Category: General

Not half bad.

Unfortunately… probably around 30-40% bad…

It seems to me that when most people shop for everyday items, the primary discerning factor (on whether to buy a particular item) is price. People will overlook poor service, questionable supply (“it fell of the back of a truck”), and pretty much anything else in order to get the best price. Is this necessary? Is this wise?

Is it necessary?

For some people, every dollar counts and they simply do not have the luxury of spending more money. For most people I know, this is absolutely not the case. Life for most people in Australia is pretty good; and my immediate peer group is fairly affluent.

There is little reason to spend 20c less on a carton of milk; particularly when you may spend $15 eating out or $30 on a CD you won’t really listen to. You don’t need to shop around. Curbing those “impulse buys” (that later just gather dust) can most likely more than compensate.

Is it wise?

In order to provide the lowest price, a number of other areas have to be sacrificed; not just at the retail store, but all the way through the manufacturer and supply chain. If this chain reflects whatever is required to deliver the lowest price, everything else comes second: service, wages, job security, the environment, … everything else.

When buying something from a store you are communicating that they have their priorities in order to secure your business. Don’t tell them that you can live with poor service and socio-economic problems (resulting from extensive use of cheap overseas labour) provided they can keep the price down. That’s exactly what you’ll get.

What world do you want to pay for?

It’s not all doom and gloom. For many people, price is no longer the main consideration in some areas. For example, many people buy free range (or RSPCA approved) eggs, and reuseable green bags (instead of using free plastic bags). I’d encourage people to add more to that list: recycled toilet paper, phosphate free washing powder, etc.

It’s a matter of deciding what is important to you and working towards that goal. Buying something from a store isn’t just an economic exchange; it’s participation in directing how business is run.

VideoJug has a growing section of parodic how-to videos on relationships. They offer a mix of humour and serious (?) advice, and are very, very British.

I found their guide on How to be the Perfect Girlfriend via Reddit. (I think the text or audio is from a BBC1 radio broadcast):

VideoJug: How to be the Perfect Girlfriend

Here’s the complementary video on How to be the Perfect Boyfriend:

VideoJug: How To Be The Perfect Boyfriend

I wonder how long before these humourous videos outnumber the more serious how-to videos.

Today I received two interesting bits of information. The first was a response to the email I wrote to the the Prime Minister concerning the National School Chaplaincy Programme (I’ll post more about that later). The second was a quote that I received via my RSS subscription to The Quotations Page:

What luck for rulers that men do not think.

This quote from Adolf Hitler seems to identify why the Nazis were able to take power in 1933. It also succinctly explains why so much insane legislation makes it though parliament without public outcry. People seem predisposed to intellectual and ethical complacency.

Other quotes that have struck me recently include:

Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.

by Leo Tolstoy and:

If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts he shall end in certainties.

by Sir Francis Bacon (not to be confused with Francis Bacon the modern artist). Anyone else have some favourites they’d like to share?

Note: I wish these quotes didn’t use such gender-specific language.

It seems that many game developers and old school gamers don’t actually play games. Miyamoto says that he prefers to spend time in the garden, playing guitar, or walking his pet dog. Jaded gamers spend hours reading about games, but don’t really play them much anymore. Me? I love my wii and there are a number of games (across all major platforms) that I have enjoyed recently.

I’m considering a move into the video games industry, but I’m a little concerned that it may diminish my love for games. It seems that the game developer life-cycle goes something like:

1. Get really into games; play them all the time
2. Decide to make games; work hard to get into the industry
3. Make games; work hard to produce a new title every few years

The thing that concerns me is that after the first stage, there seems to be very little time to actually play games. It makes me ask a number of questions: Does making games take away the mystique (such that one is happy to make games rather than play them)? Is game development what I want to do (especially if it takes away from my enjoyment of games)? Are developers mostly inspired by games that they loved many years ago (and can they make truly innovative games in that case)?

I don’t want to spend all my time making games if it means that I become disinterested in them, or if I don’t have time to play them, or if I get so far removed that my games are stuck with outdated notions of gameplay. However, I do want to make games… I suppose I just have to be sure that I always have time to sit down and enjoy them!

From the greatest western of all time. From the greatest theme song of all time…

Do not forsake me,
Oh my darlin’
On this, our weddin’ day.
Do not forsake me,
Oh my darlin’
Wait,
Wait Along.

Man, that song has been stuck in my head for the last few days! Ever since Heidi gave me a cowboy outfit that she bought from the Sheplers online store. It arrived just in time for Christmas (something Heidi was absolutely chuffed about) and generally fit. The boots, belt, and hat fit well, but the shirt and jeans were a little too large.

Whereas I may not look like Gary Cooper from High Noon (pictured above), I reckon a cowboy outfit suits me well enough. Unfortunately it’s been a little too hot recently to wear jeans and boots. I wore everything on the plane back from Karratha, but soon changed into something more appropriate for the climate (shorts and flip-flops).

Image above from Ashleys.net.

Continue reading “High Noon”

I recently posted about our failed attempts at DIY screen printing, but I also mentioned that everything did actually work out in the end. So the question everyone probably wants answered is: “what happened in between!?”.

Following guides such as (the very loud or excited) “HOW TO SILKSCREEN!” No Media Kings’ “How to Silkscreen Posters and Shirts“, we decided that we had to get ourselves some photo emulsion. I won’t repeat the steps involved in using the emulsion here (as they are explained in both linked articles and in many other places as well), but here is the end result:

Now that‘s a nice screen. Looks great doesn’t it! Much better detail and much less effort than what we tried before! Keep reading for more photos and descriptions of the actual printing process.

Continue reading “DIY screen printing (success!)”

Every now and then I stumble across something on YouTube that seems to have a huge group of followers… that nobody else knows about. I previously posted about Ramady’s Michael Jackson dance lessons, Pui City Basement’s beatboxing tutorials, YouTube community in-jokes, and Terri Naomi and the number of covers of her song “Say It’s Possible“. I think all these groups really reflect the sort of interactions that a personal Internet can create.

One community that really struck me was the group that formed around MadV, an illusionist and entertainer who seemed to capture the imaginations of a lot of people looking for something amazing. He wears the same stylised Guy Fawkes mask as the character V as portrayed in the V for Vendetta movie (based on the comic by Alan Moore).

MadV left YouTube over six months ago (to pursue a career in television) and a lot of fans mourned his departure. Recently, he returned to start a “One World” video contest in which people wrote messages on their hands and submitted videos of themselves showing their hands to the camera (“speak to the hand!”)… not sure it did much for me… a little too melodramatic. Anyhow, the response was impressive. Here’s a video compilation of his videos that he uploaded as a goodbye message to his fans:

A number of people have tried to pick up the MadV mantle. A lot of people replicate his floating card tricks, but few try new things with the same style. The most prominent is probably MadVapprentice (he wears the same mask, but a black hoodie instead of a grey one). He seems to have a similar flair, but I haven’t found his tricks as appealing. This card trick (labelled “one of the best card tricks today”) is a little too obvious to me. This ring trick is neat though. I look forward to more from him in future.

I have a huge list of draft posts that I have never gotten around to completing. I’m going to try to post something “from the backlog” each weekend… so expect regular personal thoughts on news that is most likely grossly out-of-date!

I’m also going to bust out a few posts today before taking some time off for the holiday season. See you all online again late next week!

Probably to curb initial problems with broken wrist straps, flying remotes, and the resulting property damage, Nintendo Australia is replacing Wii remote wrist straps. Apparantly this only affects people who got one of the first batch of consoles released in Australia. That means… me and Jason!

I know that the remote that came with my Wii has one of the older (thinner… more flimsy) straps, because it really stands out when placed side-by-side with the Wii remote that came with Wii Play. In fact, it looks pretty much just like the picture in this screengrab of the strap replacement information website:

Guess I’ll be asking for a replacement… or I’ll just not bother. I still don’t have my replacement XBOX power supply (on account of my inaction… I always turn it off at the wall anyway).