The Great Ocean Road

On Friday, went for a day trip along the Great Ocean Road. This is a road along a stunning stretch of the Victoria coastline southwest of Melbourne:

Before we could tackle this awesome road, we needed a car. Luckily, the friendly people at Hertz were only too happy to charge us an arm and a leg to hire us the vehicle that will carry us around Australia for the next month.

Not too long into our journey, we passed our first awesome landmark: the lighthouse from the series Round The Twist.

Not even the lighthouse could compare with the awesome majesty of our ultimate destination, The Twelve Apostles. Kind of like Durdle Door on steroids:

The way back proved to be a little more challenging than the way there. Firstly, the satnav decided to be a bit "special" and direct us down every tiny suburban street in Geelong, presumably in order to shave fractions of a mile off our journey. This proved to be highly stressful.

Worse, the only pair of shoes that I had brought with me decided to malfunction. Behold:

Luckily, I was able to get some new shoes in Melbourne, with which I will have to make do until I can glue the soles back on to my old broken shoe. Phew!

Brekkie

When we went for breakfast yesterday, I was expecting it to be like British or American food: you know, unhealthy, drenched in fat, fried. That sort of thing. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that Aussies seem to be seriously into healthy eating. I had avocado and mushroom on toast. It was both good tasting and good for you. Meanwhile, Hannah had beans on toast. I must confess to scoffing, under my breath, at her having gone for a can of Heinz beans on toast. Not so: the beans were actually fresh. Nice.

Later on, we went for coffee. It turns out that Aussies are also great at making coffee. My coffee not only tasted great but was also beautifully presented. It didn't really help us to get over our jetlag, though.

Oh yeah, we also explored Melbourne a bit. Which was nice.

Neighbours

Having safely arrived in Melbourne, we did what any self respecting jet-lagged backpackers would do and went to a Neighbours theme night. This involved a pub quiz, meeting some actors from Neighbours. The only one of whom I recognised was Alan Fletcher, who plays Dr Karl Kennedy. Sadly, I didn't get my picture taken with Dr Karl but I did shake his hand. Wowser. Here are pictures of me meeting some of the other Neighbours guys. I'm not quite sure who they are.

This was then followed by the most surreal part of the night, a set from Dr Karl's band Waiting Room. Dr Karl clearly fancies himself as a rockstar, as he was really going for it, playing covers of such classics as I Predict A Riot and Mr Brightside.

The most surprising thing about the whole night was that Dr Karl appears to be a major international sex symbol. Seriously, the ladies loved Dr Karl.

Exotic Singapore...

...Airport is where we are now. It's very exciting.

We stepped off the plane and were immediately hit by the oppressive tropical heat and humidity. Luckily we then stepped into the air conditioned airport, where we have been confined for the past seven hours. We have done lots of fun things, such as:

• Eating cookies
• Sleeping
• ...?

Here is a picture of us waiting for the plane to Melbourne. Rock n Roll!!!

Other Annoyances

Nokia PC suite just updated itself and now it, too, wants to restart my computer. Grrr. I quite literally think that's "rubbish."

More Annoyance of PDFs

As if Acrobat Reader's pointless bloatedness wasn't annoying enough, I have just noticed two more annoying things about it:

1. It now seems to contain some kind of online chat/meeting functionality. I have never felt the need to start an "Acrobat Connect" meeting and I don't think I ever will.
   
2. Whenever it updates itself (which feels too often), it makes me reboot my computer. Why on earth would that be necessary?

On the plus side, at least the Acrobat Reader plugin no longer makes my entire browser freeze up while a PDF is loading.

On balance, it would be nice if there was a small and lean piece of software that could view PDFs and not do any of the annoying stuff.

Dear Jeff

I'm sorry that there aren't any interesting posts on this blog. Be sure to come back soon, just in case there are any. Just in case.

Animal Noises Made Easy

Moo: a cow, a bovine cow
Prrr, a purring feline cat
Twit-twoo, an owl, an owl-esque owl
Squeak, a squeaking rattous rat
Huss, a hussing kiwi snake
Neigh, a neighing equine horse
Oink, an oinking porcine pig
And that brings us back to Moo

Awesome Site: www.hugeurl.com

If you're familiar with http://tinyurl.com/ then you are probably wondering how the concept can be improved. Well, it can. Check this out:

http://www.hugeurl.com/

I used it to create this huge link:

http://www.hugeurl.com/?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

Hoo-ray for the internet!

The annoyance of PDFs

Whenever I follow a link on the web and it becomes apparent that I am being sent to a PDF file, my heart sinks. That isn't to saythat I have anything against PDF as a format. In fact, it's a great idea: a portable way to share documents in such a way that the reader sees exactly what the auther intended them to. No problems there.

No, the problem is Abobe Acrobat Reader, which now takes an age to load. How long? Too long. Most web pages load within a second so if Acrobat Reader wants to take 10 seconds to load up, that's at least 9 seconds too long. The sad thing is that it used to be much faster many years ago but it seems like every release has been slower than the last. It would be easier to swallow if the slowness was the price that you pay for tons of useful new features but there don't seem to be any, at least, not any that I care about.

I tried Foxit Reader a while back and it was much faster. Unfortunately, I found that there were quite a few PDF documents that it could not cope with so I'm back to Acrobat. Sigh.

My sincere hope is that either Adobe sort themselves out or that someone else makes a PDF reader that doesn't suck.

A Haiku

A pastoral field
A bovine cow eating grass
Liking to say moo

iDoNotLike

I just got an email from the iLike application on Facebook. The subject intrigued me:

"Chris Cornell posted a concert near you!"

How exciting! I naturally read the email for more details, hopeful that Chris Cornell might actually be playing in the UK. The email said:

" CHRIS CORNELL POSTED EVENTS NEAR YOU:
==============================

========
The Grand Ballroom At the Regency Center in San Francisco on Friday, May 1 @ 9:00 PM"

I checked the application, and I had set my location to be UK, so it looks like the app got it wrong. This angered me so much that I removed the application and will never use it again.

Punctuation

Spot the mistakes in this sentence: "You guy's are idiot's, commas are not the same as full stop's and an apostrophe isn't needed before every instance of the letter s."

Sigh. It seems like everyone mis-uses commas and apostrophes and no one seems to care. Except for pedants like me. Having said that, it's important to note that making punctuation mistakes like those above single you out as an idiot and a loser and no one will want to read anything you have written.

Just like this blog.

Stuff Java Should Nick from Python: List Literals

In Python, I can create a little list really easily:

my_list = ["one", "two", "three"]

In Java, doing something simple like this is a right pain:

List myList = new ArrayList();
myList.append("one");
myList.append("two");
myList.append("three");

This is really annoying when you want to do something quick and dirty with a list.

Java Generics

Java Generics get on my nerves. They's so bad that they almost might as well have not bothered putting them in at all.

I may write more about this if I can be bothered.

Denied!

It appears that I can't read any Blogger blogs from work right now. Whenever I do, I see a page that says this:

We're sorry...

... but your query looks similar to automated requests from a computer virus or spyware application. To protect our users, we can't process your request right now.

That's probably for the best, as all blogs on the internet are pointless rubbish. One consquence is that I will be unable to read this post once I've written it. Oh my!

Spam-me-do

I received an email from PayPal today, asking "would you be able to spot a fake email?". I have decided that the answer is no because I can't decide whether that email is fake or not. It is chock full of links along the lines of "click here to learn more about phishing". Naturally, I am so paranoid that I didn't click on any of them. Safety first!

Scotland

I visited Scotland last week It was very nice. I could write more but I can only type left handed so I won't.

Uh, Bebo sucks

A few months ago, a friend sent me an invitation to Bebo. Thrilled though I was, I didn't accept. I'm already on Facebook, and that's pointless enough for me. Bebo have now started spamming me up. By "spamming me up", I mean that they have sent me one e-mail. In some kind of odd e-mail newsletter thing. However, that's one e-mail too many for a guy like me! It is so rude that I decided not to get a bebo account, not that I was going to anyway.

Oh man! 1

Computers: Rubbish

I'm really sick and tired of sitting around waiting far too long for the computer to do something simple. Waiting for stuff to compile... waiting for the computer to start up... waiting for the computer to shut down... Oh man. It is so annoying. Analysing it mathematically, let x=the average length of time spent waiting for the computer to do something simple, y=the number of days in your life and z=the total time wasted. We can see that z is equal to approximately 10 million hours and that computers really suck.

The most annoying thing about it is that whenever the computer freezes up and starts being lame, I get distracted by something and end up wasting time doing something pointless. For example: writing a tedious blog post.

Oh man!