cold Canberra

Finally it looks like the cold weather is here in Canberra. It hasn't rained for over 2 months (and I don't really think the last time it rained was particularly heavy), its clear blue skies every day, but still, its bloody freezing. I ride my bike into ANU most days from Belconnen (or in the local bogan tongue .. "belco"), and the numbness factor seems to be increasing every morning. Its at its worst as I descend down the side of black mountain (the hill with Telstra Tower on top). Its now starting to hurt. My fingers are feeling it (maybe its time to get proper gloves.) The trees seem to have finally worked out its Autumn (in the last weeks), finally showing some Autumn colour. Apparently because April's average temp was greater than March's, the trees all thought Spring was here, and so some of them started to blossom. Its all a bit scary when you think about it. The climate really can play havoc on the life cycle of plants. The last few months of record breaking weather patterns, and the frequency of gloomy media reports on all of this seems like something out of those natural disaster movies. I am not predicting any kind of ice age in the next few months, but I reckon we had better face up to a few home truths. Things are a change'n!

thank god its today

All I can say is, thank god the Corby verdict is today ! The media coverage has been quite shameful. Channel 9 particularly ... the lowest point being their use of "the worm" (of election debate fame) to gauge public opinion of Schapelle's guilt. What a bloody circus this has turned out to be.

Many people are comparing the attention to that received by the Lindy Chamberlain case. In fact, Corby's defence may want to consider a similar line of defence .... a dingo put the dope in her bag .

everyones an expert ;)

it was inevitable when I set up the blog, I was going to do something that warranted being yelled at by those who have been doing this for years .. so anyway, now you can comment without needing to register ... and so now hopefully the world is at peace again :)

stepping into public life

It was inevitable that after quitting my full-time teaching position, and going back to being just a student, that I was going to find it hard to adjust to having time to spare. Ever since I started my Masters and job at Melbourne Uni, my life seemed to be endlessly busy with stuff, which I found quite stressfull at times. So, now I am trying to adjust to having lots more spare time... and the best way to adjust it seems, is to fill my life up again with endlessly busy stuff ... ahh that's better .. nice and stressed again :) However, the one big difference is that these are things I actually want to do, not things I feel obligated to do.

One extra curricula activity I am particularly happy about is that I have joined the ANU Postgrad representative Council. I am a general student representative, and a member of the social committee. I just helped organise my first social event, a beer tasting night which was great :) Some local distributor representatives came with a selection of Aussie and international beer. As the night progressed, I got into some deep discussion about home brewing with a representative from Coopers, and commended their choice of Paul Mecurio (of Strictly Ball Room fame) as the expert home brewer on their introductory video. I promised to bring a batch of the old C-Lager for the next beer tasting evening, pending the outcome of public liability negotiations :)

Anyway, its great to be doing something that contributes. I am hoping in the future to get more involved in some other (dare I say more political) aspects of the association, but for now its all about meeting people, and having a bit of fun. I am also helping re-design their web page, which currently looks like this.

eurovision

... well, like I said previously, it was inevitable that my next post would just dissapoint .. and what better way to do it than to talk about something like the 2005 Eurovision song test. Unlike this post however, the contest was certainly not dissapointing. The Euro-trash was out in force, and that's why we love it! Aff and I had a party (a bit of a house warming for our new Canberra home) and invited anyone we may have vaguely said more than 10 words to in the last few months, to join in the fun of Eurovision'05. Well, actually, Aff, who has been living in Canberra for over a year, knew some of these people a lot better than me.

Aff had managed to borrow a projector from her work, which allowed us to screen SBS's highest rating show of the year on our lounge room wall. 18 people ended up coming to watch, which was great. The performances were tragic, the MC'ing awkward, and the commentary from "that Irish guy", priceless.

Long live Eurovision!

This is my blog

So. This is my blog. If lots of people read it, does it become a blog-buster ?
It is one of those things you first heard your nerdiest friends were doing (Rob and Russ, I trust things are well by the way), and then slowly, more people you know, of backgrounds other than computer science, start doing the same thing. Well, to be honest, I know of only about six people with blogs, and most of them do come from a computer science background. I am not really anything special, because I am also a computer scientist... which really just makes me "the slow one". Anyway, I figure a blog is a good way for me to tell my stories, while not forcing people to feel guilty about not reading or really listening to them.

I'll save my news for the next few posts as I have successfully wasted most of this afternoon already. Like any good Neighbours episode, I'll leave you in suspense now ... and then most likely follow-up with something pathetic and dissapointing .... but you'll still keep watching !

A final thought ... if you're tired of writing in your blog, does that make you bloggered ?

To blog or not to blog

... it was never really a question.