Yes, it's true, the dreadlocks are gone. In an alcoholic boxing day session, the scissors came out and the hair came off. Viv Richards documented the experience for me, and the results are here. I now have this short 'do and will, if all goes to plan, be bleaching and dyeing it a crazy colour in preparation for the Peats Ridge Festival, where we shall be spending New Years Eve in the company of a few thousand hippies. In other news, my house is trying to kill me, this time sending me crashing to the floor, whereupon I smashed the dogs' food...

Behind the curve as this is, I feel I must add this. Everyone loves the treadmills thing, but I myself find it's difficult to tire of this little gem: Right, now I've done the inevitable and posted the YouTube video to my blog. Does this mean I now qualify for Time person of the fucking year or what? By the way, buy the OK GO album. it's very, very good.

fear no more

In one of today's more "what's wrong with the world?" stories, some kid from singapore faces a jail term for logging on to his neighbour's open wireless network. I despair, I really do. Some fuckwit fails to secure his access point, and his neighbour could get three years in jail? Fuck that.

My much-abused smartphone, an i-Mate SP3i, went to its grave recently, the LCD screen having mysteriously gone batshit overnight. I don't recall dropping or crushing it but there you go. It's dead. So, what better time to upgrade? I'm absolutely smartphone-bound, since I've found calendar, task and email integration to be indispensable, and I like to be able to use my phone as a portable media player. Smartphones aren't cheap, so scouring EBay for a replacement within the short-term replacement budget was a frustrating exercise. This close to the Newton's Birthday holiday means that the budget was around the AU$500 mark max. I found...

Yes, the awaited update to VS2005, which makes running on Windows Vista a supported Scenario, is here. Download link: Visual Studio 2005 Service Pack 1

There are things in the sea that want to eat you. It's a fact.. What's more, they're really really good at moving around in the water, whereas we, as terrestrial bipedal mammals, are not. We're just ready-to-eat meals-on-the-go for today's busy shark lifestyle. Stay out of the water!

Yes, today's punch in the throat is not dedicated to people who drive badly, or who wander around shopping centres in trances, or stay up all night praying to the tooth fairy for the health of a sick child resulting in inattentiveness the next day and subsequent mowing down of said child by a car*. No, today's punch in the throat, uniquely thus far, is dedicated to an entire nation. The United States Of America, please stand up. Why punch an entire nation in the throat? Well, there are many, many reasons, but I'll single this out for starters: Dates should be written dd/mm/yyyy, not...

So I'm surfing the web for source images and I stumble upon this site, and find this image: To the author of the site this is the hands of god. The me, this is Godse.cx. I haven't done the background research yet, having just shot beer out of my nose on seeing the image on a serious (if slightly insane) religio-zealot's website, but I'd be willing to lay odds that this is a Fark photoshop entry or possibly a SomethingAwful forum item. My nose hurts. Update: this, trivially enough, is what I was after: "Moses, dude. Get it fucking right, OK? You're looking for a land...

"Pigeon Rights Activists" Is this really how far our species has come? We might as well give up now.

Nice to see the SMH blatantly ripping off the Disneyland analogy I drew on SydneyPubGuide.net several years ago. I said: "Like a pubgoer's Disneyland" They said: "Kiddies like Disneyland. Adults like the Newport Arms." OK, so it's not direct plagiarism, but I think inspiration was due to SydneyPubGuide. And where's my credit? Nowhere. Will Swanton, you owe me a beer. Get in touch and we'll organise when and where you can get the round in. Thank you. [cross-blogged at pubguide blog]

BBC news is reporting on a new study based on major sporting events as major medical risk factors. Put simply, Euros and Poms have a 25% increased risk of myocardial infarction, aka heart attack, around major sporting events such as the World Cup, the Ashes and so on. The study also took into account the last AFL Grand Final (which was a gripper even for someone who understands little of the sport), and the socceroos qualifier against Uraguay as measures of Aussie risk, and I'm pleased to note there was no spike in hospital admission figures over here. The article notes that this may well...

Don't you find it makes people so calm, sensible, rational and reluctant to use violence? Textbook case of a some insignificant little event escalating and moving into out-of-control territory due to the fact that religion is in the mix. Really, what do people see in the whole religion thing? Don't they notice how many religious people are utterly batshit-mental? (quick aside: I channel surfed past 'Cops' on the TV the other night to see some nutter in Maricopa County, Arizona raving on about "finding god" while amped up to the scalp on crystal meth. It would be funny were it not so tragic)

It's good to have friends in Sales & Marketing. Courtesy of the great folks over at Wacom, I'm now the very proud owner of a Graphire Bluetooth Tablet. I also took posession of some videos explaining how Wacom gear works with Windows Vista (more on this anon) which can be viewed here, here, here, here and here. Actually installing the hardware was easy as. Out of the box and onto the desk it goes, in goes the rechargable lithium-polymer battery, on goes the charging cord, and the included bluetooth dongle goes into a handy USB port (or not, if you have it built...

Last night's Curry Run was low on numbers but high on fun as the Runners headed to Cumin in Crow's nest. The night was kicked off in fine style at the Crows Nest Hotel with plenty of Cooper's consumed by the lads and much toot talked. Slightly late we headed off to the restaurant, a venue we've visted before, but back when it was Piar. Already a few sheets to the wind, many sheets were added with wine over a banquet of Lamb Rogan Josh, Butter Chicken, Beef Vindaloo, naan and rice - standard fare but nicely done. Much more toot...

My cubemate Tristank just got a new notebook delivered. And well may I say notebook - it's not much bigger than the familar spiral-bound paper notebooks we used to carry around once upon a time. It's a Fujitsu Lifebook P1610 and it came with 80Gb of Harddrive and 512Mb RAM, powered by a 1.2GHz processor and wrapped in a cute little tabletPC format, pumping out a 1280x768 image on a 9 inch-wide touch screen In the picture above it nestles comfortably atop my personal dreadnought notebook, an Alienware Area 51m, with 17inch screen (1920x1200), with twin harddrive bays (currently 1x 80Gb), 2Gb...

Yes, despite the opposition of wannabe-theocrats John Boy, Abbot and Costello, Mark Vaile, and (surprisingly or not) new Labor leader Kevin 'bring in the god squad' Rudd, Peter Garrett and Tony Burke, therapuetic cloning of embyos has the go-ahead. A step forward has been made, despite the opposition of those who prefer to think with the gut in place of the organ so well evolved for it, the brain. Said Rudd: "I find it very difficult to support a legal regime which allows creation of a form of human life with the single purpose of allowing the conduct of experimentation.". Well, yeah. OK. Twisting the...

... or at least that's how I, as a fully paid-up left-wing atheist, rationalise observing an crypto-christian ex-pagan midwinter festival commandeered, nay, hijacked by corporate interests. Happy Birthday Isaac. And for those who wish to enjoy turkey on this day (though why this is a tradition on Dec 25th I'll probably never know), why not try something a little different? Smoked Beer Can Turkey The recipe comes to you live from Cooking For Engineers, a nifty site for geeks with gas. Personally, I'll probably be enjoying a couple of beers in seclusion, maybe a picnic at the crag would work. The family observance comes earlier so...

Yes folks, the SydneyPubGuide.net Alcoholics Unanimous t-shirt is now available via WordsCantHurt's CafePress store. A very experimental little store at present, but as time goes on, more stuff will be added. Suggestions welcome.

Suggested by a colleague: Black Hawk Drown Tasteless bastards I work with. Funny sometimes though.