kjp

Theres an interesting paper here. Apparently they found that people are (or who perceive themselves to be) different from average require a higher price to reveal information about themselves (age, weight).

Have just read a longish, but interesting article about marriage / divorce / child bearing rates (out of wedlock rates) and the effect of gay marriage on the institution of marriage in Scandinavia. Worth a read.

Had my first day at my new job at P. Was doing all induction, "how we operate", what section I'm in, etc, etc. Was good - I'm going to enjoy it there - good place to work; interesting work; good people. Sweet. Sleep soon.

Got up a bit earlier today - picked up W&L from the airport. It's good to have them back in their house (!). Was playing my clarinet with W accompiament on the piano - was pretty good. Had a doze in the early afternoon. Not much after that. Talked to good friend J on the phone for 1/2 hour or so - was good to catch up.

Nothing special done today for australia day --- tomorrow's the day.

Well I've just learnt something new. To pass the xhtml "strict" data definition, you need to be careful with things like http://www.google.com.au/search?q=cache:zhool8dxBV4J:www.google.com/+&hl=en&ie=UTF-8. This needs the & symbol defined as &-a-m-p-; in the html. So, links to googles website (not just the domain, but a lower level link) will break this page's compliance if I'm not careful.

This morning I went down to the Gold Coast, to the beach at Burleigh Heads. The water was a bit uneven, but there were waves to catch - which was good fun. The water had heaps of debris (leaves, twigs, bark, etc) in it - probably runoff from the storm last night.

Am now tired - want to sleep! - from the physical excercise and the salt remains in my eyes (even after washing them out)...

I have been trying to make this website xhtml compliant (so that, hopefully, it won't have display problems on other browsers, etc). However, there seems to be a rendering problem when inline division mysteriously reduce their width for no apparent reason. It seems to be an IE bug. I'll probably install another browser sometime (probably opera?). I've solved the problem for now (not to my satisfaction), by using a table as a work around. Ohh, the issue is dealing with the headings at the top of the website... Annoying.

It's been storming here over the past little while. When my computer was still on, I checked out the Bureau of Meteorology radar weather watch page. I was put onto this site from an uncle over in Perth. It's pretty cool - especially the "loop" function, where you can see in what direction the storm front is going, and weather (sp:ha ha) you're going to get wet.

BTW - the "cool weather" in the title pun is intended. I'm hilarious

If you go to Google's cache of www.google.com then you find that "Google is not affiliated with the authors of this page nor responsible for its content". Now that's odd.

This article is interesting. It talks about some research that is finding out whether Americans are cheating more often (to get ahead in life). It's interesting that economists (undergraduates) tend to defect more (60% as opposed to 25% of the whole sample) in the prisoners dilema.

Made a giant dish (stir fryish - 6 veges) for dinner. There's 5 extra meals in the freezer...

On another note; yesterday I had (wait for it) 5 (count them: one, ...., two .... three .... four .... five) olives in the one "sitting" - and I haven't even turned 50 yet.... :)

Apparently, sleeping on it can make it easier to solve problems, according to a CBC article here.

... you know the rest.

I just wanted another entry with a cliche title... :)

Oh yeah, there aren't any comments for this...... (no comments; and can't add any)

Earlier this morning I was playing my clarinet again. Since moving up here I've started playing it again after a break of several years. It's good - as I get to play all my old music and satisfy my "music craving" (...??...). The pretty significant downside is that while I have pretty good musicianship and technical (fingering speed), my embaucher (sp?) and tonguing and playing endurance are shocking. The only way to get better is just lots of patient practice - a long and boring road of tone excercises/scales with various articulations/etc. I much prefer the good stuff - playing the music... We'll see how it goes.

For most of the day Chloe and Paris (black staffies) have been staying over (for the day). There wasn't any major trouble with Red and Holly - just a few growls here and there. There isn't much of a garden for them to muck up - just an old couch that R&H have already done a good job on.

Am buggered.

I got home at around 8pm, after leaving for orienteering at about 5:30pm. Of which, I was out running for exactly 29m17s. driving was about 1h20min..... it's a pain living in a big(ish) city when yuo want to do stuff on the other side of town. I was in two minds whether or not to go - because it was a fair trip. But I don't know how busy I will be over the next few weeks (can't imagine why....), so I figured I might as well make the most of it.

Haven't done a cleanup of the dishes in a while - a job for tomorrow.

Well, my domain is now available to the world. woop. Mostly just stuffing around on this website and jobs today - getting shorn, mowing lawn (with not much petrol in the tank), getting another present, etc, etc etc.

Apparently, from the news, there will be aerial photos from WW2 allied survielance planes of things like the Normandy invasion; Auschwitz (sp??), etc.. at http://www.evidenceincamera.co.uk/ but that site seems to be down at the moment.... hmmm

Have been starting to get up early, to get my "body clock" into synch with how I'll need to be when I start my new job - on next tuesday. It should be good.

Anyhow; today I drove to where I'll be working - to check out how heavy the traffic is at that time of day. I'ts a pretty good run. Most of the traffic is heading south (towards the city), while I'm just going from NW to NE, and am not affected by the rush hour traffic - which is good (it's a bit under 20 minutes).

A convey of ants was found when I got home. The trail from the back door to under one of the couches gave a bit of something sweet / sticky away. Trained it into the city for most of the rest of the day - got a street directory, book on ethics (more on that one later, no doubt). Also got a CD for big sister. Couldn't get another one that she wanted... Seems to be hard to get in Australia... a tad bit annoying.

Also found the Museum of Brisbane, which I had a bit of a poke around for a bit. Was mostly in two sections - one on the history of Brisbane city; and one "One Square Mile: Brisbane Boudaries" on the way/effect of having the indigenous people excluded from the town. Interesting stuff.

Brisbane seems to have more people from charitable organisations asking for money / giving information out that what I would have expected - considering Canberra and Sydney town/city centres.

The dogs, especially Holly, were kept busy at the dog park... Two of the people with stronger arms were playing piggy-in-the-middle with Holly, across most of the length of the park. At one point she (Holly) forgot the fence existed when the ball went out of the park -- slam...

I'm still waiting for the DNS propagation to go through the web... It would be good to have full access to it. It will come when it comes - then I can set up this site properly, etc, etc. Hopefully by tomorrow morning.

the other good thing about yesterday was that the power cord for my stereo arrived - Ta mum!. It got lost in the garage when I was packing my car to come up to Brissy. Now I have a nice sound in my room; and radio. woo - and hoo as well.

In case you have nerdish tendencies; I've posted my robots (for robotbattle) on that website. My "fringe" robot got the first place in one of the competitions (the 4 robot free for all) in the recent tiny bot olypiad #2. Sweet. See the registry if you want them. There are also my other two entries - sweep5a and 5b.

slept in this morning; was up late letting the dogs sleep in my lap; watching Hornblower (english navy in the 1600s/1700s/1800s (????)). Also watched my favorite crime show - L&O Criminal Intent - Goran's cool. It was raining a fair bit yesterday. We (the two dogs and I) were the only people at the dog park. It was very humid + steamy when it was raining at the park...

Earlier yesterday I was just doing jobs around the house. Went to the shops to try and find a computer monitor stand. Currently it is too low for me; and I'd prefer a better solution than just a couple of old yellow pages... Couldn't find anything that was good for me...

Was also talking to some people from the Australian Conservation Foundation out the front of Coles in the early afternoon... This was vaguely interesting - being a bit green (but inactive in this respect) myself. It was also reminisent (sp?) of my uni days with all of the political people wanting to talk to everyone else in the main uni courtyard....

Silly me. I've just realised that yesterdays post didn't go missing. oops.

Well something happened to my post from last night. And I wasn't bothered to redo it then... but ta-da; here is some of yesterday.

Yesterday was just a jobs day; went into Chermside; bought 2 CDs (for me) and a book for my brother-in-law. I got Handel (Water music and royal fireworks music) and Tchaikovsky - 1812; capricco italien; marche slave. I think that I've heard all of it before; but they were cheap; so I got my own copy. The liner notes for the Tchaikovsky CD are interesting - apparently he was homosexual; unhappy; neurotic and torn by self doubt.... You learn somehting every day... Also watched bits of "The Sting" (made in the early 1970's) on late TV. The poker scene in the train carraige is the best... very funny stuff.

The morning dissapeared through reading - a book about "sensible share investment" (borrowed). The dog's usual 5.30 trip to the dog park was brought forward to earlier in the afternoon so that I could go orienteering - yay - fun. It was down on the SE side of town, a Street-O. I haven't been orienteering since mid december (last year), back in Canberra. Considering that I've had just one (or two????) other jog between then and today; I've pulled up reasonbly well; and am happy with how I went. It was nice and cool and damp - it's been raining a bit here... nice.

One thing that Canberra doesn't get a lot of is heavy traffic - the Riverside Expressway wasn't really express - it probably should be called Riverside Lethargicway (??) (yes, I know that's not a real word). But the traffic is probably nothing for Brisbanians....

It's cooled down a fair bit - some rain has come in; which is nice. Cruised around Chermside shopping mall in the afternoon today - pretty much like many other malls - full of shops....

Did get two (classical) cds - handel and tchaikovsky. Handel CD is (just?) the water music / royal fireworks. Nice to get a copy of it instead of borrowing others. The Tch. CD a mix of things - 1812; capriccio italien; marche slave and romeo and juliet (fantasy overture). All good stuff; IMHO.

hmmm. Also watched bits of "The Sting" (made in the early 1970's) on TV late last night. The poker scene in the train is classic & funny.

Also saw an article (mentioned on a&l daily) on personal adds. Some of the British ads are hilarious.

This room is still very warm (even with the fan on). My computer was on all of last night - downloading windows patches; service packs; etc. It seemed to be having problems getting windows sp1 for some reason. It's installed now though. Cooked a beef satay noodles dish for dinner - was pretty tasty. Also tired the dogs out at the dog park earlier - they loved it.

well this is the first post from my new blog.

Have been sorting out the redirection of stuff earlier today - mobile phone bill; bank statements, etc.

Have got plenty of jobs to do before the day is out...