mace's blog v2

Holidays! are nearly over =(
Posted by mace at 9:50 PM

// 0 comments
Following on where I left off in this column...

Live Earth 07/07

What can I say, this was just an awesome show. A little tiring standing between acts, and getting squished by eager moshers, and also being kissed on the cheek by a random drunk, but otherwise yeah, pretty awesome. Sneaky Sound System got the party started =D
Eskimo Joe, John Butler Trio (awesome, awesome drum solo), Missy Higgins, Crowded House.. all FTW.

Attempted to make some recordings but it looks like the bass-beats overpowered the microphone on my mp3. Oh well. I'll go process those sound files later on.

So all I have are some videos from my phone, but otherwise youtube is the better source =)

Live Earth 2007

But omg I <3 Eskimo Joe now.

Brushy Point Trip

More awesomeness. =D Linkage ahoi.

Facebook Group
YouTube Videos! of the drunken night...

My photos (plus extras):

Brushy Point

Kirstie's Photos:

Brushy Point; July 07

Ray's Photos:

Brushy Point 2007

Awesome trip, props to Kai for organising it, and Johnny for finding the place (and bringing the rain =P) But still - thanks to everyone who came, wouldn't have made it what it was without you! So, shoutouts to everyone else: Albert, Davy, Leane, Gladys, Joo, Kirstie, Dot, Ray, Dilsh, Eric, Wan, Bob, Ying, Supun, and Colin!

So what did we do? Rather unexpected that nearly half the guys would do the majority of the planning, organising, cooking, and shopping... whilst the girls chatted and gamed! I mean we had our share of gaming too I guess. It's all a bit of a blur now, a lot is captured on camera but that'll come, in time. In short:

We arrived, checked out the place, and Colin became FPS Doug

It was a very, very nice place, split up into two buildings, Cottage and Loghouse (cabin attached)

Plenty of beds for the guys, a few TV's around the place, and even a PS2 there already =D We had plenty of entertainment!

Tennis Courts there, played much tennis and soccer

We made a fire for the last few nights... and spent the whole of the last thursday making fire :D

Cooked bread, chips, and garlic bread on the fire. That was pretty FTW. Totally the way to cook stuff, i.e. with a bonfire

Oh, yeah we made a bonfire too. Kinda scary when the flames were taller than us, and that was with us standing on higher ground =S

Watched the sunrise on the jetty, nice stuff there

The jetty was actually really calm and pieceful, nice time-out place

Ok so Colin, Davy and Bob practically knocked themselves out on Wednesday night... interesting time!

The meaning of love was really deep.

More deep convos whilst others were responsibly consuming alcohol.

Went shopping on Wednesday. Woke up at 6am to eventually make our way to Forster, and how good it was to see civilsation again! (and KFC!) So many shops there, Stockland, and.. sales! But good thing we're guy shoppers. Spent $320 at Woolies. Long long shopping docket.

Had icecream on the way back. Fun and crazy trip back.

That's about all I remember so far, no one else seems to have blogged yet to go jog our memory...

Since then?

Well I've gone straight back to work, and been sick since =\ How fun.

Parra'ed on tuesday, Watched Knocked Up - interesting movie to say the least. =D

Picked up the latest Interpol Album - Our Love to Admire - still need to listen through it a lot more, but I'm starting to like it more and more. At that I still like Antics more.

Picked up the latest Horus Heresy Book - Fulgrim. It's fat, at 500+ pages. Yet to read Flight of the Eisenstein first though.

So anyhow had lunch, sushi, and max brenner, cheers @ Kirstie, Jady, Ray, Belinda, Miu, Michael, Robin, Sarah for the day. Good to see others again =)

Today

Well I've just spent today at home, well enough to sit at the computer, just been eating and drinking to hopefully get better. Just been getting moneys (I want my tax back too!) and mud cake today =)

The next few days sees me working more, and then its back to uni. How fun.

Have fun and take care everyone!

- Andrew

Labels: life, live earth, music

// Post a comment! or View Comments

Moonlit night...
Posted by mace at 3:41 PM

// 6 comments
I thought I'd keep this post to one column, just so it's less confusing for those who were overcome by the leetness of the last three posts =P

I guess I can say I've settled in to the holidays now, no more urges to do something constructive everyday - I'm happily content with just relaxing, msn'ing and gaming now =) But the food cravings are ensuring I get my weekly dose of the outside world [ you know who you are ;) ].

House Update

For those who didn't know already, a while back we purchased a new house, merely 100m down the road, that is many, many times bigger than this unit (for those who have been here). We've been cleaning it up and doing renovations and such, and it should be done soon!

There have however been many delays, kitchen sink problems, annoying salespeople, things going wrong (Re: Murphy's Law - "If anything can go wrong, it will") - but for the most part, looking forward to moving in, in a few weeks time. As for the house party I had in mind, no sign of a pool table on the horizon, at least not until we sell our other two houses =\

So on Friday, we went to pick up a new kitchen sink, made our way to Beverly Hills.. and on our way back.. I saw a peacock crossing the road! Totally random, just on one of the streets off the main road on our way back from Hurstville! So if you know anyone who owns a pet peacock that has gone missing...

I gave in! - Sansa e250 Review/Comparison

For me to think that iPod was the mp3 player of choice on the market was a little misguided. True, that 70% of the people I know (who own mp3 Players) seem to have one, but that's not to say there aren't alternatives. So I found this little baby, Sandisk Sansa e250, jam-packed with (useful!) features that the equivalent Nano's seem to lack. That and it's priced competitively, coming in much cheaper than a 2GB Nano (I got it for $168; an iPod Nano would cost $199).

As I've been looking for an upgrade of my current mp3 for a while, I finally gave in yesterday and bought it at work, and I must say, so far so good!

It came with a lanyard, headphones, usb cable, and a neat black felt-like case. The Sansa e250 (2GB version) feels so much more.. durable than an iPod, it's not like a wafer as such.

The specs off the top of my head,

Sansa e250
2GB Memory
MicroSD Expansion Slot
MP3/WMA playback
1.8" TFT Colour Screen
Photo Playback
Video Support
Digital FM Radio
Voice/FM Recording with Built-in Microphone
Preset/Custom EQ
User-replacable battery, should last 20 hours on one charge

I guess the two things that sold it for me was the MicroSD Slot (expansion is soo easy, you can get a 2GB MicroSD from Strathfield for like, $39) and that it's considerably cheaper than the equivalent iPod Nano. Add to that you don't have to go through any special software, you can connect it just as a USB Drive or manage it through WMP10 rather than iTunes (iTunes keeps doubling up on my music as it converts everything to AAC, especially WMAs...) AND the leet blue glow (ok and it can be submitted to uber-hackery as per online forums). And anyway, everyone has iPods these days, but those who know me know I don't care about mainstream.

So anyhow, I filled it up with music, I shall need some MicroSD cards to put on the rest of the music I want =\ I filled it up a bit too much yesterday so deleted one of the preloaded videos off it to make space for the music database. The earphones look rather thin, not too solid... I don't know if they'll last with my type of usage. Otherwise, no issues here, I'm happy =)

Vs. My old mp3 player

My old mp3 player was a cheap $40 SD Card Player from Jaycar (they now sell a newer version for $30) - that doesn't have internal memory but uses standard SD cards - again you can get these for really cheap these days.

The Sansa is considerably more expensive, but then that's what I pay for something that isn't a random chinese brand that I've never heard of. Sansa knocks this one out straight off. The monochrome LCD, eating-of-4-AAA-batteries on a weekly basis, and glitches with another SD card I had means this one doesn't compare really. But it did it's job well of playing mp3/wma's.

Vs. iPod Nano

In the end... the Sansa wins out for me.

Sansa has a bigger screen.
Sansa can play Videos and has built-in Radio
MicroSD Slot for easy memory expansion
Built-in Microphone for voice/FM recording
You can change the battery yourself with the Sansa, not go through Apple's ridiculous process of servicing your iPod to get it fixed...
The sansa doesn't feel like a wafer.
The iPod however, has a much better scroll mechanism. It's mechanical on the Sansa, which gets a little tiring. But hey, it means it can have the blue glow. Neat.
(@ Asians)Sansa is cheaper! =P
iPod has games. Does anyone play these? I mean soliatare is neat and all, but it's a mp3 player!

More of a fan-rant than a proper review from me... see the pro ones which have more pretty pics =)
- SanDisk Sansa e250 - JusTech'n.com
- Anything But Ipod - Sansa e200 Series Review

Life.. from mace's workbench

Somedays I wonder what I'm going to do with my life... for a start I want to learn 3 languages now. I have 3 "Let's Learn..." disks here now: Japanese, German, and Chinese. Someday I'll work my way through them and be able to say more than "Nein, Das ist mein hamburger!" and "What's the time?" in Japanese...

On my desk...

The first photo: I have 3 phones on my desk. The right two are mine, the left one belongs to a very lucky friend, who's phone we found on the bus just after our physics exam! Nokia 6280 is a pretty awesome phone btw, so don't diss it. =)

The other two photos - These are all the cd's I've purchased during Session 1. I really don't recall how much I've actually spent on cds :s But judging by that stack I'd estimate somewhere around $200. Ever so slowly I'll work out where all my money has gone..

Anyway, still more shopping in the week ahead.. there goes my bank balance =(

I'll see some people around, as for everyone else, have fun!

- mace

Labels: life, music, reviews

// Post a comment! or View Comments (6)