ImageMagick book
MythTV book
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Sun, 31 Dec 2006
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They all use MySQL...
I was walking down Mountain View's Castro Street this afternoon, and noticed that meebo is advertising for developers and system admins. Interestingly, they seem to match the design pattern used by pretty much every web 2.0 company I have seen around here (except MySpace): linux, MySQL, and Ajax. So, there you go.
Tags for this post: mysql( )
posted at: 16:09 | path: /mysql | permanent link to this entry
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Sat, 30 Dec 2006
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Renaming mbot to gtalkbot
I'm renaming my mbot to gtalkbot to stop if clashing with mbot.
Source for 1.0 is now here.
Tags for this post: gtalkbot()
posted at: 13:39 | path: /gtalkbot | permanent link to this entry
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Fri, 29 Dec 2006
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Want HDTV but only for US free to air?
The HDHomeRun seems to be a pretty useful device. There are a bunch of people on the MythTV mailing lists trying these things out at the moment. It's a networked dual tuner HD set top box. Kinda cool.
Now, if only someone would come up with a digital cable card which works with MythTV...
Tags for this post: mythtv()
posted at: 16:14 | path: /mythtv | permanent link to this entry
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Tick of death
It's times like this that I don't mind that people make fun of me for using RAID 1+0 on my home server. One of my Seagate 400gb PATA drivers emits a ticking noise and is no longer detected by any of my Linux boxes. I don't think that's a good sign for the data on that machine. Luckily, the RAID array can run in degraded mode for a bit until a new disk arrives.
Now to find out how much Seagate warranty support sucks.
Tags for this post: blog() toys()
posted at: 15:59 | path: /diary/toys | permanent link to this entry
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In Phoenix yet again
You might have noticed that last week we were in Phoenix again. That meant yet another trip to to firing range, although this was also James' first trip to the range. The new addition to the collection of weapons fired was a Romanian AK-47:
It was surprisingly accurate, but has a definite recoil. Most of us ended up bruised, except for James. It turns out that James is some sort of automatic weapon idiot savant, as he also ended up with a really nice grouping at the end. The history of the AK-47 is also interesting if you're unaware but into such things.
We also fired the Remington Model 870 pump action 12 gauge shot gun (slug gun variant) again:
As well as the seemingly traditional Magnum 50 calibre model 500:
And then the Springfield 1911 45 calibre:
Tags for this post: guns()
posted at: 06:48 | path: /guns | permanent link to this entry
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As pointed out by a friend at work
Trends for "return gift":
 .
Who would have thought that people only return gifts at Christmas?
Tags for this post: link()
posted at: 04:55 | path: /link | permanent link to this entry
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Microsoft taints bloggers with free laptops... or, whiney bitches win again!
A guy I know from Canberra (he was a consultant and we were a consultee last time we met, please note that the consultation was at a Microsoft centric ISV, and paid for by Microsoft. Then again, we never took any of the advice because our management at the time still feel that the Internet is a passing fad and wouldn't know a current trend if it jumped out and bit them) scored a free laptop from Microsoft.
The premise is that it's a 64 bit laptop running Vista, and he's meant to be so astounded by it's coolness that he blogs all about it. There no risk of that occurring, he's pretty much in Microsoft's pocket anyways.
Then again, he's so much in Microsoft's pocket that he's a MVP. There is no perception of bias there -- everyone knows he works for a Microsoft backed consultancy, is an MVP, and gets back rubs from Frank Arrigo, Microsoft Australia's head developer back rubber (full disclosure again, Frank used to be my assigned Microsoft ISV buddy -- apparently that meant that we both took it in turns to ignore email from each other).
Back to the story. So, some other bloggers noticed that they hadn't got laptops for free, perhaps because they are whiney bitches, and raised a stink. Unfortunately Microsoft doesn't have the courage of their convictions, and have now asked those bloggers to get rid of the machines after writing some reviews.
Get a grip people. Microsoft, you should be ashamed of backing down. Blogosphere, you should investigate the perception of bias a bit more before making random accusations. Frank, where's my back rub?!?
Anyways, here's what I said in a comment on Mitch's blog:
Mitch,
(long time no see).
I'd kinda assumed that the machine was a standard "kick back" to Microsoft MVPs -- you are still one, right?
While I wont say I'm a big Microsoft supporter (I work for a competitor, have been using Linux for the last 10 years, and am finally Windows free), it seems to me that it's fair enough for Microsoft to provide training resources to MVPs. Don't you also get flights to Redmond, copies of MSDN, a back rub from Frank?
It seems to me that most of the complaining comes down to jealousy. Especially if you disclosed the machine as a gift.
Oh, and Microsoft taking it back again (or dictating how to dispose of the machine) just leaves me with the impression that Microsoft lacks the courage of their convictions. Surely if individual bloggers thought there was a tainting issue they are big enough to resolve that for themselves without a mandate from above?
Mikal
And unlike Microsoft, I stand by my opinion.
Tags for this post: blog()
posted at: 03:01 | path: /diary | permanent link to this entry
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Thu, 28 Dec 2006
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Reactive economies?
The other day while in Costco (for the foreigners, think Bunnings or some other hardware warehouse, but for food), I was graced with this conversation at the checkout, between two Costco employees:
e1: Where the hell is e3?
e2: Oh, we didn't meet our sales target yesterday, so they cut hours today.
e1: So he's not coming in at all?
e2: Nup
Apparently Costco works out their staffing based on a "budget for the day" which takes into account todays sales target, expected customer load, and whatever they have to "make up" from previous missed targets.
While there is nothing wrong with that, it must suck to be an employee in that environment. I can't imagine not knowing how much work I would have day to day. I used to be a casual, but our rosters were fairly static and worked out weeks in advance. I guess that Australia is headed down this path with the new industrial relations laws as well.
That's not why I finally got around to writing this though. It occurred to me this morning that being able to lay off people instantly based on a micro assessment of the economy must also lead to very reactive economies, which are more vulnerable to downturn. If Costco couldn't lay people off instantly, then the billion dollar company would act as a cushion between small variations in economic state and the rest of the economy. Without that cushion, the laid off employee goes home and spends less (being unemployed for a day and all), which has a big knock on effect for the rest of the economy.
I wonder if there are any studies on the probability of this being a problem compared with countries with more employee protection like Ireland? France probably goes too far for such a study, because the barrier to firing there is so high that it acts as a barrier to hiring as well.
Tags for this post: travel() usa()
posted at: 02:48 | path: /travel/usa | permanent link to this entry
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Wed, 27 Dec 2006
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Jon's Nokia E61 WEP problems
Jon is having problems getting WEP to work on his new Nokia but he doesn't have comments turned on so I can't reply to him on his blog. There are a couple of people at work who have claimed to get this working. It's not a work day today, but I will ping them tomorrow and see if I can get their instructions for you...
Tags for this post: blog() toys()
posted at: 03:26 | path: /diary/toys | permanent link to this entry
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Tue, 26 Dec 2006
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Bloomberg: How to handle those annoyingly poor relatives at Christmas
Resist the urge to impress family members with your purchasing power and instead give them only what they can afford to give you. Avoid luxury goods, for example, or other items redolent of leisure. Choose, instead, gifts that encourage productive labour. Hand tools, say, or cookbooks. Obviously your gift needs to say, ``I love you,'' but it also needs to say, ``The income gap within the family isn't going to be shrinking from my end.''
A funny look at how to handle poor relatives at Christmas. Or at least I hope it's meant as humour.
Tags for this post: link()
posted at: 05:32 | path: /link | permanent link to this entry
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Christmas morning
Our kids seem to have the Christmas thing under control -- I remember waking my folks up at 5am to open presents, but our kids let us sleep in today until nearly 8:30am. They liked their presents heaps, so if you got something for them, well done. I'll put some pictures online later when I get a chance.
Tags for this post: christmas()
posted at: 03:37 | path: /christmas | permanent link to this entry
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Mon, 25 Dec 2006
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Fedex sucks
It turns out that seemingly no one in my apartment complex has got a delivery from Fedex in the last week or so... It would seem the local driver is simply too lazy to actually deliver packages. I guess that makes it a little hard for people who are waiting for those last few Christmas presents to arrive. In our case it was something medical, which makes it worse in my mind.
Oh, and guess what? There's no refund process from Fedex, even though they have failed to deliver on their product (three day shipping, we've waited six so far). So, no more Fedex for me.
Tags for this post: blog()
posted at: 04:18 | path: /diary | permanent link to this entry
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Very behind in email land
Excuses as to why I haven't read email from others, or blog posts, in a while:
- It's the holiday season, less time on the computer
- Having the last couple of chapters of a book due
- Getting ready for my three or four talks clustered around the linux.conf.au 2007 trip (the conference tutorial, one or two mini-conference talks, and a talk at SLUG)
- A road trip to Phoenix via LA
- Andrew being sick with something that looks a lot like Giardia for the last three weeks
- It's the end of the quarter, gotta meet those goals!
I'll catch up one day.
Tags for this post: blog()
posted at: 03:30 | path: /diary | permanent link to this entry
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Sat, 23 Dec 2006
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Back on the road again
James and I are driving back to Los Angeles today. We're not running any cameras at the moment, basically because while I now have two nice cameras with better optics and a nice external antenna for the EDGE card, I am having trouble finding a video4linux 2 web cam application. I've got some code which does the job, but it needs more hacking to make it usable, and frankly I'm more interested in getting home to the wife and kids for now.
So, if anyone has a v4l2 web cam application recommendation, feel free to let me know and we can use it tomorrow for the LA to Mountain View drive.
Tags for this post: travel() usa()
posted at: 02:58 | path: /travel/usa | permanent link to this entry
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Mon, 18 Dec 2006
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Los Angeles to Tempe
Another video! This time from Los Angeles to Tempe, along the I-10 E, thru the desert and part a nuclear reactor.
Tags for this post: travel() usa()
posted at: 14:50 | path: /travel/usa | permanent link to this entry
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Sun, 17 Dec 2006
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Driving from Mountain View to Los Angeles
Today we stopped off at a house in Los Angeles where one of James' friends lives. We're on the way to Tempe, Arizona -- that's another six hours or so away tomorrow.
Tags for this post: travel() usa()
posted at: 16:31 | path: /travel/usa | permanent link to this entry
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Kern County oil wells on I-5
Wow, and then we drove past a bunch of oil wells in the middle of an otherwise pleasant rural area called Kern County. I didn't realize that the Kern County area is responsible for two thirds of all oil produced in California. So there you go.
There was even a 1950s truck next to one of the wells, which looked like it had just been abandoned one day from the look of the vegetation around it. If I wasn't going 130 kilometres an hour with the camera in the boot I would have taken a picture.
Here is someone else's shot:
Tags for this post: travel() usa() california()
posted at: 10:03 | path: /travel/usa/california | permanent link to this entry
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Are you required to wear a seat belt in California? I thought you were...
And then I saw a dude sitting in the back of a pickup, wrapped in many blankets, taking pictures as they drove down the road with his big SLR. Now that's dedication to getting a good shot. I would have a picture to show you, except that the OV511 driver oopsed, so the webcam wasn't working at the time. Damn Linux.
Tags for this post: travel() usa()
posted at: 09:05 | path: /travel/usa | permanent link to this entry
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Meh, 3G coverage with Verizon is patchy
At least between Mountain View and LA the coverage is a bit patchy. We're back online again, but were off line for a couple of hours. I guess we should take the data from the GPS and provide a map of where Verizon failed to work for us...
Tags for this post: travel() usa()
posted at: 07:48 | path: /travel/usa | permanent link to this entry
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Sat, 16 Dec 2006
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Where in the world are Mikal and James
Tomorrow we will be driving to LA. The day after we continue on to
Tempe, Arizona for a week in the Phoenix office. Then we drive home.
We got bored this afternoon, so you can track our movements here: http://blog.jdns.org/traveltracker.
Tags for this post: travel() usa()
posted at: 15:44 | path: /travel/usa | permanent link to this entry
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Fri, 15 Dec 2006
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Dear lazy web: writing to the win32 event log in Python
Dear Lazy Web,
I have a need to be able to write to the MS Windows event log in Python. I must admit I don't know a lot about Python on Windows. Does anyone have a good short sample they would like to share?
Hugs and kisses,
Mikal
Tags for this post: python()
posted at: 17:01 | path: /python | permanent link to this entry
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Sun, 10 Dec 2006
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Open Source document management from Alfresco
An Alfresco employee (Alfrescoer?) posts about some of the interesting things they've learnt about being an open source company along the way. The comments about PR being more effective the cold sales calls is especially interesting. I argued for years at TOWER that we should be paying more attention to people searching for our product, instead of paying pretty boys to drive sports cars to sales presentations that everyone secretly hates. If your product has a good reputation and people can find it online, surely the customers will come to you?
Tags for this post: link()
posted at: 15:37 | path: /link | permanent link to this entry
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Fri, 08 Dec 2006
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Craigslist personal ad styled on the Yahoo reorg
Yahoo announced this week that they're going to reorg into three operating units. Some folks felt that they should reorg their dating in a similar manner to align synergies. From the Craigslist post:
In order to maximize effectiveness for the upcoming holiday party, we have decided to restructure our organization into three major operating groups, each working together to secure dates for this important event. These three groups, Mission Girl, Marina Girl and SoMa Girl, will each target a specific audience segment
More here.
Tags for this post: link()
posted at: 03:39 | path: /link | permanent link to this entry
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Tue, 05 Dec 2006
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Sun, 26 Nov 2006
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Email subscription to comments
Hey all. Yesterday I finally got around to implementing email subscriptions to comments on posts in my custom comment module code for Blosxom. I run a custom comment module because of the static generation mode I use for the site, which helps reduce load on Andrew's server.
Email subscription to comments on a post that you have commented on is the default, but it is easy for the user to turn it off. If you post and opt for email, you'll also get an email when your own post survives moderation, which might be useful for some people.
It will be interesting to see if willingness to be emailed a comment is an effective spam signal or not -- so far with a sample of six spam comments, it seems to be evenly split between the two options, which is interesting because it means some spam bots are smart enough to turn the check box off. Or are they using a POST without using my form at all?
(That makes me wonder if moving the URL for the submission CGI might reduce spam...)
If there is any interest in a public release of my uber crap perl code let me know, and I might try and find the time to clean it up.
Tags for this post: blog() spam()
posted at: 04:28 | path: /diary/spam | permanent link to this entry
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Sat, 25 Nov 2006
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Hey, the Macintosh bloggers rock more than the Linux bloggers
Hmmm, within 13.4 seconds of asking a half arsed question about Macintosh backups, I've got seven fully arsed answers (I mean that in a good way). Thanks everyone for your help.
I have more questions though, mainly because I hadn't thought through the Macintosh backup options enough. What I want from the backup is an ISO image of a DVD which I can use to restore the machine if the disk dies. I will then do regular rsyncs of the data from the machine to the network, and use those to restore after using the DVD image to re-image.
I need an ISO image though, because the Macintosh doesn't have a DVD burner. So, questions:
Can Carbon Copy Cloner create ISO images instead of burning a DVD? If I rsync restore to a newly imaged machine, which bits are "the OS" and shouldn't be rsynced (or is it all safe?). Is a one off boot DVD enough, or should I do it every few months or something? Can cdrecord on Linux create a bootable Macintosh DVD?
Further advice gratefully accepted.
Tags for this post: macintosh() osx()
posted at: 05:28 | path: /macintosh/osx | permanent link to this entry
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Book status
I was thinking about the delivery status of the MythTV book as I was going off to sleep last night, and it occurred to me that the book is pretty much done. It's a good feeling.
Stewart needs to finish poking a chapter on cut lists and so forth, with should be minimal effort, then he needs to work on chapters on MythWeb and VoIP (the VoIP one is half done). I need to write an updated introduction (the contents of the book have deviated from plan, although that always happens) as well as a short conclusion chapter, and help Stewart write a chapter about running the latest and greatest version of the code (and how to interact with the development community).
Then we're done for the writing. That description can be summarised as "Stewart and I appear to both be about one and a half chapters away from finishing authoring".
We of course still need to get through technical review, editorial review, replying to things those reviewers need changed, copy editing, page layout, and standing on one leg. We're getting towards the end of the project though.
When I think about it that way, I guess I read the ImageMagick book around four or five times.
You can pre order a copy of the MythTV book from Amazon for $20 US.
Tags for this post: mythtv() book()
posted at: 05:00 | path: /mythtv/book | permanent link to this entry
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Fri, 24 Nov 2006
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Macintosh backups
Today appears to have become "home network admin day", and having done a bunch of work on the kid's Xbox, the kid's Ubuntu laptop, and my NSLU2 NAS device, I've moved onto my wife's Macintosh.
I've upgraded her to the latest version of MythTV's front end so that she can watch TV again, but I also think it might be time to take a backup of her machine.
What is the least horrible, free, way of backing up a Macintosh to a network share?
Tags for this post: macintosh() osx()
posted at: 08:18 | path: /macintosh/osx | permanent link to this entry
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Please report to the municipal hall of justice
Catherine rang me while I was at work yesterday to let me know that I had a letter from the courthouse in Santa Clara country demanding (it doesn't make it sound all that optional) that I attend at the "Municipal Hall of Justice" for jury duty. Yes, they really called it that. Yes, I thought it sounded like something from a bad 1980's film too.
So, I apparently can get out of the jury duty by proving to them that I am not a citizen. In fact, it's much more onerous to show that you're not a citizen than it is for many of the other escape clauses. They want a copy of my passport for example.
The letter also doesn't make it particularly clear if being a non-citizen excludes me from jury duty or not. Oh, and the only contact details on the letter are a web site, and a 24 hour recorded message line. I don't know if I would serve or not if given the option -- I probably would.
So, am I able to serve? Should I? Will the Demolition Man be at the municipal hall of justice? What about Judge Dredd?
Tags for this post: travel() usa() california() mountainview()
posted at: 07:37 | path: /travel/usa/california/mountainview | permanent link to this entry
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Thu, 23 Nov 2006
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MySQL Camp
Kynan and I came along to the MySQL camp, and thru a quirk of fate pretty much ended up running it (the person who was meant to be running it got injured on the first day and had to go off to hospital). In return we wrote the Google Code blog post about the event. Pretty cool, huh?
Tags for this post: mysql()
posted at: 10:43 | path: /mysql | permanent link to this entry
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Mon, 20 Nov 2006
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Bloglines unreliable today
I don't know what's happening at bloglines today, but that plumber screen was cute the first time, but it's pretty annoying now. Bloglines seems to have been up and down all day. Perhaps it's time to look into other online aggregators...
Tags for this post: blog()
posted at: 15:00 | path: /diary | permanent link to this entry
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You know it's nearly time to go home
You know it's nearly time to go home when you spend half an hour trying to find the authentication bug, when the problem is really that there are two characters transposed in the password you passed on the command line. Curse you up command history!
Tags for this post: blog()
posted at: 12:15 | path: /diary | permanent link to this entry
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mbot: new hotness in Google Talk bots
I've been meaning to release this for a while, but haven't had a chance in the last month or so. Therefore, instead of writing it up fully I'm just going to put it online and document it better when I get the chance.
mbot is a Google Talk / Jabber bot engine, which works by loading plug ins (it calls them modules) which register verbs. These verbs are the first word on an instant message line, and are handed to the module when a registered verb appears (along with the rest of the line).
The source download includes a sample module, which implements instant messaging access to the MythTV network control interface and on screen display functionality. mbot is in fact a refactoring of a bot which originally did just the MythTV bits without pretending to be modular.
Mad props to PyXMPP for making the Google Talk / Jabber bits easy, the BZR folks for their excellent sample of how to do plug ins, Jaq for telling me my code sucks, and the Sydney office for giving me somewhere with quiet evenings to write code.
Anyway, better documentation later when I get a chance.
Tags for this post: mbot()
posted at: 10:56 | path: /mbot | permanent link to this entry
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mbot: new hotness in Google Talk bots
I've been meaning to release this for a while, but haven't had a chance in the last month or so. Therefore, instead of writing it up fully I'm just going to put it online and document it better when I get the chance.
mbot is a Google Talk / Jabber bot engine, which works by loading plug ins (it calls them modules) which register verbs. These verbs are the first word on an instant message line, and are handed to the module when a registered verb appears (along with the rest of the line).
The source download includes a sample module, which implements instant messaging access to the MythTV network control interface and on screen display functionality. mbot is in fact a refactoring of a bot which originally did just the MythTV bits without pretending to be modular.
Mad props to PyXMPP for making the Google Talk / Jabber bits easy, the BZR folks for their excellent sample of how to do plug ins, Jaq for telling me my code sucks, and the Sydney office for giving me somewhere with quiet evenings to write code.
Anyway, better documentation later when I get a chance.
Tags for this post: gtalkbot()
posted at: 10:56 | path: /gtalkbot | permanent link to this entry
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Getting Google Talk working with PyXMPP
Jacek Konieczny has written the wholly fantabulous PyXMPP, which implements Jabber clients and servers in Python. Now, Google Talk is a Jabber server, but it needs TLS support before it works. The code is all there, but the echobot example in the download (look in the examples directory) doesn't show you how. It's not that hard though -- here's the patch I needed to make it work:
--- echobot.py 2005-12-26 07:25:55.000000000 -0800
+++ echobot2.py 2006-10-25 04:25:02.000000000 -0700
@@ -13,6 +13,7 @@
from pyxmpp.all import JID,Iq,Presence,Message,StreamError
from pyxmpp.jabber.client import JabberClient
+from pyxmpp import streamtls
class Client(JabberClient):
"""Simple bot (client) example. Uses `pyxmpp.jabber.client.JabberClient`
@@ -28,8 +29,12 @@
# setup client with provided connection information
# and identity data
+
+ tls = streamtls.TLSSettings(require=True, verify_peer=False)
+ auth = ['sasl:PLAIN']
JabberClient.__init__(self, jid, password,
- disco_name="PyXMPP example: echo bot", disco_type="bot")
+ disco_name="PyXMPP example: echo bot", disco_type="bot",
+ tls_settings=tls, auth_methods=auth)
# register features to be announced via Service Discovery
self.disco_info.add_feature("jabber:iq:version")
That makes the __init__ method for the client:
def __init__(self, jid, password):
# if bare JID is provided add a resource -- it is required
if not jid.resource:
jid=JID(jid.node, jid.domain, "Echobot")
# setup client with provided connection information
# and identity data
tls = streamtls.TLSSettings(require=True, verify_peer=False)
auth = ['sasl:PLAIN']
JabberClient.__init__(self, jid, password,
disco_name="PyXMPP example: echo bot", disco_type="bot",
tls_settings=tls, auth_methods=auth)
# register features to be announced via Service Discovery
self.disco_info.add_feature("jabber:iq:version")
Now the client works with a gtalk login:
$ ./echobot2.py username@gmail.com supersecretthingie
creating client...
connecting...
*** State changed: resolving srv (u'gmail.com', 'xmpp-client') ***
*** State changed: resolving 'talk.l.google.com.' ***
*** State changed: connecting ('72.14.253.125', 5222) ***
*** State changed: connected ('72.14.253.125', 5222) ***
looping...
*** State changed: tls connecting ***
*** State changed: tls connected ***
*** State changed: fully connected ***
*** State changed: authenticated ***
*** State changed: binding u'Echobot' ***
*** State changed: authorized ***
mikalstill@gmail.com/Gaim6734F991 has become available
mikalstill@gmail.com/GaimD2ECF56B has become available(away): I'm not at my
desk at work at the moment. This is probably because I'm at a meeting or
racing electric scooters. If you IM me I will see the message when I get back.
My roster:
mikalstill@gmail.com "" subscription=both groups=
Message from mikalstill@gmail.com/Gaim6734F991 received. Body: "Hello there". Type: "chat".
disconnecting...
exiting...
$
Too easy.
Update: mbot is a Google Talk bot engine built on top of this.
Tags for this post: google() gtalk()
posted at: 10:54 | path: /google/gtalk | permanent link to this entry
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Oh, and no affection of SouthWest flights!
(Yes, I'm catching up on CNN this morning, I have a headache, and it seemed like a good plan at the time).
Clearly SouthWest want to be the only ones screwing their customers, don't you dare rest your head on your wife because that's a Federal offence they will pursue.
Tags for this post: link()
posted at: 06:12 | path: /link | permanent link to this entry
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Kynan's going to be in trouble...
Kynan is an Australian I work with. He has an Australian flag in his cube, and it seems to me that he's skirting on the edge of crazy US laws if he happens to move to one of those jurisdictions. I can't imagine such laws passing in Mountain View, but I figure he deserves the warning anyways.
Tags for this post: link()
posted at: 06:08 | path: /link | permanent link to this entry
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How open source hackers party
It was Leslie's birthday the other day (Leslie is the lovely lady who runs the Summer of Code), so James, Serge, Leslie, Lisa, (some lady whose name I can't remember right now), Ben, Alice and I set off for San Francisco in a stretch limo. We eventually made it to an apartment block part by 10:30 and had a great time for many hours. The apartment block party concept was interesting, and I hadn't seen it anywhere before. Basically, if you're going to have a party in an apartment you might as well stop pretending you're not going to disturb the neighbours, and invite them as well. In this case it was a block of four apartments all having parties at the same time, and you could wander in between them.
It gets better though. Each party had a different feel, so when you got bored with one, you just wandered on to another. Another thing I liked about the party was that there was a bouncer, which stopped random people from just showing up.
Anyways, a good night. I like limos. I should have more of those.
Tags for this post: blog()
posted at: 05:56 | path: /diary | permanent link to this entry
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Fri, 17 Nov 2006
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Dave and Busters
To celebrate a recent launch the team went out to an "adult arcade" called Dave and Busters today. An adult arcade is pretty much what it sounds like -- imagine a huge collection of arcade games, pool tables, bar, and restaurant. I of course had the most American thing I could find, which was a double cheese burger. It was sufficiently huge that I didn't really have dinner, just a light snack.
Dave and Busters was cool, and I recommend having a look if you ever see one of them. The food is generic, but of a reasonable quality and quite cheap compared to what you would pay in Australia. The games are expensive, but given I have basically never been to an arcade in Australia I don't know if that is run for the course or not.
I had fun, and I suspect that James with his fifty fluid ounces of Guinness did too. Oh, thats 1.47867648 liters by the way.
Tags for this post: travel() usa() california() santaclara()
posted at: 16:14 | path: /travel/usa/california/santaclara | permanent link to this entry
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Tue, 14 Nov 2006
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Tue, 07 Nov 2006
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Twinkie laptop
A while ago an office mate and I were playing hide the twinkie in the office. I think it all started when yet another office mate brought some twinkies into the office, and I stole one for Flemming. He didn't want it, but was too polite to say no, so he hid it in my bike shoes when I was out of the office. Then, I "hid" it under his mouse. So he put it into the bracket that holds my desk phone up. So I taped it to the back of his monitors. You get the idea.
I went away for a month recently (to Australia and all...), and he obviously missed me, because when I came back my desk was covered with twinkies. I needed to move some so I could type on my laptop, but where to put them?
In the end I put them on my laptop lid, and off I went to a meeting. These are the pictures another sysop took at that meeting...
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