I promise this won’t turn into a photo-blog (or at least if it does, I’ll set up a fresh blog for that so it’s not picked up on any planets), but this caught my eye (and my mind’s desire to play with my Nikon D60 and its 55-200 mm lens) while looking out the window about half an hour ago…
I’ve been rather frustrated with my camera (an old Pentax point and shoot) for a while. It’s not that it’s a bad camera, but the lack of manual control over things has been irking me after spending a couple of years playing with increasingly nifty video cameras at uni. So I resolved that, once I had the money, I’d be upgrading to a digital SLR.
Well, I had the money yesterday, so I exchanged it for this:
Specifically, a Nikon D60, which is one of their entry-level DSLRs, along with 18-55 and 55-200 mm lenses. Even after a brief play with it, I wish I’d done this a year or two ago.
Should be good for my upcoming trip to Latvia and parts beyond in July. More details on that soon. You know, whenever we figure out where the hell we’re actually going. Current candidates include Azerbaijan, Georgia, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. Should be fun.
For the record, that’s not my bear. I was involved in the tie situation, however.
It’s a little difficult to believe that I haven’t blogged since the end of January. I haven’t just lost the habit, I’ve buried it in a secret location in the Gobi that only male-line descendants of Chinggis Khaan can find. So, rather than bore people who are still reading and haven’t just hit j or k already in Google Reader (depending on their reading habits — I’m a ker myself), I shall instead rapidly summarise the last six weeks.
I got a real, paying job, which I start on Monday. It’s a Perl <insert inarticulate grumble here> programming role (people in Perth probably already know who it’s with just based on that). I’ll likely post more details on that when I figure out what it’s really all about. For now, it just feels strange to be going back to full-time work after 54 weeks out of the saddle.
After dithering on the subject, I did end up signing up for a Graduate Certificate in film stuff. I only have time to do one unit a semester, but that’s enough to keep the creative juices going. I hope. First project: a music video, due in about three weeks, give or take. Now I just have to resist the urge to do everything in stop motion.
Frustratingly, not only am I still not allowed to drive after my overly dramatic collapse in Melbourne in January — barrels of fun when you live in the sticks with wildly inadequate public transport — but I haven’t even had the required follow-up with a neurologist yet. (I have, however, had all the requisite tests, and everything has apparently come back normal. Yes, that means I now have scientific proof that I actually have a brain.) Most of the neurologists in Perth have, as a minimum, three month waiting lists even for private patients, and having found one who didn’t have such a long waiting list and who had a good reputation, he’s since cancelled my appointment six times. We’re going for number seven tomorrow, and if it doesn’t go ahead, it’s going to be mighty awkward mighty fast with my forthcoming work commitments to schedule another appointment — with him or anyone else.
Truthfully, given the difficulty I’ve had getting places since I got back from Melbourne (friends and family have been good, but there’s only so much you can ask), I’ve spent entirely too much time at home feeling sorry for myself in the last few weeks, and not enough time doing stuff. Including blogging. Really, it’s time to kick myself out of this funk. So, to summarise this self-indulgent post:
…because, hey, it beats the hell out of just watching TV all day.
Base image Mastermind Azrael
taken by Kjirstin, and used in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.0 Generic licence.
A few people have asked about whether there’s a feed for Planet LCA 2008. The good news is that there is, and it’s at http://planet.linux.org.au/rss20-lca2008.xml. It just seems to have been a fairly well kept secret for some reason.
A number of people have asked, so I shall state for the record that I’m not dead. Nevertheless, I’m extremely grateful to everyone for the concern shown for me after I was taken ill yesterday, and particularly to the guys — Andrew and Brian (I think; if I’ve gotten your name wrong come find me during the conference and smack me, just not in the head) — who came with me to the hospital.
Fortunately, today’s been a much better day. Since I’d already spent the money on a ticket, I decided to go to the Big Day Out for a little while this afternoon. I got there just in time to see Regurgitator and left after seeing Arcade Fire, not wanting to push my luck too far. It’s the first time I’ve seen Arcade Fire live, and it was everything I could have hoped for and more. Against that, Flemington Racecourse was warm, very dusty, and almost totally devoid of shade. I’ll just make sure I’m back in Perth for the Claremont Showgrounds show next year.
Tomorrow: Miniconfs! No idea which one I’m going to yet, but it should be fun anyway.
There’s some fuller blog posts (and software releases) coming in the next few days (Shanghai’s awesome, but it’s been a pretty hectic fortnight here, hence my dropping almost completely off the grid), but I just had to share this screenshot, having been increasingly uncertain whether I’d passed my Internet and Java Programming exam after all:
For the record, I ended up with three distinctions and a high distinction for the semester, so I’m pretty happy with how things worked out. As for finally being done, I’m deliriously happy.
Stalkers Regular readers of this blog will know that I was supposed to be in Shanghai this afternoon to represent my university on a two-and-a-bit week cultural exchange trip. Unfortunately, I find myself sucking down some free Internet at Changi Airport in Singapore still, although I have a boarding pass in my hand for a flight leaving in a bit over an hour.
Long story short: I was sent out a paper ticket for the Malaysian Airlines legs of my trip from Singapore to Shanghai and return. For whatever reason, I never received said paper ticket, and laboured under the misapprehension that it was an e-ticket. Wackiness ensued when I came to check in this morning — although I had a confirmation number from Malaysian Airlines, they (understandably) wouldn’t let me on the flight without the expected paper ticket. It’s mostly my own fault for not re-reading the fine print on the itinerary more closely (it does say paper ticket
under the additional charges section at the end which, frankly, I ignored when I first read it, since I figured it was just taxes — that is the only place it’s mentioned, though), but it does leave a slight lingering sense of general irritation. (Certainly not at Malaysian Airlines or Expedia, though, who both pulled out the stops to make sure I got to Shanghai as quickly as possible. This isn’t like my infamous missed flight in Beijing, which I maintain was Air China’s fault to this day.)
Anyway, once the rescheduled flights were sorted out this morning, I ended up with several hours to kill in Singapore. I decided to hop down to the Hive Backpackers, which is where I’m staying on the way back, and managed to secure a single room for the afternoon to get a bit of sleep courtesy of the helpful staff there. They then excelled themselves by giving me some tips on good places to try in Little India for dinner, which resulted in my enjoying an excellent rogan josh.
Random notes before I go back towards my departure gate:
Now, off to Kuala Lumpur and Shanghai! Again!
For anyone who saw our lightning talk at OSDC and wants to view Pac Wars
in their own home cinema, you can view it on YouTube, courtesy of shenki.
I’ve pushed out a beta release of PEAR DB versioned 1.7.14RC1 with a few fixes for issues reported since 1.7.13. Nothing in there is hugely urgent or high-risk, but I’ve made it a beta rather than a stable release due to the fact that I’m still a few thousand kilometres from my testing setup, which means that I’ve only been able to test against the databases I have to hand on my laptop — MySQL, PostgreSQL and SQLite.
All being well, I’m looking to get 1.7.14 final out around Monday (along with an Informix fix that I can’t work on without my Informix testing VM). Please feel free to test this release and report any issues.
