Introducing Clifford

Just got back from a nice break up at Bright.  Since i’d never been to Bright or skiing at Falls Creek I decided a GPS unit might be a handy addition to the trip.  Anyway, long story short I borrowed my father in-laws TomTom GPS unit and I have to say I was less than impressed by it.

So who is Clifford?   Well, Clifford is the name I gave the GPS.  Clifford was a little confused most of the time and downright ridiculous at other times.   Clifford decided on 2 occassions during the drive up to Falls Creek that we really needed to make a left hand turn off the road and over the cliff.   This was quite entertaining for the whole family and this is how CLIFFord got his name.   ‘His’ ?  Yes,  I suspect Clifford was a male as he was unlikely to ask for help from anyone when he clearly had no idea where he was going.

No these are not new roads, nor do I suspect that they have mysteriously moved.   Needless to say I wont be buying a Tom Tom and I may be borrowing more units before finding if any of them are any good

Subway get your act together!

Come on subway – this is pretty pathetic.

I went to lunch today expecting to have a nice 30cm (aka Foot long) Veggie Patty roll and what do I find – oh we’re all out of veggie patties.   Ok I think, there are 3 other subway outlets in my area i’ll go to another.   All  3 of them were out.   Not only that, this is the second time in 2 months i’ve had the same story from subway.

So, in response I thought i’d provide them with some help.

If you have only one box of veggie patties left – please order some more pronto

Maybe there is a worldwide plague and veggie patties are the natural defence – maybe they’re being stockpiled and therefore there is a global shortage.  Somehow I suspect not, just poor management of stock.

So get your act together  – oh and you owe me 40 minutes of lunchtime and a couple of dollars of petrol

It’s sad when…..

For your morning commute you have to walk, catch a bus followed by a train and still more walking to get into the office and it takes about an hour and twenty minutes, costs you $10.10 and then you discover that you can ride into work in One Hour and three minutes, costs you nothing but a little sweat and you have a healthier lifestyle.

Maybe it’s not sad, but perhaps a happy discovery.  People get out of your cars, ignore the pathetic public transport and simply ride to work – the planet will thank you later

new toy in the house

Ok,  it was time to replace my lovely Sony KRHV32M31 CRT with a new LCD.   The Sony is a beautiful CRT, but shall we say – it needs to lose a few kilos as it weighs a ton .  Anyway, after lugging the beast upstairs (something I don’t care to repeat for a long time to come especially considering how sick i’ve been) the hole it left behind was filled nicely with a Philips 42PFL7403 .

Normally installation of this TV (just as a TV) is piece of cake.  Plug in the antenna, turn it on and answer the questions you get asked and it’s all done – really even my mum could have done it (Hi Mum ).

Of course there’s a fair bit of Linux in my house so a reconfiguation of my  mythtv box was going to be required.   Previously the Sony CRT required handcrafted X modelines and was connected via a VGA to RGBHV cable.  I’d like to get those hours of my life back.   In this case I decided on using a DVI to HDMI adapter with an ancillary stereo audio cable tied to one of the Philips HDMI inputs.

After a couple of hours (yes I went and had lunch in that couple of hours as well) myth was alive and happily delivering 1080p content onto this really nice piece of equipment – don’t trust me, go read the reviews yourself and then have good look at it in the shops.

So what happened in those couple of hours (apart from lunch).  I just put in a standard ubuntu X config file, connected it to the TV, restarted X and had a look to see what happened.   The wonders of EDID saw the LCD automatically detected and I could start the mythfrontend in 1080p mode.   The GUI was off centered and required adjusting within the mythtv frontend settings.   This did however expose this bug which left an annoying white line at the top of the screen (boo!!).  Anyway, the simple solution was to put the XFCE panel into autohide mode which solved the problem.

Now, sometimes it’s a little hard to find true HD content being broadcast when you want it to show off the LCD in all it’s glory so I reserved a really nice piece of HD content called Big Buck Bunny which is available under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 licence.   The end result – happy family

Some people are complete dicks….

Ok…   Picture this… I’m having a lovely Easter break up at Lake Mulwala, NSW and I continue my jogging while i’m there.

There’s a nice Jog across the lake via the rather awkwardly constructed bridge and into the town of Yarrawonga – well I fnd it nice anyway.

On my return trip back across the bridge some dickhead throws something quite large and hard which strikes me in the back of the head leaving me completely dazed for a number of minutes – i’m not sure how long as my memory is a little fuzzy.  I clearly had concussion and felt quite ill for the next couple of days.

I do vaguely remember it being a white car with a ‘P Plate’ driver and a passenger (most likely the object thrower) being quite pleased with his throw.   I don’t know what these people are thinking – a simple rash act like that can lead to completely ruining the life of their victim as well as their own – I guess the 20 cent summary is that they’re just dickheads – hopefully ‘Darwin’ will take care of them before they can reproduce.

Oh my …. I’m full

Well after another trip around the sun,  Cath and I celebrated our 4th Wedding anniversary.   It was a low key event with a dinner out together – that is, just the two of us – a very unusual thing to be going somewhere without our son Quinn who was being dutifully ’sat’ by Cath’s parents.

We decided to go mexican at the ‘Nachos Cantina’ in Blackburn (near the station) and had a vegetarian banquet.  After a couple of hours of great adult level conversation and some meal induced belt loosening we finished what was a surprisingly good value meal.   If you’re in the area pop in and try it out.