Blog

The thoughts, opinions, happenings, and just plain ramblings of a seemingly boring person.

2011: Year in Review

Categories None

After a very ordinary 2010, I had hoped that 2011 would have been much much better. In looking back, 2011 was definitely much better health-wise, although I didn't exactly get the news that I had hoped for in 2010. Still, only one hospital stay-over for some routine-ish surgery was definitely much better than the previous years record.

We had hoped to have moved into a newly built house by now, but we're still in the middle of that process so here's hoping we won't be too far into 2012 for that to happen! That's also one of the main reasons … Read more →

The Best and Worst of 2011

Categories Gaming, Geekery, Life, Movies

So my traditional critical wrap of the year is once again upon us. As a result of all the house building, this year I haven't really played many games at all, so that part of this review might be a little underdone. Balancing that out, this year Des and I went and saw a lot of movies, both theatrically and at home. At my count (which I think is still a little short), we've seen 35 movies released this year.

Anyway, here we go:

Movies

The Adventures of TintinBest Movie: The Adventures of Tintin

This one was a tough one because no movie … Read more →

Back In Town, Christmas in Sydney

Categories Life

Last night we flew back into Brisbane after spending Christmas down in Sydney with our relatives there.

It's our first flights together since going over to Europe in 2008, and the first time we've spent Christmas somewhere other than Brisbane since we've been married. We were only down there for six days, but it didn't feel too long or too short.

We did a few things while we were down there, but on Tuesday we went into the city to try and see the 'Art of the Brick' Lego art exhibition, only to discover that whilst the rest of the … Read more →

The Home Stretch

Categories Geekery, Life, Technology

It looks like we're entering the home stretch in the construction of our house (see what I did there? ;)). Although it didn't look like it two weeks ago, everything seems to be coming together and most will be done before Christmas.

I really can't wait for it all to be finished (it's looking like we'll be moving in in January), the early starts and now the increasing temperatures are starting to take their toll. Although, the past week has been awesome in terms of temperatures, apparently we've had one of the coolest starts to summer in recorded history, and … Read more →

Google’s New Look of Doom & On Virgin

Categories Geekery, Rants, Technology

Google has been busy rolling out it's new look, and even after using it on a few products for a while now, it isn't getting any better for me. As i've ranted about before, the grey-washing of colours across it's services (most eye-soringly in Blogger entries) is truly perplexing.

But I can live with bland and unlively colour changes; what is bugging me the most is basic usability impediments. Google used to be really good at this type of thing, making highly usable and accessible services. Just to use the new Reader look again as an example:

Google Reader snapshot

Other than the … Read more →

New Mobile: HTC Desire S

Categories Geekery, Life, Technology

HTC Desire SIn what is probably the shortest intervals between new mobile phones since I started using them, and barely a year since I got my last new one, I have a new mobile.

After going up to Bribie earlier this month for a break, my Vodafone based mobile had no access to data at all, and I found myself having to use the Mrs' iPhone to check emails. During the last year on my small Android phone, I have noticed a lot of developers neglecting the small screen size (and associated resolution) in terms of developing apps and features. Plus … Read more →

Terrible Reader Updates & NAS, Media Player Gadgetry

Categories Geekery, Internet, Rants, Technology

A few months ago I criticised Google's upcoming interface design for Gmail as being bland and not user friendly. It seems in the past week that in rolling out this design across all their products Google has taken the remodelling knife to my beloved Google Reader.

I've loved using Google Reader for over five years as my main web and RSS aggregator, but their recent update has really irked me. I was expecting the colour-washed interface (which is still terrible btw), but to the point of making link colours the same as normal text, terrible text-size scaling, and the … Read more →

Lucas the Builder

Categories Life

Lucas the builderIn the past three weeks the construction of our house has well and truly gotten underway. I am a bit surprised that I have actually gotten practically involved in the process too! I have helped fix some of the FC sheets to the side of the house, and for this IT desk-tied geek, that is quite an accomplishment.

I have also gotten some new gadgets which will populate the to-be-finished house, but I think I will leave those for a latter dedicated entry.

Edit 2011-10-25 16:56: Looks like i was getting a little cocky, i did this today: (I won't … Read more →

Gaming Season 2011-2012 Begins: BF3 Beta

Categories Gaming

So another Gaming Season is upon us; the time of year that mega game companies seek to part parents and elder geeks with their money, and cash in on Christmas/holiday-related TV babysitting and bought love.

In looking through this season's upcoming launches that I am interested in, i'd say it's a comfortable mix: not too overloaded, but not overly lean either.

Battlefield 3 - October 25
Sonic Generations - November 3
COD: MW3 - November 8
Zelda: Skyward Sword - November 24
Mass Effect 3 - March 6

I'm really looking forward to Zelda, but the headline game has to … Read more →

Star Wars on Blu-Ray

Categories Geekery, Movies

Star Wars Blu-ray set coversThis week the complete set of Star Wars movies was finally released on blu-ray. Like the eventual release of the original trilogy on DVD all those years ago, I was of course quite excited.

As is usual with each new release, George Lucas had included a lot of mostly unobjectionable minor changes that might make a little sense, some ones that are completely unnecessary, but also at least one major change that has people scratching their heads in frustration and millions of geeks posting on forums their fury on how their childhood has been ruined (see the 'Han Shot … Read more →