridge was finished sometime in 2005 I think.

Your very own robot

So you like the robots and have some spare cash? Now you can buy one! You can order one of these for just US$1000! Buy two so they aren't lonely when you're out. Teach them to fold your laundry and carry your books. Have them beat up your bullies. Dress them in your team colours. Sweet!!! But seriously if you have a cool science teacher tell him that your school needs one of those. I bet they'd spend a thousand dollars on sports gear in a second. Here's a gang of them trying to convince you to whip out your credit card. You can get it assembled or build it yourself.

"Your ROBONOVA-I kit was designed for easy assembly in 6 to 8 hours using only a screwdriver."

Still want more? Okay here's a very short clip from a fight featuring robots that you can't buy. The robot on the right delivers a knockout handstand kick to the head.

the sad decline of Attack of the Show

What the hell happened? Calling that "thing" Attack of the Show is an insult to the old Attack of the Show. "Selling out" does not begin to describe what has happened. I knew it was all going to go bad when you were forced to plug "The Man Show" and do the alchohol segment. The first time a movie premier or some celebrity magazine crap made it to the opening segment I shed a tear. Last night's "The Feed" tore my soul. It came on slowly as though the producers thought they could convince viewers to eat shit if they just slipped a little more on their plate each week. Maybe Kevin Rose could buy back the show and turn it into a podcast. He's got some money now. :) Kevin Pereira, you have my sympathy. I still respect you though I guess. You have bills to pay and I dunno perhaps you signed a long contract with G4TV. And what happened to Sarah? Did she jump or was she pushed? Oh well, thanks for all the good times. Brendan, Chris, Blair, I'm gonna miss you all.

Update
I just learned that Sarah and Brendan got married and are doing a 12 month world trip blog and video podcast. Holy crap I never even knew they were dating. Here is their on-show farewell.

reasons to wear safety goggles #49

My unfortunate brother writes about his experience with Recurrent Corneal Erosion Syndrome. Ouch...... I mean OOOOWWWUCH!!!! I gave him an iPod shuffle stuffed to the brim with sweet tunes and geeky podcasts. I think it helped him through his long sensory and sleep deprivation. Who needs an iPod video when you can hallucinate your own video clips. Thinking it might help I included a meditation audio book by Alan Watts who's WikiPedia bio says he was quite fond of the pschedelic drug, DMT, which I'd never heard of until yesterday. I don't know a tryptamine from a histamine but damn it's fun to browse the Erowid experience vaults. If you find stuff like this interesting (and who wouldn't) then google for Terence McKenna. And always wear safety goggles.

Juggling to Fatboy Slim

Juggling = Big yawn
Juggling + Fatboy Slim = Awesome!

Via stereogum.

Is it a bird? Is it a plane?

No it's an elite special forces dude with carbon fibre wings. This has to be in the next James Bond movie. Via The Raw Feed.

Captive cloud

I discovered this delightfulness in my garage this evening

Broken Flowers

About two thirds of the way in I started fear there was going to be a "clever" ending that tied it all together and made sense of everthing. But I should have had faith. The movie is slow. Nothing is resolved. Nothing makes sense. And it is extremely satisfying. Four and a half stars. I wonder if anyone other than Bill Murray could have made this movie as good.

Australian Big Brother 06 thoughts

• Anna's eviction: Why Australia, why??
• Jade as the insider: Jade is a train wreck. Jade as the insider is a train colliding with a bus load of sick orphans. With puppies. But, who doesn't love a train wreck...
• Gretel: Please give her job to Mike Goldman. Or Bree. Somebody. If it's too late this year, then next year. PLEASE SOMEBODY!!! Gretel is unbearable. I literally can't stand to hear a second of her voice. She is wearing out my fast forward button. Actually if you hire a decent writer things might improve. But I doubt it. Who the hell writes her lines? And who the hell picks her clothes? Blind hobos? The goat? Nooo!!! Make it stop.
• Jade in general: She makes Camilla seem like a normal human being. And that's saying something.
• Katie and Jamie: The new Brangelina. "Katiemie". If that word takes off I'm claiming it with this post as evidence.
• David: I think he has a crush on Mikey. Here's a scenario that I would like to see. With Rob's help David convinces Mikey to experiment with his sexuality and make out with him in the spa. Perhaps some alchohol is involved.

MC Lars and the rise of nerdcore

If this was any kind of decent blog I would have some witty and poignant commentary about how myspace and the falling price of technology is changing the music industry. Instead I'll just hit you with some links. (The song is being hammered on MTV right now and yeah I'm liking it). An article. His myspace page. Update
I also watched Signing Emo. It's good and pretty funny but more like an SNL sketch than a song.

Jim Bumgardner's wonderful creations

This is the coolest thing I have seen for ages. Read more about it here. It was created by this guy. Check out the many other delights on his site, especially these and these. Via digg.

Sigur Rós Movies

I decided to upload these for your viewing pleasure. I am surprised how capable my little camera is. If I'd known they were going turn out so well I might have put a bit more effort into it.

Sigur Rós Photos

First two are at Enmore, 12/4/06. The rest are The Tivoli, 15/4/06.

E3 Coverage

The annual Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) is on right now. It's the biggest event in video games. I like get my coverage from Joystiq. Big news so far: PS3 controller just like PS2 controller. Halo 3 trailer not worth download. Grand Theft Auto coming first to Xbox360. Zelda to be launch title. Here is the coverage of the three keynotes: Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo

Update
Lots of good stuff is hitting YouTube. To YouTube uploaders, I think that's enough with the Halo 3 trailer. :)

Cancer resistant mouse may cure cancer

"The cancer-resistant mice all stem from a single mouse discovered in 1999."

Ha hah. :) They should build a big damn statue of that mouse!

Via SPH.

The Annotated Joanna Newsom, Part 1

... and I can recall our caravel¹ a little wicker beetle-shell with four fine masts and lateen² sails its bearings on Cair Paravel³ oh my love oh it was a funny little thing to be the ones to've seen the sight of bridges and balloons makes calm canaries irritable⁶ and they caw and claw all afternoon catenaries⁴ and dirigibles⁵ ...

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caravel
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lateen
3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cair_Paravel
4. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catenary
5. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirigibles


Bridges, balloons, catenaries, dirigibles. Ahhh... Sublime. Darren Hanlon has met his match - no, his new master. :)

Ps, how many of those five words did you know? Me, one.

Thanks to Milky Moon.

Bill Maher's New Rules

Daniel put me on these. Bill Maher has a talk show on HBO and he does a final monologue which is usually pretty funny. Latest one here. Unfortunately no RSS feed.

Okay, New Rule: Anna Nicole Smith can't get pregnant until Britney's baby grows up. There are just not enough investigators at Child Family Services to keep these two infants alive at the same time.

Welcome back trapped miners

And well done to all the rescue dudes and, to the mine manager who was constantly doing press on Sky News, I think your very cool.

Big Brother 06 Housemates

Here's my mini review...

• Favourites: Katie, Anna, Jamie
• Like: Claire, Dino, John, Gaelan
• Sort of like: Michael, David, Tilli
• Don't care about: Ashley, Elise
• Annoying: Krystal
• Can't stand: Camilla
• Must die leave: Karen, Gretel

Why I love Nintendo

They care about making games fun. They know that a boring game with beautiful graphics is still boring. They are not afraid to be different. Here's an article about a guy from Time Magazine who tried out the new console, including a tennis game where you use the revolutionary new 3d controller like the handle of your racket. Via digg.

Update
The full article is here.

Fun with Google SketchUp and Earth

Presenting an original sculpture I have titled "Freedom"... I put in in Google Earth facing north roughly at the location of my house. The first shot is looking towards Mt Stuart, the second is towards Mt Louisa. Here are a couple of wider shots showing the Townsville area. My sculpture is the small object in the foreground. Google can you please hurry up with the high res coverage? For my next project I plan to terrorize the Townsville area with a giant robot of some sort. If you have SketchUp you can download my sculpture for a better look. I didn't upload to Google Earth Community (yet) so you won't find it in your Google Earth (yet).

Sesame Street Classic

Via Google Video of the Day.

Random notes...

• Today I wore a scarf to work! I thought you would want to know. Townsville turned a little wintery this week and there is quite a wind chill factor at 70 kph on a scooter.
• Someone referred to me as "Simon himself" on the TiddlyWiki mailing list. :) Heh heh.....
• Sigur Rós live was amazing. The Enmore had slightly better sound but I think the overall atmosphere was better at The Tivoli. I will post my photos and maybe some videos some time soon. I found this piece on the band from NZ television. Also playlists and bootlegs are here
• Joanna Newsom is good beyond words. I figured out what Sadie is about. It has to be her insecure religous mother. Now I know this I have to think it's one of the most beautiful and sad songs ever written.
• Everybody Hates Chris kind of sucks. I gave up watching it after about three episodes. Sorry for the bad advice earlier
• Currently reading Setting Free The Bears by John Irving. He's very good though it is possible that he is not in fact God. I am trying to read in chronological order but I started out of sequence with 158 Pound Marriage.

Interstella & Mike Cooper

I have a new band called Interstella. For more info see the brand new web site at interstella.biz. And we are supporting guitar legend Mike Cooper tomorrow night! Sweet.

My House in SketchUp

Imaginary Art Project 1
Repeatedly create your house and everything in it in SketchUp with successively more detail. Stop when your toothbrush has individually modelled bristles.

Imaginary Art Project 2
For fun, extract all objects from We Love Katamari and make them available as a SketchUp component library.

I have started on Project 1 myself: For the record this took me about 90 minutes with the amazing SketchUp. And it looks almost exactly like my house even though I didn't put accurate dimensions on anything! Next thing to add is the upstairs interior walls. And my drum kit. :)