Birthday List - It's my birthday again already!?

It has really snuck up on me this year.... OMG It's only two weeks until my birthday.... WHERE IS MY BIRTHDAY LIST!

It's probably going to be no surprise that there are going to be a few cycling things in here... and lots of other assorted geekerieUNION U-Shackle Lock  (note there are going to be some crazy things in here that I want but don't ever to expect to get as a present... you've been warned!)

First off though... I really don't need anything (being a weapon of mass consumption) so instead of a present you could always help me raise money for cancer.

Secondly... because I'm still really a kid... here's the list!

Liberator Bomber Jacket / Black & Cyan
Anything from this list Creux T-shirts
Tailored Jacket
Rapha Trousers
Gios Frame
UNION U-Shackle 
captain america cycling jersey
green lantern jersey

LED Light Pots
Apple TV
Xbox 360 Limited Edition Kinect Star Wars Bundle

Ghost Lamps
Super Mario Snerdles Question Box
Doctor Who Ride-in Dalek
Doctor Who Save the Universe Board Game

iPhone Brick Case
Donkey Kong Jenga
Nintendo Reversible Messenger Bag

Mage Knight: Board Game
Munchkin Deluxe
Munchkin Quest: The Munchkin Boardgame
Talisman Revised 4th Edition
LEGO® Games 3835 Robo Champ

Philips AD7000W AirPlay Speaker
iTunes Credit (let's face it I've sold my soul to the iTunes store)

Shopping for a new camera.

Last weekend Ness announced that she liked the sound that a Digital SLR made when she took a photo. As a result I've been having a bit of a look around for a new camera. For the last few years I've been using a Fuji SuperZoom, the S9500, for a while (2 in fact after I lost the first one). I've always picked one of these type over an SLR because I'm not a big fan of having to carry around a bag full of lenses. I like taking photos but I'm not very serious about so picking which DSLR to go for is a bit hard. I thought I'd try and stick with a budget similar to that of the S100fs, Fuji's replacement for the camera I use at the moment, for body and lenses.

So far I've been looking at the Pentax K200D, Sony A200, Nikon D60 , Olympus E-520 and the Canon 1000D.

It's a hard decision to make, I'm tending towards the Pentax K200D for a few of reasons. First of all there is the price, the body is on sale for about $569 which is almost $200 cheaper than 1000D. Another attraction is the performance in the reviews while not being top of the class it's certainly no slouch and considering the cost difference it's hard to ignore. It hasn't passed the sound test so all could change.

The next big thing is to decide what sort of lens to get. I'd really like to get a lens similar to what I'm used to but the cost seems a bit prohibitive at the moment. $1200 for a lens when the camera is only 569 seems a little wrong. I like the zoom I have now but I might have to go for something a bit more conservative. So many decisions....

Wish I could think of a title.

I should be able to think of a title but here we are posting and without a title. It's been a busy few days. I had a whirlwind trip to Sydney for Dev's wedding. Unfortunately we were told that Zach shouldn't be flying so we changed the travel plans and I flew down alone. I made it to one of the Ceremony's but had to fly home early and missed the others. It also ment I had to miss out on catching up with people while I was there.

From What's in a Name?

The ceremony was great and the bride and groom looked fabulous. It was a great ceremony (even though I didn't really understand any of it). Apologies to everyone I had to cut short on in Sydney.

It's really starting to get humid up here at home and I'm very looking forward to the Air Con install this week. It's been a hot few days but it hasn't got much over 27 in the house but the humidity has been up over 70% most days (even now at 7am it's 70%) Zach doesn't seem to much of a fan of the humidity either.

We went out for our usual morning walk this morning, but amazingly we weren't the only one with a STOKKE stroller out on the river walk. There is another white one that passed me this morning, while we complimented each other on a great pram choice.

The little Zach is really starting to grow, I'm not sure how much longer he's going to be fitting his 0000 clothes, he does look cute in a hat though.

more photos of zachary

The next few days are going to be busy as we have to clean out the study for the A/C install. I'm not looking forward to moving that desk bed that is for sure.

There has been little movement on the technology front for a while, although I am keeping my eye on a pair of speakers that match my Jamo THX ones, which would give me 7.1. The A/C budget does tend to slow the progress of the tech fund a little. I did pick up a copy of Iron Man on blu ray, which I think will be on the top of the watch list for the first post A/C movie night. With no A/C and our windows the only source of cooling it's a little hard to close half of them off to lower the screen and then turn on the heat pump (also known as the projector). We did fire up the gear for Vantage point last week on Foxtel HD. Not a bad movie (certainly not a great one) but didn't try to be too much, and it was short.

That's about it for this post, I'm sure there is more I should put in here....

A beautiful morning for a stroll

In what is becoming an early morning tradition Zachary and I went for a walk along the river. On the good side it means he's swapped his 2-4 awake time for 5-7 and as a result a lot more night time sleep for us, but not as many blog posts.

It was a beautiful morning on the river (even if it was a little hot). There are some interesting outfits on the runners in the morning... all I'm going to say is NO ONE should be wearing those short running shorts but if you're over 60 DEFINITELY NOT!

Ness and Zachary (and Suse) went to a baby shower for my Sister yesterday, leaving Tom and I to fend for ourselves. After a brief stint watching top gear we slotted straight into some 360 time with Gears of War 2. We managed to blaze through the horde for about 4 hours before we could game no more. A pretty good game to pick though if you've got some time for co-op gaming. To carry on the gaming theme we ended the night with some pizza from Hell, which is fast becoming my favourite place to get Gluten Free Pizza. You can order online, they will tell you the exact minute that you can order and they have some fantastic taste sensations. To top it off when I'm feeling really lazy they will even deliver to my house!

I'm back to work full time on Monday which I think is going to be a bit tough, having been with Zach every day since he was born. Hopefully I've got some time working from home after the start of these projects so I will be able to spend some more time with him (even if I have to be working)

The nightmare of our AC failure is starting to be rectified with the final measurements and design being completed on Friday, everything is looking on track to be in by Christmas but I'm still considering putting in some ceiling fans to get us through until then.

Lastly we've made some minor additions to Zachary's room with some cool removable wall decals. I've still got one set to put up but this is the look so far...

Wall Decals

Green Fail!

This week I caught a post on Apartment Therapy about simple ways to go green, specifically Go veggie for one day a week. Not being a person with the smallest carbon footprint around I thought I'd try and start a Green Day each week. The plan was to A. Go Veggie and B. Limit Tech Use.
Yesterday was the first run at it and it was a partial success. While the Veggie option went pretty well and I managed to avoid meat all day the tech fell down a little. Mandy and Tom dropped in unexpectedly and the chance at a few rounds of Smash Bros with real opponents was too good to pass up.

All is not lost though, we're transferring the anti tech aspect onto today and although it's not a lot it's at least a start.

and other Brisbane Sale adventures

So it's sale time (one of the best times of the year). David Jones and Myer both had their big Stocktake sale events this week and we had a bit of a shopping excursion last night.

The result was one of our first big baby purchases (not counting the car).... The Pram...
DJs had a pretty good sale price on the pram we wanted so we ordered one. It'll be here in a couple of weeks.

We got the whole kit, bassinet and all, in orange. I struggled getting it to unfold in the shop (not helped by Ness laughing at me) but I'm sure I'll work it out.

A busy Sunday.

It's a long weekend in Brisbane this weekend, unfortunately though as I'm working for someone in NSW they aren't on holidays and I'm working. We worked on making the most of the Sunday though. This morning we went out and had b'fast at Lock and Load at West End which was a good b'fast and even better chat.

After that we worked up the courage and played with the Xplory our current top pram choice. After working out how it folded up and changed all the bits that changed. We decided that it's definitely the pram for us and it also managed to reduce our possible car lists.

The rest of the day was dedicated to building a new Stereo cabinet and rewiring the system.

Stereo makeover

The new cabinet looks great and hides away all the components and wiring really well. I'm a bit exhausted though... carrying the TV and all the bits of glass has worn me out a little, it's luck I don't have to be up to fly tomorrow.

Arcade Gaming Goodness

So for my 30th my very steathly wife managed to organise a surprise present. Not only did she organise a surprise she managed to get just about everyone in on the surprise without letting the surprise out.

Well today was the day, after a few delays (like a small side trip via Sydney) the surprise arrive...

An Arcade table of Awesomeness!!!

Arcade Table unboxed

I knew it had to be something big when it arrived on a palette! It's a Cocktail Tabletop Model it's preloaded and is fantastic... I'm so glad that it's a long weekend. There are some fantastic titles in the preload...

Ness has already discovered Puzzle Bobble... At least I know it will get some use while I'm away!

Thanks so much to everyone who had a hand in this! And a BIG thankyou to my Fantastic wife for a FANTASTIC 30th present! (now all I have to do is plan for Ness's 30th present)

Cufflinks... Someone needs to buy me these!!!

Ironically I forgot my cufflinks this weeks so I could totally do with a set of these!!!! (Pity it was my birthday a few weekends ago)

Technology melt down....

There was a bit of a technology melt down tonight.... The 360 today had a bit of update for oblivion, which I've been playing just a little this weekend. The only trouble is that when I tried to turn it on tonight it had a little bit of a hissy fit and crashed. Now won't boot without a RROD and a E74 error on the screen. While the Xbox was having a bit of a cry it also managed to send a rogue signal over the HDMI connection which forced an emergency shutdown of the projector. Big red flashing lights are not something you every want to see (on either your projector or your 360)

Fortunately all is not completely lost. After the 5 minute shutdown and a power cycle the Projector came back to life. The 360 was not quite as lucky... there is some corruption in the memory card. Fixable but will probably require another HardDisk. Hopefully the 30+ hours of oblivion saves are recoverable...

Friday night at the airport.

Tonight I've got another trip to the airport but this time with a difference. Ness is on her way down for a weekend in sydney! We're aiming for a bit of a relax with no home duties on the agenda. It feels like forever since I saw her not helped with Hallmark day this week.

It's been a fairly uneventful week Sydneywise and I don't have a lot to report game wise. Work has been quite hectic but has been good never the less.

In my new found jump into the HD arena there has been some good news with Amazon have a 50% off deal on HD-DVD running in conjunction with a buy two HD DVDs or Blu-ray discs and get a third from the same list for free. This does make jumping on the HD bandwagon a bit easier. HD-DVDs have no region so buying from Amazon is a no brainer, Blu-ray is a bit more complicated. Fortunately the helpful people at the DTV Forum have posted a list of all the region free Blu-ray titles. Of course most of the bigger name titles that I want are region coded but that's the way the cookie crumbles.

Another wet day in Sydney

Today has been a horribly wet day in Sydney. I got completely soaked on the way home. The whole place is a wet shade of grey. The wind is really strong as well it's been blowing so hard the whole balcony of the apartment is soaked.

The weather was particularly bad at lunch. Everyone was trying to keep out of the rain so the cafe's in the building were packed and out of food, without an umbrella I resorted to the vending machine in the office. Fortunately tonight I didn't have to venture too far to get some good Thai food.

The weekend was great, I made it back for some of the 20/20 cricket although the match was all but over by the end of the Indian innings. I headed to Freestyle to meet Ness at the tail end of a birthday party.

Saturday Dad and I headed to the Motorshow. There weren't a few missing big names like Porsche and Lambo. Still a good show lots of nice car. Also ran into Mick and Brad while they were waiting for Craig Lowndes to sign autographs at the Ford stand.

Saturday night Ness and I had a night out to Tonic and to watch Juno. Tonic was ok, the food was really good but the service (for the price) was very ordinary. Juno was a good movie and even though I didn't have the same wait to see it as Mandy it's definately worth seeing.

Sunday a few people came over for lunch and some Wii time. A great lunch, both thanks to Ness's great Spanish style food and some of the best Wii Tennis points ever. Tom took some great shots of the Wii Zapper action and the lunch.

This week has it's another week in Sydney but I'm going to be back in time on Friday to head to the A League Semi final.

Oh and in some tech news I put a Dual Format High Def player on hold with the idea of jumping into the next gen HD media format war without picking a side. The other advantage is that I can take advantage of some other big sales at Amazon, probably more news on that to come soon.

Crawling through the back catalogue

I haven't blogged for a while (as with Ben and Mick) one of the problems is working what to blog about (other than the fact that I'm travelling... it's hardly news any more). The other problem is trying to find time to do it. I've been clocking in a lot of over time so sitting in front of my PC to blog hasn't been high on my list. But here we are... so... the blogging...

With all the travel I've got in the coming months I've been working on some gaming to do to fill in the hours away from home. I considered taking the new console to the family (the Xbox 360) with me but it's weight and bulk are too much to carry back and forth on a plane every week. I have the DS with me obviously but was looking for some gaming not just on the small screen. Due to it's small form factor I packed the PS2 with me. I haven't played much on the PS2 , I bit of God of War 2 for a review and some (PSOne) NFL Blitz with Tom. So there is plenty of PS2 gaming out there to be had.

Playing through the back catalog of games certainly has it's merits. First of all I looked up all the titles with reviews of 8/10 or more and started working down the list. As a result I've picked up Grand Theft Auto III and Prince of Persia: Sands of Time for the princely (pun intended) sum of $20 (combined). Both are great games and have clocked a few hours in both. As far as the graphics are concerned they certainly fall short of the 360 but on a 34cm TV it's hardly a concern. I'd never played any of the GTA series, my closest exposure was it's poorer cousin True Crime: Streets of LA. GTAIII is quite addictive, my driving skills need some improvement but it's a lot of fun. There are plenty more in the series (still at cheap prices) to go and that's even before the new GTAIV is released (something I wouldn't have considered on the 360 until now).

On the home gaming front I've been quite addicted to Oblivion on the 360. It's a great implementation of a Traditional RPG on a console, it's a pity the prequel Morrowind wasn't a PS2 game otherwise it would have been one of the first titles I picked up. I was tempted by Everquest on the PS2 (along with WoW on my Laptop, but I'm not crazy) for some RPG love but the ongoing subscription and net usages have put me off so far.

The DS won't be left out though. One of my favourite titles from the GBA and the initial DS (PHAT) was the Advance Wars Series. The latest incarnation Advance Wars: Days of Ruin has just popped up on Play Asia and straight to my order's list. The thing I'm most looking forward to is the Online Battles (with voice chat) a disappointing omission from the first title.

Other than that I almost dipped into the HD Format with a combined player but managed to talk myself out of it (Thanks Ness)

Well that's enough procrastination for one night... back to the overtime

It's almost confirmed.

So after a series of interviews today I'm all but confirmed for a huge stint in Sydney. The work starts Monday and will be pretty much through until March at this stage... so about the only question left is do I or don't I start a WoW campaign while I'm away.

I was planning on having a get together for the 1st 20/20 cricket match they were broadcasting in HD but it looks like I won't be Brisbane now so I might have to give it a miss.

In other (unsurprising) news I'm delayed in the airport.... again. There are a few thunderstorms around in Sydney and as a result I've been moved on to the 6:30pm flight to Brisbane, but it's not leaving until 7:30pm.

The other big news of the day is the new Apple Macbook Air. This is my first must have gear for 2008. The laptop sports an amazingly thin .75" profile and 5 hours of battery life.

Wish List Update

I've update my Wish List (mostly with non tech stuff because it was too techy apparently)

It's official... I've caved....

Tonight instead of the normal hanging out in my hotel room, I thought I'd venture out and get some dinner. On my way home I managed to stumble across something a little unusual for Townsville a store that was open after 5:30pm. The place was having a one day sale so I thought I'd have a look around. To cut a long story short after a little haggling on some already discounted product (and possibly taking advantage of a casual staff member's inexperience) I walked away a happy gamer with a new Xbox 360 Arcade and Gears of War. I did have to make one consession for the discounts and that was grabbing an HDMI cable to go with it... still ended up cheaper than the just console would have cost from EB and I didn't pay full price for the cable either.
Fortunately there is an HD Ready LCD in my hotel room so Gears got a bit of a work out tonight. Even on the cheap LCD it looks quite nice and I'm looking forward to playing it on the Epson when I get it home.

The Arcade version doesn't come with a HDD but does come with a memory card (which is enough to store quite a few saves for the moment. I also discovered a way to stream your iTunes library to the console so it might be a good way of getting some of the tunes down that way.

It looks like once again travelling has ended up with me finding a bargin!

Dear Santa, I've been nice!

It's been a crazy week but I promise I will put up a Christmas list in the next few days... In the mean time this wouldn't go astray in Santa's Sack

Mario Kart Slot Racing For Geeks of All Ages

from Gizmodo by Sean Fallon

You have been a slot racer fan since you were a kid —plus, you have always enjoyed the Mario Kart series. So why not put your passions together with this Mario Kart Slot Racing set? Additional info and photo of the track after the jump.

Each set comes complete with 1:43 scale versions of Mario's B Dasher and Wario's Brute, as well as 20 feet of race track. Plus, the unit has an official Nintendo seal of approval, so you know it is quality. It is currently sold out, but when they get more in stock the set can be yours for $89.95. [Product Page]

All the way to work..... on a Saturday....

All the way to work!

Last night I managed to get the rest of the changes and fixes in by a semi reasonable hour and back to my hotel by 8:30. Fortunately this meant I wasn't too late to catch up with Amaya for a few pints and discussion on work pain, games, gadgets etc. (and some how the differences in the treatment of native inhabitants of Australia and New Zealand during their European invasion and how you store Antimatter).
Of course, as with everytime I catch up, I discover there are now a whole series of gadgets and toys that I simply have to own.

I'm still in Sydney today and am heading back to work for hopefully the final testing phases in acceptance.