Working from home

It's a strange phenomena, "Working from home". Generally I find I get more work done when I'm working from home. Although there are the greater distractions of home there is much less of a need to get away from it for a bit. Usually my work from home spot is the balcony amongst the greenery with a bit of jazz/classical playing in the background. Nothing like the quite chirping of birds and some soothing tunes to make the work fly by. The biggest advantage is I don't have anyone else hassling me for answers to their problems. So today is a work from home day, one insisted by work rather than me because the 2 new staff have to share my desk.

In gaming news we had a huge trade session on the weekend and swapped quite a few Cube and DS games for a new Wii game and a couple of DS games... The best bit was no money was forked over. I picked up Club House Games for the DS. Mainly so I could play my Dad at a few chess rounds over the Nintendo Wifi link. But over the last few days it has revived my enjoyment of the game... I had a version of Chess Master for the GBA that I only played once or twice. However I've found the AI in Club House Games (even on hard) a bit of a push over... it seems to enjoy sacrificing pieces without really thinking through the plan... I think I'll be moving back to Chessmaster on the GBA soon for a bit more of a challenge... Hopefully they release an online one Chess or Clubhouse games for the Wii... the controller would be the perfect interface.
Club House games isn't a complete waste though, even though the AI isn't the brightest (at least in chess) the games are still enjoyable and well implemented. The ability to play just about all the games over local wireless with only one card is great and makes for some good social gaming (even though you could get the same experience with a $5 pack of cards). I think it's biggest value though is for the Nintendo Wifi ability for the correspondence chess etc in real time.

Anyway enough of a morning tea break... back to the work...

Slow boat to China (aka Riverside Ferry Terminal)

It's been a spate of missed transport this morning. Watched the bus pull away as I tried to cross the road. Then watched the city cat pull away from the terminal. I mistakenly got a put put ferry that pulled up just after the cat because it was another 20mins to the next citycat. Unfortunately that cat has just passed me on the river... oh well at least it's a nice relaxing trip!

At least the slow trip has given me time to blog... Quick update..

• No new fish yet but the snails are enjoying the lack of hassling.
  
• The sun is making my keyboard really hot...
• Work's settled down a little... I managed no after hours last week.
  

The fish is dead... long live the snails...

It's a sad day... Our fighting fish has also gone the way of AJ and Tom's Fish. He's been struggling for a couple of weeks. Today I wandered over to the bowl to find the Snails feasting on the fishee at the bottom of the bowl...

Looks like the first fish experiment didn't really go to plan...

Blue Fishee isn't happy

I'm not sure what's wrong with Blue Fishee, but he's not his normal psycho self around the bowl. He's spending most of the time moping around the floor under the plant. We think it might be swim bladder problems, so we tried not fasting him for a bit and then feeding him some mushie pea. He's still just doesn't seem to be getting better. I'm not sure if he's just bored or if he's still getting over it. He will swim around if you play with him and he's still eating so I don't think it's terminal. At least I hope not...

I'm going to the fish place tomorrow to see what the say, maybe he's just lonely and is sick of picking on the snails.

Life in my hands!

I'm on the bus on my way home checking a few things on the laptop and this bus driver is a maniac! I wouldn't drive like this in the MX5 in the dry let alone a bus in the wet! We've already taken out 2 "Keep Left" Signs!

The problem with Power Boards. (Vogel Phase 2.5)

After a session moving a pool table at Dev's tonight, I picked up some more of the gear to hide the wires from Bunnings.

I finished the last of the wire running and hooked up the last of the rear speakers.

From Vogels Instal...

It's only phase 2.5 because I only ran half of the conduits tonight. My biggest problem with the progress thus far is the power board (below). I just can't get the cables to look tidy like the rest of the install. I'm sure it will come to me later.

From Vogels Instal...

For the moment, I'm just happy to have full 5.1 surround and most of the system looking the neatest

Vogels Install Phase 2.5

Vogel Install - Phase 2

After doing nothing but working and sleeping for the last couple of weeks I took some time out Sunday afternoon to progress a bit further with the stereo install.

First stop was a trip to Bunnings to pick up some Zone Hardware - Cord Covers. The key to the new covers was to secure the cords running across the door way.

From Vogels Phase 2

I replaced most of the flex tubes with runs of the conduit which secured the cables against the skirting boards. It's similarly designed to the Vogel gear with clip together plastic fittings. Unfortunately there was more cable to run than I'd anticipated so the power cords aren't yet catered for. The most impressive part of the install though was getting the conduits (which come in 2m lengths) home in the MX-5... who said it was impractical.

There are few more photos up of the install here...

Vogels Phase 2

Stalked by a Tiida...

Since I hired this particular Yellowy green Tiida for my trip to Lismore, it's been following me everywhere... I've seen it about 2 weeks out of every 3 since I hired it. The most obvious was it was parked next to us while we were holidaying up at Noosa just after new year. I saw it again this morning which is why I posted...

Irony is....

Having the project you've been working night and day on pulled less than 24 hours from go live because the IT Project Teams customer decided they weren't ready for the new processes the tool was to enforce....

I need this chair....

For those who don't know it's my Birthday coming up in a few months... I'd love to be putting this down on my birthday list but I'm not sure you can even buy them...

Sonic Chair Comes with Speakers and Noise Canceling

from Gizmodo

Finding the right chair or sofa to cushion your derriere while playing marathon sessions of Gears of War isn't as easy as it sounds. Not only does it have to be comfortable, but it should also look cool. That's why we're liking the Sonic Chair. Design-wise, it looks like something you'd find in a footballer's mansion (or a PS3 launch party). But take a look closer and you'll notice the chair also has input jacks and built-in speakers so you can hook up your iPod, console—pretty much anything you want. It's also the first bubble chair we've found that features noise cancellation so you can lodge yourself in and make yourself oblivious to your surroundings. Sounds good to us. – Louis Ramirez

Product Page [via Uber Review]

Sure beats a been bag!!

Ninty Stuff...

Doing a bit of web surfing stuff on the Wii tonight... Found a good site for Virtual Console Games. Has a list of reviews and lists all available titles for both PAL and NTSC territories. (it's also got an RSS Feed)

There is a new Hold on Tight ad for the Wii up on You tube... Pretty funny...

Although tit's not Wii news... The HD DVD drive for the XBox 360 is probably the only thing that would turn me on getting one in the near future...

Ride (Raid) over the River looks like it will be a must have title for anyone who likes Raiden Style top down shooter.

Checked out the News Channel today and was nice to see National content on the Slide Show.

More mainstream publicity for the Wii as Conan O'Brien takes on Serena in Wii Tennis.

Played some more Warioware: Smooth Moves, the Survival mode is just stupidly frantic, but fun all the same...

4 player tennis is still the best for some fast paced high 5ing action (and not the kid's group!)...

Phase one complete..

From Vogel Install

A couple of weeks ago we had brain wave about the lounge room and decided to rearrange (of course late on a Tuesday night). The end result was the TV found it self up near the shutters on the brick wall. It seemed to be the perfect opportunity to mount the whole system on the wall with some Vogel stands we picked up cheap. After a bit of planning on Friday, Dad and I started head long into the install around 11:30 and managed to get all the brackets up on the wall by 2pm. Amazingly every bracket is perfectly level and the stands cover up most of the wiring for the system.

From Vogel Install

From Vogel Install

We only had a few issues... First casualty was a drill bit which didn't survive the 3rd hole for the speaker mount. Probably should have taken a rest between holes :) The other was the Scart cable that runs the component signal from the Amp to the Loewe. When plugging it in for the TV install one of the key pins was bent over. Some impressive surgery on the connector by Tom and Andrew after they were over for lunch resurrected the pin. It took a bit of extra testing but managed to get all the connections working as spec'ed. Something that was almost an issue was the clearance of the back of the TV. Didn't think to measure it but fortunately it just squeezed in.

From Vogel Install

From Vogel Install

All in all it was a pretty quick install... After the bracket mounting yesterday I spent the morning rewiring and clearing up all the brick dust before the guys made it over for lunch at 12.

It's still only stage one.. while most of the system is wired up not all the covers are on yet and the rear speakers need to be moved and rewired but I'm really happy with the result so far for a weekend job. I've got the rest of the photos up in here. Thanks again Dad... turned out better than I could have hoped for!

Vogel Install

My Work Sucks...

Beware (if you didn't realise from the title) this entire post is going to be a rant!

So I've just finished my work again at some time after midnight. So far I've clocked over 9 days this week (yes it's only Friday and yes I know there are only 7 days in a week) and I AM NOT HAPPY ....

Sunday 9-5 (Day 1)
Monday 8am - 5pm (Day 2) 5:30pm - 2:30am (Day 3 and a bit)
Tuesday 7:30am - 6:30 (Day 4 and a bit)
Wednesday 5:30am - 5:30pm (Day 6) 8pm - 4am (Day 7)
Thursday 9am - 6pm (Day 8)
Friday 6pm - 12am (Day 9)

Anyway I would rant about why on top of the hours it's annoying me but I'm going to bed...