Tag: general

Well, the solstice slides on by, and after the poor results of the equinox drinks I decided to scale these ones back. Just me and a bottle of good Irish whiskey.

I am still very undecided on the subject of ‘just in time’ planning, the whole, “lets do something on Sunday, I’ll ring you” and then actually calling at the time you want to meet up, rather than ever pre-arranging anything. While I also disagree with one of my friends, who cited this as his reason for ditching his mobile. I think balance is necessary. I refuse to be a slave to my technology. It is a tool, for me to use, I decided when and how and what for. I see my phone going off a the machine shouting at me “i’m important, answer me NOW!”, and I take a second to think “do I wish to answer a call at the moment…”. If i’m talking to someone else, then usually I’ll just reject the call and ring back when things settle down.

I caught up with my closets friends tonight, we had drinks and talked and had a good time. We all meet up at Gilligans, the cocktail bar above the Oxford Hotel at Taylor Square. Now, I know my friends well enough to know that inviting them to a popular cocktail bar would not be very well accepted (unless it was their idea to catch up shrugs). So I did my research, I went in a week before hand to see what the place was like on a Wednesday evening, and found that is was almost dead, four, maybe five people in the place, no music playing at all. It was perfect for my friends. The lighting is dark, the sofas are comfy and the drinks where 2-for-1. So everyone really liked it. They had all said it was a good idea, and were really impressed at how well it all worked out. I made a point of getting several rounds of drinks for everyone, a small part of pay back for all the support my friends had given me over the last few months when my finical situation had not been as good.

Hmm… it is strangely amazing how a lot and a little can happen in the space of seven days… at the same time. For example. Mum went to Hong Kong for the weekend, she went over there to meet my eldest sister who was on her way back from two years in London. Both of them had a great time in Hong Kong and spent lots of fun money. (and Mum bought me a nice, little digital camera, so now I can take nice big picutres for my photoblog). Meanwhile on the other hand, Saturday, Sunday and Monday I did NOTHING at all. Monday really, really dragged by as a result. Friday night I was out… but that is another story, and you’ll only hear about that if it turns out well. In other news MS Access pisses me off. Just cause it can do lots is not a good enough reason for making everything hard to do.

So, I was walking around a lot yesterday. When I need to think I usually end up by the harbour somewhere, I find it settles me and that is a good thing. But in my walking and thinking yesterday I found myself walking across the Harbour Bridge, something I like to do on a regular basis. It was about 5:30 pm, so peak hour, and lots of other people where also walking across. But I was surprised to find that they now have security people posted along the pedestrian walkway. Why? Well, probably someone got mugged or something, but man, that just sucks. Even the landmarks aren’t safe. The world is just going to shit.

So I got me a new phone at long last. Decided to get a Nokia 3200, not because it has ALL of the features I wanted, but because it has at least all the features of my old phone, plus it will work more reliably. And by more reliably, I mean at all. My old phone got to the point where less than a minute into the first call made on a full charge and it would cut off. So, how did I do with my wishlist???

• Camera (at least 640x480) - Nope, it does have a camera, but only takes pics at 352x288
• shared memory - yeap
• expandable memory (at least partly) - nope, and only has 1MB total
• syncronisation with Macintosh - nope
• handsfree speaker - yeap
• bluetooth or usb connection (both would be handy) - not out of the box, but got me an IR-USB thingy now
• polyphonic ringtones - yeap
• ringtone composer (both mono and poly) - nope
• midi, wav and mp3 ringtones - midi yes, the others nope
• customisable interface - a little bit

So am I happy with this? So far, yes, I can actually have a conversation with the people that call me without fear of the phone shutting down. I can once again take proper “important” calls without having to be plugged into main power. It is only a stop-gap measure, as it doesn’t do everything I wanted, but the old phone was actually crippling me, so its much better than that already! And, look, now I can do a photo-blog!

There I was on the bus on my way home last night. Last bus of the night, so I made sure I was at the stop on time and then spent 20 minutes trying not to be the one that the drunks came and tried to talk to. Anyway, I was on the bus, there were a few people on the bus, but is wasn’t packed or anything. Then rather suddenly the interior lights went out. It was very suddenly very dark. But the thing that was really odd was no one at all did anything to complain. The bus carried on and the people sat there in the dark. About 30 seconds later the lights came back on again, and no one made any comment about that either. It was just odd. People in general are not that well behaved.

Since late 1999 I have been using my trusty Nokia 3210 as my main phone. My primary point of telephone contact and communication. And lets face it, 4 years of use out of a phone is considered “fucking good”. However it is basically true that for the last two years I’ve been considering my options for a new phone. There are two factors that have held me back:

1. My current phone still works (mostly).
2. None of the new phones have all of the features I want.

In that time phones have learnt a lot of new tricks, the most obvious is having built in cameras. So what are my options now? Is there a phone out there that can do everything I want? YES. But. Not cheap enough. So you ask (go on, humour me) “What is it you want in a phone Dave?” I’m glad you asked, I’ve made a list. (unrolls 12ft of paper)

• Camera (at least 640x480)
• shared memory
• expandable memory (at least partly)
• syncronisation with Macintosh
• handsfree speaker
• bluetooth or usb connection (both would be handy)
• polyphonic ringtones
• ringtone composer (both mono and poly)
• midi, wav and mp3 ringtones
• customisable interface

At the moment Nokia make one phone that does all this, the rather odd looking 3650. Sony-Ericsson also make a phone that comes close, the cute and tiny T610. But neither of these phones fall onto a plan I can afford so until they do I’ll buy a new case and battery for my trusty 3210 and squeeze another year out of him.

So yeah… I’m 30 as of today. Guess i should say something profound about my stage in life, or what I’ve learnt so far on the journey, or something. Fuck that. If you do however want insight check this out The Random Profound Quote Generator.

I looked into the kitchen draw this morning and found a odd little thing. It is black, and cylindrical, with a silver sticker on one end. I looked at if for a while, then I picked it up and looked at it closer. I had absolutly no idea what the thing was. This isn’t an unexpected occurance in a shared house. And wasn’t the thing the really freaked me out. What got me was that I put it back and had no intereste in finding out what it was. It’s still in the kitchen draw and I’ve not made any sort of investigation at all. This isn’t me. Or at least it never was… some one has stollen my curiosity.