Product testimony

Heya all! Hope you all had a good Christmas.

Anyways, coming back from Perth, I saw an add for this stuff called "Somerset's Shaving Oil". It claimed to prevent shaving nics and rashes and stuff - so I was natually interested. I bought some the other day (the "heavy beard" variety). It came it a 12ml bullet-shaped bottle, and instructed to use only 3 drops. I was a little sceptical. Putting the abovementioned number of drops onto your hand, then rubbing it into your face, you get this sinking feeling that you have been suckered. It feels like you've put nothing onto your face. How can this possibly work....?

Well, I dunno how the hell it works, but it certainly does! BEST SHAVE EVER!!! So close - and it didn't matter how carelessly I shaved, I didn't cut myself. From 3 drops!!!

Anyways, I highly recommend the stuff. Its a little pricy at $9 (from Priceline) - but claims to give 90 shaves. Yay for Somersets Shaving Oil!!

Have a great NYE!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

I've just got back from Perth - where it has been a beautifully cool 21-26 degrees each day. This Sydney weather is NUTS! Perth is a ... quaint... city in many respects, not least because everthing is shut but 8pm. Even the Woolies in the middle of the city closes at 7.30!! Anyways, have a great christmas everyone! :)

Dancing Santa

Hey all! I'm in sunny Perth at the moment :) This place is funny - you can't get anything to eat after 10pm (even in the city centre) - and Woolies closes at 7.30pm ! Anyways I found this little doozie about a guy who hacked a dancing Santa to make it sound drunk. Personally - I would have made it into a political messiah - but thats just me :p

More riots... and why?

It shall indeed, be an interesting weekend. With rumours of small "armies" mobilising all over the state (and even from Melbourne) - we may see a rather unfortunate escalation the types of gang violence. On the other hand (hopefully), we might see a whole heap of chest-thumping and not much more. Still, this is largely unprecedented in Australia. Unfortunately, many of the young people involved in this (regardless of their background, ethnicity, and religion) have been brought up without having some core values instilled in them. In particular - a mix of indifferent indivdualism, and never being taught to take responsibility for their actions. This is a societal problem insofar as modern culture focuses on the indidual - everthing is "Me, My, Mine". Advertisements use this all the time. The side effect is that people are conditioned NOT to think of others, and how what THEY do, impacts on others. This is not a criticism of any particular ethnicity - nor of "Australian" culture as such - but an unfortunate reality of todays world.

Ashamed of Australia

Read this article. Its a sad day in Australia's History. These are scenes you expect from 1960's Redneck USA. Australia/Eureka flags. A BBQ for the thugs. Racist shirts. Anti-Immigrant parties making hay whilst the proverbial sun shone. They used KHE SAHN!!! THAT in itself is heresy against all things Australian (not to mention, being completely ignorant about what the song is about).

Admittedly, many of these "Middle Eastern" gangs cause heaps of trouble themselves, and I believe, need to be firmly dealt with (not this touchy-feely community stuff). Their behaviour is absolutely unacceptable. But what scares me is how such an orgy of nationalistic/racism was so quickly sparked. There are racist undertones throughtout the community - and this is partially to do with our current Governments policies. However, the point has been made that Cronulla is a bit of a redneck enclave, having been largely isolated from the multiculturalism of mainstream Sydney.

We often look back at Nazi Germany and wonder how can such cultured people, en mass, descend to such a mob mentality. Reading this article, one gets a frightening picture of just how easy it is.

RIP Student Unions

Thats it. After saying that the VSU bill would be postponed until next year AND Barnaby crossing the floor - the bill still passed the Australian Senate. Steve "Holier-than-thou" Fielding voted with the Government, and dealt a backhanded slap to students across the nation. I wonder what he was paid off with? Some change in the abortion debate? Or did some right wing Liberal told him that "God came to him in a dream, and told him that it was what Jesus would have done". Anyway, Merry Frickin Christmas, Nelson. I hope you choke to death on a turkey bone.

Rumsfeld sinks to new lows

Yesterday, Donald "Deaths Head" Rumsfeld gave a press conference where he criticised the American media for publishing negative articles on the Iraq War. With a straight face. Does this man have no limits?

Apparently, the U.S. Media has focused on negative things like "the number of U.S. Soldiers Killed" and other such insignificant events like torture allegations etc - without verifying them and "putting them in context". I'm sorry? This is the same media that went to air each night, with throws like "And now John, how many rag head butts did the US of A kick today?". !!!

To make this even more hypocritical, it has been confirmed that the Pentagon has been paying Iraqi Journalists to publish Pro-American stories. Yes, America went to Iraq to spread democracy... complete with the underlying principle of a ...ummmm.... free and unbiased press?

Essentially, America sells propaganda to the Iraqis, then blames its own right-wing, bigotted and money-driven media, when they happen to accidentally report the facts.

Bush, take your "Democracy" and shove it where the son don't shine.

Liberal Calendar tells the truth

We received our Local satan-spawn calendar today in the mail. I've never seen a fridge calendar with no public/school holidays marked, before! Inadvertantly, the truth slips out! I think this pretty much sums up the new world of IR.

Big trouble in ancient hardware...

The company I work for owns a subsidiary company that does business mainly in SA and VIC. This company uses a computer system called Aviion to collect all its retail business data (sales, inventory, invoices, etc). Yesterday, that system crashed. To say there was a bit of a panic would be like saying Bill Gates is reasonably well off.

But why the panic? Surely just swing over to the backup system, or at worst, implement disaster recovery plans. Not quite.

The system ran on a 20year old unsuported piece of hardware. It ran a ... wait for it... 25Mhz processor. (Yes - thats right - 25 MEGAhertz) It has 16Mb of ram. And a 4 Gb hard disk. Their IT guy, has been too scared to open the box, because he feared if he disturbed the layer of dust, it might not start up again. I kid you not, people.

The company had one person (a crazy Russian called Boris - no, seriously!) - who knew anything about the device. It seemed he spent most of his day at work, fiddling with the system to keep it running.

He had no system backup.

He had a disaster recovery plan - but it was 5 years old, and untested.

He didn't need system documentation because it was "all in his head".

*Sigh* It has been an... interesting... few days.