and i thought they were just a myth

Deb swept our steps out and found this little bugger:



I'm not a big fan of spiders, so knowing that I'd been walking barefoot past this web for the last month is a little creepy.

rail trail

Deb and I did the Otago Central Rail Trail in NZ a few weeks ago.

It was three days and 150km of riding (which doesn't sound too bad until you realise you're riding a mountain bike on gravel the whole way).

The accomodation was great, the scenery fantastic and here are some photos:


Click the picture above to view the album.

deathstar

off to nz

Deb and I are hitting Dunedin for a couple of weeks including three days cycling through central Otago. Should be nice if a little tiring.

kitty

andy roddick v michael berrer

It's 9.10pm and 18 degrees. Normally it wouldn't be too bad, but I've gotten used to the 28 degree evenings. I'm cold and Deb's lips are turning blue.

australian open

We got some pretty good seats tonight. First game is Sharapova v Davenport.
I might post some more pics later.

we are so insignificant

I don't know about you, but things like this make my mind explode.

federation trail

We're currently on the Federation Trail. It's surrounded by chemical factories, rubbish dumps and thistles. Appropriate then that it was built over an old sewage line

this burger is too big

it's good to have options

Best when firm or soft.
So which is it? Should I eat them when I first get them, or wait a week until they get mushy.
I hate being confused by food.

pointing out the obvious

So, what other options do pedestrians have?

at least it was early in the ride

I was on my way to the gym on a SATURDAY when this happened. Bugger

what's with the shoes?

merry xmas

Roast lamb, roast veges, ham, fruit salad, plum pudding, pavlova.
It may have been only Deb and I for Xmas lunch, but that was no reason to miss out on anything!

cloudburst

The rain in Melbourne for the last few days has been ridiculous. It's been falling so hard that water bounces back up to your waist. I joked about buying an umbrella off the guy from our noodle shop tonight, so he fashioned a raincoat out of a big rubbish bag for me. I laughed at the time, but it really kept me dry. I guess I owe him a beer!

We've had leaks in our lounge roof in the past. The first time it was repaired it didn't rain again for six months, so we didn't know that it wasn't fixed. The second time around, the roofing dude said he couldn't find any leaks on the roof, but bogged up the most likely areas, so every time it rains we expect to come home to a big puddle of water on the table.

And now you know the back story.

Deb was out on the booze tonight and I felt like having a laugh. I sent this picture message to her phone:


It was a 2 minute photoshop, so it doesn't look like much at this size, but I guess it looked convincing enough on her mobile screen, as her phonecall's first words were "what the fuck?!"

It made my night anyway :)

pre-owned chump

I took time out from the stress of trying to find the perfect xmas present to have a look in EB Games. Super Paper Mario is selling brand new for $99 or pre-owned for $95. What a great business! They buy back the game for bugger all then sell it again for almost the original price! Do mugs really buy these pre-owned games or am I missing part of the equation here?

meetings are suck

"no to all" tip for windows

This is probably a well known tip, but I discovered it today and it is totally invaluable!

When you're copying a large number of files from one place to another (as I tend to do when backing up photos), you're presented with this option:


For simplicity, you can just overwrite all of the existing photos with an exact copy, which really is just a waste of time. What's even more of a waste of time though is sitting there for 20 minutes clicking "No" for every file so that you only copy over unique files.

Here's the tip: hold down Shift when you click no. It's essentially a virtual button that says "No to all" on it. Frikkin' sweet.

Thanks to Jigar Mehta who happened to be the first link I clicked on.

back up your photos

The hard drive that I store all my photos on is starting to play up. I can't open a couple of dozen photos, but luckily most of them are backed up in various locations.
The problem now is finding out where the dodgy files are and replacing them either from the backup drive (that I haven't used as often as I should), Deb's laptop (that only has backups of more recent stuff), the portable hard drive that we used in Vietnam (that was going to be used as a proper backup drive from today) or my backup at work (which was current as of around this time last year).
This year, the plan is to build a proper RAID file server so I won't have to worry as much about failing hard drives. Of course, I also need to figure out what the hell RAID really is, but that's a small detail.