McBlog

After watching all the Monkey episodes, the whole Robotech saga and a number of other old TV series, we decided it was time to go WAY back and kick off a major adventure. We’re going to watch ALL the Dr Who episodes, starting with the first Doctor, William Hartnell. We’ll work our way through the classic episodes until (eventually) we get to the modern series. This should be a most excellent adventure :)

The Australian Cricket team’s captain, Ricky Ponting, recently accused the Pom’s of “cheating” during the recent “nail biting end” of the test match in England (note: played for 5 days and it resulted in a draw – vote: 1 “Cricket” for most boring game in existence :) You can read about his reasons in the news recently.

Technically, the Poms sending in the 12th man and team physio at points during the match (effectively stalling the game) was not against the rules. It could, however, be called “stretching things” :)

It’s kinda like poetic justice for the Australian team to fall afoul of rules that allow sneaky play. Anyone remember a certain underarm incident?.

I’m launching a new podcast with a friend (more on that later) so we want it to be found via iTunes. To be able to submit a podcast to iTunes, you have to have an account – hmmmm – annoying, but somewhat understandable.

To set up an iTunes account, they want a credit card. FAIL! What if I don’t ever want to buy anything? What if I don’t want to give it out? What if I don’t have one? Well, it turns out you can create an account without needing a credit card if you either a) redeem a voucher (also a FAIL – I don’t want to buy anything) or by b) getting one of the free Apps from the iTunes App Store.

Great, so, I go to the App Store and try to get a free application. Any one will do – who cares, I’m throwing it away ‘cos I don’t have an iPhone. When I go to download it, it asks me for my account details so I say CREATE and, sure enough, when I get to the page where I’d enter a credit card, it now has the option of “NONE”

YAY! I can create an iTunes Store account without needing a credit card. So, Apple, why the frak didn’t you give me that option to begin with? Yet another FAIL!

Of course, now I’ve created the account and reached the verification stage. I’ve keyed in my GMail account details and it’s apparently sent out a verification email. Only problem is, it hasn’t arrived yet. Other emails are coming in OK, but not this one. In fact, I’ve asked it to send it 3 times now and still nothing. I’ve confirmed the address is correct and I’ve checked my SPAM folder. Nope – nada.

Oh joy – another FAIL on Apple’s part.

For a company that makes some pretty sexy equipment, it’s amazing how many times Apple FAILS! All this just to register a damned podcast…

Well, it’s been about six months since my last post. A lot can happen in that time and it certainly has:

• We moved house in February to be in the selection zone for McKinnon Secondary College, a school that should be great for Nykolai when he starts grade 7 next year. It gets great reviews and is supposed to be one of the better public schools in Melbourne. The selection zone is rather small and demand to attend the school is high, so renting costs more in the zone than outside. He’s still going to St Kilda Primary for the rest of this year so there’s been a bit of commuting, juggling and so on but we’re managing.
• Things didn’t work out at Evolve and I finished up there at the end of February, finding myself without work right in one of the worst job markets anyone’s seen for ages (it’s worse than the recession of the 90′s, that’s for sure). I’ve spent the last few months applying for jobs and it’s only been in the past few weeks that agents have been calling me back – usually it was silence or rejection slips. Very much a buyers’ market as companies can specify exactly what they want and there are so many people looking for work that they can pick & choose. The market appears to be turning as we enter the new financial year, so that’s a plus.
• I’ve set up and am managing the World Aviation Experience blog. The main aspect of WAE is their Flight Experience Melbourne 737 simulator and the merchandise they have for sale at their online store. We’ve set up the instructors at the simulator on Twitter where they’re tweeting the cool flights that they do and there’s quite a bit of content in the blog already. We have some big plans for expanding the content and linking up with other ventures, so be sure to link in with the blog’s RSS Feed to keep up with the news.
• I’m back crewing the hot air balloons in both Melbourne and the Yarra Valley. I really enjoy it and have been getting some great photos. Of course, we’re in winter now and the flying drops right off over July/August as the weather gets worse.
• I’ve been working on a couple of proposals at apc.au, one an international development project and the other for a refugee based project here in Australia. The Australian project’s under way during July but the international one got put on hold. We’ll see how things go over the next month or so.
• I’m still naffed off that the Australian Government is still pushing ahead with their idiotic Internet Filter plans and have started expanding its intended coverage (gee, there’s a shock). As much as I thought Howard was a complete bastard of a Prime Minister, this insanity is showing that Senator Conroy is the worst Communications Minister we’ve EVER had (and that’s saying something as we’ve had some shockers).
• We’ve been to see Cirque du Soleil’s Dralion production and thought it was good but Varekai was better.
• Kitt and I went to see Dylan Moran live at the Arts Centre on Easter Sunday and, more recently, Avenue Q at the Comedy Theatre. Dylan was hillarious and our sides were aching from laughing so much through the whole show while Avenue Q was brilliant (imagine a deranged adults only version of Sesame St merged with a dash of Tray Parker & Matt Stone). Very happy we went to see them.
• We’ve been watching season 1 shows from Heroes and Dexter (yes, we’re WAY behind – whatever) and have watched all of True Blood (including the latest few episodes on season2). I’d say that these shows plus Battle Star Galactica and the ROME series show that there’s a chance for TV yet, but then I think about the rest of the crap that’s on and have to admit that it’s doomed.

Otherwise, that’s about it and life goes on. I’m keeping busy with applying for jobs and these projects but there’s no real income, so we’re surviving on my savings (now finished) and Kitt’s income. A plus is that I’m getting time to exercise, so I’ve lost a few kilos – still a long way to go, of course…