Went to my cousins first communion celebrations on Sunday. Skipped the church because I had better things to do.
The venue was out in Taylor’s Lakes* and let me just say that the evening could be rated as average. The room was stuffy, the lasagna was cold, the chicken was dry and the apple pie tasted like apple cores.
Out of all the functions and venues I’ve been to this DJ/MC would by far had been the worst. The music selection was terrible - a lot of the CD’s skipped and he couldn’t beat match meaning there was no flow from one song to the next.
In addition to all of that he was one of those MC’s that wouldn’t shut the fuck up. He must have had some friends there because he’d call out “hey Mark, why don’t you dance with your missus” or “how was the soccer on the weekend” while presenting. Oh and he fucked up my cousins name. Luckily my grandfather wasn’t there or he would have gone all mafia on his arse.
There are some DJ’s or every waking moment perfecting their art. This guy should go back to his parent’s basement and try something different.
*For those playing at home the venue was Lakeside Receptions.
As some of you may know, I live opposite Moonee Valley racetrack. The Cox Plate has come and gone so allow me to share with you some of the best experiences of the big day.
The Quagmire
For one day every year the area around the track turns into a logistical nightmare. From drivers hanging illegal U-turns to people parking in resident spaces you could be forgiven for thinking that you’re on a main street in Kazakhstan. Taxis are even worse as they just drop off passengers in the middle of the street holding up traffic for a short while.
The Lack Of Police Presence
With an event that gathers 30,000 people in the one location there would be a significant case for additional police to patrol the local area and maintain some sort of traffic management. Unfortunately, there were more advertising billboards on wheels than an actual police on the street. Totally unacceptable in my opinion.
The Late Bus
The bus that runs down our street arrives at the Puckle St terminus and then has to loop around Mt Alexander Road and the front of the racetrack to begin the next run. On Cox Plate day this is a 20 minute procedure. What’s even worse is that drivers don’t pick up at the Moonee Ponds terminus or even along our street as a way of trying to make up time imagine 3 buses screaming down our street within 2 minutes of one another (they only run 4 on Saturdays).
The Drunks
If you want some free entertainment past midnight simply open your blinds. Fights and stupid behavior are abound. Dad had to sweep the driveway of broken glass before he could go to work this morning.
The Waste of Ratepayers Money
The Moonee Valley council embarked on a $60,000 project to beautify the local area through the planting of a few 100 trees. A walk along our street would reveal that out of the 30 or so new trees planted only 5 have not been reduced to twigs. Surprisingly, our picket fence is still in tack. This one goes hand in hand with the lack of police presence.
If we as ratepayers are forced to pay again for these trees to be replaced I think there will be alot of ’splaning to do on the part of the mayor and executive officer of Moonee Valley racetrack.
A temporary departure from YouTube Wednesday to bring you the worst sites on teh intranets
Most universities and schools have some form of online content delivery to streamline the delivery of work to students. Most of the time the content is managed by the teachers who can upload notes, create discussion forums, tests and other services.
WebCT is considered the premier content delivery system for schools. Unfortunately from a design and usability perspective it deserves the wooden spoon.
WebCT uses a frame based layout. Frames are used to separate data into distinct sections. This used to be a good idea before CSS enabled developers to create fixed view layouts but now thanks to CSS and DHTML frames are a big no-no in good design. As I mentioned in an earlier STS review, frames aren’t good for people who are using text readers or have a vision impairment.
Another known truth about good internet design is never break the fucken back button. WebCT is so reliant on Javascript that if you press the back button at anytime you get screwed over. For example: some teachers use WebCT for online tests. If your doing a test and you want to go back and accidentally press the back button instead of the one provided in WebCT, you have to start the test from scratch.
The final problem which shits me more than anything else is that WebCT doesn’t allow more than one session to be running on a computer. So essentially, if you want to have more than one course open, you have to use multiple computers. WebCT also disallows opening of content in new tabs.
Problems with monopolies in the software industry is that is impossible to call developers out on the defects in their software. The costs associated with purchasing and implementing WebCT are very high and WebCT continue to do a disservice to the end users - students & teachers by not building a usable, standards compliant site.
On the way home I saw a Australian Air Express van with a livery promoting their next flight service.
As part of the livery, there was a logo of another company and ‘principle sponsor‘ wording underneath. I had to double take. Even though I failed year seven english and shit I knew the principle was being used in the wrong context.
I consulted the Mac OS X dictionary widget to find this definition:
USAGE NOTE principal, principle
These two words, though often confused and used incorrectly and interchangeably, share no common definitions. Generally, it’s enough to remember that principal (= chief, primary, most important) is usually an adjective and that principle (= a truth, rule, doctrine, or course of action) is virtually always a noun.
Although principle is not a verb, we have principled as an adjective. But principal is sometimes a noun?an elliptical form of principal official ( Morgan is principal of the elementary school) or principal investment ( principal and interest).
Substituting principal for principle is a fairly common blunder?e.g.: ?The Ways and Means bill approved today, after more than a month of deliberation and voting, preserves two of the central principals [read principles ] put forth by the President: universal coverage and the requirement that employers assume 80 percent of its cost for their workers.? ( New York Times; July 1, 1994.)
So there you have it: keep a look out for the vans, point, laugh.
We have a pet Chihuahua, been part of the family for 12 years, pure bread, class act all the way. He lives in my room, gets all the attention in the world from my mother. My dad is stuck with walking, cleaning and grooming him.
I noticed something strange while I was sitting at the beach today. All these ‘men’ were all walking small dogs: one guy was walking a jack russell; another a pomeranian. The day before while waiting for the bus I saw a woman walking a german shepherd while the man a tiny cocker spaniel.
So what is it that attracts big men to small dogs? Are men driven to be submissive by their wives or girlfriends just like the pets they own? Strangely enough dad has never complained about doing the ‘pet’ chores…
Nick & Emily popularized the concept of communal dining in Season 1 of My Restaurant Rulez. Unfortunately for the average Joe Blogger we now have to experience this as part of our daily lives.
Communal dining is where you get to sit at this really long, narrow table next strangers / bogans (see: Central, Melbourne), pretend you’re not listening other peoples conversations, maintain the ‘buffer zone’ between you and the next person and hope that some fat gent doesn’t sit at the end of the bench thus destroying your escape from this wretchedly stupid concept.
Now, I’m not saying that communal dining is a totally bad idea, ‘cept sitting next to a 16 year old from Werriebee and her three children trying to enjoy a lunch break is not what I would call a good time.
Today, I was in Moonee Ponds at this notoriously small coffee shop. The place is always packed and you can find yourself sharing a table with three complete strangers. Luckily, I got the last free table so I dumped my bag (containing my SLR) and my laptop on the chair opposite me and went off to place my order.
On the return, this woman was at the table moving my stuff from the table to the floor. I asked her politely why when the snapped back stating she wanted a seat. Today wasn’t a happy day for me so rather than tell her to fuck off, again politely, I told her that I had a friend arriving soon.
If she had waited and asked she would have got the seat. I put my stuff on the chair so it wouldn’t be bloody obvious that a expensive camera and laptop were being left unmonitored.
People who say that communal dining is chic can go fuck themselves. ‘Mkay?
iPod flashmobbers dance in their hundreds at station
Hundreds of people descended on Liverpool Street station for the biggest ever turnout for the latest internet craze - mobile clubbing.
Armed with MP3 players loaded with favourite tracks the “clubbers” arrived on the concourse just after 7pm last night. Students, business people and office workers danced in silence as they listened to their iPods among commuters listening to announcements about late trains.
Details of the time and venue were sent by email. The event is similar to the flash mobbing movement pioneered in New York which involved large numbers of people gathering to conduct bizarre activities.
One commuter said: “It was entertaining if strange to see all these people gyrating to their own beat. It was the Soul Train arriving at platform one.”
Clearly there is something wrong with the waters in the UK or the freaks and weirdos symposium had finished across the road 10 minutes earlier. I can’t imagine this happening at Flinders Street although Southern cross now has that giant concourse along Spencer St.
No worries if your account is hacked, the Gov’ments going to take it all anyway.
My inbox has been filling up with spam from various sources. Incidentally a few are from ‘BendigoUpdate’ asking me to ‘update’ my account.
The following statement was from the Bendigo web site:
Bendigo Bank continues to receive reports of bogus emails which ask customers to verify their banking details (similar to the previous alert on 9 October 2006 ? see below). The fake address in the email link has changed a number of times but it is essentially the same scam.
The emails are not from Bendigo Bank and you should never disclose your banking details under any circumstances. We continue to urge customers to delete all unsolicited emails without opening them and to run the latest firewall and anti-virus software.
For further information about protecting your bank accounts, see below.
If Bendigo bank were hardcore about Internet Security this site would have been shut down on the 9th of October 2006.
Unfortunatly, for Bendigo, many of their services are geared towards older consumers or consumers who want ‘old fashioned’ service. This means that customers have a greater level of trust for the bank (as opposed to Commiwealth Bank) and by now I assume few online users would have already unwittingly given their account details over to these phishers.
But to Bendigo’s credit they are one of the few companies that have implemented a hardware based security function. It costs $16 for the device and even if you have given over your account details to a phiser they would still need the device to login to the system.
