Olympics
Okay, I've had a few drinks, and I'm watching the winter olympics closing ceremony. Having an oh-so-funky loungeroom PC means that I can share my thoughts with the rest of the world.

Dinosaurs
Giant plastic skeletons (with no lip sync) and KISS immediately afterwards... Please, gimme a break. Some original comedy for the dinosaurs would have been good.

I'll pay KISS. We resurrected some really ancient artists for our closing ceremony in Sydney.

Earth, Wind and Fire?
By your powers combined, I am Captain Planet!

I'd never heard of these guys before. I assume they're a late 80's group, since their music sounded the same as everything else from that era.

Pyrotecnics attached to skates
Okay, *that* was cool, and definitely illegal in Australia.

Harry Conneck Jr
Most people n Melbourne associate him with a train company now. Most people who use the trains don't even remember who he is.

Tap-dancing
Had to have microphones in the shoes. Get Smart, eat your heart out.

Pretend rap?
There's some group playing now who look like rappers who want to be jazz players, and are failing with both. One of those all-male groups. I think that expecting the olypmics to play good coding music is too much to ask for. (Yes, I code to Run-DMC, so shoot me.)

More dinosaurs
Lame lame lame! We had giant clotheslines. Much more original. :)

Cleaning the ice
Sounds like a captain planet song to me. Jacinta likes it. Her musical tastes are still stuck in the 80s. I don't know who this Wayne dude is, but he seems to be okay at skating. Of course, being the winter olympics, you'd expect a few decent skaters to be around.

Interlude - Gold for Australia
We won two gold medals at the winter olympics, the first two gold medals ever for Australia in the winter olympics. Aussie Aussie Aussie! Oi! Oi! Oi!

Temptation Island
Australian Temptation Island is starting as of next week. Personally I don't give a hoot about the show, but it's traditionally been followed by Buffy, to whom I give many hoots. Buffy rocks.

More Olympics
Steve Bradbury is carrying the Australian flag. Everyone know Steve, he won the speed-skating. He's had an awfully good sense of humour about it all. Did I mention that Australia won two gold medals?

Flags
Winches? Winches? Back in my day you had to pull the rope and tie it off at the end. Operating the winch looks like harder work anyway.

Dinosaurs
Shame shame shame.

Lighting
I'm impressed with the ability to light up the whole stadium with such clarity. There must be some very good projection units there.

Dinosaurs
When I die, I'm doing the organ donation thing, *and/or* the medical students in Sydney slicing me up for their undergraduate degrees. I don't have a problem with that. However, I want it recorded that I *do* object to being re-animated for an olympic event.

Security
I think this has been the first olympics ever where both the armed forces and the residing security have been thanked for their efforts.

G'night
It's certainly time I should get some sleep. G'night all. Make sure that you use your powers for good and not evil.

Cube
The new machine has been dubbed cube, due to its shape, although it's more shoebox than cube proportioned. Sound under Windows was a right pain to get working, and involved an upgrade from Win98SE to Win2K in order to get a peep out of the darn thing. Sound under Linux worked a treat, first time. Those people who are curious, it's an FV24 VIA motherboard with on-board sound.

The machine is currently sitting in the lounge-room, and has a TV connection, but no connection to the sound system yet. Considering the purchase of a Creative Extigy and a bunch of high quality surround speakers, but I'm sure that would be excessive at this stage.

Again, many many thanks to Ian for providing his wealth of knowledge regarding hardware and drivers.

ATTENTION!
USE OF THE ENCLOSED "INTEL INSIDE(R)" LOGO LABELS IS UNAUTHORIZED AND CONSTITUTES INFRINGEMENT OF INTEL'S EXCLUSIVE TRADEMARK RIGHTS UNLESS YOU HAEV SIGNED AN INTEL INSIDE LOGO TRADEMARK LICENSE THAT IS CURRENTLY IN EFFECT. LOGO LABELS MAY ONLY BE PLACED ON QUALIFIED COMPUTER SYSTEMS USING THE INTEL BOXED PROCESSORS SHIPPED WITH THE LOGO LABELS - ALL USE MUST COMPLY WITH THE INTEL LOGO TRADEMARK LICENSE THAT YOU HAVE SIGNED. TO OBTAIN A LICENSE, CONTENT INTEL AT: http://channel.intel.com/business/ibp/license. INTEL RESERVES THE RIGHT TO REFUSE A LICENSE TO ANY PARTY.

PLACE THE ENCLOSED "INTEL INSIDE(R)" LOGO LABEL ON THE FRONT BEZEL OF THE PC ONLY, IN WHICH THE INTEL PROCESSOR HAS BEEN INSTALLED. FOR ADDITIONAL PLACEMENT INSTRUCTIONS GO TO http://program.intel.com/ibp/ad_bld/proguse.htm

News
Okay, lots of people know, and the rumour-mill usually runs pretty hot, so I might as well announce it here. After many many years together, Jacinta and I are finally engaged.

Those of you who are interested in details:

• 14th Feb (Valentine's day, tacky, I know)
• Sunrise
• 1000ft in a hot air balloon
• Above the Yarra Valley

UPS
New UPS is in and beeps loudly when power is disconnected. Good UPS.

Lightning
You know when lightning is striking close to your house because all your flouros light up followed by one almighty BOOM. I'm very sad that my UPS isn't arriving until Monday, because I think it could be very handy right now.

Other news
I've got some other news, but I'll be writing that in my next entry. If I tell everyone now it will spoil the surprise.