Crazy Busy...

K so, I've been absolutely crazy busy the past few months. Seriously - I've hardly had time to stop and take a breather.

A lot of things have happened in the past while, and work has been keeping me very busy during the week, and generally going out, hanging with friends and family has been keeping my busy on my days off.

Things are definately looking up - some of the events that have happened in recent times have been none too cheery, those of you close to me know which ones I'm talking about.
However, things are looking up and I've found a new appreciation for a lot of things in life. It's funny how certain events are completely horrible to go through, yet they can end up changing your life for the better - or otherwise make you see things in a different light.

I've been working on some fairly big projects at work, so hopefully I'll be able to blog about those in a little while too (on my other blog).

Goodbye old friend...

I just heard about Eric... sadly he passed away over the weekend.
(http://www.reptilepark.com.au/news.asp?nID=30)

I'm talking about Eric The Crocodile at The Australian Reptile Park - where I used to work as a volunteer in the reptile department.

I was quite sad to learn that he had passed away, he was just kind of always there, and I don't think it's anything that anyone really saw coming. I guess the circumstances over the past few weeks didn't really help him, the storms and extreme weather contributing to his untimely demise.

Goodbye old friend, you will be missed.

As Long As You Want This...

Thats the title of one of my favourite albums at the moment.
The Dutch band Kane have been quite the rage in NW europe since about 2000, and I'm quite surprised that they haven't made it out to Australia yet. The only reason I happen to know of them is because one of my dutch friends brought their album over when she came for holidays.

As far as their career goes, they are doing quite well by any measure. The band started in 1999 and has seen a large number of No.1 chart hits, quite a few singles entering the charts at No.1, an Album entering the charts at No.1 and numerous awards of various types.

Their discography currently consists of 3 main albums, "As Long As You Want This", "Fearless", and "February" (which I still need to get a copy of!)

Their style is quite unique, and they are compared to Matchbox 20 - though I believe they don't really sound like them, I can see why people would say that.

If you'd like to read some more about Kane, visit their Fan Website, their Official website, their Wikipedia entry, or their MySpace fan page

Ok so some people have waaaay too much spare time...

I just got sent this link, so I thought I would share it here considering I'm somewhat of a HTML/CSS guru (when I say guru I mean nutbag).

So his code might not be valid, but it's still cool!

http://animenarutard.blogspot.com/2007/06/dr...

enjoyness...

Pleasure and pain...

So, I got another tattoo:


thats all the exciting news for now :)

Meanwhile back at the ranch...

Yay update time!

Ok, not really yay, I have too much to write and not enough time to write it...

News flash: I attempted to play some golf yesterday and found out I really suck at it. The putting part is fine, getting the ball to the green however seems to be a bit of a challenge for me.

More news: Dear god what happened to the moose.

Also, I thought I would share one of the recent Cyanide and Happiness cartoons with my trusty audience. Click here to view(opens in a new window)
I would have posted it here, but that would require more effort, enough effort for me to say "fuck it, you lazy buggers can click for a change".

Carpe Diem baby!

For those of you that don't speak latin, that means "Seize the day".

The reason I am posting with this particular topic is because I just got myself inked with those words :)

If you're confused... well... just take a look:

I just got this done last weekend...

Now it's just a patient wait until I get the next ones done.

That was pretty much the most exciting thing I did all weekend... well... the most exciting thing I'm going to share on this blog anyway, hehe.

I guess this was a rather short update.., perhaps the next one will be a bit longer :)

QuickTunes - hmm because I'm lazy

I was just browsing for some random new software for my mac, and came across this little app called QuickTunes.

It's a small and lightweight program that sits in your menu bar, and will give you some nice and quick iTunes options from the menubar. As an added bonus, it also allows you to set global hotkeys.

If you're like me and are too lazy or find it too much of an inconvenience to go into iTunes every time you want to change volume/song/etc. then this app is worth a try.

You can find it at http://www.dbachrach.com/opensoft/index.php?page=QuickTunes.

Thats all - its 3.30am so I think I'll go do the sleep thing now :)

Hmmmm Multimedia

It's about time I update some more about the new job.

It's going well!

Ok, I know - you want to hear more. Fair enough. So after kind of getting settled in, I have been working on several projects, and in general I like the work I do there, it can be a bit stressful sometimes, but that is mostly attributed to Internet Explorer being a screwed up web browser.

In case you're wondering what it is exactly I do, here is a brief description.

I am a so-called Multimedia Programmer (this is a fancy term for HTML/CSS/JS Front end developer).

At my firm we have several people involved in the production of websites, the people I deal with the most are the designers and developers. I am their middle man.
I'm lazy, so I'll put this in point form.

• The designers do their thing in Photoshop and hand me and my colleague the final designs.
  
• We then cut the designs up (we don't actually "cut" the designs :P we take out the graphics and make them into manageable pieces for the design, like background images, buttons, headers ... stuff like that).
  
• The we code up the HTML and CSS and little bits of Javascript for the site.
  
• When we're all done with the initial layouts we import those into the custom CMS we use at our firm.
  
• At this point we do some tweaking and then hand the HTML/CMS templates over to the developers who code all the other functionality into the website.
  
• Possibly some design/structural changes take place, so we incorporate them.
  
• Some more tweaking happens here and there as elements of the site get modularized into the CMS.
  

Wow, that actually seems like quite a mouthful for a brief description...

So there you have it. Thats pretty much what I do.
Then there is of course other little random things, like developers needing help with some CSS or HTML and sometimes JavaScript, or one of the producers needing a few images resized.

Right - so small update turned long update, well for this time of the night anyway.

I think I might go get some shut-eye. I also realize you don't care that I'm going to bed right now, but I've already typed it, and it seems like a waste of time going back and erasing it.

Laterz

Jim Who? Ah Bourbon!

Wow, I actually made it onto the Jim Beam website.

I know what you are all going to say... you're going to say: "John, you're an alcoholic and why are you leaning behind the Jim Beam promo girl?".

Ok so, I may or may not have been drunk, but I wasn't leaning behind the promo girl.
I was swaying!

Just in case you're the disbelieving sort of person, here is the link to the photo on the Jim Beam website.
Also just in case - I'm the one in the green-ish shirt 2nd person from the left.

This actually was a few weeks ago at The Woodport Inn - where the Jim Beam Partycrew happened to be hanging out that night. I only happened to be there because the view is nice, and they sell Jim Beam (not like they don't sell it anywhere else, but any excuse to go out will do).

Quick update to keep you yuppies happy

Yeah, thats right, I called you a yuppy, if you're not, feel free to take offense anyway ;)

Ok so I'm still settling in at work, and trying to get used to getting up earlier than usual so I can get there in time. At least I only have a 10 minute walk to get to the train now :D - and I can sleep on the train :D

I'm in the process of making a few albums on Google Picasa. I really need to get a new cable for my camera so I can hook it up to the MacBook when I'm out and about (I know, this is pointless information for you, but I'll read this on the weekend and it will remind me, my bad for using my blog as a way to remember trivial things).

Just as an annoying preview, here is a picture of a random flower:

Warning: clicking that link will actually take you to my picasa album, and there are only a handful of pictures in there at the time of this post.

I know - it's a pointless warning, you have probably already clicked and are now laughing at my bad photographs. Hey, at least I remembered to *not* post pictures of myself. HeHe.

zomg candy mountain!

Seriously WTH?!

Oh right, you don't know what I'm talking about yet.

Well, I just wanted to let you guys know that I feel like Charlie! Often!

Of course to understand what the hell I'm talking about you're going to need to watch Charlie: Candy Mountain on YouTube

Yeah, go ahead... tell me you hate me for making you watch that.

Picture shareage

I just wanted to share my favourite Cyanide and Happiness comic with my trusty readers (which currently consists of .. err about a dozen people or so...)


Cyanide & Happiness @ Explosm.net

I'm sure I will end up doing this one day to someone, I always mis-hear what people say :P - perhaps on purpose, perhaps by accident, I guess that depends on how much you annoy me. Mwuhahaaa.

Fine, Fine a kind of normal update.

Ok, so I guess it's time for an update on the new job.

So far everything is going quite peachy, I am still kind of settling in and trying to remember everyones names :P.

I have been working on a couple of different websites, and from what I have heard, there are going to be some very exciting new projects coming up :)

I guess this also is what made me a bit nervous about starting in this job, as the company I work for deals with some very high profile brands and companies, both national and international. Then again, they *did* hire me for my skills, so I must have suitably impressed them. (Not to toot my own horn or anything, I'm usually quite modest).

On a completely different note, I was just completely freaked out as my macbook just started spitting out zeros. Seriously, it is kind of scary to all of a sudden sit there with a brand new computer and have it spit out zeros on the screen, especially considering its a mac and its not connected to the network at the moment (my bad, i haven't bought a wireless access point yet).
So as it turns out, I left my bluetooth keyboard turned on and my sister had just put her bag down right next to it. It fell over and was leaning on the "0" key.

Phew, I can stop freaking out now.

There is definitely a lesson to be learned here!. Don't leave bluetooth keyboards turned on, they will freak you out with screen-filling zeros.

Ok, this is taking on a rather strange tangent, since this post was supposed to be an update on how my new job is going. I'll give more updates on work as it happens, or possibly next week sometime - after I have properly settled in :)

Anyhow, I guess I will go plug a network cable in and post this, and yes I realize how pointless that remark was since if you are reading this, it's already been posted.

No Nakedness for big ones

I was just reading my daily slashdot mail and came across a story originally posted on the ZDnet UK website. I guess you should have a read and see for yourself, Top five PC manufacturers fail naked PC test.

In my oh so humble opinion, this verges on the definite dark side of computing. Big name companies are not selling "naked" computers, i.e.: they won't supply a PC without an operating system on it, specifically, Microsoft Windows.

I'm not sure what is worse, PC vendors being "forced" to supply Windows, or the fact that even when alternatives are available, you can't actually get it. Lenovo offers PCs with pre-installed linux, but couldn't give information about how to obtain such a PC.

Ok, I guess this can be my rant for this week...
Ah and I just realised I still need to make an update on how my first week at the new company went.

Well, seeing as it's St. Patricks day, I have a lot of drinking to do, so I guess that will have to wait till tomorrow.

I can't believe it's over...

Nothing too dramatic! So don't even get your hopes up for a terribly whiny sob story!

My contract with my current employer ended today, and I was kinda sad to leave as it has been one of the best places I have worked at... ever.

So this means that I'm starting a new job... tomorrow ... yeah... no rest for the wicked!

Seriously though, this new job will be a brilliant opportunity career wise, and from what I briefly saw when I was there for my job interview, I got the impression that it's a pretty easy going and friendly place to work.

More updates will come later in the week, when I know more :P

This has been taking me forever to write - all the instant messaging and SMS-ing, movie watching and blogging all at the same time is starting to make me feel like the biggest technofreak.

laterz!

Oh yeah..

Oh yerrrr, I guess I didn't import posts from my other blog. That's ok though, it was just random ranting and (a lot of) complaining about public transport and certain technology companies *cough* microsuck *cough* . You will no doubt find some of that here too, but I am trying to not let my rantings get the better of me.

That and I don't really want to be known as the guy that only ever complains about stuff... coz really I don't really give a crap about a lot of the things I complain about, but I figure it must be at least mildly entertaining to other people :P

See you on the flipside... (probably later today...)

Oh Wow Its so .... sexy

Really, it is.

Yesterday I got my new macbook pro delivered... it's shiny, its sleek, its sexy. I want its babies!
Ok, I probably wouldn't go that far. Probably.

So now I am faced with the dilemma... Do I predominantly use OS X or Windows XP - since this beauty is able to boot both :)

So far I'm guessing that OS X will be the main slugger, and Windows will be the beast that will come out, but only because of necessity.

I guess that's the burden of anyone who does anything for the Web that is even remotely design related. Stuff just has to work in Internet Explorer ... then Firefox, and then the rest of the world could possibly be considered.

That reminds me, if you're a web beanie or otherwise like taking the piss out of MSIE, you should watch this video on YouTube.

Right, where was I... before I started ranting ...

Oh .. yeah, the new MacBook.... the new sexy, sleek and oh so shiny MacBook.

I am pleased to inform that it runs World Of Warcraft like a dream, well, that is to say, I have not yet experienced any weird issues :)

I think the only real annoyance I have found, is that Windows Messenger for Mac doesn't do Audio or Video, but hey, it is windows messenger after all, so I wasn't expecting a great deal out of it.

I guess I should at least try to find a better MSN IM client :P

So, uhm, geekiness aside...

I spent most of last weekend in a somewhat drunken haze...
Fortunately I remembered kissing a random girl on friday, of course I had my gentleman reasons behind that...

See, I was out having a few drinks with some friends, and thus met some more people. One of the girls that was hanging with our group went to a different table to say hi to some people she apparently knew. Not long after she moved to that table, we noticed these guys were trying to hit on her, pretty poorly mind you, but they were trying really hard. We had to try pretty hard not to laugh.

So, after a few moments, her ex-fiancee (who was at our table, they are still good mates) was about to get up and king hit one of the guys, to save embarassment to both of my friends, I thought I handled the situation nicely by walking over, pretending to be her boyfriend and suggesting she come back to our table as we were about to leave to go to the next club.

Of course one can't pretend to be a boyfriend without kissing ;) (well ya could, but that would just not be believable enough...)

Ok so the girl I kissed wasn't really random, she was with the group I was hangin' with, and she needed a little help getting away from some creepy guys.

I think I'll leave saturday night till later, depending on this weeks developments :P

We are but men, ROCK!

Seriously, this is just a first post so my blog isn't empty. I may or may not import some posts from my other blog. Or not, I'll see how I feel later.