Google Reader all new!?

Logged into google reader to see a completely new interface... No warning now features update just a shiny new screen. I'm not complaining, I really like the new layout but some detail of the new features would have been nice!

Cycling and gaming?!?

Now I love cycling, but unfortunately I never get enough time to do it. Spending my life in front of the PC doesn't lend itself to much cycling. The guys at Gizmodo however have found the perfect solution....

Geek-a-Cycle Defattens the Bloggers

Sitting in front of a computer drinking cola and blogging all day doesn't provide that nice of a figure—I should know. If you ever wanted to look like a complete fool at the computer, but still maintain a girlish figure—the Geek-a-Cycle will get you taken care of. This is a desk with an attached stationary bike, simple enough. It will set you back $350. Want to use the computer without the bike? Too bad! Must cycle! – Travis Hudson

The week thus far....

It's another picture perfect day in sunny Townsville again, it's unfortunate that I'm flying here for work because the weather would be perfect for a holiday.

The Virgin Blue lounge membership paid off again on the way up with my flight being delayed about 50 mins because of all the storms in Brisbane.

In the end they promised so much and delivered so little. I love the storm season and with all the crazy up and down weather we've had this year it looks good for a wild storm season.

Fortunately I've managed to secure a second car park so I've got somewhere for the Blue Car to live before we sell it. So at least I don't have to worry about it having to brave the storm on it's own. It's a tandem park too, so Dad's old Merc will have somewhere to live without fear of the summer weather either. The only problem is his doesn't start at the moment, so he might have to get that sorted first.

Managed a "Tuesday Night Gaming" session this week. The original plan was to make it a fortnightly thing but it really never got off the ground... At the moment it's really a bi-monthly thing. Even this week only managed to get myself and Tom on for a session of Counter Strike. I managed to pick up the new Gauntlet: Seven Sorrows for the Xbox which has up to 4 player co-op multiplayer over Xbox live which will hopefully get a few more sessions happening. I'm still waiting to see if we can play multiple players on the one Xbox while still playing with players on Live, which could be a whole lot of fun.

I have a lot of the weekend to myself this weekend which I think will result in a lot of gaming time as just about everyone else is busy. I have the new Star Fox Command for the DS and although I've managed to finish the campaign there is plenty of stages still to unlock and the call of the Wifi battle is very strong.... Although I'll probably have to change my sign in name to "Flaming Wreck" after my first for sorties.

The new iTunes 7 has turned out to be a dangerous application. I've found downloading all those songs that you never managed to pick up the ablums for is just too easy. Especially when you can link it an account and happily click away at the "Buy Now" button. I've probably trebled the number of singles I own on iTunes downloads in the last month!

At home we've started a little more with the pot plants on the balcony (which as close as we'll ever get to gardening, and by 'we' I mean Ness) but recently we've got a new friend making it fairly clear that we're invading his space not the other way around

I took this photo with my phone while were trying to have lunch on the weekend, sitting at the table which fits snugly into the corner that you can see of the balcony. I could literally reach out and grab the mag pie from where I sat but it was determined to guard the edge of a balcony until we left. Lucky we're getting some rain at the moment otherwise the plants wouldn't be getting any water.

As I said earlier I'm in Townsville again for the remainder of this week and although it was looking excedingly likely I was going to Lismore next week that push seems to have subsided and I may find some time to take some holidays next week.

USB-powered "G-Gloves"

If only someone hadn't had a birthday already!

USB-powered "G-Gloves" for the ladies

Alright fellas, if you're sitting around enjoying the cool breeze emanating from your seat cushion, then you're fully aware of how invigorating a USB-powered gizmo can be during the summer months, and equally aware in the depths of winter. For that lucky lady in your life (or cyberlife), these comfy G-Gloves (G for girl, we presume) can keep her hands warm during those chilly December fragfests, and thanks to their ability to quickly convert into mittens, even her fingertips are covered. Sporting a detachable cable, on / off switch, alphabet stitching, dual warming pads, two-levels of heat intensity, and the ability to get toasty through any powered USB port (yes, even the Wii), these should be a sure fire (ahem) hit in the stocking this holiday season. The G-Glove hand-warmers are available now to heat things up in pink or blue for $22.

Aussie Wii shortages possible!!!

Now this is news no aussie gamer wanted to hear

From cnet

Nintendo Australia has refused to disclose how many Wiis they will be bringing into the country for its December Australian launch, and has not ruled out the possibility of shortages come launch date.

Nintendo Australia spokesman Vispi Bhopti says while the company is bringing in a significant number of consoles for the Australian launch on December 7, it cannot guarantee "total supply".

"We will be guaranteeing pre-ordered stock at retail--so that's definitely the way to go to secure it because we can't guarantee total supply because we don't know how many consumers are going to go wild over this," Bhopti said "We are bringing in a significant number of Wiis into Australia -- it won't be a small drop. But at the same time, our expectations are so big for this product that we would, to err on the safe side, recommend that people pre-order."

Australian gamers most recently had to suffer through a next-generation console shortage earlier this year when the Xbox 360 launched in March. Within days of the official launch on March 23, 60GB Xbox 360 bundles had all but sold out across the country.

Nintendo announced last week that the Wii would hit Australian shores on December 7 for AU$399.95. Bhopti said final pricing for games, accessories and virtual console titles was still being finalised for Australia, although they would be "relative to overseas pricing". In the US, first party Wii titles will retail for US$50 (AU$66.50).

Bhopti said while the number of launch day titles was also still being finalised, he did confirm that Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess would be a launch title locally. The GameCube version of the game would arrive in early 2007, he said.

And for those still holding out hope that the Wii will be region-free console, Bhopti has some bad news. "You won't be able to play overseas games on an Australian unit," he said.

Bhopti says Nintendo is gearing up national roadshows to promote the Wii in the weeks leading to launch. The shows will be similar to its recent DS Connection Tour, which had Nintendo visit major shopping centres around the country. Consumers will be able to get their hands on the Wii and its unique controllers during these shows, Bhopti said.

The Wii's use of wireless controllers means free-standing in-store demo units, however, will not be part of the promotional campaign, Bhopti says.

"We can bolt things down as much as we want, but when we do that it ruins the experience of the wireless controller. You really don't want to pick up that wireless controllers unless it really is wireless," Bhopti said.

"Some of these experiences are also quite unique, and we want to be able to explain the experiences to people when we're there. So it's important that when we do have in-store units, they will be manned demonstrations."

Landed

So the middle row wasn't all bad. I managed to sleep from the time the safety demo started until we started to land.

Middle seat!

That's not fair! I wanted to sleep no the plane and now it's packed and i've got to sit in a middle seat! That's 2 flights in a row. Hopefully I can still catch up on a little shut eye.

Nothing like a bit more sleep deprivation to finish off the week

Tonight (or this morning depending on how you look at it) is another in what seems to be a never ending run of long nights at the moment. Lots of work and not enough time to get to it all is the main cause. The biggest problem with tonight is I have to be up again in 3 1/2 hours to get on a plane flight and I'm at the point whether I got to bed or just power through....

I managed on 4 hours last night (and I'm still going now) so I'll probably get what sleep I can tonight and on the plane flight.

As for the rest of the blogging I could do that will again have to wait for another day!

Although I did find out my Liksang delivery with Starfox Command is awaiting me at home.

Favourite Family Guy Quote of the night - "For God's sake, shake me. Shake me like a British nanny!"

Top Gear's Richard Hammond in critical condition

It's been a shocking day in the world of automotive journalism as we receive the terribly upsetting news that BBC Top Gear presenter Richard Hammond lies in a Leeds hospital in critical condition. Hammond was airlifted to the hospital following a terrifying crash at the wheel of a jet-powered car while filming a segment for the popular British car program.

The news comes on the heels of another terrible crash involving fellow automotive journalist Paul Frère .

No further news is known at this time regarding the extent or nature of the beloved 36-year-old television personality's injuries or what exactly went wrong.

[Source: BBC News]

We're all thinking of you Hampster!

Some days you just weren't meant to game

After getting overly excited about the upcoming line up of Online compatible DS games. I hit Metroid Prime: Hunters again tonight. Unfortunately it wasn't the best result. I only seemed to find top ranked players to play and as a result didn't win a match! Didn't have too much time to play with pleanty of work to keep me occupied, although the odd database update gave me enough time to fit in a match.  Oh well there's always next time.... maybe I should spend some more time polishing my skills against the bots before I head back to the online arena.

In other gaming news.... actually in other news I'm tired and think I'll call it a night... this post will have to continue another time

Cameron has suggested an album for you on iTunes

Heavy Soul, Part 1 - EP Tyrone Noonan Release Date: 16 Sep 2006 Genre: Pop (P) 2006 Jellyfish Music

iTunes for Mac and Windows

Copyright © 2006 Apple Computer Australia Pty Ltd. All rights reserved

So much online gaming

After a few weeks away from DS and any sort of online gaming activity I've jumped head long back into it while I've been in Townsville. Metroid Prime: Hunters and Mario Kart DS have both been given a pretty good work out. It has really sparked the gaming urge again after it being away for a few weeks. The good news from that is there doesn't seem to be any slowing down in the Nintendo Wifi department.

These games are already on there way!

	Star Fox Command
	Nintendo of Japan Compatible with Nintendo DS™ US, No Region Protection / Action In stock, usually ships within 24hrs
	Tenchu: Dark Secret
	Nintendo Compatible with Nintendo DS™ US, No Region Protection / Action In stock, usually ships within 24hrs

And these are all the new titles on their way!

Clubhouse Games  System: Nintendo DS™ / US  Pre-Order, ships when stock arrives (Oct 09, 2006)

	Yoshi's Island 2
	Nintendo of Japan Compatible with Nintendo DS™ US, No Region Protection / Adventure Release date: Nov, 2006
	Diddy Kong Racing
	Nintendo of Japan Compatible with Nintendo DS™ US, No Region Protection / Racing Release date: Dec, 2006

	Magical Starsign
	Nintendo of Japan Compatible with Nintendo DS™ US, No Region Protection / RPG Release date: Oct, 2006

	Contact
	Atlus Compatible with Nintendo DS™ US, No Region Protection / RPG Release date: Oct 16, 2006

	Konductra
	O3 Entertainment Compatible with Nintendo DS™ US, No Region Protection / Puzzle Release date: Sep 25, 2006

	Mario vs Donkey Kong 2: March of the Minis
	Nintendo of Japan Compatible with Nintendo DS™ US, No Region Protection / Action Release date: Sep 25, 2006

What a day....

Huge day today, despite all the urges to stay in bed for another few hours after a great movie night at Valavien's place, I managed to drag myself out to singing in the morning. After a few somewhat schizophrenic performance ranging from 2^nd 'tenor to 1^st alto and everywhere in between Ness and I headed up the coast on a whirl wind tour to Tewantin (Noosa) to pick up a cool retro (see Kartell era) vinyl stand that I manage to win on ebay yesterday.

It was a pretty fine close time frame having to be back in Brisbane for some more singing by 5pm. Fortunately, after leaving at 12:30 and it taking about 2 hours to get to our destination and a quick spot of lunch we managed to make it back in pretty quick time and get back by 4:45. so I still managed to make it to singing (for a slightly more singular performance than the morning) even with a coffee stop on the way.

On a side note, my Dell laptop is a nightmare for flights. I'm on my way to Townsville as I write this (and no I'm not hooked up to the net as I fly I'll be posting it once I land) and it's hardly an ideal situation. The Dell has a 17" widescreen display so it's great for movies but typing this blog is hardly comfortable. It's a 10pm flight so that's going to make me cranky to start with (even ducking out of singing early I still couldn't make the earlier flight) The guy in front of me (despite coughing up for the extra leg room seats) has his seat as far back as it will go and I'm currently pushing the keyboard into my lap and looking down the face of the screen at some oddly acute angle. To top it off the flight is completely packed and I'm in a middle seat. I've got my arms jammed into my side so I can reach the keys and not jab the people sitting next to me (although the guy in the aisle seat seems to be falling asleep in my direction so that could get messy shortly). The plan was to get a bit of work done on the plane on the way up so I could have a bit of an easy start to the day tomorrow, but it looks like that plan is well and truly shot.

Ok the snoring is going to be the last straw! It's a 2 hour flight! If you can't sleep in the up right position sleep when you get home…

I'd switch to the DS but I haven't charged it since the Meroaid session I had on the weekend so it would only last about 5-10 mins and end up frustrating me more than not having it.

Back to the good aspects of the day (I apologize for the Caitlin style stream of consciousness but I'm trying to pass the time on the flight and the laptop is all I have) had a great trip in MinX today. I was impressed ata the noise levels even at 110km/h with the top down. The weather was a bit of a turn around from the last couple of wet and miserable days. There was a little bit of cloud cover today but on the whole it was a beautiful clear day. Clocked about 300km for the afternoon and the little red gem didn't miss a beat, in fact it feels more at home on the highway at 110km/h that it does running around the inner city rat runs.

We tried for a dinner out tonight which almost ended in disaster. Went to Ice bar for a steak about 7:50 , ordered about 8 and didn't get the meal until after 8:45.They were quite apologetic about the length of time and we got a couple of extra wines out of it but I was on a pretty tight schedule so I really needed the food to be quicker rather than knocking back a few more glasses Fortunately the cab was on the door about 5 mins after I called it and I made it to the flight still in time to board. After all the wine though I'm a bit on the tipsy side so the flight has been a bit on the spinning side of things… The desent was paticularly fun with the continually feeling of "butterflies"!

There has been some good gadget news this week but with all the hype for the Wii I'm still trying to catch up on all the other tech gossip. The most notable ones for me was the new projectors released from Panasonic to replace with AE900. The TH-AX100 720p home theater projector, which boasts 2000 lumens of brightness at a 6000:1 contrast ratio and 1280x720 resolution along with HDMI, component or S-Video connections. The big plus is the 2000 lumens which is 900 more than the AE900, other than that it looks to be a very similar model. Still lagging behind the Hitachi TX200 in terms of contrast a little but with an image that much brighter I doubt anyone is going to complain. The other projector is a completely different story PT-AE1000U is a full 1080p projector with a brightness level of 1,100 lumens packing an amazing 11,000:1 contrast ratio! It's rumoured to be available in late November or early December for under US$6,000, but there is no pricing on the AX100 yet.

Anway I made it to Townsville safe and sound though and will have to sign off for the evening as it's almost 1am and I've got an early start tomorrow.

Silicone Switch Design Improves the Light Switch

No these would be an awesome addition to any ultra modern renovation!

Just a design from Ross McBride, this silicone switch design simplifies the light switch concept for people who don't quite grok the "up equals on, down equals off" concept. In this case, one silicone bump means, er, on? And two silicone bumps mean, obviously, off. We think. In any case, you can smash the light with your fist like a barbarian instead of flicking it up or down, like a hoity-toity college professor. – Jason Chen

Ross McBride [ via Gadgetizer]

Tyronne Noonan from George releases a new Album

Ty's new solo album is release today Heavy Soul Part 1 is out today. Some of the songs are posted up on his myspace site. They're pretty catchy, I was tapping my foot on the first listen. Not sure if it's going to be on iTunes but it's worth checking out anyway.

Breaking news - Wii... Australian launch date and price revealed! And the Aussies get ripped off!

So far my night had been going pretty well (although I didn't make it back in time to get to rehearsal). Made it to the Roar match to see them win 5 - 0, got Shlix on the way home. Then I got this text message

As a nintendo.com.au member, we thought you'll want to be the 1st to know the Wii will arrive in Aus on Dec 7th for SRP AU399.95.

$399? How is that a reasonable price?
First it was announced that Japan is getting the console on December 2 for 25,000 yen ( 282.87 AUD courtesy of xe.com)
Then we heard the US were getting the console on Nov 19 for US$250 ( 332.87 AUD)
So somewhere from Japan to Australia the price has grown over $100? That's just outrageous!!! Even bundled with Wii Sports it's hard not to see why this console (which no longer has to worry about region coding as First-party Wii games will be region-free)
Do they think we all live in a bubble and haven't discovered the Internet or currency conversion?
At least we're not as hard done by as the UK or Europe with 179 GBP (447.29 AUD) and 249 Euro (419.22 AUD) for their "version" of the console.
I was beginning to think that Nintendo had got their act together and was back on track to be a big player in the Market but at least here the console is only $100 cheaper than a Xbox360!
Come on Nintendo! How about a little support for your fans?

NINTENDO'S INCOMPARABLE Wii CONSOLE LAUNCHES DEC 7th; SRP$399.95 Around 20 New Games and User-Friendly 'Channels' Make it the Affordable System for Gamers, Newcomers and Families. Australia, Melbourne, Sept. 15, 2006 – Nintendo will reshape the home entertainment and video game landscape with the launch of its heralded Wii™ home video game console. As part of a global launch period, Wii will arrive in Australia on December 7th. Wii will be sold as an affordable, mass-consumer product at an SRP of just $399.95. The price includes one wireless Wii Remote controller, one Nunchuk™ controller and the groundbreaking collection of five different Wii Sports games on one disc, which anyone can play using simple movements, experienced or not. Every Wii console includes another distinctive feature: a series of on-screen "channels" that make up the Wii Channel Menu, which makes the console approachable and customisable for everyone, from the most avid gamer to people who have never played before. The Wii Channel Menu is the starting point for all of the console's functions. The "channels" offer a gateway to a rich variety of entertainment options. When connected to a TV, the Wii Channel Menu offers a simple interface, letting users pick games to play, get news or weather, view and send photos or even create playable caricatures of themselves to use in actual games. Additional functions allow users to redeem Wii Points and download classic games to Wii's Virtual Console™. The variety of options available through the Wii Channel Menu motivates both gamers and non-gamers to turn on Wii's power every day. Wii is creating worldwide excitement with its unique control system, an inventive, first-of-its-kind controller whose position can be detected in a 3-D space. The new controller allows users to pinpoint targets in games or move through the Wii Channel Menu with precision and ease. This intuitive control system will be understood immediately by everyone, regardless of their previous experience with video games. With this one small controller, Wii makes games both easier and more intense than anything previously experienced. For example, in the Wii Sports tennis game, players swing the Wii Remote like a racquet to hit the ball, as in real life. They can add topspin or slice the ball just by angling their hands and wrist like they would in a real match. "Wii is a product for all to enjoy. Whether you're young or old, an experienced gamer or complete novice, Wii has something unique to offer us all," says Rose Lappin, Director of Sales and Marketing. "At such an affordable price, we see Wii as being a true product of everybody." Between launch day and Dec. 31, Wii owners will enjoy a robust lineup of around 20 software titles, with selections for everyone from video game veterans to newcomers. Some top Nintendo launch titles include Wii Sports, a compilation of tennis, baseball, golf, bowling and boxing and The Legend of Zelda®: Twilight Princess. Wii's self-loading media bay also can play the entire library of hundreds of Nintendo GameCube™ titles from day one. Third-party developers around the world have lined up to provide unprecedented support for Wii. Additional information about the list of Virtual Console games and the pricing structure will be revealed on nintendo.com.au in the coming weeks.

Roar v. NZ 5-0

First game i've seen this season and i've seen the Roar score more goals than the whole of last year! Awesome win! Well done boys!

No I'm not finished yet...

If I hear "Finished yet, Huh? You Finished yet? Thought this was an easy system to customise?" once more I'm going to go postal!

A parking ticket!?

Ah nothing tops of the day like a parking ticket from the customer you're working for. On the bright side at least I wasn't towed!

Mario Hoops 3-on-3

Now this is one game that is definately going to be on my wish list! It's just a pity that it's not due out in Aus for a few more months yet!