Well That shafted the long weekend...

Sataurday night, while busy watching Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows pt1 on Bluray  on the PS3 it just froze and locked up.  Turning it off and on again I discovered that it wouldn't play read ANY disk.  (also the disk comes out the way it goes in so I'm assuming a dead motor)


The old 80gig fat PS3 is over two years old and out of warranty so sending to Sony for fixing at about AU$200-300 is clearly not that hot an option when a new 160gb PS3 is AU$409

also I have a much deader Japanese 60gig (the GPU crapped out on me)

so Sending the 80gig fat to sony is gonna cost a lot and be gone for 2-3 weeks   I have a dead PS3 with a knackered GPU and a dead PS3 with a knackered BD Drive.

My decision was to trade in all the game stuff I simply have not touched in months if not years, and get a new PS3 160gb Slim.

Doing this means I get a brand new machine with a bigger HD and cooler cheeper to run innards.  Unlike the repair or replace options from Sony where you are likely to loose the data on your HD, I get to use the data transfer option to basically clone my old machine onto the new one (including all copy restricted save games and data)

then..   once the new one is up and running with all my accounts games and data I get to attempt to swap the BD from the Japanese unit into the 80gb Pal unit to get a working Full Fat 80gb that I can then sell on to off set the cost of the new one..

As it goes I dumped a lot of games and the Wii and netted a surprising $566 from EB games (your games are worth 50% more if you trade more then 8 at a time. So the new PS3 ($409) is already paid for and the the stuff I sold I won't miss. so sunday arvo I came home with a shiny new PS3 and a lot of shelf space. (good riddance to JD Hero)   I'm still debating wether it was an expensive or cheap day...

BTW.. DO NOT trade your games at Games Traders.  For the same stuff that EB gave me $566 for they offered ~$140.   seriously DO NOT trade at Games Traders.

Anyway. I hook both PS3s up to the Tv and start prepping them for data transfer. but then I discover that PSN is down..  

I need PSN to A: deactivate the accounts on the old ps3 and then reacivate them on the new one...  So yay! Screwed.

Well it's official. I am not an F1 car....

Just took a stroll round the F1 track while my Baked spud cooks in the oven (large White spud, scored deep in a diagonal grid sprayed with cranola oil and sprinkled with Maldon Rock Salt and mixed dried herbs, to bake for at least 90mins)

Took me 56 mins to do the full 5.3pm track distance. That's a brisk walk not running I must hasten to add. So I guess it's is official that I am not as fast as an F1 car.. :<. Yet another dream shattered.

On the subject of the F1. I'm currently in the Elephant & Wheelbarrow for a post race (walk) pot and have noticed that the two tables nearest the fire have been replaced by a three seated sofa and coffee table. I have got to figure out how to book that for each F1 race (after Albert Park that is)...

APPLE HO!!

OMG I'm such an apple whore now....

iPad (1st gen), iPhone 4, Apple TV (snd Gen), and now an iMac !!!.  For years I've been anti-apple (their users to me seemed like so much sheep)  but I caved and picked up the iPad on launch and that was the start of the long slide into being a Jobsian sycophant. the reason I got the pad was it genuinely seemed new and fresh - the first of its kind - anf thusly i would be leading not following...  

ANYWAY I absolutely love the iPad. It has become the indispensable constant in my electronic life.  10 hour battery means the internet, and thus EVERYTHING, is always to hand.  So when my Phone contract came to an end I jonesed for an iPhone.  would have picked up an 3GS but for the fact My Visa was nearly up no one was interested in giving me a new contract...   So I waited.  Then, on the day I got the notification that im here for another 4 years (:D) i rushed out and got the just released iPhone 4...

Ok last little bit (don't want to bore you too much) finally got fed up of the old and forever busted PC clogging up my desk and the faultily laptop (both windows machines) I recently decided to make the switch. I was gonna buy a mac.  They are better built and if the pad and the phone are anything to go by then it's gonna be a joy to use.  Also is has systems built into it to easily facilitate setting up a dual boot so that you can have your cake and eat it...  (need to get a back up HD for the mac before I attempt that though)

Looking forward to Karaoke on Wednesday. Im in the final to win 2 four day tickets to the F1 :D  which I'm going to weather I win or not :)   After all I can SEE the track from the end of my driveway.  Just got to decide what I want to sing...  

I've got a few new songs I want to learn.. Copperhead road, Days(Kirstry), Break on through, Place your hands, Tears in Heaven, The Scientist, Dakota...  Im tempted by Place your hands.  It's a good crowd pleaser.

Technology hates me!

Ive had one of those days.

I over slept, got in late, then EVERYTHING whent wrong.

Actually everything went wrong on the ass end of Friday just prior to Beer O'Clock and the team meeting... So as the build no longer wanted to work (was bitching about not being able to 'clobber' cirtain files... ) so I took it as a hint and quit for the week..

It was the weekend, I'm allowed, get off my case!!!!!

But that just ment all that shit was waiting for me this morning... Finally all got P4 to get the right files and re- et their properties so I could get a clean build. But then the level I was working on would crash, just after loading, or NED (in house tool) would bug out on export...

For HOURS I went round and round, and up and down, trying to figure out what was wrong. Got a fresh build 4 times in one day (and I'm not even in QA!!!) but nothing helped...


Then I figured out I had forgotten a single vital step in the process from max to in game for a breakable physics object. That was I had forgotten to set the TXS(in house model format) to extended-skinned. DOH!!!!!!

Anyway, that sorted it all worked fine. But that was a day I could have afforded not to waste...

@40 it's probably time to start looking. After my self a bit..

I recently had a run in with a bout of flu that knocked me sideways for a few days, but that was just the tip of what seems to be a never ending dribble of colds and sniffles that constantly beset me.

It's no secret that I live a fairly sedentary life and the long walks once a month, not even I can claim them to be 'exercise' at least not in the sence of being regular. So when my house mate Dan said "maybe if you looked after yourself better you might not pick up every stray bug you run across?". And you know what? He's right. I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired. Also at 40 as I am now aim loosing the vigour of youth and their ability to burn the candle at both ends and suck it up. I simply can't stay up till 2am and then up again for work in the morning and not feel the effects..

And my old scales crapped out on me. This was after my latest run in with flu (i always shed weight with the flu)and switching to coke zero instead of sprite (200cal/serve. Down to less then 1cal/serve) and swapping out cider for vodka and diet coke (200 down to 58) and watching what I eat. So I had been expecting a drop in weight so I was not surprised to see me down to 14st from 15. But in the next few days I dropped to 13 then 12.5!!! Ok that is either medically worrying weight loss or the scales have given up on me. As I truly didn't feel that much lighter I was inclined to believe it was time to buy a new set of scales...

And I was right. The old scales were still resolutely lying to me at12.5st where as the new digital ones had me at 15st bang on.. One worrying not is that maybe the old scales accurately portrayed my weight loss but were inaccurate in what my weight was. This means I could have been 16-17st and not known it.

Either way I trust the new scales but they also come with a BMI (fat) reading and a hydration reading (it mesures the your conductivity). @15st my BMI was 28.7 which is on the wrong side of the obese line... Today my weight was reported as 14.11st which gave my a BMI of 27.7, or in other words I am officially 'overweight' and not 'obese'. Whoo!

I'm now off to buy a biycicle. Hopefully more exercise will be heading my way in the not too distant.

So what's all this then?

I don't like religion. No, it's true, I seriously don't.

You may think it's because of all the crazy bomb wielding maniacs out there (or so we are told), and yes that Is a reason to not like religion, but it is not mine.

My biggest beef with religion is that it is, by any meaningful definition of the word, simply not true. It is myth and legend, off the wall crack-pottery wrapped up in horrific moral turpitude and oft misogynistic social control. And I'm not just talking Christianity here. No I mean the whole drop-dead crazy, put the money in the collection tin on your way out circus of religious wing-battery. All of them. Every last one!

And what's worse is that there are many, many millions of otherwise rational people who accept all this crazy without batting an eyelid. They take it in their stride, and without the slightest trace of irony or questioning hold it all as absolute truth.

These people will look at the claims of rival religions and scoff, laughing these competing theologies off the page as ridiculous, patently false, and yet absolutely fail to understand how someone could ever paint their religion with the same brush. This is even more tragically hilarious when members of the big three monotheistic religions deride each-other's beliefs when it is abundantly clear they are worshiping the same god!.

It is the insidious way religions go out of their way to promote ignorance and rejection of demonstrable fact in favour of their oft re-hashed and warmed-over bronze age mythology reengineered as social engineering.

There is little surprise as education levels decrease in the USA that the religiosity of that nation grows. Ignorance and poor education and the quelling of inquisitive minds go hand in hand with the propagation of misinformation, propaganda and the flat out lies that is religion.

It is that religions teach their adherents that ignorance, rather than something to recognise and correct, is something to be cherished and lauded, that it is virtuous!

And those are just some of the reasons I dont like religion.