wafblog v3.0

I’m contemplating changing blogging software. That’s right. After touting bBlog as being awesome and blah blah, tweaking little things and trying to make it all nice and blah… I’ve decided that I want something different. bBlog is nice, and it’s easy to use, it’s simple and all that. But, the comment spam is driving me up the wall. I like the idea of having tags rather than sections and I want an easy way to manage images in my posts rather than to have to remember what number I’ve uploaded.

So, the choices? Well, I’m not sure really. I found this rather useful breakdown of the different blogging software available. I know WordPress and drupal are some of the more popular ones. And drupal isn’t even covered by this thing.

Also currently looking at BLOG:CMS and Movable Type (but that costs money and is owned by Six Apart and that’s scary) and Nucleus CMS. I like that BLOG:CMS comes with an integrated photo gallery, because that saves me trying to find a photo gallery CMS thingy myself. Too much choice dammit ):

Have also found Serendipity which also uses Smarty Tags for formatting. This seems like a good thing, as bBlog also uses Smarty tags, and could prove easier for me to migrate. Hum.

So I ended up going to Kinokuniya yesterday, instead of today as planned. I didn’t go to the gym after work and needed to get an xD card for my camera so walked to JB Hi-Fi. Thought I might as well go to Kino cos it’s in the same building anyways. I’ve seen some good reviews for the Nick Hornby novel “A Long Way Down”, and wanted to check it out. Funnily enough, it’s featured in the Books Alive! thingy that they have on at the moment so it was real easy to find a copy.

I’ve started reading it, it’s quite interesting. For those who don’t know, it’s about these four people who meet at the top of a building on New Year’s Eve and they’re all there to commit suicide. Morbid, I know. I think the story sort of continues from there. I haven’t read enough to really know yet :P But I do like the way Hornby writes, it’s easy to read and there’s something amusing about the way he writes. It’s like, so real and honest but that sort of honesty where you can see it in your own life and then laugh at it. There’s no real chapters to the book, but it takes turns showing you the unfolding story from the eyes of the four characters. So you keep having to remember who is currently talking and what their story is. It’s a bit more work than I’m used to when reading, but I’m getting used to it. I don’t think it’ll take long to finish and if it’s good (which I think it will be) I might go check out his other books – High Fidelity, Fever Pitch and About A Boy (were the movies based on those? It can’t be a coincidence…).

Of course, going into Kino, as with any book store, has its dangers. It’s physically impossible for me to leave with just ONE book. So naturally I also bought “Ash Wednesday” by Ethan Hawke and “Space Demons” and “Shinkei” by Gillian Rubinstein. I loved Ethan Hawke’s first novel “The Hottest State”, which is now out of print. I had to go through abebooks to get my copy. It was so worth it though. I have high hopes that “Ash Wednesday” will be just as good. I’m thinking of taking it as my holiday reading. It’s a fairly compact book and should fit easily into my hand luggage (if I’m allowed to take hand luggage). But I’ll be bringing my guide books with me, so we’ll have to see about the weight. I bought the Gillian Rubinstein books because I really enjoyed them when I was in high school. There’s actually three books in the series, but they were missing the second one “Skymaze”. Hopefully they’ll have it next time I go and with a cover that matches the ones I’ve got. I was really disappointed they didn’t have “A Cage Of Butterflies” by Brian Caswell, but a new shipment should be coming in soon so they should be calling me when that happens.

So many books to read, so little time. I feel bad that I bought new books when I haven’t read all the ones I’ve got. I’ve only skimmed The Grimm’s Fairy Tales that my uncle bought me and there’s like three or four long fantasy novels that I have yet to sink my teeth into. I find it hard to read on trains though, I get too engrossed and am likely to miss my stop or I get headaches from all the movement. Still, it’s probably my fault for spending so much time on the computer instead of reading. If I’m really good I’ll set aside half an hour each day to read and I should be able to progress through the books at a good pace then.

The flu’s been going around lately, and it was finally my turn to get it. I ended up taking Thursday off work because of it. My mum was home the whole week last week, but I was a bit wary of taking too much time off. I had all these plans for the weekend too, but didn’t end up doing anything because of darn flu. So missed out on clubbing on Friday night and then didn’t make it to Animania on Saturday. Which really sucked. I’d hoped that by going to bed early on Friday night that I’d get enough rest to be ok for Saturday but I woke up in the morning and felt like throwing up and my head was pounding. Even all the drugs I was taking didn’t help much, except to make me sleepy. Although Mike was heaps nice and looked after me. Made me soup and everything (:

I did end up making it to Vinci’s 21st. But that’s something I wouldn’t have missed unless I was in hospital on my death bed or something. It was pretty good – saw quite a few people that I hadn’t seen in a while and got to see what they’ve been up to. It was quite fun, she had some games and stuff that everyone had to participate in. And the whole masquerade ball thing was good anyways. I left early, but still got to hear all the speeches. Speeches at 21st’s are usually quite amusing – considering there’s always different groups of people and you get an interesting glimpse into how someone you know is perceived by other people. Lots of fun in all.

I pretty much slept all of Sunday. Had to wake up at 11am because Ray came to pick up a book, but I went back to bed at 12 and then slept till like 6:30pm. I sort of woke up rather disorientated (disoriented?) because it was dark outside and you know when you’ve sort of put your body clock off-kilter… it was like that. I had something to eat, put away some stuff and then went back to bed LOL. I think the rest did help heaps though. I’m still a bit sick now but the sore throat seems to be gone and mainly the stuffy nose is persisting. It’s screwing with my asthma though and I really don’t like that.

Other than that, I haven’t been up to much at all. Work is work. New guy’s started, he seems alright. I bought a webcam for my computer last week. It seems to be working pretty well. The only people I know with webcams are Su and Pal, who are overseas, but it’s a very novel way of communicating. It’s also kind of weird because I sort of forget that it’s on and I’ll be doing things and suddenly think ‘Crap! They saw that!’. Still, it’s pretty fun.

Besides that, just packing a few things for Eurotrip ’06. I am a bit worried what with all the talk of terrorist plots in the UK and all the extra security precautions required to get in and out of the country. Plus the whole not allowed to bring hand luggage thing. But I’ve bought my tickets and I’m intent on going so even being blown out of the sky shouldn’t hinder me. There’s no point really worrying about it unless it actually does happen anyways I guess. I am certainly aware that I need to be really alert and on the ball while I’m by myself but it should be ok. My torch arrived on Friday, so that’s one less thing to worry about. I wanted to bring a compass, but maybe I should trade that in for a GPS system LOL. Still deciding whether or not it’s worth bringing my PSP on the trip. I can load photos and stuff onto it though, and that’d certainly be awesome. It’d make it much easier to transport the photos, but then I need to bring a USB cable and that as well. Too much to consider.

It’s been a while since I last updated. But I’ve been pretty busy so haven’t really had the time. Met up with Shree last Saturday week (hrm, not sure if that’s the right way to say it) to go shopping for Vinci’s 21st present. It was heaps good to meet up with her, cos I haven’t really seen her since last December and we don’t really get a chance to talk much considering uni and all that sort of thing. It’s interesting because I think sometimes you end up just always speaking to the same people all the time. Like, you see them fairly often and they know what you’re up to on a daily basis so it’s much easier to arrange to meet up and do things. And even if you’re good friends with someone you might not see them very often cos you’re off doing different things and time just sort of runs away from you. Anyway, we found a cool present and now I just need to wrap that up, find a mask for the masquerade and find a top to match my skirt. Simple really.

On the Sunday, I went to see the charity screening of ‘Hoodwinked’, which I enjoyed immensely. The movie is hilariously funny (especially Twitchy the squirrel – “I don’t drink coffee”) and quite well animated I reckon. I love the style it used with telling the four different stories to give you the full picture of how the scene happened and the jokes were funny without being crude. Ben Folds did a great song for the soundtrack as well, which Manda and I found thoroughly amusing. This was probably one of the best movies I’ve seen all year, considering the number of flops/disappointments this year I guess I’m not too surprised. There’s nothing coming out soon that I really want to see. Although I’ll likely end up seeing ‘Snakes On A Plane’ just for the hell of it.

Had another session with my personal trainer… and he’s started me on these squatting exercises (“The King Of All Exercises”) which left my legs totally killing afterwards. I spent most of the Wednesday hobbling around the office because I couldn’t walk properly without my thighs hurting LOL. Hopefully tomorrow’s session won’t be as bad. I guess it’s good to know that I’m getting some exercise though and that I should be getting fitter. I have noticed that my breathing seems more regular when I run, and I’m not feeling as short of breath now either which is definitely an improvement. I should try to go swimming some time but I don’t like the chlorine or having to shower afterwards and there’s no pool near me either.

The weekend just past was pretty good too. Went bushwalking (bushbashing) in the Royal National Park with Alan on Saturday. It had been raining a couple of days beforehand so everywhere was rather muddy and it did sprinkle a bit while we were out in the bush. The river was flowing nicely though so I think it was good to go after the rain. I haven’t been bushwalking in YONKS and I thoroughly enjoyed being out in nature lol. Sure, the gym is great for training but you can’t really beat seeing real trees and hearing birds and things like that. I did however complain about the mud every 5 minutes or so, and Alan said I should’ve just been happy that I conquered the mountain which was really a hill… :P I’ve got some photos which I’ll have to post up later when I’ve resized them down from the 3MB files that they are now. We were going to go tenpin bowling afterwards because that’s what I wanted to do but the bowling centre was totally packed when we went (damn kiddy parties) so ended up just going home.

I ended up going to a show with my dad on Saturday night because my mum was sick and dad didn’t want to waste the ticket. I’m really glad I went. I don’t know what the show was called, but it featured accordian players who did versions of well known classical and pop songs. It was really awesome, some of the songs they played. It was quite interesting for me cos I can play some of the songs and hearing them on a different instrument is quite amazing. Some of the songs they had a singer as well and she sang really well! All in all, I kinda left wishing I could play the accordian even though it looks really heavy and I don’t think it has the same finesse as a violin. It does however, look like lots of fun and would certainly allow you to play a wide range of songs. I wonder how much one of them costs?

Didn’t really get up to anything yesterday. I got up late and had to cook breakfast because mum was sick. It turned out better than I expected although the bacon was a little dry and I forgot to put the olive oil on the tomatoes. Guess I’ll know for next time. I was supposed to clean up my room, but I kind of got distracted listening to music LOL. Pulled out all these classical CDs that I have and was listening to some songs I haven’t heard in ages. Also had The Clash’s ‘London Calling’ on a few times which is a totally awesome classic album. Might have to get their other album as well and have a listen to that, I did like “Rock the Casbah” which I’d heard but didn’t actually click that it was a Clash song LOL.

So I’ve been getting into some ‘old’ music lately. Currently loving The Clash’s “London Calling”, and can’t believe I didn’t get into it earlier. Also loving Depeche Mode. I swear you don’t get music like this anymore. So, from their album, “Violator” -

You had something to hide
Should have hidden it, shouldn’t you
Now you’re not satisfied
With what you’re being put through

It’s just time to pay the price
For not listening to advice
And deciding in your youth
On the policy of truth

Things could be so different now
It used to be so civilised
You will always wonder how
It could have been if you’d only lied

It’s too late to change events
It’s time to face the consequence
For delivering the proof
In the policy of truth

Never again
Is what you swore
The time before
Never again
Is what you swore
The time before

Now you’re standing there tongue tied
You’d better learn your lesson well
Hide what you have to hide
And tell what you have to tell

You’ll see your problems multiplied
If you continually decide
To faithfully pursue
The policy of truth

Never again…
Depeche Mode – Policy Of Truth