Archive for December, 2008
I will be leaving for Deniliquin later this morning and will be away for the week, returning to Canberra at some stage on Saturday, with a reasonable backlog of television programs to catch up on, and a mere day to ensure that I have everything ready for 1WAY FM breakfast on the following Monday.
It looks like I will probably have limited Internet access while I’m gone, so I’m pleased to be able to say that I have been able to do something that I’ve wanted to do for a while, and that is, get somebody to fill in for me.
The guest blogger for the week is Maritz, who will hopefully introduce herself shortly. Maritz would be familiar to talkback radio listeners in Sydney and Canberra as the Russian lady who sends emails to various presenters. She first contacted me last year after the federal budget, and has since been in intermittent contact; she wrote two comments last week.
Maritz has a day job of her own so I’m not sure how much time she will have, but she seems to be excited by my offer, so I hope that she writes at least daily while I’m away. Her English isn’t great, but it will have to do. I hope that you all welcome her warmly and enjoy her company while I’m away.
I will check in during the week if possible, so that means that there will be delays in approving comments which hit the moderation queue. If you have any questions please feel unencumbered to contact me forthwith (such wonderful words), and I will do my best to get back to you in a timely manner.
Enjoy your week…my plan is to do the same.
Samuel
December 13th, 2008 at 05:07am
Good evening Stuart,
I listened with some interest to your story about your little one's current aversion to baths. I used to like baths and would want to stay in the bath for as long as possible, but these days I don't really like them. I think it has something to do with me being taller than the bath, and the fact that I don't really like being immersed in water. Showers are OK, but baths are just lengthy boring pointless ordeals for me.
I've never really been a huge fan of swimming either. I can doggle paddle to stay afloat if necessary, but I can't think of a worse way to spend a hot summer day than swimming…actually, scratch that, watching tennis all day, that would be much worse. Thank goodness that they don't play tennis in pools!
Regards,
Samuel Gordon-Stewart
Canberra
December 11th, 2008 at 09:30pm
Two of them are on my mind at the moment
Vodafone: They have conveniently broken the online “My Account” system, meaning that I am not able to alter my call diversion settings or view my credit balance online. At the moment I would like to divert all calls to Call Minder which will send me a text message with the phone number of anyone who tries to call me. I suppose that I could just turn off my phone, but I don’t really want to send everyone to voicemail.
Microsoft: I’m performing a clean installation of Windows Vista for a family member. The computer in question has a 3Com 3C905B network card. These cards were quite popular at one stage, and are still relatively common, however Microsoft have decided that they don’t need to include the driver for these network cards with Vista, and Vista also seems to be incapable of identifying the network card. Annoyingly, this meant that I had to boot to another Operating System in order to work out exactly what network card it is, then visit the 3Com website to download the drivers (first download on the linked page), copy them to a flash drive and then extract them on the computer in question.
After installing the drivers for this 3Com network card, I ran Windows Update, only to discover that a newer version of the driver is available from Windows Update. If Microsoft can go to the trouble of having a newer version of the driver on Windows Update than is available directly from 3Com, would it really have been so much trouble to use up a few of the bytes of the Vista DVD with the driver?
Oh, and the default volume setting of Creative sound drivers…yes, I want to be blasted out of the room by your maximum volume.
Samuel
December 8th, 2008 at 11:16pm
As a regular customer of Michel’s Patisserie in Cooleman Court I have a coffee card on which every eighth coffee is free. The total number of coffees on each card is 24, so the last time I started a coffee card I had it dated so that I could keep track of how long it takes to finish off a card.
I started the card on the 9th of November and finished it today, the 8th of December, which is 29 days, so slightly less than a month. It’s an average of 0.82758620689655172413793103448276 coffees per day.
On my list of strange things to do one day, is to sit down in Michel’s Patisserie at opening time, and drink coffee after coffee after coffee all day and see how many I can drink. Bad idea? Probably, but it would be interesting to see if I manage to do better than I did the last time I tried to drink an inordinate amount of coffee.
Samuel
December 8th, 2008 at 04:06pm
Last night I came across a rather unfortunate sight in a carpark. A pigeon, with no tail, and seemingly unable to walk, was stranded in the middle of the carpark.
The pigeon, as much of a pest as its species may be, was clearly distraught, and I couldn’t leave it there to face its fate. The poor little thing didn’t really want me to come anywhere near it at first, but eventually allowed me to pick it up (albeit with a failed attempt at escaping later on, resulting in a nasty crash landing).
Eventually, after finding a box for the bird (thanks Nick), and calling the RSPCA, I took the pigeon home for the night and placed a bowl of water and some oats (due to a lack of bird seed) in the box with the it. The RSPCA asked me to bring it in this morning, which I did, and after a quick examination, they determined that it has a pelvic injury, and there is nothing that they can do for it.
As much as I’m sad that the bird will have to be put down, I’m pleased that it will be put down in a humane manner, rather than being left to its own devices to be attacked either by a car or a cat. It is nice to know that the bird’s final moments will be peaceful.
Samuel
December 7th, 2008 at 03:08pm
Residents of Canberra and Queanbeyan would probably remember the suspected murder of Danny Ralph, whose body was found in the Queanbeyan on the 30th of March. It’s been a painstaking process for the New South Wales Police, but it looks like they finally have done enough investigative work to feel confident enough to charge people in relation to the murder.
From the NSW Police website:
Three charged by strike force detectives over death of Queanbeyan man
Friday, 05 Dec 2008 10:17pm
Three people have been charged over the death of a 46-year-old man at Queanbeyan nine months ago.
The body of Danny Ralph was located by police divers in the Queanbeyan River on 30 March this year.
It will be alleged Mr Ralph was assaulted after leaving a local pub sometime between 3am on Friday 28 March and 5am Saturday 29 March.
His body was discovered in the river not far from a footbridge, off Isabella Street.
About 6.30am today (Friday 5 December), Strike Force Potch detectives simultaneously executed warrants at two houses in Henderson Road and Morton Street, Queanbeyan.
A man and two women, all members of the one family, were arrested and taken to Queanbeyan Police Station for questioning.
The 25-year-old man was charged with murder, while the two women, aged 20 and 50, were charged with being accessories after the fact to murder.
The trio has been refused bail to appear in Queanbeyan Local Court tomorrow.
And now we leave it to the court system.
Samuel
December 6th, 2008 at 12:19am
Kevin Blyton, Managing Director of the Capital Radio Network, is recovering from multiple bypass surgery in a Sydney hospital.
Best wishes to Kevin for a speedy recovery.
Samuel
December 5th, 2008 at 01:26pm
A dinner suggestion from a kid in Michel’s Patisserie Weston yesterday:
Ice cream soup with chocolate sauce.
Sounds great, I wonder what vegetables will be included in the soup.
Samuel
December 5th, 2008 at 01:14pm
Last night when I went to open iTunes, I was greeted by a rather annoying error stating that iTunes could not be opened due to a “detected” problem with QuickTime. Apple recommend uninstalling QuickTime and then installing it again under these circumstances, but that sounds like a bit of a “we don’t know, but this might help” solution to me.
Considering that nothing had changed since I used iTunes about 24 hours before receiving the error, I figured that I would see if I could sort the problem out myself before resorting to a reinstallation. I remembered that a few hours before the error I started loading a large MP3 (Samuel’s Persiflage #8 to be precise) in Firefox, but cancelled it by closing the tab it was in when I realised that for one reason or another, Firefox was insisting on downloading the full file before letting the QuickTime plugin play it, which is a change from its previous behaviour of letting the QuickTime plugin play the file while it is downloading.
My thought was that, possibly, a QuickTime process was still active and was preventing iTunes from loading QuickTime properly. I couldn’t see any QuickTime processes in the Task Manager, so I tested the theory by launching QuickTime from the start menu…oddly this resulted in an installation wizard, which produced the following rather insightful message:
I somewhat nervously hit “OK” and watched the progress bar indicate that the setup routine was doing something, although I haven’t the faintest clue what it was doing as I wasn’t prompted with a Windows UAC “Are you sure that you want to grant this program permission to do stuff?” message, which indicates that no changes were made in the Windows or Program Files directories.
Once Setup finished, QuickTime loaded, and iTunes was able to work. It’s beyond me what that was all about, but at least I didn’t have to waste time going through Apple’s website to find the somewhat hidden standalone QuickTime installer.
Samuel
December 5th, 2008 at 09:56am
As I noted earlier this week, from the 15th to the 19th of December I will be working for 2QN and Classic Rock in Deniliquin.
As it happens, 1WAY FM’s breakfast host James Scott will be taking leave for four weeks starting on the 15th. Obviously I won’t be in town during the first week of his absence, however from the 22nd of January until the 9th of January I will be in town and filling in for James. This will include Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Year’s Day.
So, it’s a week of news in Deniliquin, during which I will be taking unpaid leave from my “day job” in Canberra, and then three weeks of Breakfast on 1WAY FM, which conveniently coincides with shifts which don’t occur during the morning at my “day job”.
I might be pushing myself a bit to cover a breakfast show and maintain my “day job” for those few weeks, but I think it will be fun. I’m considering putting in for leave for late January or at some stage in February anyway…but I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it.
Samuel
December 5th, 2008 at 07:15am
2CC and 2CA are streaming at long last, and the sound quality is pretty good.
2CC are currently streaming in Windows Media Audio 9.1 format at 32 kbps, 22 kHz, stereo 1-pass CBR which is more than ample for talk radio, and sounds a lot better than most other talk radio webstreams in the country.
2CA are doing even better with a Windows Media Audio 9.1 stream at 128 kbps, 48 kHz, stereo 1-pass CBR. I’m quite happy with this sound quality too.
At this stage I can see mentions on the 2XL and SnowFM websites of streaming, but the streams aren’t working for me at this time.
None the less, I’m very happy that I can now listen to 2CC and 2CA from outside of Canberra without hooking a radio up to a computer at home and running Shoutcast. Very happy, and I’ll treat it as an early Christmas present. Thank you Capital Radio Network!
Samuel
December 4th, 2008 at 07:20pm
It’s still a mystery to me.
An hour ago, unleaded petrol was 99.5 cents per litre at Caltex Weston, now it’s 115.9 cents per litre. An increase of 16.4 cents per litre.
At least it coincided with a fuel truck arriving to deliver fuel.
Samuel
December 4th, 2008 at 04:18pm
It’s a pity that this teacher is a maths teacher, because he would make an excellent Business Studies teacher:
Tom Farber gives a lot of tests. He’s a calculus teacher, after all.
So when administrators at Rancho Bernardo, his suburban San Diego high school, announced the district was cutting spending on supplies by nearly a third, Farber had a problem. At 3 cents a page, his tests would cost more than $500 a year. His copying budget: $316. But he wanted to give students enough practice for the big tests they’ll face in the spring, such as the Advanced Placement exam.
Hmm, it’s a basic problem of business, what we want to do costs this much, but we don’t have enough funds to cover it…what can we do to cover our costs? Tom’s solution was ingenious.
“Tough times call for tough actions,” he says. So he started selling ads on his test papers: $10 for a quiz, $20 for a chapter test, $30 for a semester final.
San Diego magazine and The San Diego Union-Tribune featured his plan just before Thanksgiving, and Farber came home from a few days out of town to 75 e-mail requests for ads. So far, he has collected $350. His semester final is sold out.
Not everyone is convinced of the merits of the idea though
That worries Robert Weissman, managing director of Commercial Alert, a Washington-based non-profit that fights commercialization in school and elsewhere. If test-papers-as-billboards catches on, he says, schools in the grip of tough economic times could start relying on them to help the bottom line.
“The advertisers are paying for something, and it’s access to kids,” he says.
About two-thirds of Farber’s ads are inspirational messages underwritten by parents. Others are ads for local businesses, such as two from a structural engineering firm and one from a dentist who urges students, “Brace Yourself for a Great Semester!”
The school doesn’t seem to be worried though, hinting that there are limits as to who can advertise.
Principal Paul Robinson says reaction has been “mixed,” but he notes, “It’s not like, ‘This test is brought to you by McDonald’s or Nike.’ “
One can only hope though that the New South Wales government don’t get any ideas, because a statement like this:
To Farber, 47, it’s a logical solution: “We’re expected to do more with less.”
Because if they do, then we might see entire schools being built out of advertising billboards as they try to find money to plug their never-ending budget holes.
Samuel
December 4th, 2008 at 03:42pm
You may have heard the story about federal MP James Bidgood who witnessed a newsworthy event yesterday, took photos of it, and reportedly sold them to the media, with the money going to charity.
The event in questions was a protester setting himself on fire outside Parliament House. The opposition and sections of the media have jumped all over Mr. Bidgood for his actions, but I really can’t see the problem.
If a newspaper photographer had been there, or a television camera crew, or even if I had been there with a camera, there would have been footage and/or photos. The photographer or camera crew would have taken the pictures back to the newsroom for their News Director to decide if they wanted to publish it, whilst I would have taken the photos home and published them here on this blog.
People sell photos of newsworthy events to the media all the time, so I can’t understand what the problem is here.
Joe Hockey, a man for whom I have a great deal of respect, has been the loudest critic of Mr. Bidgood…frankly Mr. Hockey, pull your head in, and ask Julie Bishop to actually answer a question the next time she appears on Lateline.
As for Mr. Bidgood. He has apologised for his actions (unnecessary in my view), but I will be writing to him to support his actions. What he did was attempt to bring the truth to the public, and it’s nice to see a politician doing that for a change.
Samuel
December 4th, 2008 at 11:36am
It’s a fun night (or hour or so) of British comedy. At 8pm, the My Family Christmas Special, and at 8:30, Wallace and Gromit star in an all new adventure, it’s “A Matter of Loaf and Death”.
I’m hopeful that the To The Manor Born Christmas Special which premiered on British television last year (on Christmas Eve if I recall correctly) will find its way to the ABC this month. It was a great show and I’d be very surprised if the ABC don’t air it.
I won’t get home until a bit after 8pm tonight, so I’ll just have to timeshift tonight’s programming, and then watch last night’s episode of MDA from ABC2 afterwards.
Samuel
December 3rd, 2008 at 01:58pm
Next Posts
Previous Posts
