Blog

The past weekend was the Australian federal election. Most were expecting some kind of result on the night, and a lot are confused that there still isn't one.

For the first time since WWII, the election has failed to provide a clear winner in terms of a party or coalition controlling the majority of the seats in the House of Representatives. Both Labor and the Coalition have been sitting on seventy-something seats, both short of the 76 needed, with all the power now looking likely to be controlled by 3 or 4 independent MPs.

It sure is interesting political times … Read more →

You wouldn't have predicted before this election campaign that broadband would turn out to be a decisive difference between the two major parties. The past few days has seen it become a central issue separating the government and opposition.

It has also seen the geek vote made a whole lot easier. Whilst both major parties are really sickening me at the moment, the Coalition has done it more-so. Their plan to scrap the NBN rollout and rely on a mish-mash of outdated technologies to offer an alternative to the NBN is an absolute joke of a policy. Added to that … Read more →

This might surprise some, but I never got into StarCraft when it was released almost 12 years ago. Back then I was a huge Total Annihilation (TA) fan, and shunned similar types of RTS games like StarCraft and Dark Reign. In my opinion TA was a much better product, and I still stand by that.

Fast forward almost 12 years and here we are. Three years ago TA's spiritual successor, Supreme Commander (SupCom) was a worthy heir to the TA legacy, but this year with Supreme Commander 2 it's RTS ideals were betrayed with the dumbing down of the … Read more →

On Wednesday my ADSL transfer finally went through, and I am now connected to Internode as my ISP. It's been a long time coming, but i'm pretty happy that i'm finally on Internode now that they have a DSLAM in my exchange. It's probably the most geek-respected ISP in the country, and it means that I finally have unmetered access to Steam downloads, a good gaming network as well as a heap of other stuff.

I'm currently on the 'Easy Naked' plan, which means that i'm paying $60/month for 70GB of quota. This is significant because it's the first time … Read more →

I'm somewhat ashamed to admit that I got a new iPod recently. Since I bought my first, and previously only, iPod back in 2004 I turned off iPods mainly because of the iSheep mentality and the bloatware that is iTunes. However it does make me feel better that I didn't pay money for it: we got it from our credit card's rewards points program.

I got a blue 16GB Nano, and honestly it seems like a pretty good device even if it is somewhat overpriced. I am still using iTunes, but that's only because it is actually somewhat responsive now … Read more →

I got up early this morning to watch the big game, the 2010 World Cup final between the Netherlands and Spain.

Overall Spain were deserved winners, the Dutch went out of character and tradition to apply niggly fouling tactics in an attempt to break up the Spanish play (van Bommel is a disgusting excuse for a player), so it is good to see those tactics not pay off.

The Dutch can't complain though, they did have their chances to score a goal or two earlier, and they were probably lucky to have everyone on the pitch for as long as … Read more →

This past week I picked up Mario Galaxy 2. Unlike with the first game and to my great disappointment, there was no awesome pre-order deal anywhere to be seen, so i resorted to buying the 'Premiere' (i.e. normal)-edition game-guide myself.

Normally I don't buy game guides, but as with Zelda: Twilight Princess and the first Mario Galaxy, they were really quite useful for these type of games, not to mention enjoyable to utilise and follow along. Already i'm glad that I splashed the extra cash on it.

The game itself is amazing. And frustrating. And rewarding. And great.… Read more →

After my previous entry, last Sunday week I was admitted to hospital again. This time it was a lot more painful, as the apparent cause of it was acute pancreatitis probably brought on by some of the medication i was taking for the colitis. Not a fun time, although I was given some morphine for the first time in my life. Funnily enough it didn't dull the pain much, but did allow me to sleep it off a bit.

I spent another four nights in the Mater Private and was discharged on Thursday. This stay was made a little easier … Read more →

Well before I begin, I know it's probably been the longest ever time between blog entries ever since I started this blog several years ago, and believe me, there's a pretty good reason for that. I should also forewarn that this is going to be a pretty epicly long blog entry. I actually typed most of this entry out from a hospital room after spending 4 nights there.

I was slightly apprehensive about actually posting this entry publicly, but I know a lot of people are worried about me and this is probably the best way to let people know … Read more →

As mentioned recently, i've spent a fair bit of time playing BC2. I'm really enjoying it, and we've even gone to the trouble of setting up a TeamSpeak server in order to get around the buggy in game audio.

Although i've been critical of the whole ranking and weapon-unlock multiplayer progression previously, i actually don't mind it now in BC2 now that i've gotten out of the bottom ranks.

In addition to BC2, i've spent a fair time of time gaming on the PC recently. I've bought Episodes from Liberty City which is the standalone expansion to GTA4, and added … Read more →