And the Monday airport ritual continues

It's Monday, and in a surprise to almost no one, I'm at the airport. In something that will also fail to surprise, I'm delayed. I knew it was a bad sign when the ETD for the 5:20 flight to Sydney was 7:25. Hopefully I get out of here before then as that's when I was due to land in Sydney. The delay is due to Air traffic control in Sydney pushing back arrivals due to congestion, but how many flights have been in before the 5:25 from Brisbane?

The thing that is the most annoying is the fact I could have done with an extra hours sleep.

In other more exciting news we had a pretty good weekend. Last night Tom & Suse and Mandy & Tom came over to watch the a Very Specky Christmas, as a follow on after we'd been to the live show a few weeks ago. We also managed to fit in a bit of Galaxy, Gears, ZeroPunctuation (NSFW) and Cat Face. Saturday was pretty busy with some Christmas shopping (also some Galaxy shopping as well) before heading to house warming Christmas drinks and Arj Barker (it was a great show that I'd recommend going to if it wasn't already finished).

The rest of the weekend was filled with singing and preparations for Christmas, which included the first inflation of the AeroBed and some more reconfiguration of the Projector setup to accommodate the Xbox 360 and a (ridiculously cheap) HDMI switch from Zazz (the best bit of which was finding the remote codes first go on the Harmony).

As far as the Xbox 360 goes it didn't get quite as much love as the Wii (at least on the gaming side) which started glowing blue from neglect almost perfectly on queue as I finished configuring the 360. Ness played a few of the arcade games before getting frustrated with the control system and wanted a Wiimote back. I doubt either will get much love while I'm in Sydney but I have a feeling that Bejeweled will swing favour slightly in the 360's direction once it's discovered.

Depsite procrastinating with this blog post for about 40 mins I'm still not looking like boarding anytime soon so I might have start on a Wish List.

113 minutes of my life I'm never getting back

Tonight I headed out to a see Beowulf, and you can probably can guess from the title... I wasn't terribly impressed. It was like sitting through a poorly acted play run by an animator theatre group played out by the Huminod characters from Shrek. The whole film is animated and in parts (especially close ups) the details are quite good, but the acting even with using advanced motion capture was quite stilted and unnatural. Some of the voice acting was just terrible as well, sounding more like a first run of lines than a finished motion picture.

It's been hailed as a great showcase of Digital films... but save your time/money and watch something from Pixar, you feel less like you needed a hero to come and save you from this demon of the cinema.

(For those who recommended it...you know who you are, youtube videos of WoW leveling guides have been more entertaining.)

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!

Back at the Airport!

Well in a little less than 24 hours I'm back in Brisbane airport.

It was a pretty great weekend though:

Ness picked me up
Out for Dinner with Tom and Susan at a great Indian place just down the road.
QPAC for the Spicks and Spectacular
Sleep...
Shopping for Couches
Bowls Club for Drinks and Christmas Party
Home for Packing
Back at the airport...

Doesn't look like a lot on paper... but it felt like a busy weekend.

I am tired now though, I think i could curl up for a nap without too much persuasion. Of course my flight is delayed so I have a little more time in the airport lounge than I'd planned.

Spicks and Specks was a great show last night, hilarious the whole way through and not just from Adam, Miff and Alan. The audience members who came up on stage were just fantastic.
The Christmas party was a log of fun today although we got quite a sunburn being out on the bowling green in the middle of the day (probably not helping my tiredness)

I'm back in Townsville for the week this week (and probably Sydney again next week as Ness managed to avoid me getting a trip to the UK taking me away for the Christmas break). It's been really hot and humid in Brisbane this week so I'm not looking forward to the heat in the Tropical north.

The Hell Week comes to a close

It's been a long and hellish week but it's finally coming to a close. All the work is signed off and done and I'm in the airport just waiting for my flight (and having some lunch... yes I'm aware it's 5:30pm)

Unfortunately there isn't much of a break I'm flying back to Townsville on Sunday at 6pm (about 24 hours from when I land). I'm just very happy to be seeing Ness for at least some time!

Next week shouldn't be as bad but I will be away for the whole time and Sydney for the week after. Christmas can't come soon enough this year.

I was planning on doing some shopping in Syndey for some Christmas presents but I didn't manage to get out of the office at any stage when shops were open.

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.

And the day just gets nastier

HEAT Business Rules make Cameron Cry....

Even the weather has turned nasty