Family Guy vs Christianity

Classic... very apt for one of my pet subjects :-)

Windows Vista II Keyboard

They've given in... we all know what the Internet is for...

Here's the keyboard to get it...

All You Need To Know About BitTorrent

I am not the biggest user of torrents, but I know alot more than my friends and work colleagues and I get asked alot by people about it...

So on that note, when I read this tonight, I thought I should post it for my readers...

Enjoy

It All Comes Together: The getting good with BitTorrent roundup - Lifehacker

Can we forget Paul Keating Mr Howard?

Rate rises.  The very thing that has kept John Howard in office for the past thousand years is now coming back to bite him.  He has said time and time again that Interest Rates will not rise under a Coalition government.  Largely rates have been in check and he has ridden on the wave of good economic management but he forgets to mention the failure of wages to rise with inflation and hence the ever growing addiction we Australian's have to credit.

 

Home loans are now strething out beyond 30 years and are in some cases becoming inter-generational - where you borrow a stack of cash that your children will pay off for you when you're in the old folks home.  Its disgusting that we live this affluent life style on the back of low (suppressed?) interest rates and have kept Howard in the chair long enough to permanently destroy the reputation of our nation internationally.  We are no longer a "lucky country" universally accepted around the globe but now as a Western Nation with xenophobic views and a reliance on the US that causes us to seen in a bad light throughout Asia and the Middle East.

 

Now rates are set to rise multiple times by years end and what does Howard say.... "At least its not as bad as it was under Keating!"   Well Johnny, Keating was PM some 10-15 years ago... why dont we go back and compare Australia to the Menzies era's?  Or how are we doing in comparison to when Chifley and Barton were PM's of this Nation?  Why dont we compare Australia's situation to when we were scared of "the Hun" or when we were worried about "US Sailors romancing our good women folk in the 40's"?

 

For fuck sake, stop using the Keating era as a crutch.... It was hardly a time of desolation.  I remember those days that Australia was actually a good place to be... sure interest rates may have been higher, but I recall my parents buying the family home for $88K.  What does $88K get you these days?  Three bricks on a pedastal in a back laneway in Mosman...

 

/rant off.

Diary of Change - Day 2

My life is still a bit chaotic at the moment... am feeling a bit like my wheels are spinning from the new surroundings and my new boss used the analogy "try not to drink from a fire hose".  That's rather apt given that my role at the moment looks like a dogs breakfast and I am struggling to work out everything at once such as the next major project and dealing with my external brokers all the way down to where is the stationary cupboard.

 

The new role is fantastic in that I am keen to get stuck in but at the same time, I am being hampered by not knowing anything!  Its a very weird feeling...

 

The people are very nice but I am yet to invade the social scene... had lunch on my own again as everyone around me drifted away without me knowing... I tend to eat lunch later than others around here.  I am a 1pm eater, but when I looked out of my workstation at 12:30, everyone had gone.  They all have drifted back in seperately, so its not like everyone is leaving me behind, but at the same time I need to ask my colleagues "hey, what's doing for lunch!".

 

Having said that tomorrow, I have a meeting in town tomorrow that will take me through lunch, and I have lunch with a uni mate on Thursday lined up, so I will put that idea on hold.

 

The new Blackberry is making itself at home in my pocket as well... slowly getting people into my address book as the emails fly around cyberspace.  The BlackBerry picks up all the contact details from incoming emails and stores them in my Outlook contacts... very nifty!

 

As for work, I have my first series of site visits around Australia later this month.  Will be heading to Melbourne, Adelaide and possibly Perth.  This will be followed by the late September / early October trip to Singapore & London.  I am going to busy travelling it seems, so that will add to the excitement / chaos as well!

 

New Job - Where's the Coffee...

I am posting from my new digs at the new workplace... the morning was spent getting over the usual new starter things.  The laptop assigned to me wasnt set up properly, didnt even have MS Office installed and I am still as at 1:45pm trying to get into the network drive.  Add in the access pass, finding the bathrooms, trying to remember names etc and I am in a bit of brain overload at the moment.

 

The work itself is not unusual and I havent seen anything out of the ordinary... but the hardest thing is getting the jargon and understanding all the new TLA's (Three Letter Acronyms).  I also forgot my glasses as well and am suffering a bit of eyestrain as my monitor is very close to my eyes - much more so than I was used to.

 

The people are all very nice and have been shown around and met the Chairman of the company as well... I'd like to say more about the work I do and the company, but I am very sure not to let on who I work for because I'd hate to have someone link my blog with my work life... I am sure you understand :)

 

The one thing I can say though is that I have moved from Sydney to North Sydney.  Went out at lunchtime and had a quick explore... I feel a bit like I am working in suburbia in comparison to being in town, but it still has alot of shops and everything is actually closer to hand than where I was previously.  North Sydney has an abundance of coffee shops, so I am sure to try them all out eventually!  Of course everyone I have met already has their own personal preference and they are all different... the one in the lobby of my building though was quite nice but not many people seem keen on it... mmm

 

The other new thing I have received this morning is a Blackberry phone.... I wonder how things will go with that?  I have heard horror stories about people being addicted to them, but I am keen to see how it goes... but now at least I *could* blog from it on the train and maybe even take photo's and blog about things I see... maybe it will be a whole new feature coming to Lime Kettles!

 

Jimmy Passes Away

Sadly, Jimmy our 12 year old Cockatiel died this afternoon.

He had been slowing down of late and was very quiet the past few days, but when Niki & the Girls came home from dancing tonight, they found him dead on the floor of his cage.

The girls were incredibly upset and Kate hasnt really been able to stop crying.

We'll be burying him tomorrow in the garden... this is the third pet we've lost in a year...

He was 12yrs old and was Niki & I's first pet after we got married....

Sad day.