Stuck at the airport

Turns out it's been a few days since I blogged... I could have sworn I blogged another day this week but it turns out I was mistaken.

So..... I don't really have a lot news to talk about... I've had a bit of training this week which has been quite good.

Other than that it's been a quiet-ish week... I've been training another consultant after hours so it's pretty much been work and sleep this week so not a lot of anything else.

I did pick up a copy of Boom Blox today so that should be a good interlude on the weekend.

I'm currently stuck in Sydney airport waiting for the airport to reopen after a lightning storm. I'm off to Adelaide tonight and for the rest of the week. At least I have my DS with me this week so the plane trip won't be a complete loss.

The C4 has landed (and gets it's first big drive)

This weekend we picked up our new toy the C4. We got quite a few surprises on it's first little journey. First of all we weren't really prepared for the reversing sensors which gave us a shock.

The glass roof is great, it's just like being the worlds quietest convertible. It's not quite the wind in the hair feeling of MinX but it's still great to have the sun streaming in.

Vanessa did most of the driving yesterday and it was a great car to be a passenger in. It also gave a good chance to work out some of the gadgets in the car. One of my favourite features is the HUD.

It's linked to most of the functions on the steering wheel or the stereo. We took it for a drive up to Montville today and it was the easiest drive I've had to do in a long time. We stopped at a couple of places and had a bit of a look at a few key spots but the main idea was to wear in the car. I've always been a fan of cruise control but the C4 also has speed limiting as well which made for a very easy drive up the highway without having to worry about breaking the limit and getting a flash from a camera. We also filled up the stacker with 5 discs and discovered just how well the automatic audio leveling worked (not that it ever got very loud in the car). It was a great smooth ride and will be a nice long distance car.

Morning from Adelaide

The last couple of days of my week are in Adelaide after a bit of a stretch in Sydney early in the week. I made a bit of a mistake not taking any gaming devices with me this week. Good Game (and work) has filed most of that gap for me though. I haven't been able to watch them during the week (mostly due to a lack of ABC2) so I downloaded a stack of past episodes and I've been slowly churning through them this week. It's a bit of a flight back tomorrow so I've made sure I've got one for the flight home.

Wiiware came out this week in Australia (a little disappointing as I can't be sitting there in front of the screen waiting patiently for the gaming glory to arrive).... Good news though is that it looks like you can share demos with your friends. Dr Mario is on the list for the Game downloads... I'll be sending around a few demos on the weekend I imagine.

First toys for Paris?

These cute little items popped up on Play Asia this week. They are even more cutesy than Mario Galaxy itself (who would have thought that was possible). They are probably not safe from birth but as sure as our new arrival hits six months the gaming indoctrination will be starting off with a few Mario Plush toys.

Contemplating a new PVR

So it's probably not much of a surprise to anyone that I was contemplating an upgrade to my PVR at some stage. The Topfield PVR5000t has been great over the years but it's limited to SD and doesn't have HDMI support. The trouble with choosing a new PVR is finding something that has the same level of features as my old Topfield hasn't been easy. Yesterday, however, I got an email that made me rethink my strategy just a little.

Foxtel HD+ was launched yesterday to those who'd signed up at their site and I got an email outlining the pricing plan and offerings for the service. The box itself is based loosely on the Sky+ box in the UK which gets rave reviews from the likes of What Hifi (it's probably also the reason that for the most part the new HD content is from UK Channels).

The pricing is by no means cheap but when compared with the price of getting a new HD PVR (~$1000) it's not completely hideous. I'm not sure if I'll jump just yet and by the looks of the reports it could be a long time coming if I do....

A post for a Monday morning

Well we’re back at Monday again and I’m back on a plane, this post comes to you from 8900m above sea level (well technically it was written at that altitude but obviously I won’t be posting it until we land... we still don’t have Wifi on planes just yet). Yesterday was a bit of a role reversal for travel, Ness was off to a conference on the Gold Coast so I was the one staying home (well at least for one night) and bidding farewell. Being at home on my own I spent some quality time with the projector and settled in with a movie on the big screen. I’m still wading through the huge list of HD and BluRay titles that I’ve been accumulating. The new setup has made a substantial difference to the performance of the Sub. It’s now in the middle of the front 3 speakers directly under the sub and up against the brick wall. The deep bass is now much more integrated with the rest of the front stage and delivers the music aspect of soundtracks better than ever before. Explosions still have their same usual punch and deep rumblings as before, something the system never really struggled with. The best bit about the whole thing though was I got to use the projector in complete darkness something that doesn’t happen too often, no matter how good their ambient light performance, it always feels a bit more like a cinema when it’s just the light bouncing back off the screen.

We took the C4 for a drive on the weekend and will now be picking it up on Saturday. It was a bit of a shock going from MinX to the C4 but it was a really comfortable ride and the glass roof is just great.

We also started stage 1 of Paris preparations for the nursery. Although there isn’t anything that looks like a nursery, we’ve started relocating the study into other rooms of the house (or other people’s houses as the case may be. The iMac has found a new home on the Transformer bed and the gaming station is going to be relocated around the arcade table. The ‘Library’ as it’s now called has had the bookshelves rearranged and consolidated.

For those who are interested (probably no one but it helps pad this post) we’re now at 12600m above sea level.

As this is turning into a weekend update here’s the rest of our weekend, Friday night we went to Salon for a bon voyage dinner for Tom and Susan before they headed on their 6 week holiday. We went to Salon because Tom had missed out on the Slow Cooked Beef dish at my birthday party. So we had a bit of a Spanish style dinner with a Pork Belly, Slow Cooked Beef and Wild Boar dish. After one bite of the beef, though, Tom was hooked. We cut a deal with the girls and traded sweet desert for beef desert. Best Desert EVER!

Waiting in the airport...

Ah airports.... A place I both love and hate... for example, today I was over joyed to be heading to the airport. End of a project, heading home for 3 days (in a row) pretty good as Thursdays go. Now however it's 8pm, no sign of my flight leaving any time soon (which is already an hour late). So they are always a bit of ying and yang.

So tomorrow I have a 9am meeting which isn't going to be much fun when I get home at well past 10:30pm...

Blogging 'cause Ness is...

So I really have nothing to blog about... I've been really busy so far this week (12 hour days is cutting into my personal time) so I haven't got a lot of news (not even vicarious news from google reader), but I know Ness is blogging so I can't be left out.

In a very "OMG I'm going to be a Dad" moment I did feel Paris wiggle for the first time on the weekend which was very exciting, no kicking yet but it can't be far away now. (which is really only exciting news for me)

I'm still waiting for my stuff from thinkgeek to arrive, it's been a bit of a struggle with DHL and getting them to deliver but hopefully it will arrive some time this week though and I can be safe and warm in my /dev/blanket when I get home.

There are some good Blu Ray deals and some new titles on Amazon this week so I might be putting in a new order... there are a couple of DVDs that might slip into the mix as well.

Finally... (as this blog is as a result of Ness blogging)

This is not an appropriate use of the arcade table!!!