In a former life (when I actually had a life) I used to pay quite a bit of dance music off records such that the tracks blended togther really nicely*. I played at a few big outh Island parties including Main Stage on NYE @ Alpine Unity...

Anyway... time dictates I'm not doing as much of this any more. As a result I have kinda lost touch with the deep dark vibe that used to drive me. Fear not though as I have discovered www.mixdepot.net which is basically a site for aspiring DJs. It seems to be frequented by a large number of fantastic Progressive House DJs (among other genres) and a lot of them are Ableton Live types which means the mixing is utterly flawles and the mastering is tight as... well, let's just say it's TIGHT!

So I've downloaded a few of the mixes from here already and they are REALLY rather good.

Currently listening to: V - Train / M357 and I highly recommend the download. A number of the trackas are available as Bit Torrents so if any of you Citylinkers are keen for a 100 megabit torrent-a-thon let me know.

*Yes... I know this is called 'DJing' but it's just so cliche to say 'I was a DJ'...

Looked at my mobile bill last month and there was a $64 10 minute call from Aus to NZ......

Yes... that is like $6 per minute.... from Australia!

Turns out my phone had decided to roam on Optus instead of Vodafone for that call.

While AU-NZ on Vodafone AUS is $.49/min making the same call on Optus or Telstra is a mind numbing $6 odd per minute!.

Moral of the story is work out how to show the carrier name on your mobile... and make sure you look before you leap!

Just organised a car with Avis- I'm in BNE for the day next Thursday. Not only were they about 30% cheaper than Budget, my usual rental place, but once I completed the booking they had a link to download a vCal... that just ROCKS- that's what I call trying harder

I'll be a happy repeat customer from here on in!

Ok.. sone under NDA I've known about the Desktop availability of SQl mobile for quite a while.

It was announced in the wild this week. Steve Lasker has a great Q&A on his blog...

http://blogs.msdn.com/stevelasker/archive/2006/04/10/SqlEverywhereInfo.aspx

”

Media company CanWest MediaWorks (NZ) Ltd. (MWL.NZ) said Friday

it has reached an agreement with two other broadcasting networks to deliver free-to-air

satellite-based digital television services in New Zealand.

The New Zealand-based company, which is 70% owned by Canada's largest media group

CanWest Global Communications Corp. (CWG), said it has agreed with Broadcast

Communications Ltd. and Television New Zealand to negotiate the installation of a full

transponder on the Optus D1 satellite.

“

I read a great article over summer in NZ Fitness magazine called something like “Is Gym the New Religion”... basically talking about how for broadly secular NZ going to gym is becoming the place where we socialise and 'worship' these days....

Of course in the USA it's all a bit different as Casey points out.

“my home gym is a YMCA, and they are getting all god'ed up for spring”

W00t!.....

Buy Apple stock now!

This is great news!
Get the goodies here:
http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2006/apr/05bootcamp.html

 If You're A Gamer You Need To Watch- especially if you have a wife....

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1329362959167995041

It's tax time again... *joy*.... which means I get to log into internet banking and send exorbitant sums to the revenue. Sums for which I, personally, actually receive little to no direct benefit from.

Most people get their tax whisked out of their pay packet (in a process called PAYE which is basically funded/subsidised by employers) silently each pay round. This means they never really get to face the true horror of having to send the government their hard earned cash.

I think this should be changed- I think that everybody should get the chance to feel the pain of pressing that button and watching their money siphon off into the Government coffers.

There is this old lady @ my gym who wears entirely nasty gym gears... then I found ths picture in a shop in the Venetian in Vegas... I sooo thought of her. I've attached some of the other cool poster pics too.

So I sent Friday night and Saturday morning in Grand Forks, ND. I was visitig a custer and we went out Friday night t watch some COllege Hockey. It is amazing how much Americans are 'into' their College sport. Grnad Forks (popn. about 50k) has a $120 million Hockey Stadium. My customer has season tickets, front row right behid the goal.

We had a real blast. It was the finals for the Western Region.

1st game was Holy Cross vs University of Minnesota (the Gophers). THe Gophers were higly rated but were beaten in extra time. THis was like North Otago beating Auckland for the Ranfurly Shield. Of curse, North Dakotans are not great fans of the Gophers so the stadium went totally nuts.

2nd game was the home side, the might Sioux playing Michigan. They thrashed them.

Here are some photos and videos of the game.

The stadium

The Cheerleading Skating Chicks With Nice Legs.... and the inside of the stadium

I trotted off to the LVM site to get myself some 'oh I hate travelling' whitewater fix video... I get there and find that one of the key guys behind Penstock Productions, Daniel DeLaVergne, was killed by a train (8 March). I've only known Daniel via email... but this is a real bummer- one of those nasty twists of fate.