Men are Like…

Don't Call Us…

Ah, its a dream come true... or is it? After years of complaints about telemarketing, the Federal Government has finally established a national 'Do Not Call' Register which allows phone subscribers to add their number to a list of banned numbers for telemarketers. If anyone does make a telemarketing call to you, and your number is on the list, they face fines of up to $1 million. But the service went up - and straight back down. It was swamped by people wanting to register, and crashed (see Do Not Call list swamped).

Telemarketers are just plain rude. Sure, we all acknowledge that the best time to catch you is at home in the evening, but does that really give them the right to ring you at 1:00 am? Or to ring back the very next week when you told them you weren't interested? And what about your instructions to them to remove your number from their list and never call again - why is it none of these companies will, on moral grounds alone, obey this simple request?

It's about time that a register like this existed. There already were a few, in fact, like the one run by ADMA, the Australian Direct Marketing Association, but they were voluntary and didn't have the legislative teeth that this new, government-run Register, has. Unfortunately, its not all as sweet as it appears. For starters, how will the Australian Government be able to fine overseas telemarketers, since they are subject to the laws of the country they are calling from, not ours? And secondly, the Do Not Call Register makes exemptions for political parties and their members, religious organisations, charities, polling companies and educational institutions. Between them, those groups would make up 75% of the nuisance calls anyway. So although its a step in the right direction, its certainly not what it should be. My phone is my own private line to the world, and no-one should be allowed to call it if I choose not to let them. That includes pollsters, pollies, and beggars. I pay the rental on it, so why should someone else benefit from my expenditure without my permission?

Put your phone number of the Do Not Call Register

42 Million Ways to Waste Money

42, as we know, is the answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything, but the big problem has always been - "but what is the question?" The Australian Government is about to spend $42 million on upgrading its website to allow users to create their own personal accounts and be able to log into them (see Feds to Spend $42m on website). It's an incredible amount of money, especially in an election year where the whole country's future hangs in a delicate balance. Big spending and overspending by governments is nothing new, but the sheer scale of this plan has me in awe.

For a start, let's get down to the basics - anyone with half a brain, PHP MyAdmin and a completely free webpage design program like iWeb can design and put online a website with personalised accounts. Add a couple of hundred dollars for web hosting and you've got everything the government just announced, for less than $1,000, including the time it took to do. That's $41,999,000 under-budget, and that's designing a site from scratch, not upgrading an existing one.

Let's look at the sort of hardware that kind of money could buy. For $42 million, you could buy:
93,541 500Gb hard drives.
352,941 ipod Nano's.
4,242,4242 music tracks from legalsounds.com.
28,000 top of the line PC's.
3,112 brand new Toyota Yaris cars.

You can never expect to get best value out of the tax you pay, but paying $42,000,000 for a job that should only cost $1,000? C'mon, Australia, and especially our politicians - WAKE UP.

On Evil

Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? Evil prevails when good men fail to act. It has been made abundantly clear to me in recent times that the better the appearance of the man, the more evil he likely is. For a certain time of my life I daily hung out with druggies, thieves, alcoholics and whores; and never did one of them (nor I at the time, for I was one of them) consider what they did evil. The burglar setting out on a job was convinced in his heart that what he did was right, for no-one would be harmed, insurance would pay anyway, and it was only his right and just due for all the disadvantages that life had dealt him, though he would admit perhaps to being biased in his opinion. Reflecting back on that time, and seeing the events of recent weeks, I am caused to admit that some of the most worldly, rough and uncaring people in the world, were better men than some who stand upright and claim Christian virtue. When the unChristians are more honest than the Christians, we have cause to re-examine our whole world view.

Join the Army and Terrorize the World

Concerns have been raised over the mental health of soldiers serving in Australia's Armed Forces, with allegations that victims of post-traumatic stress syndrome are victimised, and that adequate counselling etc aren't available (read the ABC transcript). I've been hearing stories of psycho soldiers all my life, and certainly you can't even say the word "Vietnam" without the mental problems of veterans being raised next. Well pardon me if you disagree (as many of you will), but it all seems to me to be pointing out the bleeding obvious. You would have to be mentally unstable to the point of being insane to join the Armed Forces in the first place. Sure, all the advertising on tele makes it sound like you're signing up for the valuable leadership training, to discover your inner strengths, to learn new technology and be at the cutting edge of science, but the basic fact is that a soldier's job, fundamentally, is to commit murder, and to do it for no other reason than because someone else told you to. You train to kill people, and all the window dressing in every PR department doesn't change that simple fact. So before we go making too many accusations about the Army not providing counselling to its soldiers when they crack up, we should look at the simple fact that they weren't entirely sane when they joined up, either. Apparently though, the sort of violence and sadism which passes for "following orders" is excusable when you wear a uniform and get paid to murder people, whereas the psychotics in the general population, like the lunatic who gouged out his girlfriend's eye with a cattle prod or the sicko who tortured a 74 year old woman in her own home are condemned. He who lives by the sword, dies by the sword. Next time that ex-SAS veteran of Afghanistan and Iraq in the ABC story has a traumatic attack, he should stop and think of how many of his victims are suffering the same thing as a result of his actions.

Scotty Finally Beamed Up

James Doohan, Star Trek's "Scotty", has finally made it to space for real. He died in 2005 aged 85, but this week his ashes, along with those of Mercury astronaut Gordon Cooper and about 200 others, were launched into space from Spaceport America, a commercial spaceport, which charged US$495 per... er... ex-person. Star Trek Creator Gene Rodenberry had his ashed launched into space in 1997.

Perhaps at this point its worth stopping and considering how much of the science fiction and fantasy that Star Trek showed, has actually become real in the 35 years or so since the show was first envisaged. Yesterday I downloaded the latest episode of a TV show from a world-wide computer network, transferred it to my pocket-size ipod device, and watched it on the bus on the way into town, pausing only to answer my cell phone (half the size of Kirk's communicator). When I bored of that, I listened to a few of the 8,000 music tracks on the device. I watched the show through a disposable plastic lens in my eye which corrects my poor vision, and when I got home I heated food in 2 minutes in a microwave, a device unthought of in original Star Trek time, and brushed my teeth with a motorized toothbrush. Then I turned on the wall-size-image video projector and watched the News that had been on half an hour earlier, and skimmed the entire world's News headlines on the computer on my desk (which has 80,000 times more storage than the entire State Education Department computer system had when I was at school), where I noticed a story about Scotty's ashes and commercial spaceports trying to out-compete each other for customers. Because I was moved by the story, I wrote a few paragraphs about it and seconds later, anyone anywhere in the world could read my comments.

When you've got an hour or two to spare, go and watch some of those early Star Trek episodes. Remember that most of what you see on the show was intended to show the amazing things of the future, even though they look laughably ancient to us now. See for yourself just how lucky we are, to live when we live.

Triage Time

tri·age (noun) - the process of sorting victims, as of a battle or disaster, to determine medical priority in order to increase the number of survivors (dictionary.com)

Australia is going through its worst drought ever. Nothing new in that, people have been saying "this is the worst drought ever" since we first settled on this continent. But in the last couple of weeks, we've seen pictures of the Murray-Darling basin, which provides 40% of all food production in this country, that look like photos of the Simpson Desert. We've seen photos of 100 metre high dams with 10 km long dry lake beds behind them, where once were trillions of litres of water. And now we're actually beginning to evacuate entire towns because there isn't any water to drink, and it can't even be trucked in. Last week our Prime Minister said that if the basin didn't get rain in the next couple of weeks, all of the available water we do have would have to be diverted to the cities on the eastern side of the Great Dividing Range, to ensure the survival of people there. That's a triage situation if ever I saw one. With no water at all for irrigation, the farms, towns and industries on the west side of the Range might never be re-established after just one season without water. And cutting off 40% of Australia's production might save the maximum number of people in the short term, but food prices would skyrocket, and the economy would be in tatters with the increased ratios of imported necessities.

It doesn't paint a very nice picture for the future, and there isn't much man can actually do when compared to the awesome whims of nature. All our Prime Minister, Mr Howard, could suggest was that people pray for rain. Australia's politicians usually avoid all mention of religion, in public at least, so Mr Howard calling for prayer shows the seriousness of the situation more than a thousand photos could.

That was a week ago, and after years of drought, its now raining. Not heavily, to be sure - perhaps enough to make a difference to one of the worst crises Australia has ever faced, or perhaps not. But either way, Christian or atheist, you have to wonder about the power of prayer when you see that rain.

Read the whole story at economist.com:
The Big Dry - Australia's Water Shortage

Fruity Flies

Oh dear, fruit flies have been found in Tasmania. The larvae was found in fruit bought from a Hobart supermarket this week - it appears a shipment of fruit intended for Queensland was accidently sent to Tasmania after a mix-up at a vegetable market in New South Wales. Tasmania has maintained a massively complicated quarantine system for decades in order to keep the fruit fly out of the State, even to the point of regularly seaching people and vehicles on the interstate ferries and airlines. Because, the authorities say, it would absolutely destroy our fruit industries if they ever got in. Except it obviously hasn't destroyed the fruit industries in NSW, because that's where the shipment of fruit came from, and QLD wasn't worried about it, because that's where the fruit was supposed to go. Fruit flies haven't destroyed their industries, but they would destroy ours somehow.

I well remember science class at High School. We did experiments with ether and... fruit flies. We knocked the little mongrels out, examined them under the microscope, and tossed them out the window whenever the science teacher's back was turned. I reckon every science class in the State did the same thing, but somehow we never managed to wipe out the Tasmanian fruit industry despite our best efforts. Of course, that was then, when Kids Were Kids, and this is now, when Kids Are Young Persons With Unique And Valuable Skills And Assets Which Can Enrich The Wider Community Including People of Diversified Ethnic Backgrounds And Those With Differing Abilities. Whatever way you look at it, one crate of apples with a couple of fruit flies in it isn't anything to panic about, unless there's government money in panicking. In that case, like the so-called fox epidemic, it's "goodbye common sense and keep those cheques coming."

The Wrong Flag

Australia is often described as the 51st state of the US, because so many of our habits, and our standard of living, are similar, and because our Politicians generally do exactly what the US tells them to. Much of our TV is US-made, but you notice one thing in almost every program which we here in Australia should learn from. The Yanks show their flag constantly. It hangs from businesses, ordinary homes have flagpoles in their front yard, its everywhere. 'Old Glory' is an affirmation of their pride about being American, and a constant reminder of their patriotism. At the risk of adding one more piece of American culture to our own, I suggest that we Australians should take a leaf from their book in this regard, and show the flag more often. We DO show the flag on special occasions and sporting events, but I'm suggesting that, like Americans, we should show it more, personally.

Anzac Day yesterday was awash in Aussie flags, of course, as is every war memorial occasion. Its just a pity it was the wrong flag. At the time of the Anzacs and Gallipoli, the flag we went to war under was the red ensign shown here. If you're going to commemorate an historical event, how about doing it accurately? We already celebrate Christmas as the birth of Christ (who was born somewhere nearer the middle of the year), and Easter as his death (it was his resurrection). Perhaps in 50 years we'll use roses for Remembrance Day because poppies are controlled plants now. Perhaps in remembering Auschwitz we will mourn for all those Muslims who lost their lives there, because the Jews now all live in New York. Perhaps we'll move Australia Day to April 1st, and we'll have a giant white rabbit in Anzac uniform driving a sleigh and handing presents out to Moms and Dads only, so that we can roll all our mistaken holidays into one.

There is only one thing worse than being ignorant of our history, and that is thinking you know it. As Mark Twain said, "It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so.”

Australia's Forgotten Flag - The Red Ensign

Anzac Day 2007

The Anzac tradition - the ideals of courage, endurance and mateship that are still relevant today was established on 25 April 1915 when the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps landed on the Gallipoli Peninsula. It was the start of a campaign that lasted eight months and resulted in some 25,000 Australian casualties, including 8,700 who were killed or died of wounds or disease. The men who served on the Gallipoli Peninsula created a legend, adding the word ‘Anzac’ to the Australian and New Zealand vocabularies and creating the notion of the Anzac spirit.

In 1916, the first anniversary of the landing was observed in Australia, New Zealand and England and by troops in Egypt. That year, 25 April was officially named ‘Anzac Day’ by the Acting Prime Minister, George Pearce. By the 1920s, Anzac Day ceremonies were held throughout Australia. All States had designated Anzac Day as a public holiday. Commemoration of Anzac Day continued throughout the 1930s and 1940s with World War II veterans joining parades around the country. In the ensuing decades returned servicemen and women from the conflicts in Malaya, Indonesia, Korea and Vietnam, veterans from allied countries and peacekeepers joined the parades.

Anzac Day Official Site
Educational Resources
Frequently Asked Questions
Audio Downloads
Anzac Day entry on Wikipedia

Inglish as She is Goodly Spoken

You may laugh at the title, but today's heading is actually the name of a real book. We often laugh at foreign languages, like the French swear-phrase "Sacre blu", which literally means... as you might guess... 'sacred blue'. Why 'sacred blue' should be their equivalent of English's 'f^%@!' is anyone's guess. And what about foreigners trying their best to write signs in English using only a Local-Language to English dictionary, and some of the hilarious signs which result? See engrish.com for heaps of examples. But when its all said and done, you can't really blame them for having trouble. These are just some of the reasons why English is so hard to learn:

The bandage was wound around the wound.
The farm was used to produce produce.
The dump was so full it had to refuse more refuse.
There is no time like the present, so he thought he would present the present.
When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.
He did not object to the object.
The insurance was invalid for the invalid.
The oarsmen had a row about how to row.
He was too close to the door to close it.
A stag does strange things when the does are present.
After a number of injections my jaw became number.
The artist saw a tear in his painting and shed a tear.
She had to subject the subject to a series of tests.
An army chef decided to desert his dessert in the desert.

And of course, there are no eggs in an eggplant, and no apple or pine in pineapple. Quicksand works slowly, boxing rings are square, Guinea pigs are neither from Guinea nor are they pigs. Writers write but fingers don't fing. A slim chance and a fat chance are the same thing, so are quite a lot and quite a few. But overlook and oversee are very different. You fill in a form to fill it out, an alarm goes off by going on, when the stars are out you see their light but when the lights are out you see nothing. And why do you wind up a watch to start it, but wind up a story to finish it? Why is a parcel that goes by car called shipment, and one by ship called cargo? And why do you drive on the parkway, but park in the driveway?

One Fine Day in the Middle of the Night

A man came up to me in the street today and pointed a key at me. I said "Don't start anything, mate". "What's it to you?", he demanded. "It's a two-letter word to me", I said, looking daggers at him. He dodged the daggers and snarled "You wanna make something of it!?" "Can't make much out of it", I said, "except maybe ti, and that doesn't make sense anyway." "No", he replied, "besides there aren't enough letters in that to make sense". "This is stupid", I said. "No", he replied, "THIS is stupid", holding up a piece of paper with the word stupid on it, "but I see your point." "Sorry", I exclaimed, and did my loose fly back up. "Right then", he said, "I'm off", so he went off to the right, while I left to the left. Unfortunately his right was my left and we ended up back where we started from. Some days you just can't win.

The post-title comes from that old poem: One fine day in the middle of the night, two dead men got up to fight. Back to back they faced each other, drew their swords and shot each other. A paralyzed donkey passing by kicked a blind man in his good eye, cracked his head on a rubber wall, fell into a dry ditch and drowned them all.

And let's not forget that creepy ghost-story: The other day upon the stair, I saw a man who wasn't there. He wasn't there again today! Oh how I wish he'd go away!

And Now, Good News!

No news is good news, they say. And certainly a look at world news today indicates that it must have been a very good day indeed. The authorities have called off the search for the crew of a catamaran near Queensland. Or to put it another way, they're not looking for some people who weren't on a boat that wasn't where it should be. Kevin Rudd, Opposition Leader, is not releasing any information about IR. And there's a possibility that the bodies of two young women, found close to where two young women went missing last week, could be them. Mufti is still defiant, just like he was yesterday. Victoria's health chief has said the source of a salmonella outbreak at a Melbourne nursing home may never be found. Islamic prison gangs may be cracked down upon, because it is feared they might be forming gangs behind bars. There could be no irrigation water for farmers in the Murray-Darling basin if rain doesn't fall. Queensland's borders will remain open, says Deputy Premier Anna Bligh. And the first blind pilot to fly half way around the world hasn't arrived yet in Darwin.

Does anyone else notice a trend here, to report News that isn't actually based on anything happening, but on things that didn't happen, might happen, or won't happen? These weren't stories specifically chosen from a larger list to illustrate my point - the above are genuinely the first 9 stories in Google News (Australia) today. When did the media decide that there wasn't enough actually happening in the world, and start to report on anything they liked, whether it happened or not? From a young age I was taught that the essence of writing a report was to know Who, What, Why, Where, When and How. Nowadays, it must be Nevermind, Perhaps, Anyway, Maybe and Whatever.

The Beamer Breathes - Just

Not a lot of chance to blog anything today because Kierran has been hogging the computer all day playing Runescape, but it did give me the opportunity (or perhaps 'push') to get outside into natural light for a change, and I opened up the BMW for the first time in 3 years. She's been sitting under a tree, was covered an inch thick in leaves, twigs, etc, and I wasn't sure whether to be more worried about the 1 foot huntsman spider dropping down the back of my neck, or the snake living underneath. Luckily neither showed. She was dead as a doornail, of course, but when I jumped it from the ute the motor turned over and the status panel shows green on all systems. Things didn't go quite so well when I took the battery out, though, and put the ute's in - I had sparks everywhere as I attached the neg lead, and smoke started curling up from below. A lot of twigs and debris had made their way into the engine bay, so it may have just been them catching fire, or it might be a serious short somewhere from corrosion of the electrical system. Either way, I high-pressure hosed out the entire engine bay and put the original battery on charge; with so much moisture in there it will be a week before I can give her another try anyway. But it says a lot about Germans engineering, I guess, that I had no doubt in my mind at all that if I had a charged battery, she'd start straight away, even after 3 years of being left to the elements.

The East Side of Town

Pardoe Downs, Ravenswood, Bridgewater - every city in the world has an Eastside. The part of town where the lower classes live, the dole bludgers, unemployed, single mothers, druggies, slums and no-hopers. In almost every city in the world, these people live on the east side of the town, for one simple reason - in general, thats the way the wind blows, so all the smog and pollution drifts that way. These are the areas where everyone is on the lawn bitching at their neighbours, all the lawns are 2 feet high, and the marijuana, beer and cigarettes are bought before the rent is paid. Two kids have an argument in the playground and it comes to "my dad can whoop your dad"; at 3 pm at the appointed place and time only one man turns up, to find he's supposed to be fighting himself. Its the sort of area where a man can have 2 six year old daughters who aren't twins. On Father's Day the men have more houses to visit than if they were trick'n'treating on Halloween, and a kid can live in the wrong house for a week before anyone notices. The dramas that are played out daily are the source of every soap opera ever made; a wise TV producer would forget ideas like Big Brother and just install cameras in every house in the suburb, but the problem then would be how to edit it all down. A week's life in the Eastside would make a year's TV. Not that I want to get stuck into them or paint everyone with the same brush, I've been an Eastsider myself. You might think some of the above is funny, if you've never been an Eastsider. But satirical or not, its 90% true. It's not necessarily a bad thing, either. However disfunctional, this is where real family life is happening in modern society, with single or defacto mums popping out well above the average 2.6 children, and the kids leaving home in their mid teens. For all the dramas and personality shaping, THIS is where the majority of our next generation are coming from, for better or worse.

Around the World

Andy Warhol said that everyone in the future would have 15 minutes of fame. He was almost right, but he didn't stop to consider that with world population going up and up and the amount of hours in the day staying the same, that time would have to be divided amongst more and more people and so each would get a little less fame time. Currently I think it averages about 2 days if you're a politician, 1 week if you hire a shonky tradesman and get it shown on Today Tonight, and 2 months if you carry drugs into a foreign country in a surfboard bag.

Having a look at the ClustrMap of visitors to my blog always gets me thinking. Sure, there are blogs out there which get gazillions of visitors, and which quite frankly are far more interesting than mine. But this one man, with his ordinary thoughts, has had someone nestled into a cold bay in northern Canada reading his words. Over in Alaska, on some cold winter's night, someone sat up late over a cup of coffee reading. Down in South America, someone read the words of a man who will never see what they are privileged to have outside their window, the magnificent Andes. In the deepest jungles of Africa, in the poor nation of Ethiopia, in the rich affluent society of Dubhai, and in the overcrowded cities of India, people looked at my page. Across Europe from one end to the other, people who speak a variety of languages read what I wrote. In Russia, once a police state, people have read my words. And even in Alice Springs, the desert centre of Australia, someone visited me.

It's all rather humbling. Thank you, and may the Great Bird of the Galaxy roost on all your planets.

Pathetic Portables

There are a lot of good reasons why you'd buy a portable DVD player. My kids enjoy being able to tuck themselves in a corner with their favourite movie and a pair of headphones, and I tend to watch a movie or an episode of Star Trek at bedtime every second day. They're particularly useful for people with contact lenses - you can take your lenses out before going to bed and still watch a bit, because you sit so close to them.

But... and its a big but... don't expect value for money or long-term use, or you'll be disappointed. Mine is a Shinco SDP-1750A, cost $185, and 9 months after I bought it, the screen died completely. I took it back to Harvey Norman and 3 weeks later, instead of repair, it was replaced with an entirely new unit. That one lasted 3 more months, and died 3 days after the original 12-month warranty ran out. Harvey Norman wouldn't come at replacing it because the warranty had expired, and the replacement one hadn't come with its own 12 month warranty - that applies from the date of original purchase, not the date you got this particular unit. So on average, for your $180, you get 6 months use, or in other words, one of the cheapest portables costs you $1 a day.

I bought both kids a Dick Smith branded portable. These were a little more expensive, and given the experience with Shinco, I took the option to extend the warranty to 3 years, which added considerably more to the cost. In the 4 months they've had them, no problems so far with the units, other than the extremely poor design and function. All the basic things the kids want, like cursor keys to select a particular episode, aren't on the unit, only on the remote, and the remote often isn't anywhere to be found. I have often found that I put a movie into one of theirs, and can't play what I want. Picture zoom, screen ratio changing, even chapter skipping are all unintuitive or not on the actual unit at all. To top things off, the screen is mounted high on the flip-up panel with a large blank space between it and the hinge, so that lying on the floor watching it, the kids are bound to get a sore neck from craning forward too much. Overall, the Dick Smith ones are poorly designed for their intended function. If the designers had actually bothered to put a disc into the player and watch it, these faults would have been evident. As for the long-term reliability, I'll post an update if and when one of them develops a fault.

The lesson here is evident - if you want a well designed, reliable portable DVD player, pay the extra money and go with a good brand name like Sony.

Weather Wars

Curse these Western Australians, they've invented time travel and won't let the rest of us have it. Not only that, but are they using it to solve the great mysteries of history, to seek the advice of the legendary Solomon, or take a photo of a dinosaur that doesn't look like it was made by a kinder kid with a clay kit? No, they're wasting it on clouds.

How do I know? Because I got a phone call earlier today from a friend in Western Australia. WA is 3 hours behind us here in Tassie, so it was 2 pm there and 5 pm here. It was raining in WA, according to my friend, and in 2 hours that raincloud would be here in Tassie, since weather almost always travels west to east. That means that the rain would leave WA at 2 pm, and arrive here at 4 pm. And I can tell you, an hour ago it wasn't raining here! But now, thanks to the WA'ians and their secret time machines, it apparently IS going to rain here an hour ago now.

I tried to explain this to a mate from the USA on MSN, but didn't have much success, which is hardly surprising because he is 18 hours behind me. So not only was he taking 18 hours to answer my questions (duuuh), but I was answering his 18 hours before he even asked them.

Whoever came up with the Greenwich Mean Time and time zones ought to be shot. Once, everywhere in the world you went the time was 'Now'. But now, its then there and now here, and its only now there when its then here. Perhaps someone should nuke Greenwich completely off the map, but then would anything exist any more anywhere at all, or would that be the End Of Time?

Sign My Petition

These bloggers, what can you do to shut them up? I know you really don't want to be here, and you're being forced to read this against your will. So what better way to get me back, than to add your name to the petition I've started on gopetition.com. Add your voice now and get these useless blogs off the internet and back into the secret diary hidden under the pillow, where they belong!

Petition to take bloggers off the internet, at gopetition.com

Back to the Blog

Alright Sue, stop complaining. After a break of a few months to have a really crap time, I've decided to add an entry. If you're really, reaaaally nice I might add more than one this year. A few ups and downs lately... some disappointments over getting my daughter for Easter, which didn't happen until a few days after Easter and got me all depressed. Secondly, things in the organisation I'm a Board Member of have gone from bad last year to much worse now. It's being sorted.

All that's pretty serious, so here's the "feelgood" blog post. Like most sensible people, I have a Miglia TVmax attached to the computer so that I can record live TV directly. It's a great product and the compression ratios for video are amazing, I can fit just over 3 months of 24 Hr/Day TV on my hard drive. Given that there's only about 2 hours of TV a week actually worth watching, that means you can record things forever. One of the really nice things about it is that it uses an Electronic Program Guide (EPG) called IceTV, which allows you to set programs to record with a single click, or indeed record every episode of a show if you like. Its nice, easy to use, and very powerful. There is just one catch - the price.

IceTV costs $13 a month, and that's just way too much to pay in a place like Tasmania where there are only four channels. Luckily, they have a free month's trial option, and even after it expires you can use it for a while, so for now at least, I don't have to pay.

One of the nice things about IceTV is that they write their own program description, and its probably best to describe these as "hidden extras". Many of them give me a laugh, because the guys or gals who write them don't serve up the usual drivel, they tell it like it is. Take, for example, these:

Police Files Unlocked
Footage from police cameras is cobbled together to make a cheap program about the general public's lack of respect for road rules and law & order in general.

Media Watch
Everyone loves it until they're on it. Media Watch turns a critical eye on the Australian media in general, and journalism in particular.

Today
The giggles are the same and you could argue they they're better groomed at Today. However, it's six of one half a dozen of the other really. A magazine style format with a smattering of news, current affairs, celebrity goss and the scandal of the day to get the early morning juices flowing.

Gotta love it. Keep up the good work, guys.