''Twitter''

Well I've taken the plunge and decided to find out what this Twitter thing is all about. I also decided to take it one step further and added a live Twitter feed above... which hopefully shouldn't be too broken!

I've been working quite a bit lately on the latest version of my php cms/framework (currently named nx3) which should be pretty good when it is released. Some day. Oh yeah, this green skin which I do rather like and even haven't got around to filling in all of the icons ([L] for login, [S] for skin selector, etc) is actually 6 years old now. Wow!

''Nats 2009''

Well no doubt everyone will be missing my blogs over the next few days - yeah right! Anyways, my excuse is I will be in Canberra tomorrow, Victoria on Thursday, burning up some rubber around Winton on Saturday, spending Sunday at Thredbo and Monday coming home. Phew! That's right - I'm going to the OZRS 2009 Nationals. Wish me luck!

''Bob Evans and Steve Poltz''

Hey everyone. Went to the Metro again last night (it's becoming a regular Friday-night occurrence now!). Saw Bob Evans and Steve Poltz.

Steve Poltz was quite the comedian - he did most of the first part of the show by himself with an acoustic guitar. His songs are like ballads and although sometimes it borders on country (he comes from America and was wearing a check-shirt and a white cowboy-ish hat) it is full of funny references. I reckon he could talk under water. Each song was introduced with some wild story about his adventures in a place... such as Mexico... with AK47s and drug busts and whatever but hey... It's a good yarn.

Actually the main act was Bob Evans (whose real name is Kevin Mitchell aka the guy from Jebediah) and he was pretty good. They had the usual mix of front guy with a guitar (acoustic this time, with coloured lights on it???), keyboardist with a stack of keyboards precariously mounted on an X frame, a drummer, a bass player and a lead electric guitarist.

What I was really impressed about is the ability of all of the muso's. Now, not all of them are all that old - the lead guitarist was apparently only 20 - but that didn't matter, they could all play for hours. It seemed like the encore was longer than the actual show! They also went into a fair set of improv bits which were fantastic because it is different from a standard song you would find on an album plus the muso's get to do what they love (and show they can really play). It makes me say that I can enjoy a lot more music live than I would otherwise buy or listen on the radio - there is something about the fact that it's a show that makes it somehow "good".

Anyways, the best bit for me is when they went off into this epic piece towards the end of the bit of the show before the encore and it slowed down and became so much like the Floyd. Amazing stuff. Then Cynthia turned to me and said "It sounds like Pink Floyd". Exactly what I had thought!

The other really good bit was a bossa nova style song which was jazzy and mellow - proving that not all their songs sound the same AND they can actually play all kinds of songs, a sign of decent musicians. Also the other good bit was when they started to swap around instruments. The bass player put down his bass guitar and picked up a flute, the drummer ditched his sticks and picked up a melodica (which I still want to buy one day!!) and the lead guy (who calls himself Bob Evans even though the crowd kept on shouting out "KEV!!!!") started to play a mouth organ.

Top stuff, good night. Actually what made it pretty good is we got free tix - but I still think I would've paid for it had I know it was going to be quite good.

Righto, that's your lot for the month.

''Internet''

Well I've just completed the final migration of my domains (the Dental website being the last one on the list) so now everything is humming along on Jumba. Not too many issues so far I guess, just one outage which lasted far longer than it needed to.

What this means, and is actually what the subject of this blog is all about, is that I can now break free from the bills I receive from Telstra each month for line rental (And $0 worth of phone calls) and get naked! Yes that's right, I can get Naked (DSL). Any less money going to Telstra is a good thing in my books.

In other news, Kettle (Arnotts?) Chilli Chips are fantastic and I am so sick of all the varieties of milk. I mean seriously, at work we have: full cream, light milk, soy milk and skim milk. If you wanted any more types of milk it would have to be no fat milk (so, it's just water then?) or dog's milk. For goodness sake, I think sticking to maybe TWO types is plenty. Full cream for those who can take it, and soy milk for the lactose intollerant. Done. Everyone is happy. What makes it even worse is when you see people grabbing two chocolate biscuits and making themself a cup of tea. Sure, tea is quite good but what is the point of light milk in tea (seriously, they only put in about a drop or two) when you are going to eat TWO chocolate biscuits?

And don't even get me started on the why-soy-milk-can-be-called-soy-milk-when-it-doesn't-even-come-from-an-animal-topic!

''hp 2140 Mini Netbook''

Hi all. Yes this is another blog! Can you believe it? Has someone else hacked in and taken over my site? Perhaps... the mystery unfolds...

If you can read this then I have successfully blogged using Rex's Dad's brand spanking new hp 2140. It's actually not a bad piece of kit - 1.2kg, 10 inch screen, very large and nice keyboard and an alright screen. If the battery lasted longer then I think Asus with their Eee PC range would definitely have something to worry about...

The bad... well not a lot actually. Only 2 usb ports? No HDMI? No SSD? No Linux option? No Bluetooth (actually, who uses that anyways?).

That's about all to report really. Oh yeah. One more thing. What's with liquor companies with the whole drink-red-wine-it-has-antoxidants-in-it policy? Can they not think of ANY other reason to drink the stuff? Surely you'd be better off eating strawberries. beetroots and that reddish sweet potato from New Zealand? Reminds me of that Pom stuff they seem to keep advertising at Wynyard at the moment - has anyone tried it?

Righto, a few more Windows Updates then it's off to bed for me.