My unshaven facial hair snags in the keys during calls.

It’s also spontaneously stopped being able to roam. It drop outs. It randomly restarts. It drains batteries three times as fast as it used to. I assume these are symptoms of it trying to connect to the roaming partners network. It won’t manually connect either, although it does seem to see the roaming partner’s network.

This problem has exposed Three’s / 3’s / Hutchison’s Sydney coverage as being appalling. Their Indian call center’s have been very friendly but of little help to date. I’ve sent it off to be repaired - which was a huge inconvenience - but the problem was not fixed (at the time i just knew the batteries were being drained but didn’t know why)

I’m expecting them to fix this or replace the phone, when I finally get around to takeing it into one of their stores

PDF of Kevin Rudd’s speech: Apology to Australia’s Indigenous Peoples
Background note on the Bringing Them Home Report

Apparently LG’s $8000 Internet fridge flopped in 2004. At CES this week Whirlpool have announced their version of an Internet fridge that comes with some “fridge front door simulating” software and a pocket for various computer/display options.

Amazingly this coincides with me realising I needed an internet enabled fridge today while shopping for dinner. I don’t think I’d actually use the Internet in our kitchen, it’s too small for one thing & I’d have to crouch down as we have a bar fridge. However I’d really like to have some way of remembering whether M or I bought some food stuff the day before, or if there’s any left. There were three unopened punnets of tom thumb tomatoes in there when I brought the fourth one home tonight, I just couldn’t be sure whether I’d bought any and I had a particular meal in mind (John Dorey fillets cooked with tomatoes and olives with snow peas and brown rice).

Anyway, I wanted to be able to check my phone and see a still image of the current contents of my fridge. It just needs a web server, a digital camera and a cgi script to turn on the light and control the camera for me be able to retrieve such images. I don’t think I could ever use software to record what I put in there so this might be a crude but effective alternative?

I also don’t understand why, in this day and age, all TV’s don’t have built in wireless connectivity and a web browser.

Update: Later, actually now, I have no idea why i wrote this, perhaps just to keep my writing hand in? In a completely different mood I realise all I’m asking for is small high quality wireless cameras that can be controlled/accessed remotely. Surely these are a dime a dozen by now.

I should own up. Yesterday while waiting for others to show up at the pub I finally worked out how to play the poker machines. I put in a dollar and got 100 1cent credits. I worked out that one credit = 1 line and wasn’t very fun, 5-10 credits/lines felt more promising. During about 2-5 minutes play (I got my moneys worth) I “struck lucky” (my word not sure what the real term is) twice and was offered the option to gamble on red or black (or something more complicated on suites) or “take my winnings”. I gambled everytime, at one point I recovered from just 13 credits to 60 (note I never exceeded my starting amount) before losing the gamble, black never looked so black.

When it was all over I kind of understood how it might be possible to enjoy, luckily I had no more coins and the idea of another beer gave me more pleasure.

Ok. So I got tired waiting for this blog to be ready. It’s quite clear that Angus is never going to get his act together and build that “grand vision” so I took matters into my own hands. A few simple lists of links in the right hand column and this central column for a feed of what ever I choose - the important thing is to just use some of this hosting space and start adding things.

Ok, so this is a slow process - at least for me. Tinkering with wordpress I’ve managed to get a layout i’m happy with at least for now :-). Though the right hand side bar need’s a lot of work. Things I plan to add:

• Flickr slideshow of selected favourite images for top right image
• Category/Tags pages
• Archive pages for months
• Delicious/post intergration
• Flickr/post integration
• Interesting stuff in right side bar for different sections
• Projects page
• About page detail
• … basically everything.

Hi I’ve been lurking on the web since the mid nineties observing but rarely contributing personally. I have had a few blogs in that time but all have been aborted after just a few cursory posts. This one may be different as it coincides with my re-entering the workforce after a period of study, the start of something new. I’m setting it up as a way to investigate creativity, work out why I value it so highly and encourage myself to practice it in the face of the world. I’m hoping it can help improve my writing too.