Still going strong here with the not-smoking thing. I'm using patches; I gave up successfully for three years on these previously so I know they work for me. So rather than having to deal with the physical side (receptors roaring "GIMME!') I only have to deal with the mental side, but that's arguably harder. It's an interesting battle: I know I don't want to smoke, and I'm determined to do it, but every now and then an insidious mental whisper prefixes thoughts like "I'll just hop out an have a ciggie before I..." Still, that's to be expected since it's a pretty major change to routine/habits.

The patches are driving me a wee bit batty since they're theoretically slightly more nicotine than I'd get smoking the amount I used to, just have to wait for the body to adjust. Everyone's been very supportive, especially Kathy - thank you all!

...and do you think I could find the image of Krusty the clown covered in patches saying to Sideshow Mel "I think there's a space on my butt"?

So it's Sunday, the first day of breaking free from smoking, I'm on nicotine patches and while feeling a little spaced out in the morning am doing fine. It's early afternoon, I've just put a silverside on for a nice long slow cook for dinner (see a previous Iron Chef for the recipe), and it's started to rain for the first time in weeks. The lorikeets are going off, having the time of their lives! First chance they've had in a while to really get the dust out of the plumage.

And Kathy is right here with me.

Life is good.

On the eve of giving up a stupid habit I've indulged in almost my whole adult life.

Mephistopheles is not your name
but I know what you're up to just the same

I can do this

I will listen hard to intuition
And you will see it come to its fruition

I must do this

I will turn your flesh to alabaster
then you'll find your servant is your master

I will do this.

Day One begins now.

Oh man, does this album bring back some powerful memories!

Sidewalk was an album I was listening to constantly just before getting dragged kicking and screaming from NZ to Australia by my parents. Last year of high school and (like everyone I guess) had a big group of The Best Friends Ever, and then had to face moving to a whole new country. I've long since forgiven my parents for that but doubtless perfected the moody, withdrawn, self-absorbed teenager thing for a while there.

Of course now you couldn't drag me away from Oz (became a citizen almost 20 years ago)... that is unless our .gov starts behaving more and more like the current US administration in which case we're outa here! Sorry, digress.

Sidewalk is Icehouse's third album and it's a highly underrated one that didn't get anywhere near the attention it deserved. Following on from the powerhouses that were Flowers/Icehouse and Primitive Man, this was quite a dark album. It may be just me but I think it also was very telling of Iva Davies' musical influences. In track one, Taking The Town, he sounds like he's channelling a young David Bowie. Tracks two, three, and four, This Town, Someone Like You, and Stay Close Tonight, he's almost Bryan Ferry personified. In track seven, Sidewalk he is Simple Minds' Jim Kerr. Incidentally, Sidewalk was originally planned to be the album's first track but when US record execs heard it (and it's jab at The American Way) they decided differently.

Another masterpiece in Iva Davies' art gallery. You need to have a good listen to this.

Tags: AotW

Yet Another Blog About Harry Potter Day.

K is a big Harry Potter fan, so naturally she'd pre-purchased the latest book months ago, and of course today is the day it's released. So we head to the big smoke (we don't have a local bookstore here) to one of the bookstores, it's about 8:45am (Australia's east coast release time is 9:01am.) Already there's a queue of others all the way around the inside of the shop.

This way 'Arry...


Arewethereyetarewethereyetarewethereyet...

The shop staff are all in costume and getting into it too, yelling out time calls, walking up and down the queue with lollies for little and big kids alike.

This is before a small army (okay, about 7) get behind the counter, box-cutters at the ready.

Countdown from 10 secs, it's time. Lots of hooting and clapping, and the army swings into action, unboxing and bagging both editions of the book. About 10 mins later we're out of there with a copy in hand. By this time the queue is all the way out to the mall and then some - and this is just a regional shopping centre, mind you.

Get out of dodge, do shopping for tonight's Iron Chef (Seared rib fillet with green peppercorn sauce - the new griddle's first shakedown!) and return home. Cook up a quick eggs benedict and we're sated.

K is, of course, now in the library reading. I don't expect she'll surface for a while.

So here I was culling my iTunes collection. You know, killing off the other 9 tracks of that 10 track album you bought for one track'n'stuff. I do this by flicking iTunes to random and hitting space to play, rating the song if I'm going to keep it (thanks to Wincent for his brilliant Synergy) and hitting right arrow for next or delete accordingly. As it did just now, once in a while iTunes hits a landmark track, this one being Red Rain by Peter Gabriel. And I just have to crank it up loud (with earbuds so I don't disturb the lovely K watching Buffy )

Peter Gabriel is one of my all-time favourite artists. I haven't liked (yet) everything he's done, but his voice, his artistry is one of a kind, and his album So just nails it. Brings me out in goosebumps.

I come to you defences down, with the trust of a child.

So is one of those immersive atmospheric, no stratospheric albums that must, must be listened to with a good stereo separation (about 20m should do it) or very good headphones. It's first track, Red Rain is an extremely emotive, atmospheric, powerful work, and that's what iTunes served up. It gets me every single time.

So I thought I'd dig up the video and hit iTube YouTube. I found some interesting stuff:

1. The original video,

2. An very good live version featuring Peter Gabriel, Michael Stipe, and Natalie Merchant here, (though to be honest I thought Natalie ruined some of the key moments with what sounded like braying - no offence Nat., I'm sure you meant well),

3. This was a real surprise, an A Capella version done by the ladies and gentlemen of Room 45 of Colorado College. Credit to the frontman for doing a worthy effort (considering no-one, no-one could match Peter Gabriel on his own material!) and if you have a close listen to this, especially the harmonies it's goosebump inducing. The sound just doesn't do it justice methinks. I wish I'd been there to see/hear this. It would have been like hearing Four Seasons performed live by a string quartet for the first time. Oh, and it would have given me chance to bitchslap cough-boy.

Okay so this is old news, but it's one I keep under-appreciating and thinking 'yeh, that's pretty cool, must blog about it one day' but hopefully one or two of you may find it useful.

As you know, my current sidearm is a MacBook Pro. Love it. It rocks. It really really rocks.

I also love scrollwheels on mice. They just save so much mousing over to scrollbars to get to where you want to go. I also like right-clicking, so at each location I have either a Logitech or Dell (rebadged Logitech perchance?) mouse parked nearby. But what happens when you're truly mobile and either don't have a mouse or a flatish surface to ride it on? You use the trackpad of course. Okay so you need to make some compromises... or do you?

Q. Where's the right-click!?

A. ctrl-click (you knew that one, right?)

Q. Where's the scrollwheel?

A. This one isn't obvious unless you actually RTFM. The answer for current MacBooks/MacBook Pros is you're looking at it. That's right, your trackpad is the scrollwheel. Just glide two fingers down (or across) the trackpad and you get silky smooth scrolling.

Q. Scrolling across!?

A. Yup, works left to right too. And if you're using a real scrollwheel mouse you can do the same by just holding shift down while wheeling.

Q. You smug bastard, my PowerBook's too old for that!

A. That wasn't really a question, was it?

Q. That wasn't really an answer either.

A. Okay got me there (I'm blogging to myself to save latency...) but the last couple of generations of PowerBooks have trackpad hardware smart enough to track two simultaneous touches too, the OS just doesn't enable this functionality. So third parties to the fore: have a look at Sidetrack for scrolly PB G4 goodness.

Okay, so the countdown is under a week:

Day One begins now.

Time I told you what it's about. One of my many, many character flaws is that I smoke. Aside from a three year break in my twenties I've been silly enough to smoke for pretty much all of my adult life. It's time I changed that. Not just for my sake, but so that K has one less thing to put up with.

The above countdown is for Day One. The day I've planned to be the day I give up.

I can do this.

I must do this.

I will do this.

Wish me luck!

I was about 15 or 16 when I first heard this album, and it was completely by mistake. I'd come home from a camp and discovered a friend's tape was still in my radio cassette (remember them?) On side A was the previous AoW, Soul Mining by The The, but on side B was this gem. I was entranced.

This isn't so much an album that you put on when you're doing other stuff, it's an album you immerse yourself in. It's immaculately crafted - Paul Buchanan is a very talented chap. It's difficult to describe The Blue Nile's style. Eclectic doesn't really fit since they're not doing anything just for the sake of being different. But different it is. Soul food is as best as I can describe it. If you take the time to really listen to it, it evokes a wonderful calm and clarity; if for nothing else because you're focussing on the craft and shutting out the mental clutter of day to day life.

For a sample and bonus points, listen to a really good segment a US radio station, KCRW, did on The Blue Nile a while back. The host of the Sounds Eclectic segment, Nic Harcourt, sounds like one of those rarities that researches and really understands his guests. The video is no longer available unfortunately, but the audio is still available here, it's a really good listen.

Tags: AotW

Interesting rebuttal here by Ivan Oelrich of the Federation of American Scientists (FAS) to the US Nation Nuclear Security Agency's attempt at justifying ongoing expenditure for nuclear weapons and infrastructure.

Remind me again, which is the only country to have ever used nuclear weapons? Oh, that's right...

Look, I'm not going to harp on about how good this album is (and it is very good: Matt Johnson is quite brilliant), here's their official site, and iTMS has samples and the album here. Go have a listen.

Tags: AotW

If you've visited my home page you'll have noticed there is a countdown on there. I won't tell you what it's about just yet but I just want it on record that it's not for some terrorist event or anything.

Call it a birthday present to myself/us.

We use Cisco VPN for remote connectivity with the Uni. While it's still technically under test (so used mainly for on-campus wireless and offsite support work) thanks to our resident network ninjas it works flawlessly.

There's quite a good Cisco VPN client for Mac OS X and it works exactly as advertised. Problem is (and here's where your average Mac user gets shown up for being spoilt by a consistent, elegant interface in all things Mac) how shall I say this?

It has a good face for radio.

Well, the folks at Nexumoja thought that too and decided to add their own touch. Enter Shimo. Shimo is one of those gems that does a simple thing well, ie. put an elegant interface in front of the Cisco VPN client. The main thing it does is give you an unobtrusive menu to switch between VPN profiles, connect and disconnect. It also utilises the (also elegant) notifier Growl to let you know what it's doing. Bonus points: the menu icon shows you the state of your VPN connection.

Okay, so hitting your Quicksilver keyboard shortcut and (er... you are running Quicksilver aren't you?) typing VPN then clicking connect isn't too arduous, but geez Shimo makes it a snap.

So let's say you're a long time fan of, ooh I don't know let's say Thomas Dolby. Let's also say that you're also a (very) cool guy and a pretty damned good musician living in Canada with a band called - oh I don't know - something like Science Ninja Big Ten.

And let's say that Thomas Dolby decides to do a quick tour of Canada.

And let's say he asks you and your band to be the supporting act. I'll wait while you read that again.

Hot diggity Crackers, well done mate! Thoroughly deserved. I'll bet you're giggling like a giddy schoolgirl!

Hope you (and Thomas) have an absolute ball! Wish I were there to see it. Proud (and humbled) as ever to know you.

The other day Chappo said to me 'you don't blog as much as you used to.' And it's true, I don't. Most times these days I do quick hit-and-run blog entries and there's a reason for that.

If you know me at all you'll know that one of my all-time favourite artists is Thomas Dolby, a.k.a. in my books as the Gentleman. Thomas is a very cool chap. I've even had the honour of hosting his email fan list (Alloy) for a while and talking with him. Most commonly known for his 80's single She Blinded Me With Science, he actually did a whole lot more than that. Some very eloquent stuff that I'm sure will feature frequently in my album of the week segment. Anyways the relevant bit is a little side commentary he did prior to one of his tracks on the live CD Forty.

FWIW, I have signed copy 395, my dear friend Robin even did the artwork for this album!

He said "Y'know one of the downsides of meeting the perfect woman is that you have less to write songs about" and that's where I am. Kathy is everything I could want for - wish for - in a partner and I guess that makes me a little less absorbed in blogging.

May you be as fortunate!

Okay, here's your bucket...

Okay, it's time I introduced you to one of my other friends/colleagues in our team (I work with some very cool people!), allow me to introduce you to one of our resident network guru/ninjas Rob. He's a serial flasher.

I should clarify a little by saying he's a serial EPROM flasher.

Rob's a cool guy. One of those quiet types. Think he subscribes to the "tread softly, wield a big stick" thing. Kinda like Chuck Norris only without the beady eyes and the really crappy 'I don't care what you think, I know I can sing' thing. Oh, and he does martial arts so he knows more than a roundhouse kick.

Let me tell you why he's a serial flasher. Rob is one of those switchers I told you about. He knows and puts up with Windows, he likes linux, but he's recently got religion about Mac OS X. One of the enlightened ones.

I'm going to disregard one of my unspoken rules about not talking too much about work and tell you our situation. I use a Mac at work, as does Rob (and Ben and Chappo for that matter.) We do operations on our workstations that can immediately affect hundreds, sometimes thousands of other people every day so it's critical that a) we have a rich set of capable tools that interact with our computer environment, b) that the platform is rock-solid reliable, and c) that said platform is secure to the point that it can be trusted with network admin-level credentials.

Windows just doesn't cut it for that scenario.

Due to politics and the old "nobody got fired for choosing M$" xenophobic thinking, we have to use what scraps of Mac hardware we can get hold of. In this case it's a bunch of retired G4's that were once top of the line but are now a few years past their use-by date (though still able and willing to beat up current Windows hardware and take their lunch money.)

Problem is that when we want to do stuff like run multiple monitors we have no way of even getting orders for commodities like second video cards approved by Those Who Approve Stuff. Again, we have to make do with what we can find - or finesse a solution with stuff that we can buy. It's a bizarre situation.

For a year or so I'd actually been running my work Mac with a (very!) old second video card I'd ripped out of one of my home machines. Funny thing is even though it was some 10 years old, it still out-specced memory-wise the current PC hardware we were using. But there was a problem. Mac OS X would work with it fine, but it knew it was dealing with an old card so couldn't use anything nice like video acceleration. End result, everything on that screen rendered very slowly. Rob took this as a challenge (he was also trying to do the same thing.) Long story short he researched, researched, researched, tried, and eventually succeeded re-flashing a couple of PC video cards we'd managed to acquire so they'd work with complete capabilities on Mac hardware.

Rob's tenacious like that. Nice work mate.

P.S. If you're trying to do the same, I have one word: strangedogs.

[this is in case Peter does some ego surfing]

Pete old mate, I don't have your current mobile number or email address. How about leaving one of those when you next hit my voicemail eh?

It'd be good to have a natter, it's been ages, hope you're well bud.

[we now return you to our regular programming...]

While visiting a friend's guest appearance on another blog I noticed they were using something pretty cool with their links so decided to give it a try here. It's called Snapshots and what it does is show you a -er- snapshot of a remote site when you hover over the icon just to the right of a link. Here's Apple for example, and The Reg. Dead easy to set up and a no-brainer to use. Read about it at Snap's site.

I'm curious to hear what you think. Does it get in the way, is it a pain, does it slow pages down or do you like it?