Way to go people - I reached 1000 views today   Thanks!!

Recently I decided to upgrade my dumb cigarette light USB stick MP3 FM transmitter to an 8GB iPod Nano 2nd generation.  The FM transmitter did a reasonable job playing music from any old USB stick, but it drained the car battery if left plugged in, and it lost all it's settings when it was disconnected so it'd take me half my journey to get it back to the last song I was playing, reset the volume level, etc - very tiresome!...  The iPod Nano - despite being an Apple - is actually quite a nice little device.  The main trouble with it is that it simply doesn't hold enough - I mean 1800+ songs/5+ days of music just isn't enough!...   Bring on the next generation flash-based 'pods with much more storage space!
It was really hard to cull my collection down enough to a small enough selection to fit on it, and that meant leaving off whole artists...   Even worse is trying to decide what to take off when a new CD comes in that just has to go on it - argh!

One thing I found during the long process of ripping the CDs to my PC was that
one of my favourite CDs has developed a problem that has ruined the last couple
of tracks - and I'm not sure if I can find a replacement copy.  It's funny how
when you have a CD how you see them everywhere but the moment you need
to get hold of another copy they suddenly all vanish... 

OK, so "Parties and Nightlife" isn't exactly the best category to pick, but it was night-time...

Last night was about the first clear night in ages - and certainly the first since my brother tipped me off about Comet McNaught coming down-under - so I took full advantage of it in case it's the last chance to see it. I dropped by my workplace to climb the stairs to the third-story rooftop "garden" with it's panoramic views of the city and other surrounding areas tree-free. After a false start of concentrating on Venus (or was it Jupiter?) thanks to some dubious time and direction info (thanks Falcon... :-P) I finally spotted Comet McNaught - and what a magnificant sight it was! For those who remember the hype - and disappointment - of Comet Halley, Comet McNaught is the kind of spectacle we all were expecting (not a puny, fuzzy blob). It's something of the order of 3-5 times the size of the moon, a bright head with a long streaming, fan-like tail and all perfectly visible to the naked eye. I took many photos, and will post one on here soon (I didn't get around to it today, sorry!) As a bonus, I saw a great red meteor burn up overhead, watched the sun and moon set over the city (Melbourne) accompanied by flying foxes on their nightly raiding trips to nearby fruit trees. A lovely night to be out - and no mozzies either!

If you live in the southern hemisphere and haven't seen it yet - or have never seen a comet - get out there and look for it in the early hours of the night - somewhere around the SSW. The earlier the better as it's high in the sky but drops to the horizon in an hour or two after dark (about now I realise - I'll make this short!).

One tip though - if you drive to your comet viewing spot, don't do what I did and forget to turn off your car's headlights... I blame the early hour (it was still quite light out, that early twilight when only a few street-lights are lit, and your headlights are only for the benefit of others seeing you, not for you to see by) and the excitement of getting out there and comet spotting. Thanks to the RACV, I was able to get home and in bed in the early hours of the morning, after having to drive home without headlights, my bonnet (that's "hood" for any US readers out there I think?) propped open on a temporary battery pack with the RACV van flashing lights following behind! I swapped my alternator with a spare I have and recharged my battery (temporarily - it's cactus and I'll have to get a new one on the weekend or risk being stranded again) so I was mobile for work today (drats!). I didn't manage to get any sleep though...

A week into Stage 3 water restrictions and it looks like I'll lose 3 pot plants already - a newly planted Banksia (which I thought would cope better than most...) and a couple of herbs which were planted in cheap, crummy potting mix that has never kept the moisture in well...

Worse, with the 6-8am & 8-10pm watering times on the two-day-a-week we're allowed, it means I have to be out at the worst times for mozzies - I didn't see or hear any but got bitten several times, all itching like crazy in the heat (37C today, only down to a horrible 25C tonight which is much worse)...

Such is life I guess on this dry continent...

May you all have a safe and joyful Christmas!    

Thanks to all my MySpace friends , curious lurkers and just plain nosy-parkers my MySpace profile has just hit 500 views! OK, so it's not a huge amount but then I'm a "nobody" not a band, celeb or hottie!

"Props" to all 501 one you!

[geek mode]

It seems quite a lot of people are having issues with MySpace at times judging by the number of bulletins posted by people in my friends list complaining and apologising about such things. 

I've been lucky and haven't seem to had any myself (touchwood!) but occasionally I get "page not found" errors. I've noticed an "interesting" little fact on those messages:
   MySpace runs on Micro$oft IIS and so presuably on a Windows server (or three)!   A coincidence?!?....  

Use the Open-Source, Tom. Let go, Tom. Tom, trust me - Linux is better!

[/geek mode]

Long time, no blog...

The ABC is having a "My Favourite Album" survey at the moment and I was just about to enter when I found out you can enter up to 10 times - picking just one album was extremely hard, but with the extra choices it become pretty near impossible!  I've sort of got a short list of 20-25 so far...    Now the really hard part to cull half of them to get my limit of 10.  Would be some much easier (if still time consuming) if we could just enter as many as we like... 

Hmm - looks like MySpace has changed the smilies/emoticons??  What's wrong with the good old simple :-) :-P ;-)?  Why do so many of the descriptions (filenames) seem totally wrong for the smilie too?!?...  Hmm

Following the death of my Betta I figured I should get something else to put in it's tank (a small plastic one, a mansion by typical Betta standards! ) I toyed with getting another Betta, but the only ones I saw were the freakish modern forms with their crown/tassled fins which I just don't like! (Mine was an old-fashioned veil-tail type - simple elegance, not overly genetically mutated if you like).

My next thought was more "dwarf" cichlids. I had previously thought about getting some Kribensis - but the ones I saw, although cheap, I thought were a bit dark and dull somehow (although in breeding colors they are pretty little fish) and didn't really catch my attention.

I went looking a little further afield and spotted some Princess Cichlids. I'd always quite like them, with their elegant fins. As a bonus they are in the same family (Neolamprologus) as my other cichlids and like the same water which makes things easier. So $20 later I'm the new owner of a pair of these pretty fish - I daren't buy any more for such a small tank. I've no idea what sex they are, they're still juveniles, but hopefully they will live peacefully if not breed. I'll get around to putting a photo up at some stage - they're still quite shy.

It seems that the last blog I wrote has vanished - I swear it posted OK - GRRR! Not the first time I've lost a blog... AND now my modem dropped out mid-way through typing this one - it's jinxed I tell you!!....

It's been a long, week. First my Betta (Siamese Fighting Fish) died, as did my last surviving Platie (both were sick for some time though), then my accelerator cable broke and the flasher unit in my car died completely - most annoying! I did managed to pick up a new band (Heligoland) and was lucky enough to find their new CD secondhand for a bargain price which was nice
Back to beers - it's a long weekend (yay!) so I thought it'd be a perfect time to check out one of my local boutique beer bottle shops to see if they had anything new and/or interesting again. And they did! ..

• Rodenbach (Klassic) - OK not new, but it's not always easy to come by this sour Belgian beer so that was excuse enough .. I wish the other local bottle shop I visit regularly would restock the Grand Cru though.


• Fish Rock Leatherjacket Lager - a new beer from this Australian brewery AFAIK, the name of this beer coming from a species of local fish which I've caught a few varieties of - the largest are too beautifully coloured to eat, the smaller ones are a well-camoflagued with the seaweed they hide in.


• Black Wattle Superior - a "bush tucker" beer containing native wattle seeds. I confess I couldn't really detect them but it was a pleasant beer


• Barossa Valley Brewers Bee Sting - a honey wheat beer, the honey is not overpowering and contributes subtle citrus flavours (I presume it's an orange-blossom honey or similar) and there's a tartness to it too, presumably from the wheat beer, which really works - probably one of the best honey beers around. Attractive labelling too I might add.

(Typing this is being made somewhat difficult by Ziggy, who's tired of being ignored and is tapping the desk, jumping on the keyboard and my hand and no doubt will attack the mouse any time now!....)


• Dom Kolsch - only the second of this German style I've seen (but not yet tasted).


• Grozet Lagered Celtic Ale - an interesting sounding beer with gooseberries and meadowsweet? - just had to buy it !


• Maisel's Weisse - Original and Kristal - a new brewer for me with two wheat beer styles - always enjoy them


• Furstenberg Weizen - Hefe Hell and Hefe Dunkel - two more new wheat beers, although I've had one or two of their their other beers before


• Baltika - 3 Classic, 5 Golden Lager, 6 Porter and 7 Export Lager - new Russian(?) beers, although I've had other Russian lagers before, the Porter is a new beer style from that part of the world for me.


• Outback Pilsner, Pale Ale, Country Bitter and Black Opal - more new Australian beers


• Bridge Road Brewers Chevalier Biere de Garde - again - to go with their Hefe Weizen over dinner with a couple of work friends next week - I haven't decided what to cook yet...

Well, I finally succumbed and ordered another 25 CDs from CDBaby, I think this is my third or fourth such order in the last couple of years. As always a mixture of music, from CDs from MySpace-ees (The Lost Patrol and Distorted Reality to name a couple of the top off my head) along with some new releases from bands already in my collection, a few cheapies (check out their $5 specials!) and some new bands found through using CDBaby's similar artists search. As always, everything that was in stock, was *actually in stock* and the order was processed and shipped the very next day if not sooner - that's what I call service! (A......., take note...)

Today, after cutting my hair again (No.3 comb all over - No.4 is too long and just won't clip evenly, anything shorter is far too short) I popped down the street to renew my Tattslotto/Powerball numbers (the @$*&$.... things have got to win something sometime...), bought a couple more CDs (The Breeders - "Last Splash" because it was cheap and has "Cannonball" on it, and an CD-EP from The Girls fromThe Clouds - "LaLaLaLa" because The Clouds were one of my favourite local bands and I didn't mind Jodi Phillis' solo work either, particularly "Lounge-o-sound") I perused a local second-hand CD shop too but didn't find anything I wanted (although they had copies of Love Spirals Downwards - "Idylls" and a couple of Collide's albums that I would have bought if I didn't already own them )

I picked up a selection of Belgian Ales too - just coz: Satan Gold and Red, Gulden Draak (which is a strong dark ale, not golden - go figure! ), Bornem Dubbel and Trippel and Gribousine Malonne (Blonde), Malonne Brune and d'Hiver (Winter Ale). I've had them all before but with a lack of new beers to try (excepting some lager types that aren't really right for the current cold weather...) I thought it was time to revisit them. The dark ales were all fruity, cake/pudding confections that are quite delicious, would be great for a dessert beer except I can't resist them long enough and the paler beers were all great too, and free from excessive spice use (if any had added spices at all - I didn't notice if they did). I haven't had the Grimbousine beers yet - maybe tomorrow....