Ben Boyle lives here!

it's like, wow

Yesterday was my first ever visit to WOW. The bricks and mortar that is, not the website. Which is a good thing really, because it isn't much of a website; and I don't need to be an experty webby guy to say that. It's a very bright website, and the building is equally attention grabbing.

So why was I there? A store full of CDs, DVDs, cameras, phones, iPods, games, TVs and stereo systems. If that doesn't seem enough of a reason, perhaps you haven't read my post on trying to win iPods.

Wow had iPod mini on special actually, for $375. I didn't buy one. Memory sticks weren't too badly priced either—I have considered it to increase the MP3 capacity of my phone—but I didn't buy one of those either. I'm still reeling from learning that Korea is about to get a 5megapixel camera phone. And I thought the (soon to be released here) S700i or P910i were good. You see, when my mobile contract is up in March I want to get an all-in-one MP3 player, radio, still and video camera, organiser, note taker, TV wonder gadget. Which doesn't exist. But will soon, I just know it!

So I didn't buy anything, but I enjoyed looking. I thought about Dido's No Angel (not a good link I know), but it was a bit pricey. Instead we picked up The Wedding Singer, The Cure Greatest Hits and Push Up *bops*

I am also firm in my belief that pumpkin and potato have no place on pizza, even at Halloween.

Sunday, October 31, 2004
http://inspire.server101.com/ben/2004/10/its-like-wow.html

another spell of hangman

I started hangman a little while ago and it's since been to Casyn, Onanymous, back to Casyn, Inspiral, MuzeKez and back to me. Now I know there are other people want a go so I'll make this easy for ya.

The United States flavor *koff* flavour *koff* of English dogs me. In programming and web design, I have learnt to spell color syntactically correct—that is, as required to make things work. Occassionally I spell the word without the u in general writings and consequently get my head bitten off. One should not work with ex-teachers with less than an impeccable grasp of English grammar and punctuation. That's Australian English in my place of work.

When we installed our CMS, it came with a button labelled favorites. A button I can't change. Do you know how many people complained the word was spelled—is it spelled or spelt, I think we can use either—wrong?

And then there's Dragonball Z. That's zee, not zed. It's the name of the show. It's in the theme song! I am calling it what it is called. People don't complain when I say café that I'm speaking French instead of Australian English, so why do they complain when I say “Dragonball Zee”. Yes, it is zee, and yes, it is american.

And so is this word. That's your clue. Good luck :)

A·M·E·R·I·C·A·N *snickers* Obvious to all now, isn't it? Congrats to Amanda! 

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Letters guessed: V, P, R

Saturday, October 23, 2004
http://inspire.server101.com/ben/2004/10/another-spell-of-hangman.html

kept a calendar from 1994?

If you have kept a calendar from 1994, your thriftiness is soon to pay off! Next year, 2005, also begins and ends on a Saturday. Meaning you can save yourself the agony of indecision over new calendars, dust off the 1994 beauties, and she'll be right, mate!

I've been hanging on to an X-Men comic poster waiting for just such an occassion. It's been 11 years, but it'll all be worth it come New Year's Day.

Saturday, October 23, 2004
http://inspire.server101.com/ben/2004/10/kept-calendar-from-1994.html

more teletext fun

In an earlier post I mention the joys of watching live captioning. Tonight I'm wondering if they use some kind of predictive text. How else do you get “RAAF yellow” for Raphael? If you want to know the correct spelling, just click on the banner to get to the official TMNT website—and not just for the spelling, there's the original comic, the ol' cartoons and the very swish new series!

Back on captioning goodness, what exactly is RAAF yellow? Are the defence forces investing our tax dollars in paint? Good on them if they are!

Sunday, October 17, 2004
http://inspire.server101.com/ben/2004/10/more-teletext-fun.html

a little peace and quiet

Why is it when people must host their own little rock concerts when the rest of us would rather be sleeping, why is it that the music is always terribly, terribly, lacking in style and flair?

Sunday, October 17, 2004
http://inspire.server101.com/ben/2004/10/little-peace-and-quiet.html

fifty to one

Voting time for Australians today. Hooray for our government and hooray for democracy. Voting is compulsory here. I would really like to know what the results would be if it were not… I suspect a number of big parties rely on a lot of wishy-washy votes (like mine) to see them over the line.

Voting for the senate is fun though. Number one box above the line, or number all fifty below. Fifty! I opted for the latter. Even though it takes longer and I'd rather be doing just about anything than voting, there are certain parties I'd like to see come last and thus I need to start numbering from 50 and work my way back to 1. I wish we could vote to evict certain politicians from the house of representatives. I'd be much more keen on the whole process then. And they'd be a bit more accountable for their past actions wouldn't they?

Tonight there will be nothing on TV but election results. And Toy Story 2. We might watch that, on DVD rather than TV, to see how much faster we can get through the movie without any commercials. DVDs are a better experience anyway.

No, I can't bring myself to be too concerned about the election results. But I would like to wish Elissa good luck. Could I have an MP for a friend? Tonight, we'll find out.

Saturday, October 09, 2004
http://inspire.server101.com/ben/2004/10/fifty-to-one.html

seven days of October and then

it's 35°C and I'd like to extend an unofficial welcome to summer. Bring it!

Friday, October 08, 2004
http://inspire.server101.com/ben/2004/10/seven-days-of-october-and-then.html

life, the universe, and hangman

Interesting encounters at lunch today—the world is a crazy place when you're the only one eating sandwiches at 2pm.

In the gardens, there were leaves everywhere. And I mean everywhere. Like this huge tree decided to throw them all off overnight (they weren't there yesterday). If you think that's because it's Fall then I have news for you—(a) it's called Autumn here, not Fall, and (b) it's Spring in the southern hemisphere.

So what makes a tree throw off all its leaves in Spring? The way I figure it, they wait for it to get cold—which it never does here, not like snow and stuff, not what a tree would consider cold—and suddenly it gets hot and they jump up going “oh, we missed it!” and with a whoosh, down come all the leaves. It's either that or a vile plot involving thieves—or perhaps pirates—who sneak off with the leaves, leaving only dodgy fake merchandise behind. I say dodgy because it all fell down at once.

I also saw a car with the number plate SYZYGY. Now I know from playing hangman in high school that this is a real word and has something to do with the orbits of planets and stars. Not a bad word for hangman, although you will only compound your reputation as a geek by using it. Especially if you have to admit discovering it in a dictionary and knowing what it means. Now you can say instead you discovered it on a car number plate. Or this blog, shifting your geek karma back on me :P

Still, not a bad word for hangman. Much better than antidisestablishmentarianism. That word has so many letters it's impossible not to get! Also once you draw that many spaces on the board, some clever nuisance will guess it in one go and spoil the fun. Like I did. hahaha.

Actually, I like this word best for hangman. One letter at a time please.

G·Y·P·S·Y (congratulations for Casyn, fine bloogling there ;) 

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Already guessed: V P T A D J R C Y

Missed the fun? Hangman has moved here!

Wednesday, October 06, 2004
http://inspire.server101.com/ben/2004/10/life-universe-and-hangman.html

i'm dying praying bleeding and screaming

Who'd have thought a song on the morose topics of suicide and regret—regret during suicide is how I interpret it—would be so good. Tourniquet. By Evanescence. Go listen on their website.

Monday, October 04, 2004
http://inspire.server101.com/ben/2004/10/im-dying-praying-bleeding-and.html

ore kes tra

Do you turn on the subtitles (teletext?) when you watch TV? We do. And if you don't, you should.

We started this originally because we had the volume down where it was a little hard to hear. Why not just turn it up? Didn't want to wake the baby. We still don't wanna wake the boys, and have come to enjoy reading along to our favourite shows. DVDs are great, subtitles!

But it's the TV subtitles that make us laugh. Especially the shows that are providing captions live. Good on them for all the hard work they're doing; but on the other hand, employ a typist!! Someone who can type fast and accurate. Not like me—I type like a programmer… hitting the keys involves lots of trial and error, debugging and correcting—more like my Mum. Now there's someone who can type!

What has all this to do with the topic? Ore kes tra. That's how they spell orchestra on Australian Idol. See, you should turn subtitles on. You've no idea of the comedy you're missing :)

Sunday, October 03, 2004
http://inspire.server101.com/ben/2004/10/ore-kes-tra.html

off with their heads

Giant grasshoppers. They're big, brown and they eat ya plants. But I can't quite bring myself to grab the blighters and twist their heads off. I tried to whack one with a newspaper but I missed. O calamitous lack of dexterity!

My grandad made the beheading look easy. He was a gardener of some renown and perhaps this was one of his secrets. The remains would go to feed the blue-tongues that lived in a small drain near the house. I remember waiting to see the big lizard one day and the grasshopper body got up and hopped away (the head had complications of its own, dealing with an attack of ants). I remember running down the path yelling ““Grandad! Grandad! It’’s getting away!!”” He soon fixed that.

Isn't this fabulous conversation? I can just see it being repeated over the dinner table, when one's significant other asks ““So honey, what did you read on the blogs today?”” Yes, tell them this story. They'll not be so quick to ask again!

In other head-related news, Daniel had his stitches out this morning. Yay! And, next the big grasshopper was a pink lizard—a gecko. They are cool. Shame they don't eat grasshoppers. Perhaps I can breed them so they do, oh yes!

A question: why does the blogger spell check suggest replacing Grandad with grunted?

Friday, October 01, 2004
http://inspire.server101.com/ben/2004/10/off-with-their-heads.html

Recently, I posted about

sketch: blue bird on an old stump

Which might relate to

sketch: rained in at the cabin

Or might involve my

sketch: waterfall

Can't get enough Ben?

sketch: birds at sunset

sketch: of a dragon

I posted during

sketch: nymph flower shower

Thanks to

© Ben Boyle 2004.