The End of "Kevin" 07

2007 is just about done with. Time to reflect back on a year that was and make bigger, bolder plans for 2008. It's not going to be hard to name my personal highlight for the year gone by. Buying a townhouse with my wife along with a new car doesn't happen without leaving an impact on your life. My whole outlook on life has been totally changed with this recent event. I no longer even really think to buy new Xbox titles. I no longer think to lounge around the place on my days off. Everything I do now has to contribute in some way, shape or form to the "family". I use quotation marks as I am more use to a family being a mother, father and some brat kids. But I guess our cat, Foo Foo, more than makes up for the void of not having kids.

 

Anyone reading this who is renting should really look into diving into buying an place of their own now before the price hike hits like we think it will now with the change of government. There is a great deal of satisfaction of putting your feet up under a roof in your name!

 

To all my mates and pals who congratulated us on our new place I'd just like to say a big big thank you to you all! The house warming party was a great success. The BBQ was my personal highlight from that day! Yutang and myself hope that 2008 will be full of many more BBQ's and get togethers. We hope that the coming year will bring great news to you all and that you kick all your goals you aim for!

 

Cheers!

New House and now... NEW CAR... (coming soon)

Just a quck note to brag about our new addition to our house... no not a baby. A baby car! But... more news and photo's to come soon!

Skate On!

My mate Owen and myself have finally decided to get back into skating. Only thing is… it's gotten expensive! But not to worry, it's just something we got to do. You see we use to go on a weekly basis and it was almost like a religion! Hence the hockey jerseys and NHL references for all these years! So we finally decided to get off our collective dates and get new laces, have the skates sharpened and get back into it. If all goes well we might do it on a weekly/ fortnightly basis again. Should be fun. Here's a sneak peak at the invite sent out via Google Calendar:

Guys,

It's been a long long time since we laced the skates up all those years ago on a once a week basis at Canterbury Ice Rink. The skates are all but rusted and the skaters are somewhat... older. But now the skates are being sharpened, the laces renewed and the time to hit the ice has come again!  

This Saturday we'll be meeting up with a bunch of guys from past and present to lap the rink again at Macquarie Centre's Skating Rink.

When: Saturday 2pm to 4pm

Where: Macquarie Ice Rink (http://www.macquarieicerink.com.au/)

Cost: $19 (includes $3 skate hire charge)

What: Chance to re-learn how to skate! Make an ass of yourself and get photographed in the process!

 

So I'll be definitely bringing the camera along and we'll see what spills we get!

Ashes Memorabilia

Yesterday we set out to visit the rocks market. Actually... it was Pancakes on the Rocks we were hoping to visit but the line up was simply outrages! It spanned a good 100m long just to get in the door! So that idea was quickly knocked on the head and we settled on a German style feast instead at the Rocks famous Lowenbrau. After a round of German Hotdogs we headed to the street markets which are located right in the middle of one of the tracks used in Project Gotham Racing 2 (Xbox).

As soon as we arrived the very first stand you notice a sculptures stand selling spoons, knives and forks bent and sculptures into Australian animals. It's simply amazing and at first we figured we had stumbled upon the find of the weekend. However, after gazing at that my brother dragged me away from that to point out a stand selling stamps. At first I figured I'd skip it. Stamps. Seriously. How exciting could stamps be? Well these were no ordinary stamps. The stand owner explained how these 3D stamps were formed. She painstakingly collects numerous stamps of the same kind and cuts out layers of which she re-lays on top of one another. This then gives the stamps a real third dimensional aspect with the main objects of the picture within the stamps standing out. These are then later re-framed by her husband and sold.

The very first stamp that stood out for me was the Ashes 2006 commemorative stamp featuring three stamps that were issued last year showing the Aussies celebrating on the field after a Shane Warne wicket, the Ashes urn and last a stamp showing the post win photo with the urn. It's fixed in a extremely well produced frame that is in traditional display cabinet colours and looks like something channel 9 would have Ritchie Benaud flogging off during a live broadcast!

Yutang also purchased 2 stamp frames. One of an Australian Tree Frog and the other was of a blue bird. They were not cheap. I would normally not even consider these within my reach. But we figured the Ashes one would perhaps one day increase in value as its limited to just 200. But it's a new addition to the house and will definitely be a conversation starter for years to come!

Microsoft... What the Blazes Did You Do To My Space?

About to head off to work so this is a short one. Microsoft has gone and messed around with their MSN Spaces. Relabelled it Live or something. What is that suppose to mean anyway? The changes weren't being allowed by Norton on my PC. Had to undo that. There had better be some new bells and whistles with this new look or there'll be people marching in LARGE numbers.

More Photo's Now Uploaded

I've finally done it! Tagged and catalogued all my pics from Japan & China. That's a total of 793 photo's in total stacking up to about 2 Gigs I believe the volume came to. I've hand picked the good ones away from the fillers and put them online for you on my pic site with www.flickr.com. Go to http://www.flickr.com/photos/tangledcontrolpads/ and don't be scared to join up to Flickr for yourself to be able to leave a comment or two. I have a total of 138 pics online now and hope to add more soon. Below are a small sample of what to expect!

More Photo's!

Just letting you all know that I have started using www.flickr.com. What does this mean? It means all those of you who have been bugging me for photo's can get them yourself at http://www.flickr.com/photos/tangledcontrolpads/ and see all the latest handpicked pics from my hard drive. I'm currently trying to get as many pics from our Japan China trip in there. So far there are only 20 odd pics but I purchased the unlimited option so watch that number grow!

 

 

Sick Again...

Always seem to be run down with some kind of virus or bacteria. Not sure why but beginning of Spring is a bad time for me. I am always boud to get sick. But once the Laryngitis is gone and I can talk again I am looking forward to what should be the best summer of cricket in many years with many changes to the Australian line up expected.

 

One things for sure, Yutang is lapping up the temporary silence in the house while I am sick!

Missing The "Sega Years"

Every now and then I get all teary eyed and sentimental about having worked in a games company back in the one time in history things were getting interesting. Now that Sega are not producing consoles any more (maybe again one day) and that Sonic is just a memory it scares me to think that all that Mega Drive era is but a memory. I don't want anyone to not know about how excited I use to get buying a copy of Mean Machines or C+VG and drooling over the next lot of console releases. Things like Sonic 2, Streets of Rage 2 and not to mention all the Electronic Art titles that never ceased to amaze us console junkies.

 

I keep getting tempted to create a site that documents and records a page to each game ever released. I know that it would be a tough task to undertake. But so far there is no site that covers these old (and even current) games and I found myself frustrated as I tried to catalogue some of the older (and dodgier) Japanese Mega Drive releases. I am looking at jacking the Mega Drive up to my PC and creating screen shots for the countless titles that have no online record to speak of. I do have close to 500 titles all catalogued so far. Screenshots and covers listed for most of them too. So maybe I may set loose onto the net with a site of my own. Weirder things have happened eh?

 

If there was a site set up that tracked EVERY game it could possibly do and was seen as being reliable, would you bookmark it? Let me know. Also... is there other video game collectors out there like me who scrounge eBay and 2nd hand shops like I do for old golden nuggets?

Gotta Love Getting Sick...

Seems as though every winter that goes by I manage to get myself a case of the flu. What makes it worse is that I may have caused tension with work as I have taken yet another sick day which means I now have a 4 day weekend. I'd love to be happy right now with all that time off... if only I wasn't feeling like a lump of crap right now!

 

Gotta love getting sick...

Things are Up and Also Down

Things are kind of topsy turvy at the moment. Work is suffering with an increase in customer complaints (and of course I'm the one who has to hear them directly from the customers). But work is beginning to show signs of a big change in direction for me personally. Nothing concrete yet but I may be responsible for the Intranet site for work. My challenge is learning how to use a program called MySource. Currently in my Indoor Cricket (www.blackouthouse.com) site I use MS FrontPage 2002. It's easy as it is simply a matter of cut and paste what you want in an easy WYSIWYG format. It also has some plug in programs to do some fancy bells and whistles stuff to impress the visitors to the site. But this MySource looks robust however clunky. No cut and paste here. No no no. If you cut and paste then you'll copy over all the messy coding with it and end up with silly html coding all over your screen. But I've seen sites that use MySource and one thing I've noticed about them. They are clean! No mess on the screen and very tidy looking. Something that impresses me.

 

Bottom line is that I must now look at learning this new software and then impressing my work with my finished product. Maybe (and that's a big FAT maybe) I'll be asked to do it full time!

Holidays!

They're back! Holidays! Three weeks of sleeping in (my favourite past time) and playing Halo death matches against any STUPID enough to take me on in Halo! Apart from that... not much else planned for my time off... oh that wedding of course! Silly 'ol me!

Was looking at buying the wedding rings today. Now being a guy who is devoid of personal jewellery I find it unusual that soon I'll be donning a ring. It’ll just seem weird. My dad never wore one. So that is also going to be something I’ll need to adjust to. Seeing a wedding ring that is. My brother, Wayne, has got tattoo’s, rings and piercing but I am the total opposite of him! So there’s no question there as to whether he’ll be wearing a wedding ring or not. Just a question out there to all the fellas reading this. Is it weird if a guy decides to decline wearing a ring? Or should I just get with the program and bow to tradition?

Washing Machines and Shower Tiles

Before I begin this little dilly I'd like to start by declaring that I fully am in gratitude to my parents for the wedding present they had delivered this week to us. Unfortunately the washing machine (weighing in at a 8kg load and costing $1999) has a problem. It won't cycle through it's cycle. It'll just agitate for hours and hours with no let up! The spin is simpy a far gone memory. So I'm waiting on Maytag (average phone manners I might add on their behalf) to come out tomorrow when they send their contractors (great phone manners on their behalf) to investigate the matter. <<SIGH>> Why can't things just work out of the box?

In other more embarrassing news... I've had a bit of an incident. Getting out of the bath tub appears to be a bit more of a chore now that I'm a slightly tubby bastard. As I was getting out of the bath I slipped slightly. In grabbing the shower glass frame I made a tile come out of the wall and now there's concrete and tiles bits with bolts hanging out of the wall. I didn't even push it much!

Talking about The Pain Starts Here

Good to see the O'ster make a start on getting his pics online. His gots loads and loads of Kodak moments just waiting to be shared with the millions! Make sure you get on over to Owie's site for more shenanigans than I could possibly dish up!

Quote

The Pain Starts Here

Hello World or as I say... OHHHHHHH YEAAAAAAH!

Welcome to the O ZONE….

This is the “OJ” man in action! On my new website. In the next few weeks you will see updates, photos of  OJ and friends as well as many other people and upcoming events. This is where it will all start where one day I will organise the “Worlds Biggest Bullrush” Stay glued for more!

So Many Changes

I'm now typing this out in the new unit and I gotta tell you that the move was worth it in the end. Bigger rooms, nicer kitchen and with all the new furniture we've been adding to the mix it's all looking like home sweet home. Also another new addition to the family has come about. A cat. We've named her Foo Foo (after Eddie Murphy's African Bush Bitch character, Umfoofoo, from Raw) and she's a nut of a cat. But unfortunately she is like that because she was mistreated by her former owners. So we're doing everything we can to get her tamed and hope she'll settle on down. She's a winner at hide-and-seek as she is always hard to track down when we get home. Behind desks, in cupboards, on top of cupboards, INSIDE desks! At least she'll be hard to spot by visitors!

Almost Ready

Well the move is almost here. Sitting in a room totally covered in boxes. Personally can't wait to get it over and done with. Can't find anything. Even having all these boxes here I know I haven't got half as many boxes packed as I should have. But this place is so small that I don't have enough room to pack. Lucky for us that we'll be dual renting as the lease period overlaps by about 10 days. That's 10 days of storage time!

Moving Blues

One of my biggest hates would have to be moving. I love getting to a new place with nicer this and bigger that. But the process itself would have to be in my top 5 hates. I'd rather go in for elective surgery than arrange and carry out a move.

What do I hate about it? Everything! Boxes all over the place. Packing up those boxes. Fing the boxes to pack the shit into. Not being able to find anything because... you guessed.... they're in those boxes... somewhere! Then you have to find a decent but fairly priced removalist. Hope that you can get one for the time you have off work. I have mentioned in a previous entry the hassles involved in just FINDING a place. Sydney is such a shite place to move about in real estate wise.

Real (Pain in the Butt) Estate Agents

I would just like to know one thing... how the heck do Real Estate agents keep organised enough to actually turn a profit. What I am getting at is my recent experience in Unit hunting. Renting that is. The amount of mix ups... miscommunication and blunders are incredible. What makes it even more incredible that these errors occur is the fact that all the technology in the world is available to them to avoid these blunders. Gizmo's like mobile Pocket PC's. Laptops and even more traditional PC's could break the communication. Yet I think it's more of a local cultural problem that is the major factor here. Aussies just accept bad customer service.

In Japan the Real Estate agents are not too busy eating lunch to even look at you when you talk to them. They actually will take you unit to unit till they find something you are happy with. No "You've got the place... umm... actually no you don't". These local real estate agents are the ones who in a couple years time are going to be trying to talk me into buying with their agents. I'm taking notes.

Busy Busy Boy

Gotta love my photo for today! That hair of mine just has a life of it's own in the mornings. Well it's actually afternoon! I've been flat out. I mean it! Flat out with all sorts of tasks. Updating my Indoor Cricket site with a totally new theme. I have made the Blackouthouse blacker! I love the new look and it seems the guys love it too.

I've also been busy setting up Xboxs for Halo frag sessions with my mates. If you haven't played a link up game of Halo with 2 Xboxs then ya gotta get it going! Anyone who thinks it's not worth doing are kidding themselves! Just wasn't happy about the fact a regular ethernet cable wouldn't do the trick. You have to buy the official cord. WHY? That's blatant extortion in my books. Not happy Bill! You're rich enough aren't you?

Buying cheap Net Mini Disc players. Seems every man in his dingo are buying iPods and so Sony Mini Disc players prices are dropping faster then Paris Hilton's panties! It's excellent finally being able to use the PC to edit track names and edit track positions with ease! Never was an easy task in the past!

I'm gonna be finally moving soon. Which means a computer room! No more sharing the same room with the TV. But this could cause trouble in the roost. Me and the other half chat while she watches TV and I piss around on the net. But with a seperate room could be a problem as we are in seperate rooms. To be continued...

OK... What Do I Ramble On About

So... just got home after a pretty average day at work. You know the type. Nothing special happened but nothing dire either. Just 6 hours of shuffling papers and headaches. All day at work I was thinking about this here... er... site. What do I do with it? I've already got another potential site in the making (www.angelfire.com/bc3/briancostelloe) which has a list of all my console games. You gotta check it out if the name Sonic the Hedgehog meant anything to you in the 90's!

I'm gonna check out some other blogs. Find out what gets people all worked up these days. In the mean time I should tell ya a site you should check. My www.blackouthouse.com site. It's my indoor cricket site, Blackout, who play at the Sportsworld centre at Peakhurst NSW Australia.