Puppies

There is no secret that Anh loves pugs.  She's been loving pugs since Milo and Otis.

And I think she even loves the pug in Men in Black. *shakes head*

When I first heard about the pugs I was worried. 

I mean these dogs look funny (they look like they've been dropped on their face).  And those eyes!! They look like they will pop out (apparently they do if you're not careful!)

But you know what.  

After years of her talking about them and showing me pictures and having a pug calendar at work, I've finally grown to like the little suckers.  

Up to a point that I'd be very happy to have one.   

:)

*********

Advertisement:  Cute Pug Puppies...PAIR AVAILABLE

Anh and I jumped at the online ad for a pair of pug puppies.

The advertiser, Kim (kim.bouer@yahoo.com), says that she's moved to Darwin and want to give her dogs because her new job and lifestyle wouldn't let her take care of them.  

She doesn't want money for her dogs, just for the new owners love and care for them and pay for the shipping costs.

We asked her to send pictures of the puppies and she sent these.

Doesn't that just make your heart melt?

We were so excited! We emailed Kim immediately and told her we'll take good care of the babies and that she has ABSOLUTELY nothing to worry about.  

Kim emailed:

hello once more,

  thanks for your interest i really do appreciate as the babies will

have  a loving home with you. I need a word of assurance from you as

to how you will take care of them like your own pets.I am giving them

out to loving and caring home.As i earlier  told you i moved  because

 i had a new job and  the weather here in  DARWIN  does not favor the pups.

they have all shots and all papers  ready. i am very happy you want the pups delivered to your home and i hope and pray you will  take good care of them..

    i am  giving these pups only to good homes and  all you will be doing is getting them transported to your home. i.e you will be handling the delivery  charges with the  pet delivery firm  directly and they will transport the puppies to your door steps 

Anh and I then spent the whole day dreaming about our future babies.  

They'll be so cute running around the yard and in the house.  They'll be eating our furniture and peeing on our floors but we'll love them all the same.

We even named them.

But then we got word that it sounded too good to be a true and that it might be a scam.  We needed to be careful.   

We were in denial at first because we were so caught up with having a pair of fur ball puppies.  It didn't occur to us that we were being taken for a ride.  

And sadly enough, a quick Google search saw many stories of people being conned when buying pets.  

:(

Anh got a call the next day from an unknown number saying she just got an email about the dog shipment.  The male caller wouldn't give his name and insisted we check our email about the dog shipping. 

The dog shipping email was in fact asking us to transfer money into a Cameroon account.

It was a scam.

**********

Anh and I were so heart broken. 

We reported the incident to Scamwatch, but that didn't take away the betrayal and hurt we felt.  It was all a lie.  They used pugs to lie.  

How could they be so cruel?

Art Films

We were just watching short films on Vimeo.

If you haven't been to this site, give it a go.  Its a video site like YouTube but a lot more.... mature?  Kinda like - if YouTube were MTV, then Vimeo would be a.......  Art gallery? Vimeo videos are a lot more serious, they can be very weird and bizarre but always very creative.  

The videos we saw were very thought provoking - so much that it's inspired me to write this short post!  Wow imagine that.

Anh asked me "how come you're watching videos from this site?"

I thought maybe because I'm getting old?   Maybe getting tired of the whole pop-culture, consumerism-commercialism, same-o-same-o.  Maybe I'm fancying baguettes over burgers and boutique over bubble tea.  

Maybe I'll look okay in turtle necks, eat free range chickens and discuss Francis Coppola films.

Then I switched back to YouTube and realised I'm not really turning turtleneck.  I just wanted to try something different that's all.

But what was funny was I discovered something about myself after watching this short film.

I learnt that, when watching movies with Anh - I'm actually concentrating quite a bit on predicting what happens next ONLY so I can quip "I knew that was going to happen!".  Maybe Anh will be impressed by this? I dunno.
  

I made this observation because I didn't  pick up how the camera and the notepad played a role in the short film.  I was too busy predicting how it was going to end!

Or maybe I just didn't get it (most probable).

But either way, my brain wasn't running this fast before I watched this film, so that must be a good thing.

Free is so good

Very excited about a new website project I'm working on.  It's going to be a really simple site, which I hope gets bought by Google for gazillion dollars.  But dreaming aside, I'm really doing this project to up my interwebz skills (part of my new year's resolution - be more nerdy).

I've hit a milestone by installing Linux on my laptop.  I'm running Ubuntu 9.10 with Apache 2.0, PHP5 and MySQL.  Its all sounding very geeky, but its really not. Its just programs with very techno savvy names.

But one thing I was very happy to discover was how much Linux and the open source community has grown over the past few years.  I've tried Linux back in 2003 and what a catastrophe that was!  CD drivers not working and crazy terminal commands to get things going.  I couldn't even get the interwebz going.  

But after installing Ubuntu and playing with it a few days, I'm convinced my next (non-gaming) computer will run Linux.  It's got alternatives to Microsoft Office and Photoshop plus all the Web Server applications which would easily total over $2000+ on a Windows system, but available all for free with Linux. Its really quite amazing.

This is probably going to keep me busy but I'll try and blog when I can.  And I'll try not not blog so much the geeky stuff.  I'll probably start a different blog for that.

:P

Cascading Style

For the past few days, I've been (and still is) obsessed with CSS.


Cascading Style Sheets.


For those not in the know....  probably best to keep it that way.  :)


CSS is very geeky nerdy stuff.  Kinda like getting obsessed with the Formatting Toolbar in Microsoft Word.

For some bizarre reason I've spent the last three days reading up and playing around with Microsoft Web Developer 2008 Express.  I'm talking about hours on end reading about it, trying tutorials and checking forums.  This obsession would match any porn or gaming obsession.  


Im even reading about this stuff at work (shhhh don't tell the boss)!


Anyways, time spent here blogging is time I'm not spending on CSS! Back to CSS quick!

Disconnected

Must be karma!

Following my last post about being connected online, I find myself in a completely opposite position!

First off - I lost my room to my rely who's flown from overseas to join in my brother's wedding celebration. Good for them, but bad for me!!

My auntie is not even using my computer!

24" of high definition gaming wasted!!! I can't wait to play Assassin's Creed and the new Left 4 Dead campaign!

I miss my bed :(

And on the same day I lost my room, my phone died!! So I couldn't even check the interwebz through that!!

Its such a shame because I have so much to blog about.

Now its slowly leaking out of my head.

All this creativity now just puddling near my feet.

Connected

I met someone online.

I was just floating about in my own little world, not really knowing what I was doing.

Then I met this person who changed all of that.

We were online for ages.

And I slept quite late because it was so easy to lose track of time when we discovered we had so much in common.

Of course my girlfriend had a good laugh when I told her about this.

I got her with the first line. Hehehehe.

I'm guessing she thought it was something sinister. But I was merely referring to when I met someone playing Guild Wars last week.

She thought it was cute that I met an online friend (she finds it cute when I make friends).

But I didn't even know if it the other person was a guy a girl a polecat or a hermaphrodite. All I knew was that we were both from Perth and that we both had warrior characters and that were both slugging through the core missions to unlock skills.

I guess that's one of the cool things about the internet. You can be part of a community and interact without the prejudice on who you actually are, but more so on your online persona, which you can change quite easily! I go from Hunky chunky monkey Warrior to my Sexy monk in a few clicks.

I named my warrior after a pokemon character. My monk after ladies shoes.

But like a double edged sword of fortitude (+46 health), that anonymity could mean that i was sharing my night gaming with a fat guy who's secret fetish is warriors clad in very tight armour. *shudder*

I like the idea of the player looking more like Mariah Carey in her Touch my Body video. Coz she's hawt and a gamerz! Hehehhe.

ASL?

There was a time not so long ago (is it ten years already?), when IRC chatting was THE hawt online app for meeting people!

IRC was king.

LOL :)

For a couple of years I remember spending many nights loitering chatrooms playing silly trivia games and making idle conversation.

And a few times, I did meet girls who raised my eyebrow with keen interest. (oh yeah I was da man!)

Progress would be spending more nights just chatting about trivial stuff or even exchanging emails.

And one time *gasp* I even exchanged phone numbers. What a disaster that was - but thats another story.

But I always tended to shy away when they wanted pictures or they wanted to cam-chat.

I guess I just prefer the idea that they look like Mariah (touch my body). Plus I didn't really want to be starting something online. Just not my style.

But its all different now with blogging and social networking sites like MyFacester*TM. I mean, they all still offer chatting and I guess if you find someone who's profile fits your bill then you can just pop them a message.

But its so different to old-school IRC!

In IRC, there was that hidden challenge of trying to make your online persona with just ASCII characters and from what you type and say. And not knowing what a person looked like or what their friends were like were all part of what made chatting fun and appealing. That mystery and that chase. And you can talk and make connections without so much the screening on how you looked or how many friends you have or your bejeweled master score.

*Will slaps himself with a wet fish*

But I dunno. I haven't really tried socialising with strangers in MyFacester*TM

I shouldn't have to anyways. 'Coz if I did, that means I'm trawling and 'looking for potentialz' which would wrong and would upset certain parties in my currently flourishing and lovely romantic relationship *ahem *ahem. /end disclaimer.

But yeah, maybe I'm just getting old. Or too old fashioned.

Maybe there's something there in MyFacester*TM that lets people connect. I just haven't seen that yet. Probably because my profile is inundated Mafia Wars updates!!! How do I turn that off?!!

Twiddle Dee Twiddle Dum

I have succumbed to popular pressure.

I am now on Twitter! Hehehe.

Of course I joined purely out of curiosity. Seems like a lot of companies are now on Twitter and I'd like to know what kind of promotions they have and stuff.....

Ok fine. I really just wanted to follow what the celebs are up to. I'm following Ne-Yo and Mariah Carey. More to be added soon :P

I just love how the interwebz provides us with so many things to waste our time on.

3Willings
1) Ginuwine - "Last Chance" Hahaha this song is awesome. Only a genius could use lyrics like "If I only got one shot to win you, Then call me Jordan fourth quarter in 92"

2) My Nikes! They're so comfy. And I'm liking the red and black and high-cut look. So retro-ish. Bringin' the game back!
3) Loving my new air fresheners. They smell quite nice. Its like "apples" everywhere I go. Plus they look very cute. Pull chicks I reckon'

Mobile blogging

Really digging mobile internet now :)
So much that im writing this post on my phone during my lunch break.

There was a time not so long ago when i hated mobile internet. WAP was so slow, really expensive, not fast, chuggy and non- mobile pages looked fubar.
Did i mention it being slow?

Thanks to 3G phones and the awesomely awesome Opera mini Browser, i now haz useful mobile intrawebz!!!111

Im using the non-contracted $10/300Mb plan from Virgin which is more than enough for checking email, myfacester, blogs and NSFW pages several times a day :)


3Willings
1) My new man bag. I love the smell of fresh leather :)
2) Usher - Get my swagger back
3) Grand Theft Auto 4 - Nikko ftw!!!

Kilo to Giga

There was a time not so long ago when I was introduced to anime and I was very quickly addicted to it. 

I would wake up super early to catch Pokemon and Dragonball Z on Cheeze TV.  I had to get my anime fix or else I went mental!

Love makes you mental.  My first anime crush, Shampoo from Ranma.

I went and saw every anime at our local video store (all four of them).  After I finished that I drove to a video store 15kms away.  After I finished that I drove to ANOTHER video store 30kms away.

I was hooked (I wonder why...) and I knew I had some sort of problem.

I tried to help myself by meeting with some like-minded folks.  I went to UWA on Fridays and Curtin on Saturdays to satiate my cravings for anime.  

But I think that just made it worse.

Thankfully, through them,  I did learn about the Internet and how it can endlessly supply me with all the Japanese animation I'd  ever need.

My dad wasn't so impressed.

Imagine downloading seven 120M episodes simultaneuosly....   

..

..

..

..

..

on a 56.6k modem.

Yes that's right.  

I took over the phone line for days and weeks and was racking up huge phone bills because I had the modem on auto-reconnect when it timed out.  

Every time it re-connects it clicks 25 cents. On average it will time out about 15 times at night.  Multiply that my how many days in phone bill cycle.  

Hmm... now that I think about it, maybe I did go a bit too far.

*********

Download quota. 

That's a word that haunts me frequently.  

Last Sunday, I left the computer on for three hours and I downloaded the remaining 4Gigs of my May quota.  

So not good.  

And being shaped back to modem speeds is humbling reminder of what life back in the dial-up modem days.

So like any spoiled 28yo-teenager, I applied for additional quota today  :P

They processed it so fast, I got a confirmation approval this afternoon - happy days!

When I was completing the forms, I did reflect on a few things.  

Two years ago 12Gb was WAAAY more than enough, 

Eight months ago 25Gb was more than enough.  

But who knows? Maybe I'll eat my words when I apply for a 200Gb account next year  (No thanks to YouTube and Steam).

YouTube is a constant source of politically incorrect entertainment

************

I'm reading about the new broadband plan the government is undertaking. 

Construction starts around September this year and will initially support speeds of 100Mbytes/s.

Its really exciting stuff because theoretically, the national broadband scheme can go faster than 1Gb/s!!  And that's a direct fibre optic connection to your house which means Internet speeds will not be affected by your distance to the exchange. 

Awesome to the max!!  K-Rudd gets extra brownie points for this.

(Not that kind of brownie!) 

How fast is 1Gb/s?  That's twice the speed of a USB(2.0) file transfer!

Or imagine downloading a Blue-ray movie or PlayStation3 game in under seven minutes?  

How about a DVD movie in less than 40 seconds?

Crazy insane!!!!  

With that kind of crazy transfer rates would you bother going to the video store and worry about  dirty or scratched DVDs (some people are just ferral!!) or returning the movie or getting mauled by the ugly black dog that's always tied next to entrance? 

Just download the movie already! (Legally of course!)

And with that kind of speed, I'd run out of my 200Gb quota in less than half an hour...

...which, I guess, is not so awesome.

YouTube's got acoustic talent

A few months ago I was surfing around YouTube looking for the Britney Spears video to add to a blog post. I stumbled upon a couple of guys singing Gimme More acoustic version. I was impressed!

That got me thinking - surely there are other people singing acoustic versions of popular songs. Maybe they sound just as good?

Check out this guy:


His 2nd version of Ne-Yo's - Because of You rocks my pants.

Hahaha. This video is crazy as well. Im pretty sure the singer is pinay (heheh pinoy hotness & talent!!). This one is a phully sick duet.

There's so much talent out there in YouTube land. It makes me wonder what some of the record companies are thinking when they sign up some weirdos. It must make judging shows like idol or XFactor really hard.

This here is a nice rendition of Leona Lewis's song.

These guys have an album already, but I still want unfamiliar talent on my post :)

But my biggest find was this girl.

She can sing and it doesn't hurt that she's very pretty too! Marie Digby (who's half Irish - half Japanese) was almost a nobody a few months ago. Now she's attracted the attention of record labels. Her new single is being played on the radios now.

*sigh*

If I only had a camera, I could be on YouTube too.

Minus the talent.

Dead bird

3Willings
1) Kid Nation - THIS SHOW ROCKS!!!
2) Dirt Cheap CDs in Carillion Arcade
3) Ohnamiya Japanese Takeaway

Two years has passed and I can finally move out of Dodo! Yeay!!

Dodo WAS good in that they provided an unlimited account - so we could download to our hearts content. But now their plans charge a premium if you go over the quota. So it was time to give them the boot.

I signed up with a new ISP and asked them to churn my account.

Not trusting the happy people at Dodo, I called them up to make sure they won't charge me the next month. I was forwarded to a call centre in Manila. I knew the guy on the other end was pinoy because his American accent sounded like mine (only mine was A LOT LESS ANNOYING).

"What can I do for you ser?"
"Yes, I'd like to cancel my account.."
"Ohhhhhhhhhhhh.. okaaay.. let me get your account details pirst.."
"Okay"
"Just hold on a moment.. our computer is a bit slow"
"Yup"
"Sir.. just a little bit longer the screen is still loading"
"umm.. yup.."
"Just a little bit longer sir.. I hope you don't mind waiting a bit more"
"umm... (is this guy going to even allow me to wait?!! I haven't had a chance to wait yet!)"

Half an hour later they finally told me that the account has been closed and I won't be billed the next month.

*phew*

It took ages because they were telling me that I was contracted for 3 years?! (huh?) and they wanted to charge me $400 cancellation fee? (HUH?!) What da pluck?

I dunno if it was a scam or they were just dis-organised. Maybe it was a bit of both.

Anyways I'm now chugging along with a newer, faster service provider. Everything's been pretty smooth. No more contracts, no more funny bird business.

Drawn Out

3Willings:
1) Escape from Monkey Island
2) Hong Kong BBQ - Francis St, Northbridge
3) Paul van Dyk - In Between

Saw this cute article on the internet.

The story is, guy sees girl of his dreams in the New York subway. He tries to contact her with a rather unconventional way of doodling her and putting it up on that website.

Kinda like a real life version of that Daniel Powter - Bad Day music video. Kinda. :)

I'm guessing he must have gotten lots of prank phone calls.

Maybe from girls that look like this. Hehehe.

But yeah, nice story and I'm happy for the guy for having found the girl.
Hope it works out for them.

When I was cleaning up my room last week I re-discovered my art stuff. My sketch pad, pencils, gum tape together with a bottle of brushes, my water-paiting palettes and paint tubes all dried up and dusty.

Its depressing that I haven't done something creative of lately.

The last art-related thing I made was a cartoon eggplant fridge magnet. my purple creation

And I recently found out that the magnet has fallen off and the eyes have diffused so the eggplant looks like it has glaucoma!! :(

I guess if i'm to make something I gotta make sure it stands the test of time.

Even today, my mom still has the very first 'love card' that my dad made for her.

Yeah - I know, im shocked too!

Not because it's terribly romantic, but because I discovered my dad's drawing skills is sooo bad!
My two year old nephew could draw better!! :P hehehe.

Maybe they didn't have cute cartoons back in them days. Only stick figures.. and two colours of crayons.

But yeah, I want to go back to doodling.
Real drawing or painting or something.

The only doodling I've done lately is on my Nintendo DS.

A game called Drawn to Life lets you draw your own hero. I haven't played much of it, but
its quite amusing seeing my pumpkin head creation with octopus legs walking
around fighting bad guys.

I guess that can be my new year's resolution. Paint or draw something that I can frame.

Choosing the topic is the hard part.
Maybe I can find something from my travels.

Like girls in the subway.
Or not.

Wonderous Ebay

You know what's the scariest thing about driving at night?
A GPS unit dropping from the windscreen and scaring the bejesus out of you.

There I was driving in some unknown suburb, the streets were pitch black. The soft glow of the GPS providing a false sense of security that I wont get lost. Then..

BAAAAM!!

The GPS falls on the dash and rolls unto the floor.

I'll confess that my undies weren't completely dry after that.

The cold dry night meant the GPS suction thing didn't properly stick to the glass.

Now my GPS has been dropped so many times. I'm beginning to worry that my warranty will get void.

So I decided I was gonna MacGyver my way into making a car vent holder for my GPS.

I was going to steal the vent clips from a pair air-fresheners join it together with 2mm aluminium wires then moulded a clip using baking dough from the craft shop. I would test the moulding with the GPS then finalise the moulding by baking at 400C for half an hour. I'll finish the job with an ash-grey lacquer spray.

That was plan A. Plan B was ebay.

Should be here next week. :)

And I definitely sympathise for those who are addicted to ebay. Bargains galore and the excitement of waiting for something in the post (actually, 90% of the fun is waiting for the stuff to arrive in the mail).

One of my recent of purchases was a pair of William Rast jeans.

To those initiated, William Rast is the designer label of Mr SexyBackWhatGoesAroundComesAroundLovestoned.

His Perth concert is just around the corner so I was thinking of the ways to get into his pants.

(That doesn't sound right).

But anyways. Now all I need is a "Justin! I'll have your babies!" shirt.

Maybe there's one in ebay.

Heroes Test

Your Score: Zach

You scored 41 Idealism, 58 Nonconformity, 41 Nerdiness

You gotta embrace your inner freak. 'Cause the only thing you'll regret is denying who you really are.
Congratulations, you're Zach! You're nerdy, strange, slightly snarky, and proud of it! You're also a nice guy and really trustworthy friend. Any cheerleader (or, well, anyone) should consider his or herself extremely fortunate to be friends with a person like you.

Your best quality: You're an all-around great friend
Your worst quality: You don't get along well with annoying little brothers

Link: The Heroes Personality Test written by freedomdegrees on OkCupid, home of the The Dating Persona Test

In all honesty - I have no idea who this guy is.
I haven't watched Heroes.

But it says im a nice guy - so im down with that.
(and that cheerleaders will fall for me).