Movember 2010 in Full Swing

It's now day 16 of the Movember effort and being my third year into this shenanigans I'm finding it easier to tolerate the 'tache and also a little easier to raise awareness of the Men's Health issues at stake here. Now in the past I've never really been one to give much to charity. Not through being selfish. Just that I've been pretty much finding myself struggling to just pay bills etc. But as I'm getting a little older and hopefully wiser I'm realise it's not just money that helps a cause. Simple education is sometimes all it takes to be of help. Education in this case via a fun and trivial effort such as growing a moustache is proving to be very effective. Even if I encourage just one guy to go and get himself checked out medically rather than putting it off means that I have done my job. It's amazing how many people I have had come up to me and laughing at my dire mo and ask "why you growing THAT THING?". What's even more incredible is the number of people who have not heard of Movember yet! If you're one of those people that have yet to hear about the Movember movement and the good work that they are doing for Beyond Blue and the Prostate Cancer Foundation then you need to head to www.movember.com and get it started in your part of the world next time November hits.

On a personal note, the first year I donned the Mo for the movement I first did it just for the novelty of growing the Moustache. But in the following months after that November finished I noticed a bulge developing in my stomach. So what did I do about it? I did what any normal guy does... I ignored it. I put off going to the doctor. Why? I don't know. Laziness most likely. I hate waiting rooms. You go there to... well... wait! But eventually it got too noticeable and I decided I had my back to the wall and HAD to go. I then found out that I had a hernia. A bad one. TRIPLE! I had gotten it playing Indoor Cricket going for a catch. It's funny how when you hear about bad news regarding your body and you suddenly just KNOW how you got it. I remembered going after a diving catch (yes I held onto it!) and after coming down after the leap feeling somewhat uncomfortable.

Fast forward to now and I'm all healed up and jumping and leaping again. So all you guys out there. Don't be scared of the doctors waiting room. Bring a Nintendo DS or something to make it pass by quickly. But just don't put it off! And if you see a chap on the street during Movember with a less then perfect Moustache throw him a tenner. It'll be going to a good cause! Or head to my Movember page and throw the tenner my way! As I type this I have $119 raised and quite frankly would like to see that figure go much much further north!

Word Press Bites The Big One

Just recently everyone who had a Microsoft Live blogging site was asked oh so politely to vacate the premises. The party's over. Microsoft have a history of doing this. So much so that I no longer even get angry if a program or service that they provide gets axed and I was a fan of it. Xbox Live for Xbox (1), Microsoft Money, Microsoft Picture It, BOB... OK... BOB had to be aborted but in hindsight.... BOB was not such a bad idea. Just poorly executed.

Back to the topic at hand though. I figured that maybe with this terminal stop by Microsoft that Word Press would try to do as much a humanly possible to make the landing into a new blogging site as smooth as possible. Not so. The feeling I got when I seen my blog in this new home was that of being stopped off in some form of vast barren wasteland! All my themes, GONE! All my widgets, GONE! The themes they had on offer were so... so... 1990's! Yuck!

So it was soon a mission to get my long running, totally uninteresting to anyone else but to yours truly blog to a nicer home. Blogger! I've had a good experience with Blogger with my indoor cricket site. It handles new entries with ease. There's a great range (although more would be nicer) of themes to choose from. Having multiple bloggers is also not a hassle.

So what I want to know is... why does everyone rave so hard about Word Press? I found it to be a immensely dull site with little offered in the way of innovative. Kinda like Yahoo. They were once a power house in innovation and offering cool new features. But then they just kinda put their feet up and pat themselves on the back and said "we've made it". Google at least are releasing new stuff all the time. Although Google reminds me of a child with attention span issues! LOL

So after being booted out by Microsoft I have found a nice new home with Blogger with my old entries. Anyone wanting to get out of Word Press to move to Blogger just remember that you can do it. Just Google your heart out on the issue. There are apps out there that goes through your entries. Turns it into one big dirty file and then you simply use Bloggers Import feature. Good luck!

Mee Mee

 

For the past few years the question of getting another cat has been raised on and off many times. We were scared of the extra burden it would have on us in resources. Space, time and money. Kittens do cost a lot in many ways you don’t imagine. But a post on Facebook from an old work mate got me ignoring all that and now we have an addition to the family. Introducing Mee Mee!

 

So far we’ve been having problems with getting Foo Foo to accept Mee Mee. She hisses at her and basically is anything but nice to her. But we half expected this. Foo Foo has had a troubled up bringing and is generally a non trusting cat. Suspicous of everyone and anything! But she still has her moments!

Mee Mee is the complete opposite of Foo Foo. A very happy cat with loads of energy. I’ve been having trouble keeping up with her. So far (and it’s only day three!) she’s broken my Xbox 360 headset cord. Chewed clean through it! She’s a pretty little thing. Part Persian with little white whiskas and white eye brow whiskas to boot.

LiveJournal Tags: Mee Mee,Cat,Pet,Jannali,2010

Blackouthouse Homepage Update

New major updates have been now made to the homepage. Added are:

- Time Till countdown for next game
- Scrolling java script news feed which now shows images from the team blog
- New improved youtube feed box
- Cruiser font (yes I found the team font!!!)
- Time widget... I figured you lot don't have watches!

Check out the new look site now and come back here to leave remarks!

Shoulda, Coulda, Woulda

Blackout fronted up to the court last night with a very undermanned line up of five. But just as we were to hit the nets one of the five got called away in an emergency leaving us with half a team! Luckily the guys at Hooters are such a sporting bunch that they lent us two of their own players, leaving them one short themselves. This proved to even things up immensely. So with that out of the way Blackout were sent into bat first.

Brett & Mick were in first and after a couple of hiccups involving a run out and being bowled out they finally went on to make 26 valuable runs. Mark and Brian were sent out next and we managed to rack up a respectable 36 runs with no wickets falling. The two borrowed players went out to score 21 runs with a loss of three wickets. Bart was asked to stay on to bat again and the Hooters called on Brian to come out and face the music one more time. With the last pair we score 19 runs. So all up a pretty solid performance just managing to sneak over the century with 102 runs.

Fielding was tough. Holes in the field meant we were stretched to save any runs off the net. It wasn’t until Grumpy’s bowler, Peter C, we struck with two quick wickets but it was too late to win the skin. Their second pair smashed us but in all fairness it was our extras that killed us as all up in that partnership we gave up 28 runs as the majority of no balls and wides were in the Power Play overs. Richo reappeared at this point and it seemed that having that extra player on field had an immediate effect. Richo was unlucky not to get a hat trick and everyone else had a good result with their overs from here on. So we managed to win the last two skins. A special mention here goes to Mick who despite blowing his first over (19 runs off that Power Play over) he composed himself to comeback and had minus 10 to reward his blitz attack.

In the last over we were so close to winning the match it hurt. We only needed two wickets to win as we were defending 102 and they were on 107 at this point. However it wasn’t meant to be as they walked on with 14 runs off the last over to seal the match. This leaves us with only a few rounds left to keep onto our third place on the ladder and next week’s bash against the Spartans will need a full squad if we are to have any chance.

Windows 7 Installed!

Thanks to a friend who didn't want to mess around installing Windows 7 on her new laptop I now have a copy of Windows 7. Well the upgrade only. The draw back is that I can only install the 32 bit version and not go to the 64 bit version. I love how Microsoft squeeze every last penny out of you! So what's it like? Well for the most part it's pretty much the same as Vista appearance wise. But there are some minor changes which I am sure a thousand bloggers out there have written about in painfully minute detail. So considering that I am tired and need sleep I will just write for now about the installation. It was SO BLOODY LONG! I started this effort around midnight and was watching the screen not change much for three hours before I packed it in and hit the hay! It seemed to not require me at all except at the very start when I first attempted to install it was checking compatibility. It took 10 minutes before it decided that it was gonna need a re-boot before giving installation a crack! But I woke in the morning to find it asking for the Product Key to which I gladly oblidged. Then it awoke... looking pretty much like Vista but instead of a sidebar it simply throws the gadgets you had on the sidebar to the side of the screen as Windows 7 has foregone the sidebar.

 

So what do I think about Windows 7? Too early to tell. It seems lightning quick but I'll write more soon on this once I've done a few laps with it!

Windows 7 Release Cock Up

Microsoft never cease to amaze me. They succeed and progress in so many ways. Yet the more that things move forward the more it remains the same. Microsoft’s recent launch of Windows 7 was almost looking like it was going without a hitch. This was, after all, the OS that was to make or break their reputation if not their bank accounts. The idea to make their Release Candidate openly available to the ever hungry public was a terrific idea. Showing to the world that MS are a much more open company than Apple have been. Cynics may say that this was merely to test out their bugs on the bleeding edge market. They’d probably be right. But at least this gives the product a chance to be ventured out into the limited wild world of the ardent geeks out their who can go through any pains of error messages and failures before MR and MRS “I only check email” get to the OS. But this is another topic for another blog. Also the reviews coming back from the preview of their saviour OS was that this was pretty much Microsoft’s apology for Vista. Runs as simple as XP but with the bells and whistles of Vista. So Microsoft got the product right. All boxes ticked and even the biggest Microsoft haters had to agree that this was a good thing from Redmond’s biggest asset. But on marketing the goods… Microsoft… you’ve really dropped the ball big time! Here’s a snippet from www.cnet.com.au to highlight what I am talking about:

http://apcmag.com/windows-7-family-pack-for-australia-is-a-possibility-concedes-microsoft.htm

During the lead up to launch I kept hunting for someone to be able to give me a straight YES or NO on the question “can you install a single copy of Windows 7 on multiple PC’s?”. I mean it’s not the 80’s anymore. We don’t just have the single PC in the study these days in most homes. You’ve got the study alright but now there’s the laptop, netbook, kitchen PC and soon most folks will just get a PC to handle the main living room’s LCD (or LED) TV. But the answer is a complicated NO… unless you purchase a special pack of Windows 7. What’s so complicated about that? It’s not available OUTSIDE OF THE US. Fer fecks sakes! Windows 7 Family Pack allows the lucky owner to install Windows 7 Home Premium onto three PC’s in the house. Sounds great right? Especially when you see that it’s only US$149 as opposed to the US$129 single pack price. However MS Australia are hinting onto a big surprise to hit during November. Not sure what exactly this may entail but I’m hoping that this will be the Family Pack launch in Australia that is so much needed. Seems silly to me that considering MS are beating their chests about Window 7’s Home Networking capabilities are a major selling point that they wouldn’t have simply released this on day one as a big IN YOUR FACE to Apple. But if you’ve only got enough dosh to splash out on just one copy… WHAT’s THE BLOODY POINT?

LiveJournal Tags: Windows,Windows 7,Microsoft,Australia,Australian Market,OS,product,launch,2009,Windows 7 Home Premium Family Pack,Family Pack