No boom today. Boom tomorrow. There's always a boom tomorrow.
Saturday, August 30
One Of Those Other Days
Not one of those days; one of those other days.
Okay, so my teraflop video card has to go back for replacement.
But I have three monitors that work perfectly. I've unboxed the second of the new monitors and hooked it up, and it's as good as the first. (But about 3mm shorter, for some reason. But it's height adjustable, so I adjusted it.)
It used to be that when you bought a new monitor, you'd spend an hour or so with the controls, setting it so that the edges were straight - and parallel - and perpendicular. These days, particularly with DVI or HDMI, you don't have any such worries. What you do have is bad pixels.
Or in my case, what I don't have is bad pixels. Except for my TV, which has one pixel that is stuck red, all my LCD panels are flawless.
And while I've had more bluescreens today than I've had in the past year, now that I've stopped mucking about with the video card and my integrated graphics (I tried overclocking it; bad idea) everything is stable again.
And now my backup internet connection has started working again.
It went on the blink about three months ago. At first it would work for a few hours, then drop out repeatedly. More recently, it would only stay up for a minute or two between dropouts, which made it basically useless. Between my two jobs and not moving house, I've been too busy to worry about getting it fixed.
Just plugged the modem back in to try it out. Changed one setting - at some point, I factory reset the modem to try to fix it - and it came up. 19052kbits down, 1023kbits up. (My primary connection is 18440kbits down, 2081kbits up. Yay for Annex M!)
And my billing cycle ends tomorrow, so I have 150GB of bandwidth to use up in 24 hours. Torrentstorm!
Not one of those days; one of those other days.
Okay, so my teraflop video card has to go back for replacement.
But I have three monitors that work perfectly. I've unboxed the second of the new monitors and hooked it up, and it's as good as the first. (But about 3mm shorter, for some reason. But it's height adjustable, so I adjusted it.)
It used to be that when you bought a new monitor, you'd spend an hour or so with the controls, setting it so that the edges were straight - and parallel - and perpendicular. These days, particularly with DVI or HDMI, you don't have any such worries. What you do have is bad pixels.
Or in my case, what I don't have is bad pixels. Except for my TV, which has one pixel that is stuck red, all my LCD panels are flawless.
And while I've had more bluescreens today than I've had in the past year, now that I've stopped mucking about with the video card and my integrated graphics (I tried overclocking it; bad idea) everything is stable again.
And now my backup internet connection has started working again.
It went on the blink about three months ago. At first it would work for a few hours, then drop out repeatedly. More recently, it would only stay up for a minute or two between dropouts, which made it basically useless. Between my two jobs and not moving house, I've been too busy to worry about getting it fixed.
Just plugged the modem back in to try it out. Changed one setting - at some point, I factory reset the modem to try to fix it - and it came up. 19052kbits down, 1023kbits up. (My primary connection is 18440kbits down, 2081kbits up. Yay for Annex M!)
And my billing cycle ends tomorrow, so I have 150GB of bandwidth to use up in 24 hours. Torrentstorm!
Posted by: Pixy Misa at
11:53 PM
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Die, Firefox, Die!
My notebook just updated to Firefox 3.
The "awesome bar" is as craptacular as ever. Maybe more so. I hate it with the fury of a thousand suns.
It learns, yes. After a week, two a the most, it is useful. And installing the Oldbar plugin at least makes it not ugly as well as stupid.
But the default settings are retarded.
My notebook just updated to Firefox 3.
The "awesome bar" is as craptacular as ever. Maybe more so. I hate it with the fury of a thousand suns.
It learns, yes. After a week, two a the most, it is useful. And installing the Oldbar plugin at least makes it not ugly as well as stupid.
But the default settings are retarded.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at
09:19 PM
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Bipple Bipple Bop...
I've had this song stuck in my head for the last few days, but couldn't work out what it was. Some sort of j-pop, and most likely an anime theme song, but which one (of thousands)?
This one:
Let me tell you, that's an annoying thing to have stuck in your head.
...
You're welcome!
Update: From the days when ADV knew how to make ads:
When my local anime store got my orders in each month, the thing I would be waiting for most eagerly was the new ADV tapes, because they'd have new trailers on them. And the trailers were as you see here, simply the theme song played against a selection of clips from the show.
I bought dozens of ADV titles on this basis.
I've had this song stuck in my head for the last few days, but couldn't work out what it was. Some sort of j-pop, and most likely an anime theme song, but which one (of thousands)?
This one:
Let me tell you, that's an annoying thing to have stuck in your head.
...
You're welcome!
Update: From the days when ADV knew how to make ads:
When my local anime store got my orders in each month, the thing I would be waiting for most eagerly was the new ADV tapes, because they'd have new trailers on them. And the trailers were as you see here, simply the theme song played against a selection of clips from the show.
I bought dozens of ADV titles on this basis.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at
09:11 PM
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Mostly Good News
No DVI-eating nanovirus.
Faulty video card. Two freezes and three blue-screens later - the last while I was updating the drivers - and I've had enough. That one's going straight back. I would have worked out the problem a lot sooner if it hadn't been for -
Two faulty DVI cables. At least that's my current guess; the replacement DVI cable I bought when I started having trouble with DVI input on my old monitor doesn't work. So, I'm guessing (or at least hoping) that means that my old monitor is in fact fine. I'm going to test this hypothesis right now.
...
Yep. Didn't want to turn on at first for some reason, but it's on DVI right now and working fine.
Well, I guess that's good news. I'm better of than when I started anyway. I've now confirmed that my new monitor works on DVI input, my old monitor works on DVI input, and my motherboard works on DVI output.
All I need now is a video card that actually works, and I'm all set!
And maybe another DVI cable...
Update: Currently have my old monitor and one of the new monitors running in dual-screen mode off my motherboard. Yay for AMD chipsets! Shame it's only got one digital output, though.
No DVI-eating nanovirus.
Faulty video card. Two freezes and three blue-screens later - the last while I was updating the drivers - and I've had enough. That one's going straight back. I would have worked out the problem a lot sooner if it hadn't been for -
Two faulty DVI cables. At least that's my current guess; the replacement DVI cable I bought when I started having trouble with DVI input on my old monitor doesn't work. So, I'm guessing (or at least hoping) that means that my old monitor is in fact fine. I'm going to test this hypothesis right now.
...
Yep. Didn't want to turn on at first for some reason, but it's on DVI right now and working fine.
Well, I guess that's good news. I'm better of than when I started anyway. I've now confirmed that my new monitor works on DVI input, my old monitor works on DVI input, and my motherboard works on DVI output.
All I need now is a video card that actually works, and I'm all set!
And maybe another DVI cable...
Update: Currently have my old monitor and one of the new monitors running in dual-screen mode off my motherboard. Yay for AMD chipsets! Shame it's only got one digital output, though.
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02:34 PM
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Dammit
I forgot Pixy's First Rule of PC Hardware Upgrades:
Don't.
Three hours into a 10-minute upgrade, you'd be happy if you could even get back to where you started. Which I have, more or less. Don't think any permanent damage was done...
I may have a DVI-eating nanovirus, though.
I forgot Pixy's First Rule of PC Hardware Upgrades:
Don't.
Three hours into a 10-minute upgrade, you'd be happy if you could even get back to where you started. Which I have, more or less. Don't think any permanent damage was done...
I may have a DVI-eating nanovirus, though.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at
05:41 AM
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Thursday, August 28
Dropping The Third Shoe
I've ordered a Radeon 4850 to go with my two new monitors.
With a gigabyte of onboard memory,* over 60GB/second of bandwidth, and a teraflop of shader power, it should be just enough to allow Vista to run a slideshow.
* I ordered the Asus EAH4850-HTDI-1G, which has twice the usual memory and a custom cooler.
I've ordered a Radeon 4850 to go with my two new monitors.
With a gigabyte of onboard memory,* over 60GB/second of bandwidth, and a teraflop of shader power, it should be just enough to allow Vista to run a slideshow.
* I ordered the Asus EAH4850-HTDI-1G, which has twice the usual memory and a custom cooler.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at
12:00 PM
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Wednesday, August 27
Dear Vista Slideshow Team
Die in a fire.
Because maybe, once you're dead, you'll leave my fucking display resolution alone, huh?*
And not take two minutes to start a simple slideshow. On a 2.6GHz dual-core computer.
Oh, and Vista audio team? You can join them. You manage to do a worse job than Windows Me, despite having approximately 15 times the memory and processing power to hand.
* In the usual spectacularly retarded Microsoft fashion, there's a fix to stop Windows doing something it should never bloody well do in the first place. The fix is: Edit a secret value in the registry. Yes, the thing that Microsoft tells you never ever ever to touch.
Die in a fire.
Because maybe, once you're dead, you'll leave my fucking display resolution alone, huh?*
And not take two minutes to start a simple slideshow. On a 2.6GHz dual-core computer.
Oh, and Vista audio team? You can join them. You manage to do a worse job than Windows Me, despite having approximately 15 times the memory and processing power to hand.
* In the usual spectacularly retarded Microsoft fashion, there's a fix to stop Windows doing something it should never bloody well do in the first place. The fix is: Edit a secret value in the registry. Yes, the thing that Microsoft tells you never ever ever to touch.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at
10:16 PM
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And Boy Are My Arms Tired!
I used to have three Sony G500 monitors, great big 21" CRTs. In fact, I think I still have them, lurking at the bottom of my garage. They work just fine except for the fact that they are horribly over-bright, a fate to which the G500 seems prone.
When they all went nova in rapid succession a few years back, I replaced them with a single 19" LCD, a Samsung 930MP, which I have been using happily ever since. Slightly less happily since last Christmas, when the DVI input was incinerated under suspicious circumstances, but even with just the VGA input it's still a damn nice monitor.
Today I replaced it with a pair of Samsung 214T monitors. In many ways these are the successors to the 930MP. They're 21" 1600x1200 screens instead of 19" 1280x1024, which is nice, and they have a similar range of video inputs. Not quite as extensive - there's no actual TV tuner in there - and they don't have built-in speakers. (But the speakers on the 930MP aren't crash hot, and I use a small Logitech 2.1 speaker system now.)
Like the 930MP they're high-quality S-PVA panels, rather than the typical basic TN that cheap monitors have, which means that the colour doesn't shift every time you move your head. (Also means that the response time is somewhat slower, and they're not as good for games. But even the 930MP works fine for the games I play. Which doesn't include Counterstrike.)
The thing is, I had to carry these monitors about half a mile from the store back to the station. No problem, I thought. They're LCDs. Light. Compact. I carried my 27" LCD television home from the store without too much drama. It's not like the old days of the G500s, which weighed in at 70 pounds apiece.
Not quite.
In their boxes, these beasties still weigh 25 pounds each. That's twice what a typical 22" widescreen LCD weighs. As I said, I lugged two of them half a mile, and the boxes are too bulky to just stack them up and carry them that way, so I had to use the awkward little inset carry handles - you know, the sort where there's just a flap of cardboard that folds inwards.
The tendons in my left hand seem to have gone on strike in protest.
These had better be really good monitors!
Hmm. Maybe now I should buy a video card.
Update: Good grief. I have one of the monitors home now and set up in portrait mode. The screen pivots, so you can run it in 1600x1200 or 1200x1600, as you choose.
That... Will take a little getting used to.
Update: I think one of these would have done, actually. I'm sure I'll manage to find a use for the second one though.
Update: Takes a little getting used to indeed. I just switched to using my notebook, which like pretty much all notebooks these days has a basic TN panel with a glossy finish.
When it comes to colour reproduction, there's simply no contest. The Samsung 214T kicks my HP notebook into the middle of next week. Photos that look kind of nice on the notebook screen look downright amazing on the monitor.
Of course, I can get an entire notebook, complete with Windows, for the price of one of those monitors. But right now, I have no regrets at all over today's purchase.
I used to have three Sony G500 monitors, great big 21" CRTs. In fact, I think I still have them, lurking at the bottom of my garage. They work just fine except for the fact that they are horribly over-bright, a fate to which the G500 seems prone.
When they all went nova in rapid succession a few years back, I replaced them with a single 19" LCD, a Samsung 930MP, which I have been using happily ever since. Slightly less happily since last Christmas, when the DVI input was incinerated under suspicious circumstances, but even with just the VGA input it's still a damn nice monitor.
Today I replaced it with a pair of Samsung 214T monitors. In many ways these are the successors to the 930MP. They're 21" 1600x1200 screens instead of 19" 1280x1024, which is nice, and they have a similar range of video inputs. Not quite as extensive - there's no actual TV tuner in there - and they don't have built-in speakers. (But the speakers on the 930MP aren't crash hot, and I use a small Logitech 2.1 speaker system now.)
Like the 930MP they're high-quality S-PVA panels, rather than the typical basic TN that cheap monitors have, which means that the colour doesn't shift every time you move your head. (Also means that the response time is somewhat slower, and they're not as good for games. But even the 930MP works fine for the games I play. Which doesn't include Counterstrike.)
The thing is, I had to carry these monitors about half a mile from the store back to the station. No problem, I thought. They're LCDs. Light. Compact. I carried my 27" LCD television home from the store without too much drama. It's not like the old days of the G500s, which weighed in at 70 pounds apiece.
Not quite.
In their boxes, these beasties still weigh 25 pounds each. That's twice what a typical 22" widescreen LCD weighs. As I said, I lugged two of them half a mile, and the boxes are too bulky to just stack them up and carry them that way, so I had to use the awkward little inset carry handles - you know, the sort where there's just a flap of cardboard that folds inwards.
The tendons in my left hand seem to have gone on strike in protest.
These had better be really good monitors!
Hmm. Maybe now I should buy a video card.
Update: Good grief. I have one of the monitors home now and set up in portrait mode. The screen pivots, so you can run it in 1600x1200 or 1200x1600, as you choose.
That... Will take a little getting used to.
Update: I think one of these would have done, actually. I'm sure I'll manage to find a use for the second one though.
Update: Takes a little getting used to indeed. I just switched to using my notebook, which like pretty much all notebooks these days has a basic TN panel with a glossy finish.
When it comes to colour reproduction, there's simply no contest. The Samsung 214T kicks my HP notebook into the middle of next week. Photos that look kind of nice on the notebook screen look downright amazing on the monitor.
Of course, I can get an entire notebook, complete with Windows, for the price of one of those monitors. But right now, I have no regrets at all over today's purchase.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at
04:17 PM
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I Say Ostinahto, You Say Ostinayto, Let's Call The Whole Thing Off
So, some few days ago, it happened that I posted this:
Those who saw it the first time are probably still suffering flashbacks.
What I was actually looking for when I stumbled across that... item... though, was this:
Although the sound is better in this:
Why, you may ask, was I looking for that? Well, because of the little song sings at the end of this:
Which is one of the most popular videos on Youtube and fast closing in on fifty million views - the significance of which will become apparent in just a moment.
If one were to visit the Wikipedia page for the Potter Puppet Pals - and yes, of course it has a Wikipedia page - one would learn that the particular musical conceit used in this episode - The Mysterious Ticking Noise - is known as an ostinato. And if one were to visit the Wikipedia page for ostinato, one would learn that other examples of this device include Pachelbel's Canon... And ABBA's Take a Chance on Me.
The significance of which will become apparent... in just a moment.
Now, if we were (for whatever reason) to leap from Wikipedia back to Youtube in search of Pachelbel's Canon, we would soon stumble upon this:
Which just happens also to be one of the most popular videos on Youtube and fast closing in on fifty million views.
And which just goes to show that ostinatos in general and Pachelbel's Canon in particular are pernicious:
Which, sadly, has only racked up five million views, or it would be an even better chain, but still takes us back to refugee's comments on this:
How does ABBA come into it?
Well, the very next day, I was listening (as is my wont) to Dave and Joel's Fast Karate for the Gentlemen (a wonderful show wherein two intelligent and college-educated men talk about cartoons and video games) and the closing music was - you guessed it - Take a Chance on Me.
Dave has mentioned previously the psychic influence he expresses through his music selections - one day he puts something in a podcast, and the next it's released as downloadable content for Rock Band. Most recently Duran Duran...
But this time it seems to have worked in reverse somehow.
And the reason Dave chose that particular piece of music to close with was that the actual theme song for the anime being reviewed (Amon Saga, not that it matters) is called Kaze no Take a Chance. Which tells you everything you need to know about Fast Karate for the Gentlemen.
So, that was how my day went. You?
So, some few days ago, it happened that I posted this:
Those who saw it the first time are probably still suffering flashbacks.
What I was actually looking for when I stumbled across that... item... though, was this:
Although the sound is better in this:
Why, you may ask, was I looking for that? Well, because of the little song sings at the end of this:
Which is one of the most popular videos on Youtube and fast closing in on fifty million views - the significance of which will become apparent in just a moment.
If one were to visit the Wikipedia page for the Potter Puppet Pals - and yes, of course it has a Wikipedia page - one would learn that the particular musical conceit used in this episode - The Mysterious Ticking Noise - is known as an ostinato. And if one were to visit the Wikipedia page for ostinato, one would learn that other examples of this device include Pachelbel's Canon... And ABBA's Take a Chance on Me.
The significance of which will become apparent... in just a moment.
Now, if we were (for whatever reason) to leap from Wikipedia back to Youtube in search of Pachelbel's Canon, we would soon stumble upon this:
Which just happens also to be one of the most popular videos on Youtube and fast closing in on fifty million views.
And which just goes to show that ostinatos in general and Pachelbel's Canon in particular are pernicious:
Which, sadly, has only racked up five million views, or it would be an even better chain, but still takes us back to refugee's comments on this:
How does ABBA come into it?
Well, the very next day, I was listening (as is my wont) to Dave and Joel's Fast Karate for the Gentlemen (a wonderful show wherein two intelligent and college-educated men talk about cartoons and video games) and the closing music was - you guessed it - Take a Chance on Me.
Dave has mentioned previously the psychic influence he expresses through his music selections - one day he puts something in a podcast, and the next it's released as downloadable content for Rock Band. Most recently Duran Duran...
But this time it seems to have worked in reverse somehow.
And the reason Dave chose that particular piece of music to close with was that the actual theme song for the anime being reviewed (Amon Saga, not that it matters) is called Kaze no Take a Chance. Which tells you everything you need to know about Fast Karate for the Gentlemen.
So, that was how my day went. You?
Posted by: Pixy Misa at
12:13 AM
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Monday, August 25
A Perfect Place
Just millimetres from where I am at the moment.
I don't have to move after all.
It would be even better if I hadn't just spent two weeks running around looking for somewhere to live, but I'll take what I can get.
Also, all that money I had set aside for moving expenses? I'm thinking a 24" monitor and a new PC.
Just millimetres from where I am at the moment.
I don't have to move after all.
It would be even better if I hadn't just spent two weeks running around looking for somewhere to live, but I'll take what I can get.
Also, all that money I had set aside for moving expenses? I'm thinking a 24" monitor and a new PC.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at
11:43 AM
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Saturday, August 23
Consonental Drift
Meanings of words and phrases shift according to location. For example, in Sydney, the words "ocean views" tend to mean "well, if you stand on the roof with a telescope..."
Outside Sydney, it means that your back yard looks like this:
Meanings of words and phrases shift according to location. For example, in Sydney, the words "ocean views" tend to mean "well, if you stand on the roof with a telescope..."
Outside Sydney, it means that your back yard looks like this:
Posted by: Pixy Misa at
05:14 AM
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Thursday, August 21
South For The Summer
I mentioned earlier how things get a lot cheaper if you're willing to live 50 miles out from the city. Well, that goes double if you're willing to live 100 miles out.
Last Saturday I went at looked at a three-bedroom townhouse in Hornsby, the suburb where I live right now. It was a little larger than my present shoebox, but still small, and while it was probably reasonably nice when it was new, it really needed new paint and carpet and to be aired out for about six months.
Now, if I were to move south to Bomaderry, for $10 per week less than that slightly grubby little three-bedroom townhouse, $30 per week more than I've been paying, I could get, well, this:
I don't know what to say. That's astounding. The local telephone exchange even has ADSL2, though only from one provider.
Okay, it's two miles from the station. Okay, so train services are infrequent at best. Who cares. It has four bedrooms, four living rooms, an attached two car garage, and a detached three car garage. And it fits my budget.
Sorry if I'm a bit incoherent, my brain has just been perma-boggled.
I mentioned earlier how things get a lot cheaper if you're willing to live 50 miles out from the city. Well, that goes double if you're willing to live 100 miles out.
Last Saturday I went at looked at a three-bedroom townhouse in Hornsby, the suburb where I live right now. It was a little larger than my present shoebox, but still small, and while it was probably reasonably nice when it was new, it really needed new paint and carpet and to be aired out for about six months.
Now, if I were to move south to Bomaderry, for $10 per week less than that slightly grubby little three-bedroom townhouse, $30 per week more than I've been paying, I could get, well, this:
I don't know what to say. That's astounding. The local telephone exchange even has ADSL2, though only from one provider.
Okay, it's two miles from the station. Okay, so train services are infrequent at best. Who cares. It has four bedrooms, four living rooms, an attached two car garage, and a detached three car garage. And it fits my budget.
Sorry if I'm a bit incoherent, my brain has just been perma-boggled.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at
11:48 PM
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Embedding Enableded!!
This is probably the best thing on Youtube, but for some reason - copyright concerns would be my guess - embedding has been disabled since forever.
Now it's not.
Norwegian Recycling's Six Songs Collide
This is probably the best thing on Youtube, but for some reason - copyright concerns would be my guess - embedding has been disabled since forever.
Now it's not.
Norwegian Recycling's Six Songs Collide
Posted by: Pixy Misa at
08:29 PM
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The guy who did this has done about thirty other such mixes. This is the best one I've heard so far, though.
The Castle
Off to Castle Hill tomorrow to see a lady about a house.
I might even zip out there tonight to see what the buses are like.
Off to Castle Hill tomorrow to see a lady about a house.
I might even zip out there tonight to see what the buses are like.
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03:26 PM
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Wednesday, August 20
Does Not Compute
Quiet location, close to shops and rail, set in two acres of established garden.
Bzzzt. Beep!
Where I am right now, that would run in the mid seven figures, and be knocked down and converted into townhouses within about thirty minutes.
Update: Found a nice, big, new or near new (not sure - in the photo it's obviously brand new, but I'm not sure if the photo is new...) townhouse in Castle Hill, a few miles from where I live now. $30 more a week for a significantly larger and better-equipped place. (Ducted air conditioning! Yay! I had to run my portable air conditioner all last summer because the built-in one, which only cools the ground floor anyway, died and hasn't been repaired.)
Walking distance to a large and quite nice shopping centre. Only problem is it's not on a railway line, not anywhere near a railway line, so it's buses for me. I did that for 18 months and lived, but I lived quite close to work at the time. This would be 50 minutes each way. Much of that would be zipping along a motorway, but much wouldn't.
If I move down to Moss Vale it would be an hour and 50 minutes each way on the train. On the train I can sleep, or pull out my notebook andwork play games; on the bus either one is pretty much impossible. (But still, an extra hour...)
On the other hand, if I move to Castle Hill I have a choice of 16 different ADSL2 providers. (Well, 6 providers and another 10 resellers.) In Moss Vale, the number is zero. I should be able to get a basic ADSL service, but if that doesn't work out for some reason, there are no alternatives. No cable, no wireless, nothing.
Quiet location, close to shops and rail, set in two acres of established garden.
Bzzzt. Beep!
Where I am right now, that would run in the mid seven figures, and be knocked down and converted into townhouses within about thirty minutes.
Update: Found a nice, big, new or near new (not sure - in the photo it's obviously brand new, but I'm not sure if the photo is new...) townhouse in Castle Hill, a few miles from where I live now. $30 more a week for a significantly larger and better-equipped place. (Ducted air conditioning! Yay! I had to run my portable air conditioner all last summer because the built-in one, which only cools the ground floor anyway, died and hasn't been repaired.)
Walking distance to a large and quite nice shopping centre. Only problem is it's not on a railway line, not anywhere near a railway line, so it's buses for me. I did that for 18 months and lived, but I lived quite close to work at the time. This would be 50 minutes each way. Much of that would be zipping along a motorway, but much wouldn't.
If I move down to Moss Vale it would be an hour and 50 minutes each way on the train. On the train I can sleep, or pull out my notebook and
On the other hand, if I move to Castle Hill I have a choice of 16 different ADSL2 providers. (Well, 6 providers and another 10 resellers.) In Moss Vale, the number is zero. I should be able to get a basic ADSL service, but if that doesn't work out for some reason, there are no alternatives. No cable, no wireless, nothing.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at
09:40 PM
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Friday, August 15
Ugh, Part N
The real-estate agent managing the house I like in Moss Vale has their tenancy application form available online.
I just read through it.
Ugh. Seriously, ugh.
Depressed again now.
Updated: Just found a property very close to where I live now, which will be open for inspection tomorrow. That real-estate agent also has their tenancy application form available online - and it's perfectly normal. It doesn't demand - just to take one example - direct debit access for rent payments.
I'm planning to grab it. It's very close to the railway line and might be a bit noisy, but it's full brick construction rather than brick veneer, which should help. And there's a concrete wall along the railway line now, which also helps.
Update: I knew there was a catch. The same house is also listed as being for sale.
Update: The sales guy said it would be taken off the market if it was let. But it was dirty and smelled - as though a family had been cooking curry there every night for five years without ever opening the windows. Which is pretty much what I suspect to be the case.
Bleh. Back to the hunt.
The real-estate agent managing the house I like in Moss Vale has their tenancy application form available online.
I just read through it.
Ugh. Seriously, ugh.
Depressed again now.
Updated: Just found a property very close to where I live now, which will be open for inspection tomorrow. That real-estate agent also has their tenancy application form available online - and it's perfectly normal. It doesn't demand - just to take one example - direct debit access for rent payments.
I'm planning to grab it. It's very close to the railway line and might be a bit noisy, but it's full brick construction rather than brick veneer, which should help. And there's a concrete wall along the railway line now, which also helps.
Update: I knew there was a catch. The same house is also listed as being for sale.
Update: The sales guy said it would be taken off the market if it was let. But it was dirty and smelled - as though a family had been cooking curry there every night for five years without ever opening the windows. Which is pretty much what I suspect to be the case.
Bleh. Back to the hunt.
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Wednesday, August 13
No Decade Ever Entirely Dies
Even the ones that probably should.
Even the ones that probably should.
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Tuesday, August 12
North Vs. South
These are the two I'm favouring right now.
North
South
Either one is twice the size of the place I live now - and a good thing too.
I'm off house-hunting all weekend, so be good!
And no, I don't make that much money. These places aren't in Sydney. There are houses like that available in my area - but they cost to rent more than I actually earn. Things get considerably cheaper if you're willing to live 50 miles out of town.
more...
These are the two I'm favouring right now.
North
South
Either one is twice the size of the place I live now - and a good thing too.
I'm off house-hunting all weekend, so be good!
And no, I don't make that much money. These places aren't in Sydney. There are houses like that available in my area - but they cost to rent more than I actually earn. Things get considerably cheaper if you're willing to live 50 miles out of town.
more...
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Monday, August 11
Water, Water Everywhere
I was puzzled as to why, in an area where land is obviously at a premium, Bowral west of the railway line remains almost entirely undeveloped.
Large level expanse of land, there for the taking.
Large level expanse of land... At a lower elevation than the rest of the town.
Doh!
It's a floodplain. The floodplain of the Wingecarribee River, I'd guess.
I was puzzled as to why, in an area where land is obviously at a premium, Bowral west of the railway line remains almost entirely undeveloped.
Large level expanse of land, there for the taking.
Large level expanse of land... At a lower elevation than the rest of the town.
Doh!
It's a floodplain. The floodplain of the Wingecarribee River, I'd guess.
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The Pain Takes My Mind Off The Other Pain
Almost forgot!
So, I'm heading down to Mittagong and Bowral and Moss Vale by train, and I'm starting from Hornsby. My destination is out to the south-west of Sydney, and my origin is in the north-east corner of Sydney.
So my trip has three legs: Hornsby to Central, Central to Campbelltown (the last major suburb as you head south-west out of Sydney), then Campbelltown to Bowral. There are some peak-hour services that run direct from Bowral to Central and vice versa, but they only run to Sydney in the morning and from Sydney in the evening, and I'm doing the opposite today, so that's of little help.
So I catch the 6:47* service, which zips from Hornsby to Central in 35 minutes, giving me 10 minutes to transfer to the train to Campbelltown. Only... Not today. Today it gets stuck behind a local service, and instead of having 10 minutes to get from platform 9 (or thereabouts) to platform 23, I have 3.
But I make it. I'm not sure I even have the right train, but then they helpfully announce "change at Campbelltown for Moss Vale". Perfect.
Zip out through the new airport line and onto the East Hills line, and then, and then, we get stuck again, behind a train that has broken down completely, and sit there, just a couple of hundred metres short of, um, Panania maybe, for twenty minutes.
I have eight minutes to make this connection (which is easy - it's the other side of the same platform), now reduced to minus twelve, and an eighty (eight-zero) minute wait for the next train.
But then, while I'm still considering calling the trip off and heading home, we arrive at Campbelltown to find the Moss Vale train still awaiting us.
That really surprised me - at least until I got aboard. Without the main connecting service, there were only two passengers on that carriage.**
* Did you know there's also a 6:47 in the morning? Amazing.
** And there's only two carriages, so I guess it made sense to hold it.
Almost forgot!
So, I'm heading down to Mittagong and Bowral and Moss Vale by train, and I'm starting from Hornsby. My destination is out to the south-west of Sydney, and my origin is in the north-east corner of Sydney.
So my trip has three legs: Hornsby to Central, Central to Campbelltown (the last major suburb as you head south-west out of Sydney), then Campbelltown to Bowral. There are some peak-hour services that run direct from Bowral to Central and vice versa, but they only run to Sydney in the morning and from Sydney in the evening, and I'm doing the opposite today, so that's of little help.
So I catch the 6:47* service, which zips from Hornsby to Central in 35 minutes, giving me 10 minutes to transfer to the train to Campbelltown. Only... Not today. Today it gets stuck behind a local service, and instead of having 10 minutes to get from platform 9 (or thereabouts) to platform 23, I have 3.
But I make it. I'm not sure I even have the right train, but then they helpfully announce "change at Campbelltown for Moss Vale". Perfect.
Zip out through the new airport line and onto the East Hills line, and then, and then, we get stuck again, behind a train that has broken down completely, and sit there, just a couple of hundred metres short of, um, Panania maybe, for twenty minutes.
I have eight minutes to make this connection (which is easy - it's the other side of the same platform), now reduced to minus twelve, and an eighty (eight-zero) minute wait for the next train.
But then, while I'm still considering calling the trip off and heading home, we arrive at Campbelltown to find the Moss Vale train still awaiting us.
That really surprised me - at least until I got aboard. Without the main connecting service, there were only two passengers on that carriage.**
* Did you know there's also a 6:47 in the morning? Amazing.
** And there's only two carriages, so I guess it made sense to hold it.
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Age Is Catching Up With Me
But hasn't caught me yet. Not quite.
Went house-hunting in the Southern Highlands today. Because maps can be misleading, and real-estate agents just plain lie, I decided to find out where the nice-looking properties were located and actually walk to them from the nearest station.* And also walk around the shopping centres to find out what was there and what was where, that sort of thing.
The difference is, I'm only going to live in one of these places, so I'd only be making one trip each way to the station or shops on any given day. So I probably wouldn't be walking something like 20km in a normal day... Which is what I just did.
So, things I learned today:
1. If it's nice, and affordable, and it's in Bowral, it's further out of town than you'd expect. For reasons partly topographical and partly inexplicable, Bowral radiates out south-eastward from the railway station. And pretty much only south-eastward, which means that for a given distance from the station, there's only a quarter the houses available that you'd find in a more sensibly planned location.
It's partly the topography that makes Bowral such a nice place to live, so part of that I can accept. But why the town stops at a knife edge on the railway line, and there's nothing but empty fields west of that, remains to be explained. It looks like a property boom just waiting to happen.
2. The nice part of Mittagong is to the east of the railway line. All the shops are on the west. (Except for, as far as I can tell, a pottery shop. An immense pottery shop.) The useful shops that sell stuff like, oh, food, are way-to-hell-and-gone over the west side of town. So a very nice house that's half a mile from the station is appealing until you factor in the extra mile every time you need to buy some groceries.
3. Moss Vale gets cold in winter. It's fine if you're dry and in the sun and out of the wind, but if you do something silly like wash your hands, brrrr.
4. There's really great bakery on the route from most of the places I was looking at in Moss Vale and the station. Except that their apple turnovers are far too large and filled, apparently, with lead.
5. I can happily walk a couple of kilometres lugging a notebook bag. It's no problem at all, as long as the terrain is not outright vertical and there's some sort of footpath.
6. I can happily walk a couple of kilometres lugging a notebook bag twice in a day. Three, four, five times even. Around trip number 8 or 9, it becomes apparent that this is no longer the case. And if trip number 8, say, leaves me two kilometres from the station so that trip number 9 is unavoidable despite the growing unpleasantness in my right knee, then I find that after dragging myself back into town and waiting at the lights to cross over to the station, said knee will start showing clear intentions to cease functioning.
7. Elevators at railway stations are a blessing.
8. After resting up during the long trip home, I find that while sore, I am not actually crippled (though stairs still hold little appeal). So as I said in the beginning, it hasn't caught me yet.
* I also took a pointless two-mile detour around Mittagong for reasons that are too complicated to fit in this footnote. That didn't help.
But hasn't caught me yet. Not quite.
Went house-hunting in the Southern Highlands today. Because maps can be misleading, and real-estate agents just plain lie, I decided to find out where the nice-looking properties were located and actually walk to them from the nearest station.* And also walk around the shopping centres to find out what was there and what was where, that sort of thing.
The difference is, I'm only going to live in one of these places, so I'd only be making one trip each way to the station or shops on any given day. So I probably wouldn't be walking something like 20km in a normal day... Which is what I just did.
So, things I learned today:
1. If it's nice, and affordable, and it's in Bowral, it's further out of town than you'd expect. For reasons partly topographical and partly inexplicable, Bowral radiates out south-eastward from the railway station. And pretty much only south-eastward, which means that for a given distance from the station, there's only a quarter the houses available that you'd find in a more sensibly planned location.
It's partly the topography that makes Bowral such a nice place to live, so part of that I can accept. But why the town stops at a knife edge on the railway line, and there's nothing but empty fields west of that, remains to be explained. It looks like a property boom just waiting to happen.
2. The nice part of Mittagong is to the east of the railway line. All the shops are on the west. (Except for, as far as I can tell, a pottery shop. An immense pottery shop.) The useful shops that sell stuff like, oh, food, are way-to-hell-and-gone over the west side of town. So a very nice house that's half a mile from the station is appealing until you factor in the extra mile every time you need to buy some groceries.
3. Moss Vale gets cold in winter. It's fine if you're dry and in the sun and out of the wind, but if you do something silly like wash your hands, brrrr.
4. There's really great bakery on the route from most of the places I was looking at in Moss Vale and the station. Except that their apple turnovers are far too large and filled, apparently, with lead.
5. I can happily walk a couple of kilometres lugging a notebook bag. It's no problem at all, as long as the terrain is not outright vertical and there's some sort of footpath.
6. I can happily walk a couple of kilometres lugging a notebook bag twice in a day. Three, four, five times even. Around trip number 8 or 9, it becomes apparent that this is no longer the case. And if trip number 8, say, leaves me two kilometres from the station so that trip number 9 is unavoidable despite the growing unpleasantness in my right knee, then I find that after dragging myself back into town and waiting at the lights to cross over to the station, said knee will start showing clear intentions to cease functioning.
7. Elevators at railway stations are a blessing.
8. After resting up during the long trip home, I find that while sore, I am not actually crippled (though stairs still hold little appeal). So as I said in the beginning, it hasn't caught me yet.
* I also took a pointless two-mile detour around Mittagong for reasons that are too complicated to fit in this footnote. That didn't help.
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Sunday, August 10
Episode 3
Of There She Is!!: Doki&Nabi.
Flash was invented for this reason alone.
Of There She Is!!: Doki&Nabi.
Flash was invented for this reason alone.
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Saturday, August 09
Damn Lemur-Feeders!
Still trying to wipe out my species. The Standing Ovation* infected 97% of the world's population in three weeks, then with a little bit of genetic tweakery, killed 75% of them in three days.
It's a good thing that (a) genetics doesn't work like that (in the game, when your disease mutates, the new strain shows up in all infected areas at once), and (b) organisations like the CDC and the WHO don't wait until a billion people are ill before taking action.
Because a death rate of a million a minute is pretty scary.
* Like the clap, only better.
Still trying to wipe out my species. The Standing Ovation* infected 97% of the world's population in three weeks, then with a little bit of genetic tweakery, killed 75% of them in three days.
It's a good thing that (a) genetics doesn't work like that (in the game, when your disease mutates, the new strain shows up in all infected areas at once), and (b) organisations like the CDC and the WHO don't wait until a billion people are ill before taking action.
Because a death rate of a million a minute is pretty scary.
* Like the clap, only better.
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Friday, August 08
A Different Life
Doing some research. Moss Vale in the Southern Highlands is very nice, and has a number of houses available. But while I've only been there twice, I do know that it doesn't have a major shopping centre; you have to go into Bowral for that. And since I don't drive (hi TallDave!), that's a little inconvenient. It's only 10 minutes by train, but the trains are 90 minutes to 2 hours apart. There are buses, too but...
Anyway, I was doing a little research, finding out what I could online before I head down there in the morning. (Going to try to hit Mittagong, Bowral and Moss Vale in the same day.) And I find that there are reviews of grocery stores.
Moss Vale Tuckerbag:
One of the places - actually, about seven of the places; it's a brand new complex of townhouses - I want to look at in Moss Vale backs right onto the railway line.
The Unanderra - Moss Vale railway line.
I don't think I need to worry much.
I've been on that line; in fact, that's how I visited Moss Vale on one of those trips. After surveying the timetables carefully, I bought a return ticket to Moss Vale, went the other way, down to Wollongong, and then hopped aboard the train via Mount Murray and Robertson to Moss Vale, wandered around a bit, had lunch, and then hopped aboard a train back to Sydney.*
I don't think I was supposed to do any of that. The line has been closed to regular trains for years, and that was probably a special tourist service I was on. But I didn't know that at the time, and fortunately no-one was checking tickets.
That's not the only partly disused tourist railway in the area either. There's also the Picton Loop line, now home of the New South Wales Rail Tansport Museum.
* Which reminds me - do they still run those funny old trains down to Bomaderry, or have they been replaced by now? I went down there on a day trip once, and on the way back I was the only passenger, and they didn't notice me and turned off all the lights.
Doing some research. Moss Vale in the Southern Highlands is very nice, and has a number of houses available. But while I've only been there twice, I do know that it doesn't have a major shopping centre; you have to go into Bowral for that. And since I don't drive (hi TallDave!), that's a little inconvenient. It's only 10 minutes by train, but the trains are 90 minutes to 2 hours apart. There are buses, too but...
Anyway, I was doing a little research, finding out what I could online before I head down there in the morning. (Going to try to hit Mittagong, Bowral and Moss Vale in the same day.) And I find that there are reviews of grocery stores.
Moss Vale Tuckerbag:
i quite like the moss vale tuckerbag store, its pleasant to be in, more so than the competitor down the road. overall staff are quite plesant and fast but one problem i do have is how SLOW the docket machines are! its time to upgrade them!And:
This supermarket is good, the prices are good and the service is okay, however the docket printer is so slow!!! You have to wait for the docket to print which seems like a lifetime.Those were posted in 2007. But now:
There are new checkouts at SUPA IGA Tuckerbag Moss Vale! Much faster.Yay!
One of the places - actually, about seven of the places; it's a brand new complex of townhouses - I want to look at in Moss Vale backs right onto the railway line.
The Unanderra - Moss Vale railway line.
I don't think I need to worry much.
I've been on that line; in fact, that's how I visited Moss Vale on one of those trips. After surveying the timetables carefully, I bought a return ticket to Moss Vale, went the other way, down to Wollongong, and then hopped aboard the train via Mount Murray and Robertson to Moss Vale, wandered around a bit, had lunch, and then hopped aboard a train back to Sydney.*
I don't think I was supposed to do any of that. The line has been closed to regular trains for years, and that was probably a special tourist service I was on. But I didn't know that at the time, and fortunately no-one was checking tickets.
That's not the only partly disused tourist railway in the area either. There's also the Picton Loop line, now home of the New South Wales Rail Tansport Museum.
* Which reminds me - do they still run those funny old trains down to Bomaderry, or have they been replaced by now? I went down there on a day trip once, and on the way back I was the only passenger, and they didn't notice me and turned off all the lights.
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Thursday, August 07
Poetry, That'll Work
This.
Or, to explain in a little more detail, Pandemic 2.
Your goal is to engineer the perfect disease and wipe out the human race. This is made incredibly difficult by stubborn isolated island nations, like New Zealand and Greenland and, most of all, those damn lemur-feeders.
MADAGASCARWhat?
STUPID MADAGASCAR
WHY DO YOU SCORN ME
OH WHY?
This.
Or, to explain in a little more detail, Pandemic 2.
Your goal is to engineer the perfect disease and wipe out the human race. This is made incredibly difficult by stubborn isolated island nations, like New Zealand and Greenland and, most of all, those damn lemur-feeders.
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