My life’s not working out at the moment as I had planned it to be working out right now. Most of it is coming along nicely, however, there are a few aspects of it that I thought would’ve been different.

My job, primarily, is what I’m talking about. To put it bluntly: I’m not enjoying it. Or even more bluntly: it kind of sucks. It’s a glorified tech. support role. It was sold to me as something else. I was told it would be tech. support and development work. I wasn’t really sure at the time what that meant: I suppose my naivety was to blame. Yeah, sure, there’s development. There’s plenty of opportunity for me to brush up on my Microsoft Access skills supporting five-year-old database applications. There’s plenty of opportunity for me to write annoying little VBA snippets that semi-automate behemoth Excel spreadsheets.

Initially I took the challenge as it was: a challenging learning experience. While I haven’t learnt all there is to know about Excel, Access or the whole awesome Microsoft Office experience, I certainly know enough now to be handy in writing solutions based on Microsoft’s Office suite of applications. Hell, I wrote a fucking share portfolio snapshot graph application in VBA on top of Excel. I think that’s something, don’t you?

The problem with that last project wasn’t so much the difficulty of the algorithms as it was the difficulty in understanding exactly what the fuck I was meant to be writing, who it was for, how the output was intended to be presented, and so on. My boss is a nice guy, but he’s the only boss I have. He runs the whole show, and he’s shit as an IT manager. He comes up with ideas with no concept of what it takes to implement them, but expects them all to be done yesterday. So, you can imagine what kind of awesome fun I had with this guy while trying to develop software for him.

But, you know, I rolled with it. I learnt something there about how to deal with adults who want things they can’t have and don’t understand why. It doesn’t change the fact that it’s stressful and at times downright intimidating to have that kind of thing hanging over your head. You never knew when he was going to have another flash of inspiration and decide to triple the complexity of your application.

Not that I was writing anything super-complex. I haven’t even graduated uni yet, though. While I am capable of researching things and solving problems all of my own accord, I don’t yet understand how I’m meant to determine what’s appropriate in the eyes of my employer in terms of the problem solving process and the various metrics associated with it. Time, complexity, depth, breadth; you name a metric, I don’t know it. This is why big business run graduate programs. I should be doing one I suppose.

Though, that’s another thing I don’t know if I can really get into. Big business. I hate the corporate scum-sucking that goes on. Everyone runs around in pretentious outfits wearing ridiculous strangulating ties, black long slacks in the middle of summer with long-sleeve shirts, and uncomfortable non-breathing leather shoes. They sit at a desk in an office, push paper, answer phones, and generally do … what? I don’t know. I hate the image, and I hate looking at myself in the mirror when what I see is myself becoming some corporate bitch. Though it makes my parents proud to see me all grown up and shit, but I suppose that’s the era they’re from.

You know what, I have a theory. I reckon people work better when they’re comfortable. I’m talking about all aspects of comfort: environment, clothing, seating, computer, whatever. When people are in a good mood they do good work. Stuffing everyone into the corporate mould and spitting out oddly-shaped people stuffed inside uniforms of drab pale shirts and standard-issue black or grey pants is not a way to raise the spirit of the people.

I think people should have a sense of self-importance about themselves simply for the sake of maintaining their own self-esteem. On top of that, people should respect themselves and dress appropriately. I do not think that everyone should be limited to dressing in the same 70-year-old combination of slacks, button-up collared shirt, overcoat and tie. Hey, chicks can wear what they like. Why can’t guys?

If you’ve read this far, good on you: seriously. There’s a lot of angst in this post, and I haven’t even gotten to the good part yet.

The other night I got totally trashed on Jim Beam Small Batch - though I asked for it. Didn’t eat all day, chugged it down like it was water, and expected an hour or so later to be sweet for a night out in the Valley. Turns out I actually spent an hour or so lying on the floor of a bathroom in my own vomit, alternately crying and yelling about how much I was sorry for ruining my friends night and laughing my brains out about how funny everything was. I was in another world. I’m not eager to do that again but jesus that Small Batch is good shit. I had mine with Coke but you could easily drink it straight from the bottle its that smooth.

Anyway, that wasn’t really the good bit. Did I trick you? Haha. The good bit is I will soon be under the employ of the man behind Dependable Technologies; (let’s hope he doesn’t get any hits from my blog and reads the above paragraph) which is a one or two-man outfit that specialises in, well… you can read it all for yourself on the single page website. This is exciting because as you may or may not know, I am all about that kind of thing. Doing intelligent support work for clients who have real problems, not replacing batteries in wireless mice for people who are too lazy to do it themselves (because “that’s what IT is for”).

I think I’ve said enough now. Oh wait, no. I’m trying to do my tax using the Governments’ super e-tax programme, and it wants to connect to the internet and download my Medicare info, but consistently fails with the helpful message “Unknown exception, please contact the IT helpdesk on… ” At least this year the website is compatible with Firefox. I couldn’t believe that this time last year their website had the audacity to tell me that my browser was out of date because its ident/signature didn’t match exactly that of Internet Explorer. Oh wait, yeah, no, it’s the government. Of course I can believe that. At least things are better this year ’round. Still no Linux e-tax application though.

Sorry, enough ranting. Carry on with your lives. I mean that sincerely.

I love Windows and Microsoft and all their awesome wonderful software beauty. This is what happens when I install Windws on one of the machines at work and try to activate it.

1. It activates “fine” but doesn’t allow me to login. Why? Well, I login, it says “you must activate Windows to continue” I click OK, and it says “Windows is already activated” and then logs me out. When I log in again, the same thing happens. Infinite loop. Sweet.
2. It doesn’t activate at all. When it goes through the steps, and attempts to generate an installation ID that I can pass onto Microsoft, the space where the installation ID is supposed to display is blank. Yes, blank.

These are both fucking catastrophic failures. Infinite loops and no user feedback? Hey, infinite loops and no user feedback during Windows installation causing installation to fail?! From the worlds largest software development company?! What the fuck is wrong at Microsoft?

So, I have been scouring the internet for a day and a half now trying to figure this out, and while there are reports of both problems occurring elsewhere before, none of the available solutions seem to work. I have formatted and re-formatted the machine probably eight or nine times now. Always the same problem. At the moment, I’ve got the blank installation ID issue. It’s been that problem for the last three or four formats.

Things I have tried:

• manually editing the registry to set the timer for activation to some far-distant future time
• copying the files used by the activation process (wpa.dbl and wpa.bak) from the installation CD into the %windir%\System32 directory manually after installation
• installing the drivers for all of the hardware in safe mode so the activation process can reliably generate an installation ID (it’s based on the product key and hashes of your hardware info) (did I mention this requires further registry hacks to enable software installation in Safe Mode?)
• tried various cracks and hacks from the ‘net to disable activation without any success
• been on the phone to Microsoft tech support for an hour without any success

Oh and I’ve done all this using three different Windows CDs, two with SP1 pre-packaged and one with SP2 pre-packaged.

HOW SWEET IS THAT?!?! LIKE SRSLY MCRSFT I <3 U SOOOOOOO MUCH RITE NOW!!!!!!!!!!!

Hi everyone,

A headsup for some of you: there are a bunch of sweet gigs on over the coming months, and I’m inviting you to attend them with me.

First up is Birds of Tokyo, whom I don’t know much about, other than their frontman is the very same who leads the very entertaining and very awesome Karnivool. Although I haven’t seen either live, the latter’s full-length release, Themata, is a favourite in my collection. Anyway, check out The Birds’ MySpace for more on them. Date is September 5th, cost is $27.75., venue is The Arena.

Next up is heavy-metal favourites, and awkwardly-pronounced, Meshuggah. While I’m not particularly fanatic about their style of music, I can appreciate it in small doses. Let’s hope their performance on October 12th at The Arena isn’t too large a dose! (at a cost of $53.50 + booking fee)

Next up in the metal section (although arguably with less throat-destroying lyrical talent) we have Disturbed. I’ve listened to a lot of their stuff over and over and over, with their album 10,000 Fists taking a special place in my collection. They’re touring with old favourites P.O.D., the up-and-coming Behind Crimson Eyes, and Alterbridge. We can catch them at the Brisbane Entertainment Centre on the 2nd of September at a cost of $89.65.

Changing genre completely, let’s think about Dukes of Windsor. They scored well with their hit The Others showing up in a remix on a recent Ministry of Sound album. You’ve heard it, and you liked it. Trust me. Anyway, they’re touring with the awesome Sneaky Sound System, and I reckon we’d be stupid not to miss their show at The Tivoli, on the August 16th, especially for a cost $53.50 (plus booking fee).

Keeping the electro/dance theme, though moving down in the popularity ranks, we’ve got a relatively unknown group by the name of Grafton Primary. They reached realtively huge popularity on TripleJ last year with the slightly nerdy but ultimately funny (and fun!) Relativity; and they’ve also created many awesome remixes of other popular artists, including remixing the tired and overplayed This Heart Attack by none other than Faker, which in my opinion is as good as the original, if not better. They’re supported by The E.L.F, who are busy doing lots of wierd things on their MySpace, and the first group I ever saw play live: Christopher Robin, whom are not the same you will find on MySpace. They’re a small two-piece electro pair who seem to occupy themselves more with drinking than playing music, but they’re oh so good at it! For a cost of $12 and a trip to the Valley, what more can you ask for? (at Rosie’s)

Second last on this by-no-means-ordered list, we have Canadian crackpots, haters of vowels and all-round funky dudes, MSTRKRFT. They’ve a few releases and a lot of remixes, and they’re all hella-sweet. Accompanied by Ajax and a few other DJs I’ve never heard of, we can catch them at The Arena on the 2nd of August for a cost of $35-$45 (plus booking fee).

Finally, we have two bands actually: PNAU and Operator Please; both huge on the Australian charts, with the former being a veteran of the dance scene and the latter barely out of highschool, you’ve no doubt heard tracks from both, with PNAU’s “Baby” featured on recent advertisements for milk, and Operator Please having many of their songs played on mainstream radio. We can indulge in their alternately funky and rocking sounds (quite a contrast) for only $44 (plus booking fee) at The Tivoli on the 7th of August.

So, if you’re interested in seeing any of these gigs with me, please let me know. Some of them have been on sale a while, and are due to sell out soon, so we need to get in quick! A comment, SMS, e-mail, phone call or face-to-face conversation are all good ways of engaging my attention.

If you want to find out more information about any of the gigs, you can check out the bands’ respective MySpace/websites, or you can visit the awesome Triple J gig guide, which helped me to compile this post.

Yeah yeah, you know it. The World of Warcraft servers are down for scheduled maintenance which means I haven’t much to do. Sad really, isn’t it? Still, I’m not addicted. I don’t think about WoW while I’m supposed to be doing other things. I don’t talk about WoW all the time to people. I certainly don’t dream about WoW.

Yeah, I post a lot about WoW, but that’s only because I know you expect me to, and I couldn’t go letting down my avid readers now, could I?

The next post is going to be about something interesting. As soon as I figure out what that is, I’ll let you know.

This post isn’t about WoW.

My life basically consists of playing WoW, going to work, and hanging out on weekends. Except, on weekends where I don’t see much of Carly due to her own commitments, I tend to also do a lot of WoW playing on those occasions.

Seriously, I do play a lot of WoW, and I think I would say that I am highly interested in WoW, but not quite to the point of addiction. I play it mainly because I’ve finished all my exams, forever, and now I’m just being rebellious and doing ‘irresponsible’ things in my spare time for a change of pace from the work-study-work-study-work … et cetera rigmorole that has been my life for the last three or four years.

So last night I stayed up until about 4AM playing WoW; though that’s because I was helping others. You see, in WoW, unlike other online games, there is more of a real sense of community and so much more “niceness” between players. Unlike other, more openly competitive games, where the mixture of high-speed violence and young teens makes for a complete lack of intelligent conversation at any point during the game. At best, it’s people trashtalking. At worst, it’s people trashtalking with added racism, sexism, ageism, homophobia, and grossly inappropriate sexual content.

In WoW, players help each other because that’s what the game environment encourages people to do. Through the length of the game experience, the co-operative nature of many of the quests, raids and dungeons, and the fact that, like real life, players of different skill-sets rely on each other in order to get ahead, the community behind WoW is generally a lot more friendly than the highly-strung, trigger-finger aggro children that hang out playing shooters.

That’s not to say that all shooter-players are morons (I still play occassionaly, and I’m definitely not :D) or that all WoW players are saints (sometimes high-level characters will draw high-level enemies onto low-level characters just for laughs), but generally speaking the communities are vastly in contrast to one another in terms of their attitudes towards others playing the same game.

So if you’re sick of being called a fucking dickhead bitch slut hacker poof in CS over the microphone by a 13-year-old boy whose voice hasn’t dropped and can count the number of pubes he has on one hand, and would like to see some nice things coming from the players you game with, then give WoW a try, and see if I’m wrong.

Today Carly and I, being flooded in, decided to muck around a bit more with the GIMP. Though this time we took some random photos specifically for the purpose (well, kind of).

As you can see, my level of skill hasn’t increased at all. I’m still using the same elements I learnt yesterday, but I’ve combined them into some photographs to make… something. I’ll let you be the judge.

Carly’s photos:

My photos:

I decided to GIMP it up today. Combined with the shithouse weather of the weekend and my lack of money, there wasn’t much else for me to do. So, in an artistic (esque) vain, Carly and I have been mucking about with the GIMP and seeing what creative things we could create.

Unfortunately for you all, my creativeness is somewhat limited. However, Carly’s isn’t. She’s quite a good artist (although she doesn’t readily admit that); her house, and her grandparents houses who live close by, are all filled with her various paintings. The problem Carly has is that she doesn’t know how to use the GIMP. I don’t really know either, but I do know how to use Google. So, through a crazy communication and information transportation and transformation system that resembles a line of firefighters trying to extinguish the Great Fire of London with a line of water buckets, Carly’s slowly learning the ins and outs of the GIMP.

I haven’t created anything worth posting, though I did think that my blue fire was rather cool. Oh, and I love the posturize tool.

Today I made a purchase which has seen people laughing, crying, and shouting at me.

Well, not really. Just a few people making jokes at my expense and others being perhaps slightly annoyed by my spectacular display of ignorance and apparent stupidity. I bought myself a copy of World of Warcraft. My sister thinks my social life is down the drain. My brother’s anticipating many more dumb questions. Some of my friends are saying their good-byes, others are quietly removing me from their MySpace friends as I write this.

No, not really. Though, with the cult following and associated media coverage that this game has, you’d expect people to react strangely to the news that someone close to them has taken up the hobby.

Often referred to as simply “WoW” by its fans and “World of Warcrack” by its detractors, the game is an MMORPG which currently boasts over 10 million subscribers worldwide.

Why have I decided to join them? Well, over the years I’ve disregarded the MMO+RPG genre simply because I didn’t enjoy the typical universes they were set in. Medievil times lend themselves all too easily it seems to be the base subject for the majority of RPG titles. Previously I’ve never been particularly interested in this type of fiction; specifically fantasy. However, I cannot deny that over the years I’ve thoroughly enjoyed reading all the Harry Potter novels (and seeing the movies). More recently however I’ve taken to reading a few fantasy novels, specifically, the Sword of Truth series and Sarah Ash’s Tears of Artamon series.

This newfound interest in fantasy, combined with my waning interest in online FPS games led me to the thought that I should give something new a try. Even though in the past I would’ve referred to the MMORPG acronym more sardonicaly as “Massively Mundane Online Really Poor Game”, I decided to stop being a closed-minded fool and give it a go.

And what do you know? I enjoyed playing the free 10-day trial of WoW so much that I decided to buy it. Perhaps too early, as I’ve still two exams to pass before I finish uni forever, but I believe I can manage my time…

Today was an alright day at work. I think the dynamic there has changed, but I don’t yet know what to make of it.

The first thing to set this change of dynamic in motion was my meeting with one of the guys who previously worked there; the guy whose stuff I was now supporting. He was nice enough, a little nerdy, but not conceited. He admitted that he didn’t really have the programming skills required to pull off the project he’d started some time ago, the project that he was now trying to explain to me in detail. He didn’t understand my questions about documentation, but he did understand my desire to see and understand the big picture, which, in addition to some other resources he showed me which I was previously unaware of, was enough to enlighten me as to the direction I needed to take.

Finally, some pieces of the puzzle that was given to me months ago had finally come into play.

Secondly, the dynamic changed because I’ve been given a rather unexpected and hefty responsbility: I’m the decision-maker on everything IT-related. Although the guy whom I replaced pretty much ran everything IT, it was never mentioned to me that I would be assuming the same responsibility. Well, today it was made clear, and part of that responsbility includes making sure the new guy, whom works Wednesday when I’m unavailable, is pulling his weight.

In order to do that, I’m expected to write him up a task sheet of sorts, and I’m to receive a report from him on his progress, and check that progress to ensure he’s not just making shit up. If he is just making shit up, or otherwise not doing what he’s meant to be doing, I have the power to decide that he’s asked not to come back to work the following Wednesday.

I totally wasn’t expecting this kind of responsibility, but now that I’ve thought it over, I’m glad that I have it. I don’t want to have an unmotivated, lazy or incompetent person filling in for me on Wednesdays. I want someone whom I can trust to get work done, not only because they have the motivation to do a good job but also because they have the skills to see their motiviation put to good use.

So, now I’m faced with a few new things: the big project I’ve heard everyone talking about is finally going to be underway as of tomorrow, as I’ve dispatched some instructions to my underling which will hopefully set wheels in motion. This project is bigger than anything I’ve contemplated before, not technically or even architectually (the game project I worked on at uni was probably of similar size, codewise) — simply because it’s an important thing for my boss, who I’m wanting to impress.

Let’s see how I go, eh?