Author: awmalloyadmin

As I get older I realise that many things I gave up as a kid are suddenly looking cool again in my eyes. Dr Who, for one and LEGO for another. There are some great LEGO creations at the MOCpages site. They look like they’re built with the time and effort that only a patient and indulgent wife will allow.

It’s got me thinking though that Phee should start playing with her LEGOs more. Maybe in my office so I can, um, supervise.

I had this great idea for a blog entry, composed it in my head as I walked to the car. It was witty, interesting and well edited (for once). I then promptly forgot about it as I argued with the idiots on the radio on the way home.

You’ll just have to trust me – you missed out on a beauty.

I’m tired and grumpy, again. This time it’s not because someone has nicked one of my pictures (“Thank god” cry the assembled throng). This time its dog owners (no, different ones). There’s an ever-so-cool couple out in the park with two huge dalmatians. Both, of the dogs that is, off the leash, but hey – it’s too much trouble to go one block further to the only off the leash area in the neighborhood so lets just let ’em run here unchecked. And while were at it let’s not bother picking up their droppings because, hey, why should we? Let’s also look terribly offended when someone suggests maybe they should bring a plastic bag with ’em.

I reckon they probably drove here above the speed limit, smoke in the doorways of buildings whenever they get the chance and leave their mobiles on in the cinema too. Why bother following rules, or common courtesy; it’s all about me, isn’t it?

I think I might go have a cup of tea and a good lie down now.

Bryan Sheehan
Shaun Ryan
Derek Woodcock

You are all marked men. Never show your face near Punt Rd again. I have $14.65 in my wallet and this is now a price on your head(s). Just remember that umpires are meant to be neutral, not play for one of the teams.

In other words, the Tiges lost.

The ICE also lost. The Doggies lost too. A trifecta of misery. I’m going to bed to dream dark dreams.

One year today with Movable Type, my blogging system of choice.

So you’ve probably read this rant a million times before but it’s finally happened to me so I’m gonna rehash it.

Copy protection is stupid. It is wrong and in my case poorly implemented. I was given a copy of Disco 3 for my birthday and I finally picked it up last night. EMI, in their stupidity have copy protected it. The only way to play the CD on my computer is to have the CD in my drive and use their proprietary player.

Big deal, I hear them cry. Be lucky we let you play it all.

EMI need to learn the following things.

When I buy a CD I expect to be able to do with it as I want. If I want to play it in my Media Player I should be able to. If this means copying the music I have paid to listen to I should be able to do this as well. I can make an audio cassette or mini-disc of it, why have you decided I can’t listen to it from the convenience of my PC?

This is the year 2003. People have IPODs, MP3 players and computers. Believe it or not people like to listen to music on these things. CD’s are now a distribution medium, not necessarily the listening medium.

Technology exists that allows me to make copies on to hard drives but not burn these copies on to other CD’s. Use this, if you must.

I firmly believe that if you made these tracks available for purchase online your big fear of piracy and free illegal distribution would almost disappear overnight. Don’t believe me? Look at Apple’s success with iTunes. People want to purchase music this way. I know I want to. You won’t lose money, you’ll gain money. It really is very simple.

EMI – I will not purchase any more Cd’s from you until you remove this stupid system. As it is Audiograbber apparently allows you to rip the tracks so all you’ve done is slow me down a little, make me angry with your company and lose future sales. Well done.

Curse my mono-lingual abilities. Anyone out there reading this blog happen to speak Dutch? I’d just like to know what the person who stole my photo of Phee and the tiger is saying. (http://forum.fok.nl/showtopic.php/333999/8/25 – down the bottom of the page).

I did run it through a translator but it came out as being something about a bonnet.

I dreamt last night. I could’ve dreamt I had wings and could fly around the world, that I remembered to wear clothes to school, that I won fifty trillion gazillion dollars (that’s a lot), that I discovered a cure for cancer, that I single handedly won the Grand Final for the Tiges with a stunning 55m kick after the siren…

But no.

Instead I dreamt that Rae and I went to a party, that no one showed up, that we stood around for two hours doing nothing and then went home.

I’m an excitement machine.

I don’t even know how long this news has been around but I just discovered the aliens from V may be back.

I loved the original mini series, second one wasn’t so grand as the focus on ideas that made the first so compelling was replaced by an emphasis on action. I think I was about 13 or 14 when the mini series was screened here and the only reason I got to see it was because that night I was staying at my sisters. I begged and pleaded with mum and dad to watch the second instalment the next night and miraculously they let me.

In Shepparton the series (of which I still have the entire set on VHS) was broadcast by GMV 6 on a Friday night. Now this presented a problem because Mum liked to watch the football on Friday night, or maybe it was the gardening show on the ABC (this was almost twenty years ago so some memories are well and truly lost in the fog). Thankfully sister #2 came to the rescue and come 8.30 on Friday I’d put on my ever so cool blue detachable sleeves parka and walk down the block to watch it at Kate’s house. Being the true sci-fi geek I am was, I even took notes on characters as I’d been inspired by the just released Dr Who Programme Guides and thought I’d do the same for V.

I sometimes wonder how I turned out so normal.

Just when you think you’re safe…

I was going for a walk today at lunch, as I always do, and appreciating this fine Melbourne winter day when I saw a sign. Not a ‘light goes on over the head and tells me something sign’ or ‘the clouds part and god talks sign’ but an honest to goodness metal sign. And this sign had one of my creations on it.

A few years ago I was doing a web site for a clinical trial company. We were sitting around having a coffee talking about the site when Steve mentioned he didn’t have a logo but knew roughly what he wanted. I fired up Fireworks on my borrowed lap top and asked ‘sorta like this?’.

Well it wasn’t sorta like what he wanted – it was exactly what he wanted. And it’s terrible. Really really terrible. It’s sequel-to-Weekend-At-Bernie’s terrible. And now the worst company logo in recorded history is plastered on a sign at 151 Wattletree Rd for me, and the world, to see every day.

If I can summon up the courage I’ll bring my camera in tomorrow. Remember – you have been warned.