I can has cheeseburger?

The internet is full of various cat themed memes and lolcats. I'm not going to add any here or bore you with any. But I am a cat person, and so I often find myself lured into watching cat videos on YouTube, or looking up ridiculous recycled lolcat pictures. I've also been a cat owner for quite a few years of my life. It isn't that I don't like dogs, but I just don't like them enough to want to own them. I'll pat friendly dogs, and when I visit friends who own them, I'll rub behind the dog's ears and scratch their belly. Even take them for walks. So it isn't like I loathe the animals.

Now, some people have dogs for a whole variety of reasons, and one of those reasons is security. Its a reason that I understand and its also a reason that has occassionally had me contemplating whether I needed to become a dog owner myself. Dogs are generally territorial, and will usually make alot of noise, if not being outright aggressive, if they feel a stranger is intruding on their property.

I used to live next to a lady who had two medium sized dogs, and they would go nuts if someone even walked past the property on the street, let alone go near the gate. I remember a few of the parents telling me they would not only cross to the opposite side of the street, but they would be walking across the lawns of the opposing houses to be as far from the dogs as possible, due to how aggressive and loud they were against the gate, when they passed by. The children all feared the dogs, and it didn't surprise me at all.

The lady who owned the dogs lived there with her brother, then one day she came over to ask me to look after the dogs for two weeks, while she went back to Italy to attend a relative's wedding. I wasn't keen, considering how the dogs behaved, but apparently her brother had moved out a few months prior and he wasn't keen on looking after them. The task was feed the dogs and get the mail for two weeks. She'd provide the food necessary. There was no real introduction to the dogs, or explanation on how said feeding should occur, and I was a chump at the time and agreed to help her out, even though I should have grilled her more on how this was all supposed to happen.

My solution? Well the side gate was a large wrought iron gate with vertical bars, but also a small gap at the bottom, so I decided that I'd go with placing the opened food on a piece of board, twice a day, with a rope attached. I'd slide the board under the gate so the dogs could eat, and once done, I'd pull the rope to get the board back for next time.

Anyway, after the first day of this, the dogs got accustomed to me coming around and were a little more settled. Their behaviour had changed pretty quickly, and I was starting to wonder if they really were feral, or if it was something else. So deciding it'd be good for a laugh, I ventured my left hand through the bars to pat them on the head, and it turned out the dogs were simply starved for affection.

After that, I made it a habit to go through the gate each day to check on their welfare. The lady who owned these dogs really didn't care for them very well. Bedding was a mess and reeked of urine, and their water bucket was only half full and filled with algae. Each day was spent doing some basic clean up, and making sure they had full clean water to drink. I was able to even show a few of the local kids that the dogs really were quite friendly after all.

This all came around to bite me though, in a manner of speaking. The dogs had started getting used to my routine of arriving, entering through the gate and providing food, and on the last day, right before the neighbour was due back from her holiday, the dogs bolted for freedom as I was stepping through the gate. Damn mutts! I had no chance. They were off at full pelt and were gone.

A storm was rolling in that afternoon, and there wasn't much I could do. I drove around the neighbourhood a little, but couldn't spot them anywhere. A couple of hours later, I tried again, walking around the block, and spotted the two of them trotting together down the street. These dogs hadn't ever been trained to respond to commands so my best shot was to crouch down like when I had been giving them food, and as they came over I grabbed each dog's collar and dragged them both back into the yard.

I was just glad that when the neighbour got back, the two dogs were back in the yard and everything was normal. Still not happy about the way those dogs were kept, but it wasn't quite at a level for the RSPCA to do anything about it.

The neighbour got back and the dogs returned to barking crazy at anyone who walked past, including me.

Damn mutts.

The power of illusion

I have a couple of favourite shows at the moment, and both are Japanese game shows. I used to only have one; called "G-Wars" which was hugely amusing to watch because of the characters who played the show's hosts and also most of the contestants had careers as entertainers or comedians, so they were quite amusing in their banter. Each week, the show would get a group of competitors together to face a number of odd physical challenges to see who would come out on top. In a show where teams were pitched against each other, or even competing as individuals, it was actually alot of fun that the competitors were all quite light-hearted and relaxed about the outcome.

Sadly, that show only lasted a season and then ended. The two shows I'm currently enjoying are "Banzuke" and "Ninja Warrior". Ninja Warrior is built around a 4 stage physical challenge course set up on a mountain not far from Tokyo. Each round, takes in 100 contestants who seek to pass through each of the four stages. Failure to complete a stage results in them getting sent home, and these stages are hard.

Really hard.

I look at the individuals who are regular contestants, and those who regularly make it through just the first stage are visibly very fit, and for all the times I've watched it, only one individual has made it through all four stages to the end. The course is really difficult, even leaving olympic gymnasts exhausted and defeated.

The thing is though, after watching the show frequently enough and long enough, a little voice in the back of my head starts telling me "I think I could almost do that". The problem is I know I'm not very fit right now. Not even average fitness, as is testified by my attempts on the monkey bars.

So shut up, little voice. Shut up while I get another cookie and watch the next episode.

Handshakes

I think awkward handshakes are probably pretty well covered across the internet, there was one that I came across indirectly from The Sneeze and I've been in his position before with the whole weird handshake where someone closes their hand too early. I've been on the other side of the fence though too, where I've been guilty of being the source of a bad handshake. I used to be one of the main greeters of a small suburban church I used to attend during my university years, and this involved welcoming people as the arrived, shaking their hand, and if they were new; then introducing them to other people around the church.

Anyway, on one particular occassion where I welcomed a rather elderly lady who had arrived, my firm handshake was way too firm and I felt the bones in her hand shift. I have no idea whether it caused her any pain, as I was quick to release as soon as I felt that. She didn't express any pain or discomfort, but I also noticed that I never got around to shaking her hand ever again. I'm much more conscious now of those older than me, but sometimes that has come back to bite me.

A recent case was when I met the parents of some friends who were in town for a couple of weeks. I met the father first and he greeted me with a warm handshake, but didn't let go. I'm used to a handshake between guys being a firm grip, and a two second count during which it might just be a slight squeeze or a bit of a shake, then let go. But this time he held for almost 10 seconds! What are you supposed to do in those cases? You can't pull away as it gets weirder than it already is, so I end up being distracted by that and missing some of his opening conversation. Not to mention probably coming across as odd, as I had released pressure, and then had to reapply it to keep up with the prolonged handshake.

For the guys reading this, its probably an amusing way to mess with other people's minds when shaking hands, but I really don't recommend it, as you don't want to become that guy.

DIY failure

So I posted recently about wanting to improve my ability for chin ups after a rather pathetic attempt on the monkey bars. So I've been watching the various classifieds for the local area as what I want to get is a chin up tower, but these things aren't cheap, even the basic ones are a couple of hundred and considering my track record in losing interest, I didn't want to spend that kind of money on something that takes up a fairly considerable amount of space. The footprint on these things is quite large due to the spread of the feet for stability. The second hand units that do pop up in the classifieds have been getting snapped up faster than I can get to them, so no joy there either.

Crawling through eBay, there was an alternative posted which is one of these wall mounted chin up bars. These things are alot cheaper, especially sourced through eBay. Seeing as I'm writing about it here, you can probably already guess where this is going.

Anyway, the bar and brackets themselves are fairly solid, they'll have no problems holding my weight, but its the mounting on the wall that is interesting. Four dynabolts hold each bracket in, and the ones supplied with this kit are actually quite cheap and nasty. I should have just bitten the bullet and picked up decent ones from the hardware store, but I made holes that would take these ones and only got 6 of 8 securely mounted. So my first attempt at lifting myself, and I've got one bracket now pulling out from the wall slightly. Not impressed! I'll wait until its fairly pronounced, which should be when I try and do another set tonight, then I'll go past the hardware store and get new bolts to replace the two which haven't held.

Oh, and in case you're wondering: a "set" for me is two chin ups, and I can manage one set a day. *sigh* I can already feel my motivation slipping...

Lingering aspirations

Part of me still ponders aspirations I've had for many years to become a police officer. Its something that I've thought about on and off for almost 19 years now. Apparently I can keep thinking about it as there is no maximum age limit for applicants to the Australian Police Force. Of course there are entrance exams that must be passed, including physical fitness tests.

The whole interest actually sparked one day when I was in a police station during my university days. I had been given a defect notice about a broken headlight, and the officer just directed me to drop into the local police station to have it visibly inspected by an officer once I had it repaired. While waiting at the station for an officer to become available, I passed the time reading the various paraphernalia that was plastered around the walls, and then came across the plaque that bore the creed. I can't remember the wording of it now, and a bit of internet searching didn't turn anything up. But the sense of inspiration that I got from that time is what is burned in my memory.

About 8 years ago, I went past a recruiting booth for the police force and sat down with one of the officers to talk about what was involved and the renumeration plans. Its probably going to sound shallow, but the problem was I had a mortgage that I was managing ok on my salary as a programmer, but it turned out the salary while at the academy, and initially after graduation, would have been quite a severe hit. I ended up letting that opportunity slide.

I've recently been checking on the recruitment pages for the Australian police force, and it is good to see that the renumeration has been increased substantially from when I enquired all those years back. It has me considering it again, but now this time around I am married and so there are different things to consider.

This post was all brought to the surface after recently reading a blog that had been kept by an officer in Arizona [Office Gary]. Its worth reading if you're interested, although sadly he stopped updating back in 2009.

Fighting entropy

"weak!"

"what?!"

"weak."

"let's see how many you can do then."

I just get a laugh in response and she already knows she doesn't have to prove anything. My wife continues to roam around on the sand and laugh at my efforts.

My wife and I like to walk around our neighbourhood. It's nice, most people will smile and say hello as you pass, the place is pretty safe to wander around even at night, and there's lots of public spaces. There are playgrounds everywhere, about 15min stroll apart, so you can fit in a nice walk and punctuate it with stops at parks to sit and soak up the scenery.

We don't see people using the parks very often, so using the swings and play equipment is an opportunity I like to avail myself with. This time around though, I'd decided to mess around on the monkey bars, and even try my hand at a few chin-ups.

I needed a break after 1, hence the mocking verbal exchange.

I used to be able to do more, but maybe gravity has gone up since my younger days. I think this may end up being a recurring theme on this blog, but from today, I'm going to try to shake the lead out and get into some light exercises. My goal, for now is get to 2.

Baby steps.

Self perpetuating systems

I've had this argument with a number of people from a variety of backgrounds, and I think I can see both sides of the argument, which might also be why I don't quite have the conviction to press home the side of the argument I feel is right. Talk about weak. Meh...

One of the things I enjoy reading is Manga, that whole Japanese comic. When it comes to graphic novels, the Japanese have a great sense of art and story telling. Combined with the sheer massive volumes that are generated each year and breadth of variety, and you have pretty much something for everybody in there.

But there comes two problems for people who are into this stuff:

1. This stuff becomes expensive pretty quick. Its expensive enough if you're in Japan buying it untranslated.
2. When you're not in Japan, you don't always get everything. Manga and anime are becoming more popular in western countries, but it is still a risky and expensive business for publishers to buy the rights, spend time translating, printing and distributing, with the hope of making enough sales for it to be worthwhile.

Now Australia is starting to become known as having the highest proportion of pirates, compared to any other nation, when it comes to entertainment. Figures released from studios tracking the number of viewers of a TV show who view it via a legitimate channel (cable tv or free-to-air) as opposed to the number of people getting it via torrents. The ratio is the least favourable in Oz.

Most likely, if you know about torrents, and what it means to pirate movies, shows, anime, manga, etc, then you'll also know all the defense that people put up for it. But on the flipside, I've recently started to slow my reading of manga and comics to just try and appreciate the work in every panel. I'm no artist, and any time I spend in doodling away in notebooks involves 30min on just a random image with ordinary results. But comics and manga have hours invested by an artist in each page, and it can be consumed all within a few seconds before we flip to the next.

To then think that I'm entitled to get that for free just because it is too hard or too expensive to get legitimately, that shows that there is something wrong with my thinking. I used to buy alot of my manga, but that stuff adds up, so I now scan the public library and read the various series that they do have in stock, although most are not complete.

To add insult to it, Madman Inc, the corporation that exclusively licenses most manga and anime titles that get exported to Oceania regions, isn't moving with technology, but instead persisting with printed media for manga only and not considering digital distribution, unlike Viz in the USA. People argue that stubborn attitudes like Madman's only perpetuate piracy.

I was strongly tempted to break my convictions recently as I wanted to finish Full Metal Alchemist, and my local library only had about a third of the volumes, with the highest being volume 13, of a 27 volume series. To finish reading it, according to Madman, would cost me $225. I would get free shipping if I got them all at once, but that is just an insane outlay of cash.

I want to finish reading it, but considering the hours of sweat and effort spent by artists who create original content, I have no right to just take it without paying my dues. If I don't have the money to spare, then I should give it a pass. After all, its just entertainment. Its not food.

Going postal

I strongly suspect that one of the things that I'm going to rant about alot in this blog, is going to be public transport. I've got nothing against trains and buses themselves. In fact its a great time for me to read and daydream while going between home and work. It's the people though that get me.

One of the worst times is the 6months of winter and spring. It shouldn't be as bad as it is, yet I dread being trapped in those confined spaces with the unwashed masses. The main thing that really winds me up is the snorts and sniffles.

I don't know why so many people are like this. When I was a kid, I'd barely made it into primary school before it was engrained into me by the firm hand of my mother that sniffling a runny nose was both rude and unnecessary. The presence of tissues and handkerchiefs were the solution to those social offenses. In a pinch, I'd generally use the back of my hand until I could get hold of some tissues.

The joys of learning alternatives as you grow up, is mastering the hawk and spit, which would save on tissues if I was outside and not around others. Now here is the important question; if you know what it is that your snorting, and you're in a bus or train, then why would you constantly go around without a tissue in your pocket and repeatedly snort that stuff up without a way to get rid of it?

How can so many people not realize both how gross and annoying it is when they're snorting on what seems to be every second breath?

Help spread the word, tell people about tissues.

Innocence lost

When I was a kid, my neighborhood did seem to be like "the good ol' days". We'd go across to play with the kids next door without having to call ahead or book "play dates". The school across the street wasn't surrounded by a fence, so on weekends we could run around the playgrounds, or use the four square markings in the quad. Going up the street at night to the shops to pick up fish'n'chips for dinner wasn't a worry either.

Times have changed now, and I won't fill this post with bemoaning about all the things that seem wrong with the community today. But as an adult, it now seems weird when you catch a glimpse of that kind community here in Australia. A few years ago, I lived in a different suburb which was a bit rougher. One of the bikie gangs had a club house around the corner, and almost every monday the suburb was in the paper for some crime. However it seemed that the street I lived on was in its own little universe.

The local kids were over most weekends using my U-shaped driveway as a race track for their bicycles and scooters, and on the hotter summer days they hung around my rear verandah drinking cola and trying to raid my kitchen for biscuits.

Considering I was a single guy living alone at the time, I figured that I should talk to all the parents, but they were all pretty relaxed about it. Despite being a suburb that I wouldn't walk around at night, and even during the day I kinda kept a watch over my shoulder, this little street had a community feel where we could drop in and chat as we felt like it.

However the being in the news each week still worried me, so I'm happy to be in the new area I'm in now. I sleep a bit better, and I can go jogging at night.

To my ex-neighbours; sorry.

More adverts

I know a guy who works for Hyundai in Australia. As a manager involved in Hyundai's new car regional distributions, there are some pretty sweet perks he gets to enjoy. A shiny new Hyundai (not the Getz, mind you) and the opportunity to attend various sporting and high profile events that Hyundai sponsors around the country. I like to hear about his perks, and sometimes I also like to dream about me being him. For his privacy, I'm going to refer to him as Han (see Tokyo Drift).

Now multinational companies like Hyundai, where Han works, don't have everything run through their head office. They run regional offices with managers who are tasked to specialise in culture, trends and laws of various regions. So marketing that we see in Australia isn't actually a reflection of Korean principles when it comes to Kia and Hyundai adverts. They are crafted by Australian media companies and approved by Hyundai's (or Kia's) regional offices.

Now I just had a bit of a poke at a Kia advert, but that was more a case of state governments not really thinking about the subliminal message that people might be getting from anti-public transport adverts being shown on public transport sites. Near the beginning of the year, Hyundai in Europe approved and released an advert for a new fuel cell car they were releasing. If you don't know much about fuel cells, its basically an electric car that gets power by using a tank of compressed liquid Hydrogen, and combining that with Oxygen from the air to generate electricity from the resulting fusion to drive electric motors. The description is simplified, but thats the idea. The result produced is heat and water. No harmful gases.

The end result is that the advertising company struck upon the idea of showing how suicide via CarbonMonoxide poisoning would now not be possible in this car. Probably sounds like a good idea if you say it once really quickly, but the public reaction, amplified by the media, resulted in Hyundai pulling the advert and issuing apologies in every country that they sell cars, not just Europe. You just hope that the people involved in that creative process are learning lessons.

This has nothing to do with Han though. I just still like his job.

Management choices

I work as a code monkey. A disparaging term referring to those who are of the software programming profession, but tend to feel as though their job just involves mindlessly banging away on computer keyboards. There are a number of things that have been born out of the frustrations of a code monkey, including Dilbert, Office Space (the movie, of course!), and ThinkGeek. There's heaps more, but this entry isn't about documenting odd pop culture driven by the software industry. Its more about managers.

I'm pretty sure it isn't just in software companies, but in any area where managers are involved, there is a risk that they get landed with decisions that they are unable, or just don't bother, to think through. Take the poster below:

The picture is pretty self explanatory, but to make the context more relevant to their target audience, Kia sought to have these displayed at busy public transport sites across Australia. Why public transport management would think this was suitable, I am not sure.

Now public transport sites don't manage the advertising directly, rather they sell the advertising locations to companies that specialise in consumer marketing. Those marketing companies are then responsible for the supply of advertising equipment, sourcing of advertising, and maintaining those adverts. They just then pay rent to whoever owns the land, which in most cases is the state government. However, there are still veto rights that the government transport body maintains in terms of the specific adverts that are displayed. Things such as adult shops or horror films might get vetoed, even though they're valid content of themselves, but because of the demographic of people who move through public transport, including children, then the state government would ban those from these locations.

So why is this poster odd to me? Well a prevalent issue in most countries is traffic and parking congestion. Considering the capital investment in infrastructure and the need for a certain volume of passengers and fares to keep it viable, why would they condone advertising of cars which utilise images with a subtext that public transport is to be avoided? Its not so much that they should block any and all car adverts, but this one has just too much going against it.

The advert is definitely "tongue in cheek", and it is witty to a certain degree, but honestly. When you stop and think about what the goals of governments are trying to achieve in terms of reducing pollution from vehicles and traffic congestion, then isn't this kind of counter productive?

Just saying.

Staying in touch

How does this happen? How is it that guys I've been friends with for years, guys who've invited me to be part of the bridal party of their wedding, guys who I've dragged half across the country so they could be at mine, end up that I haven't talked to them for over a year?

Well some of you reading this have been invited to my blog with the hope that this will fix it. The stuff I write here is more or less the aimless ramblings I would have sent in an email anyway, but the intent is that this will be more regular and interesting.

I could have used Facebook as a social medium but I really dislike Facebook and all that it does. Facebook is a commercial enterprise, and as such there are things that happen there that I want to avoid. One of these things is that not everyone who is a friend, will see all your posts. When you're using a free account, Facebook will not distribute your updates to all your contacts. I don't know what the actual percentage is, you can probably Google it somewhere, but I know that this is true.

Plus, when you interact with a person, say John Doe, then all your friends will 'see' the interaction with John Doe and public parts of his account will become visible to them. At this stage of this journey, I am not wanting to have friends of friends joining discussions and critiquing stuff I post or write. I am just wanting to write stuff down to share with people I know personally. People who matter to me, and I'd like to think I matter to them, at least a little.

Blogger is great in that I also have been able to shut this blog off from search engines, even from Blogger's own public listing, so you're reading this because I invited you.

So, I'm glad you're here.

Going down?

I'm really starting to hate elevators. I always dreaded them to a small degree, ever since I saw the movie Speed where the elevator rescue scene occurs in the beginning and one lady is rescued just before the lift plunges some more.

Then you get the various horror films where lifts plunge just as people are trying to step on or off. I've often thought about this while I'm on an elevator, and whether I'd have the reflexes and speed to jump back and avoid losing a limb. But let's be honest, it'd be so sudden no one would have a chance.

Anyways my particular elevator loathing is directed at two in particular. The ones at the office where I work. The company I work for, has been in this building for just over a year now, and this building is almost new, having been built just over 2 years ago. The first 3 months, both elevators were fine, but then we started having them go out-of-order at least once a month.

It's not like there weren't warning signs. The mechanical bangs and clunks as the elevators traversed their course hinted that something wasn't right. We even had one lift fail with a person trapped in it for 15min. That lift then continued to be unaccessible for 2 months.

Our building isn't large. There are 4 floors and our company occupies the top floor, and there is another company holding the 2nd. The 3rd and ground floors are still empty at the moment. So the lifts aren't getting that much traffic.

However the last straw for me, was yesterday. For reasons that will be explained another day, I come in on the 2nd floor most mornings, via the carpark ramp, and catch the lift up the last two floors. (Yes, that is why I carry a spare tire, but stop criticising as this is what I do). The only working lift is on the fourth, I hit the up arrow, but below me I can hear someone who just arrived in the lobby also hit the button too.

So fair enough; the lift cruises past me, gets the ground floor, then cruises right past me to the top floor where it deposits one of my colleagues. It doesn't come back. It just sits there on the top floor tormenting me. My lift button was still illuminated reflecting my press.

After doing a little angry man dance, I've resigned myself to always using the stairs from today onwards.

I hate these elevators, and I guess these ones probably hate us all too.

Every blog has a beginning, this is mine.

The whole trigger for me starting this endeavour was partly to see if I could develop my writing skills and force myself to communicate more to a whole bunch of people I really care about. I kept telling them I'd email or call, but then things get in the way, I procrastinate, and then before you know it, it's been 2 years.

I want to stop that. This will not replace me contacting alot of them directly, but its to force me to write.

This is my project to develop my writing talents, and to work on hopefully getting better at just writing and talking about stuff that engages the people that I want to engage with.

I've been reading a bunch of blogs over the past years, many written by people who started just because they needed an avenue to vent, or because it was therapeutic, but I found many became even more interesting as the writer developed in their skills. I want to develop in a similar way too.

This blog will be my experiment. It'll be interesting to see how far I get.

Why I chose Blogger

This is my first sequel post, whoo!! Lets see if this gets easier with time. I hate iiNet right now. This may seem reasonable, or it may not, depending on what your own level of exposure to iiNet is.

Some background is this: iiNet is my internet service provider and I've been with them close to 5 years now. All up, the flow of internet has been solid, and that is great, although hardly special
considering how long the internet has been around now, and also the thousands of companies around the world achieving this very same thing to millions of other homes. But iiNet has been growing and they've gotten a bit of a reputation around my corner of Australia as being kind of innovators. Hence I expected better.

Here's where they fell down: In me trying to get my blog going. Frankly, I don't want to pay money to a hosting site, and if you think I should then you've got more cash than me. Not everyone is Donald Trump (does he blog?). As a iiNet customer, we all get 1Gb of space to use for our own personal webpages and this is great. But the iiNet site clearly states that they offer no help, other than just the
basic of getting your content into your personal allocation of space.

Now their help pages start talking about supporting PHP up to version 4 and a bunch of other gear, although with no guarantees of how long it will be there, see this. They also support one-click installs of WordPress and Joomla for their business customers. So when I go in and try to load up the appropriate version of WordPress into my own space and it starts barfing about no PHP service available, I'm rather disappointed.

Support came back with an awesome oneliner of "too bad, so sad". I paraphrase, but the intent of their reply was the same. No willingness to look into whether PHP service was there at all for residential clients, or if a configuration change was needed. Not to mention that their pages on 'getting started' are basically a bunch of links to other sites that are not really helping a beginner.

Nothing.

Well I'm kinda glad I came across Blogger. The URL is a whole lot friendlier and I don't have to waste time handcrafting HTML.