When pretty much everything sounds fantastic... Trance sounds the most fantastic...

We drew the curtains and darkened the room. Justin played for hours. Dreamily I would once in a while say things like, "Could you do the 2nd Area again? That's my favorite."

After many of my langorous gasps and moans, we stopped playing, and tried to analyze the gameplay experience. "I don't know exactly what the game designers intended with that trance vibrator thing - but it had to be this, right?"

http://www.gamegirladvance.com/archives/2002/10/26/sex_in_games_rezvibrator.html

A very cool 'Your Potential Our Passion' Flash app from MS.

http://www.microsoft.com/mscorp/innovation/yourpotential/main.html

I have mixed feelings about the 'Your Potential Our Passion' thing.... I really love it as a feel good marketing series and cncept but it's been overused in silly places here in NZ... Like playing the advert at a rugby match...... what a waste. But this flash app is VERY cool..... love to know who did it and what they spent on it? No hints in the code unfortunatly.... :-(
It even has subtitles for disability accesibility!

Check out this piccie of a fully frozen PC still running Windows!.... I used to do a lot of work with these industrial style PCs... VERY cool shot.
http://blogs.msdn.com/mcreasy/archive/2004/07/13/181857.aspx

No time to rip all your CD's? LoadPod will do it for you!  (Assuming you have an iPod and at least 50 CDs and are willing to pay $1.50 a CD and live in an area they service - which now includes Seattle).
http://blogs.msdn.com/mcreasy/archive/2004/07/13/181868.aspx
Now what I want to know is will they rip Vinyl!... that's what I want done!.... Thinking about hiring a student to do it!

That is all... back to work for me!

David Farrar has it here...

Gives new meaning to the T-Shirt I found.

Those two can come get ripping drunk with me any day!

... and a bloody good thing it is too....

As a frequent traveler, the integrity of the passport system is fundamental to my not getting dicked around at customs. I'd like the NZ passport to remain one of the best passports to travel on and to do that we need to be tough with cheeky buggers like these two.

http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/PA0407/S00271.htm

Seems like most countries have a Watermelon party.... Green on the outside and red in the middle....

Here is former Social Credit pinup boy Rod Donald and Watermelon MP;

Yesterday's announcement that the Electrolux factory in Christchurch is shifting to Australia, with the loss of 150 jobs, is a reminder that our manufacturers need nurturing if they are to survive," said Rod Donald.

'Nurturing' is euphamistic watermelon speak for 'Protected by exhorbitant consumer demand killing tarrifs and taxpayer wallet destroying subsidies and corporate welfare handouts'.

P.S. This post is really just an attempt to see if I can get the #1 page on Google for a loony left wing MP.... I'm already doing pretty well for a Loony Conservative Christian Think Tank

Hooray.... When I mention Maxim Institute on my Blog Google puts me ahead of the Maxim Institute itself... I'm just behind Russel Brown.

http://www.google.co.nz/search?q=maxim+institute&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&start=10&sa=N

I'm trying to book some Air NZ flights at the moment.... I'm waiting in the phone service center queue (about 15 mins long) for the 3rd time today.....!!!!!

So I'm going to write a blog bitching about Air NZ and I'm going to keep bitching for as long as I remain on hold.

So here are the things that piss me off....

.... *and they answer*...

Answer to a parliamentary question...

For the year ending March 2007, the highest marginal tax rate for a working family with household income of $60,000 will be 95.2%, comprised as follows: income tax 39%, Family Support Tax Credit / Child Tax Credit abatement 30%, Accommodation Supplement abatement 25%, ACC earner premium 1.2%.

Hi everyone, I'm a developer on the Partner Response Team - basically, if any OEMs, ISVs, or operators have problems or feature requests that can't wait for the next major version, my team is on it.

http://blogs.msdn.com/windowsmobile/archive/2004/07/08/176072.aspx

OK so Scoble is a Longhorn Evangelist still (I think) but I've barely heard a peep out of anybody wrt Longhorn recently. It seems that it went whizzzz.... after PDC last year and now it's gone POP! Plenty of time is being spent Channel 9ing but almost all of that seems to be focused on current and early future tech.... though that's not all that bad a thing.

Has Microsoft officially pulled back from evangelizing (hyping) Longhorn? Are we going to see yet more slippage and rearranging of release dates, and particularly features? Might we see some of the cool dev stuff (Indigo etc...) for 2k3 server prior to Longhorn shipping?

C'mon Rob, preach to us brother!

OK so Scoble has been blogging about media center so I thinough I'd post some of my experiences getting my Media box all set up.

He asks what do we think?

Well I think that like him I'll be waiting till the next version which looks REALLY cool. Saw plenty of stuff about it @ The MVP summit... but if I told you I'd have to kill you.

So anyway.. wearing my hat I got the chance to eval Media Center 2004... but living down here in lil old New Zealand we don't have any settings in the MCE program guide for our country which meant I couldn't even get the channels to tune :-( I did spend about 7 hours trying to get it going though!

So... I'm waiting for the next version which should be released here to.

In the mean time I have taken the MCE remote that I was sent and coupled it with a couple of other bits of software to build a TV only solution.

I'm using:

• Snapstream Beyond TV to run the TV side of things and;
• Girder to run the remote control against Snapstream.

I have found a NZ TV listings site that is another 'tell you, kill you' sort of deal... but now I have pretty much everything I want in a Media box for the moment. Namely the ability to reduce the time I have to commit to watching the 6pm News from 1hr to about 20 minutes.

The Snapstream setup is pretty cool. Has a web interface for queuing sngs so all the crew here @ Kognition can queue up programs they want to watch and then pick them up over firewire onto their notebooks on the way home each day. I've got a Hauppauge PVR 250 tuner card which is just great. Snapstream have a MCE version of their application that supports movies and pictures and MP3s coming soon so maybe I'll change to that if MCE is still a wee way off. Snapstream also allows easy downsampling of recorded shows automagically into Pocket PC format! Now if I had to commute to work that would be just WIKKID!

Anyway.... the TV box is great- one of the guys I work with called it 'the coolest tech toy I've seen this year'... I'm inclined to agree.

Julia Lerman has a pic of a cool T over @ her site- really need to be into the apprentice to get it properly....

I want one of these shirts.

Bill pointed to this stuff earlier today...

Sorry but I couldn't resist bringing it up again....
http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/PA0110/S00440.htm

In an email response to a spoof highlighting all the dangers and deaths from water, Green MP Sue Kedgley's office said she was 'absolutely supportive' of a ban on dihydrogen monoxide in New Zealand.

LMAO.... check out this stunt pulled by Beureaucrash over the weekend... press release here... video here...

For our first act, the Bureaucrash Players infiltrated the Green's convention, renting tabling space under the name, "The Progressives Against Progress."

...

Our mission for the day was to out progressive the progressives, with outrageous proposals for regulation & redistribution, based firmly in their own socialist philosophy. We would judge our success by seeing how many of the convention attendees we could get to sign our petitions for such measures, even as we explained them into absurdity.

...

The Progressives...s proposals didnt receive the first hint of disagreement until we decided to step it up a notch, and start distributing our Nominate Castro for President flyers to the crowds of delegates, preparing to cast the first ballot for the partys nomination.

...

One gentleman, upon seeing the Castro flyers on our table, said that he didnt think nominating him was realistic, but rejoiced in the idea of recognizing his accomplishments. He explained, something truly wonderful is happening here, after which he started doing this little dance thing, and singing Guantanamera.

If you are an MSDN Universal Subscriber you can have MSDN Mag for free (in US or Canada) and $25 a year outside the US/Can.... Take a look for it under Special Offers in Subsciber Downloads

In the release notes of the latest emule build we find

'eMule can open the ports it needs on the internal WinXP(SP1 or 0) firewall itself either permanently (connection pref) or on each startup (extended settings) '

Now IMHO this is a HIGHLY priv. operation.... I hope that Windows throws some big ugly dialog boxes at you!

Lukas notes the Len Lye movie being shown in Auckland at the moment... if you really want to see some cool Len Lye stuff the New Plymouth Govett Brewster Art Gallery is the place. They have some truely phenomenal kinetic sculptures from the man who must surely be the grand master of that art. A photo simply does not do Trilogy (below) justice...

[UPDATE] In case you haven't seen it the above sculpture is about 10 meters high and hangs from the ceiling of the art gallery.... when running the sound alone is truely awe inspiring... and quite frightening!

You heard it there first I'll be speaking at Tech Ed in the second to last session of the whole conference... eeek....

More details as I prepare my content... be sure to look out for me... I'll be the one wearing the red shoes! I am allowed to wear my red shoes under the speaker dress code aren't I!?!

But who are the Keynote speakers this year???
Steve Riley?

Good to see Tony Goodhew back in this neck of the woods!

And Michael Howard... Nice one....