flat out
Funny how the phrase “flat out” has two meanings, and both appropriate to the Christmas season.
In Aussie slang, flat out (like a lizard drinking) means “going at top speed” – which is how you feel as you plan and buy and assemble gifts, often up to the last minute (hello, 2AM!) And then with cleaning and cooking and preparing the feast and the feast-space. And with our extended families being what they are, multiple feasts, multiple gifts and multiple car journeys. An exhausting amount of small talk to make with relatives, and the crazy run around when you do get together with your friends, (in my case, in church, Christmas morning) trying to see everyone before you have to rush off to a family do.
Besides missing my immediate family, that has been the weirdest part of Christmas this year- not being able to hang out with friends much, because everyone has their own families around to hang out with. I suppose that I’m really the odd one out, but that’s what I have been used to. If you don’t have extended family, you “adopt” some. 
Anyway, flat out also literally means, well, lying down, flat. Which is how I feel right now, after the CRAZY rush of Christmas. Stretched out on the couch, watching TV, surfing the ‘net and blogging. Feeling very full and happy.
AHHHHHHH.
Flat out (fast). and Flat out (on the couch).
Merry Christmas. (For what’s left of it in Australia) oh- at least I’ll get those in later time zones. Merry Christmas!
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how many days till Christmas?
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I’m TIME’s person of the year!
You didn’t realize that I was that famous, did you. The honour loses something when I tell you that you won it as well. TIME magazine named the entire general public, by placing a mirror on the cover (with the word: “you”) for achievements in online participation (like blogging.)
Power to the people? Well, the net has certainly been used to give us a voice, but whether voice equals power is a whole other discussion.
You ought to be congratulated [the age]
Anyone going to add this to their resume? “Person of the Year, 2006″
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why do I blog?
Dominic asked me this question in the ask a hedgehog (aka “Suggest Stuff”) section (by the way, ask more questions, people!) and here I am answering it.
Blog, the technology
I’m a geek, and I have a website. The best way to keep a website updated is a blog, because it’s super-duper simple to have new content on the front page all the time. Which still leaves the question of why I have a website, and why I post random stuff on the internet anyway.
A website?
It’s geek-cool: “yes, I have a website.”
A convenience really, a place to keep all my ramblings together. It’s also a hobby- ie, a time-spender that I enjoy, that I claim to be practising my writing skills.
The Real Question
So the real question, is why do I publish stuff on the internet?
- I hope it can be useful to others
- So I can find it again in the future
- A useful vent
- Develops my skills
- Ego, all ego…
So there, the why of I blog.
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canadian comedy
If you are in Melbourne, don’t miss Corner Gas, screening at 7:30 on Friday nights on SBS. Unfortunately, you’ll have missed the first episode, but it’s not a serial, there isn’t much to be clued into.
Or you could tune in if you’re in Canada, or the USA, other places where it’s showing. Check out their site.
Corner Gas is a petrol station (“gas” station) in the small town of Dog River, Saskatchewan. (Tag line: Forty kilometres from nowhere and way beyond normal) The show focuses on the non-events that drive the town, and the zany residents that participate in them. It’s not a soap opera, the relationships are already set up. It runs from gag to gag, telling a nice complete little story in the episode.
I really appreciate the humour in this- it’s straight faced, and bizarre. You laugh at the delusions of the characters, but also at the bizarre juxtapositions of the “truth” as shown by the camera as opposed to the serious dialogue of the characters. Watermelons feature in one of the gags, quite randomly. The humour catches you out, you don’t see it coming. I like it a lot.
And it’s Canadian. Perhaps I find it a tad funnier because some of my friends are Canadian, and it plays on their foibles very well.
I tried to think of an equivalent to compare it to, I thought Sea Change, or Something in the Air – but while it’s got the same small-town setting, it really is much zanier. Less serious and more fun.
Highly Recommended.
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ask a hedgehog
Hello, readers! Yes, that’s you. Hello!
The purpose of this post is to gather topics and questions that you, the reader, would like to see talked about on this blog. Also use this page to talk about any site improvements (colours, features, etc) that you would like to see. Please, comment freely. As you can see, this post has been linked on the top of the page, for easy reference.
Ask Away!
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bBlog hack: separate pages
bBlog is a powerful blogging platform and webpage manager, but it does require
that you get into a text editor and make some changes to some files, to get the
most out of it.
Now, the following tutorial is for the “new” template, but you should be
able to adjust the instructions for any other template.
Copy what you already have
I noticed that in the web directory there is a file called index.php and
also in the directory bblog/templates/new there was a file called
index.html. The .php one includes (among other stuff)
$bBlog->display('index.html');.
Make the pages
So, to make a links page, I made a file called links.php in the web
directory, and in the bblog/templates/new/ directory, a file called
links.html. The links.php code looks like this:
<?php
include “bblog/config.php”;
// Move on to the template’s links
$bBlog->display(‘links.html’);?>
The links.html Is where the code for the links go- this is fairly
boring.
Make it look nice!
If you visit your links.php now, you’ll see a plain white html page, with
absolutely no formating, that is ugly and doesn’t look like it belongs to your
site. (Unless you site IS the ugly plain default. Sorry.)
To fix the looks, have another look at the index.html file. Notice
the include tag, pointing to the header and the sidebar? This helps php
give you a frame/table-like layout with out icky frames or tables. What I did
was copy the index.html and take out anything that was related to
posts and blogs.
Link to it
Use a simple link to links.php, I used a fun horizontal menu (tute
coming!)
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moon base planned
NASA has said it wants to build a base on the moon. via the BBC.
They are going to build it near one of the poles to maximise sunlight (boost for solar energy) And are going to ask businesses to help them build it.
While being a handy hop off place to Mars and other space missions, the inclusion of business with science could mean a space hotel in my life time. Not that it would be an affordable option for the summer holidays!
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improve your google-fu
Are you frustrated with your searching skills? Do you have difficulty finding what you want using google? Enter informit, with their Top Ten Tips for Smarter Google Searches. (via Life Hacker)
“Fu” (as in, Kung-fu) is a word that means “skills” (pretty much.) In other words, the wowser geek skills that makes other non-geeks go “wow!”
Make the net work for you. Learn how to really use Google, and find what you want.
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linux networking
It’s not often that you find a resource on the internet that pretty much exactly meets your needs. Usually you find differing opinions sprinkled in a stack of meaningless information.
But if you want to set up a linux server, Linux Home Networking is just what I needed today to start the linux server for the youth website. I’m really impressed- it really saved the time we had left after dismally slow pageload times (but oddly, decent download speeds.)