So all you guys have been asking me for about a year now when the next Rubenerd Show is coming out, and I reckon all things considered I've done a pretty good job dodging the question up until now. With this latest flurry of retweeted messages though, I figure I finally owe you all an explanation, so here it is.

MI5 is on to me. There, I said it. I said something about the Queen's hair and they want to take me out quietly before anything can leak out to a tabloid. While I can't tell you much about my huge scoop (say no more), what I can say is she's not naturally that grey. Keep watching WikiLeaks.

Moving on

I kid in jest of course. As opposed to kidding in something other than jest, which I don't think would be kidding then, would it? Does the term kidding imply jest, or can it also refer to something else? Say for example, chess?

I'm very good at talking nonsense when I don't want to answer something. Maybe I should become a politician, or a public serviceman. Serviceperson. Servicehuman. Someone who provides public service. Like, say, chess.

Moving on, again

Okay okay, for real this time! This is the part of the post that contains all the pertinent information, all that other crap above this sentence was entirely pointless and should really have been discarded in favour of starting the post here. In fact, that last sentence was also entirely pointless which isn't helping my case.

I'll tell you why the Rubenerd Show is on another extended hiatus again. Is it because I lost all the equipment in a fire? Is it because I'm lazy or couldn't be bothered doing another one? Is it some technical reason to do with webhosting or post production? Is it because I can't stand to be reminded that open source people can't name applications whenever I compress shows with LAME?

Possibly a little of each of those may be true to some small extent, but there's another reason which is so lame and stupid it's taken me six long and painfully useless paragraphs to reach it. Seven even, because I'll be starting that thought on the next line.

I'm terrified

That was way harder to admit than I thought it was going to be. Hopefully things will get easier now. Forgive this self indulgent nonsense!

Look for most of my life I've been a painfully shy person; I never liked having birthday parties as a kid and working up the guts to approach someone I didn't know was the stuff of nightmares. Perhaps because I was forced to, but by late high school and university I'd started getting a little better. I didn't need detailed plans before I left the house and I didn't feel as though everyone was staring at me.

For a reason that continues to baffle me, since about late 2009 I feel as though I've started to regress again. Whereas a few years ago I'd be a bit jittery and nervous, sometimes now I'm flooded with feelings of anxiousness and fear at the prospect of leaving the house. Once I've made that critical first step I'm mostly okay, but sometimes its just too much. Its impacted relationships with friends, my studies and heaven knows what else in a way that I thought I'd got over in primary school.

Its got to the stage where I'm worrying that I'm worrying, and that can't be a good thing.

What does this have to do with...?

This is where podcasting comes in. It sounds preposterous, but the idea of recording my own voice for other people to listen to scares me in a way it never did before. Literally I look across at my mixer board and I break out in a cold sweat. Jokes about the quality of the Rubenerd Show aside, I can't explain it, but it feels like this deep seated fear that something terrible is about to happen, like that a grand piano will come hurtling through the ceiling as soon as I speak.

For some reason blogging isn't a problem, perhaps its because I feel insulated from the outside world because nobody can see or hear me as I type this. Except maybe the people down the hall, this buckling spring keyboard is as loud as all outdoors.

Anyway I know this is a maddeningly ambiguous conclusion to leave you with, but while I'm pledging the Rubenerd Show hasn't been retired, as much as I would love to produce more episodes, right now I just... can't.

I appreciate all your support and comments, I really hope one day I'm confident enough to do the show again for all of you. In the words of Monty Python, the Rubenerd Show isn't dead, it's just resting.

Thanks :)
Ruben

I've figured out why some iTunes users have been reporting problems with subscribing to the Rubenerd Show through the iTunes Store. I deleted my own subscription, searched for "Rubenerd Show" in the iTunes Store and resubscribed to only be given a small circle and an exclamation point.

When I right clicked and chose "Show Description" I was given the above dialog box. No wonder it isn't working, it's trying to access new shows from http:///show/feed/ for some reason!

I don't know how or why this happened. I'll be contacting Apple about this to see if I can get it pointing back to the proper URI again. I believe my good friend Felix Tanjono submitted my podcast to the iTunes Store back in 2005 back when Australia and Singapore didn't have access to it.

While I'm sorting this out you can still go to iTunes, choose the Advanced menu and click Subscribe to Podcast, then enter the following address as a stopgap:

http://rubenerd.com/show/feed/

Sorry about this, I don't know how this could have happened :-(.

Getting hate messages a sign of honour; maturity by being able to laugh at yourself; news still being news if its not new; IRC and Twitter mudslinging whatnot; people getting snippy at me quoting David Letterman's comments on Aussie Rules football; scoring points if you miss; making fun sounds with buckling spring keyboards; the awesomeness of Unicomp in the US of A and this thing called a sense of humour!

Download MP3 to listen 21:16 9.9MiB

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Moving lots of blogs into one blog; people like Zombie Plan and Neal from IntoYourHead going the opposite ways; working and living places after university; iTelephone cases and downloading; The Googles and I losing track of core competencies; too much self respect to use Chandler Bing and vacuous people getting angry at Twitter for losing spam followers!

Download MP3 to listen 19:18 8.9MiB

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This could very well be the greatest episode of the Rubenerd Show of all time. Even though Into Your Head has a spiffy new layout, it just can't compete with the quality and intelligent discourse of this episode.

Download MP3 to listen 1.7MiB

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Clock and calendar silliness; the Queen's Birthday isn't the Queen's Birthday; Queen Elizabeth's mugshot on Australian coins; blogging about FreeBSD desktop background managers; the de facto one episode a month show; people whinging about too many blog posts; Zombie Plan on useless tweets; MannyTheMailman's brand new air conditioner; Asia Pacific being ahead of Hawaii; iPhone Apple WWDC speculation; Neal O'Carroll and I suing for the iTelephone name; Elke's lack of tweets; the world is flat; illegal Dutch pot scenarios and zombies eating skittles.

Download MP3 to listen 12:30 5.9MiB

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Scaring people who think I'm a chick (ha!); late Friday night train journeys; nostalgia for 2007 Twitterland with Twitterrific; TwitterFon inserting advertisements; moving over to Tweetie on the iTelephone; obsessively using the huge but efficient TweetDeck; and the spectacular cost of mobile phone company text messages!

Download MP3 to listen 21:30 10.0MiB

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The reason why people hate the iPhone's keyboard is the reason why I love it; Riverdance keyboard typists; the fun of being a shy introvert; evening walks around Mawson Lakes; the Australian Bicentennial; childhood steam locomotive nostalgia; the New South Wales 3801 streamliner and the Victorian R761; and obsessively wearing out VHS tapes!

Download MP3 to listen 21:30 10.0MiB

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Fun with dealing with broken corrupt backups, misleadingly labelled auto rent payments and my former webhost Servage now that I'm safely typing this from Segment Publishing!

Am particularly flustered and fast talking which saves on file download times for your convenience. Thank you.

Download MP3 to listen 20:55 9.7MiB

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Back in Adelaide again; losing control of RubenerdShow.com for some reason; losing an episode source file again; a silly proposal for an onomatopoeic word to describe places; reminiscing about family trips to Ubud in Bali; our end of year holiday to Singapore; food poisoning isn't as fun as the brochure said; our new family Christmas holiday ritual; story behind my beautiful shiny new Nikon D60 instead of getting a D40 or D40x; remembering I'm supposed to be keeping episodes under 20 minutes; and a lousy joke about wishing I had Nikon VR on my person!

Download MP3 to listen 20:55 9.6MiB

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Terribly good jokes told by people who can't tell jokes; Barack Obama's inauguration on TV; relieved farewell to Dubbya; more relieved Sarah Palin didn't win than Barack did; silly thing John McCain said; the American founding fathers; Thomas Jefferson on church and state; getting a Nikon D60 for Christmas; pixel density is more important then megapixels; my old FinePix S9600; how bridge cameras compare to real single lens reflex (SLR) cameras; realising shows shouldn't be recorded at 2am; an exciting new hobby and discovering green tea is... green tea!

Download MP3 to listen ↓ 20:45 9.7MiB

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You've joined me at a tremendously exciting moment; unabashedly ripping off IntoYourHead; microwaving coffee after I said you shouldn't; Family Guy; Germans can make better Christmas food than the French; family trip to Europe in 1998; asking for the bathroom with sign language; Frankfurt am Main; time speeding up as you get older; Melbourne since 1990; remembering primary school; flag carriers and whatnot; Tom Keene talking about ridiculously expensive bottled water with David Zetland on Bloomberg on the Economy; the political compass thingy; and a Paul Shaffer smoke alarm!

UPDATE: The date for this episode has been fixed to show 2009 instead of 2008 after I received a smartarse comment ;-)

Download MP3 to listen ↓ 21:00 9.8MiB

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Can I get a monocle? A monocle? Also discussing my displeasure over companies that just make money from money; the financial crisis; the infamous red light Orchard Towers in Singapore; the Jason's Gourmet Grocer; hard versus soft energy drinks; Irn-Bru; review of Alton Brown's Good Eats programme; Jamie Oliver; the joys of steel cut oats; how much Singapore has changed in a decade; Bob's Red Mill in Oregon; finding out buttermilk isn't as horrible as it first sounds; Pepsi is in fact better than Coke; why instant oats suck and can I get a monocle?

Download MP3 to listen ↓ 20:56 9.8MiB

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Having delusions of effectiveness; Burnt tongues; differences between robusta and arabica coffee; lack of FireWire ports on the new MacBook; instant coffee crap; the teachers pet phenomena; high school library studying adventures in 2004; WordPress mistaking m3u for mp3 in enclosures; too many darned files; FireWire 800 versus FireWire 400 versus USB 2.0; review of the Western Digital My Passport Studio FireWire external notebook drive and a heavy bag of bubble wrap!

Download MP3 to listen ↓ 21:01 9.8MiB

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Do more people know where Singapore is now? Sleeping with blinking lights; Asia changing every five minutes; gutting the Bishan MRT station; the Singapore Heartland; changing skylines; apartment buildings springing up from nowhere; the feared "en bloc sale" phenomena; the Adelaide Glenelg Tramline; the Sydney Cross City Tunnel; using the Internet Archive for Rubenerd Shows; rating shows with stars; Liberal and Labor guys; an extended rant on building roads instead of public transport; and don't blame me I voted for The Greens!

Download MP3 to listen ↓ 21:15 9.9MiB

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The issue that everyone is thinking about: motorised street sweepers. Also discussing Twitter password adventures; internet obsessions when asleep; transit stops in Bali; code injection attacks; file permissions giving permission; domain adventures; the Googles refusing indexing; Ourmedia; the Internet Archive; Harvie Krumpet's backyard (not to be confused with Burke's backyard; Starbucks Christmas blend; NesCafe; the ill fated Viennese Coffee House; the Boatdeck Cafe; throwing bottles at people's faces and midlife crisis coffee roasting machines!

Download MP3 to listen ↓ 21:03 9.8MiB

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The very lovely Nicole Kidman's awkward interview on David Letterman's Late Show (YouTube link); an official apology for Rubenerd Show 258; the joys of insomnia; missing my MadPlayer and Armada M300; DavesPhotoGallery.net; my back hates my MacBook Pro; amazing detail exposed with flash photography (ha!); unscrupulously punching holes though property; automatic bright orange snow shovels; Google Reader and curious white powder on recycling bins!

Download MP3 to listen ↓ 21:09 9.8MiB

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The show title says it all. One of the most comprehensive, well researched, intense, respectable, accurate, relevant, without peer, hard hitting and to-the-point episodes ever recorded. Music from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation ABC1 News service.

Download MP3 to listen ↓ 15:19 7.2MiB

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Freak weather in Australia (torrential storms in Brisbane, fluctuating temperatures in Adelaide, snow in Victoria a week before summer!); my cheesy slogan from primary school; my dad's plant designs in Pinkenba; the iPhone and iPod Touch 2.2 update (still no copy/paste, the amazing street view feature, the new weird MobileSafari layout); Toronto, Adelaide and Dublin; the IntoYourHead show; and utopian science fiction writers!

UPDATE: I referred to the CEO of Microsoft as Steve Jobs not Steve Ballmer! The blasphemy! Please forgive me!

Download MP3 to listen ↓ 21:05 9.7MiB

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My obsession with and purchase of a soft cover Moleskine book from NoteMaker, Impromptu review of Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, my take on The Rampler with blogging, Amazon delivery of David Letterman Late Show Fun Facts, the anatomy of the human hand including the ever elusive thumb, colour computer nostalgia, where the number 256 keeps cropping up, afternoon post office bus trips and wondering what the heck an Australia Post eParcel is!

Download MP3 to listen ↓ 30:34 14.1MiB

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Recording shows at 03:45am; bizarre South Australian and Indian timezones off by half an hour; installing operating systems in virtual machines, VMware Fusion, VMware Workstation, Parallels Desktop, VirtualBox; getting your hands dirty with real partitioning; choosing from FreeBSD, Draco GNU/Linux, OS/2 Warp 4.x, BeOS, DR-DOS, FreeDOS, NetBSD; why it's a great time for OS enthusiasts to be alive; and why this should really have been filed under Rubenerd Unplugged and not made into a proper show!

Download MP3 to listen ↓ 17:00 7.9MiB

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It's official ladies, gentlemen and everyone else: the fine folks at the IntoYourHead show are officially at war. In response to this situation, I have recorded this highly sophisticated response. Please listen to in a well ventilated area, for the fumes of professionalism may overwhelm you.

Download MP3 to listen ↓ 09:18 4.3MiB

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Reviewing the first Formula 1 Grand Prix night race in Singapore, Massa's pits fuel pipe adventure, the lights and skyline, Alonoso was one lucky guy, Ferrari's woes; version 1.1.1 of the addictive Nations application on Facebook; Twinings Chai tea; ridiculous Telstra phone bill nonsense; and avoiding suggestively named Naked DSL!

Music for this episode performed by Chris Juergensen from Magnatune.com.

Download MP3 to listen ↓ 37:00 17.1MiB

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I caved and bought an iPhone; the reasons why I was disappointed with Google Android; sophisticated text messages from my sister; the LG Secret mobile phone; snapping Australian Medicare cards; New Zealand Australia Centrelink migrations; Gordon Brown's Labour speech in the UK; palindromic numbers; distrusting spell checkers with gibberish; fancy new embedded Rubenerd Show cover art; compressed graphics looking crap; antihistamines; the term podcast; my take on the Andy Kaufman situation on The Overnightscape; my dad setting off security at Adelaide Airport; the iPhone keyboard; the TwitterFon iPhone Twitter client; I love the Objective-C programming language; fond memories of the Palm Tungsten W and Palm OS; basing your opinion of devices just from spec sheets; practical use for GPS and Safari; and hallucinogenic throat lozenges!

Music for this episode performed by Chris Juergensen from Magnatune.com.

Download MP3 to listen ↓ 33:00 15.2MiB

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Was SUPPOSED to be discussing our Flinders Ranges trip and my new iPhone, but ended up discussing the cola wars, my dad's much needed holiday with us in Adelaide, having no energy sucks, mistakingly assuming malice instead of stupidity, the sad decline of Vodafone service in Australia, multivitamins and coffee preparation, the Aussie outback is REALLY flat, signing up with Optus, mobile phone prepaid plans are a ripoff, really humbling super old rock, good to be back home, sculling boiling water, phone calls with Elke, and some "realistic" philosophy!

Flinders Ranges trip and iPhone adventures will be released in the coming week. Heaven forbid I actually record what I'm supposed to one day :-).

Music for this episode performed by Chris Juergensen from Magnatune.com.

Download MP3 to listen ↓ 33:00 15.2MiB

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Looking back 10x at episode Rubenerd Show 25, flu is fun, fun with IP addresses and DNS servers, Happy 60th birthday to Bem Adolph in Sydney, meeting my old man back in Adelaide, forgetful MadPlayers, music lobby groups and companies making us feel guilty, John Grisham, Disney copyright evils, Whole Wheat Radio artists, Nations application on Facebook (with link to Rubenerdia), Schweppes Lemonade, huge controversy surrounding Ginger, the cute Rundle Mall mascot and silly roller coaster analogies!

Download MP3 to listen ↓ 43:34 20.1MiB

Video and images from the Rundle Mall advertisements can be seen on the Rubenerd Blog: Not everyone approves of Ginger in Rundle Mall.

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From Adelaide: On Saturday nights some young people go binge drinking at nightclubs. Ruben does the hardcore thing by releasing a ridiculous, disjointed, repetitive, mildly irritating podcast episode with little cohesion or rational thought. And some people say he's a loser, can you believe it? Including vintage audio from Not Only but Also!

This also serves as a crossover for Rubenerd Unplugged, the cheap knockoff of the Rampler which is coming soon. This will be the only episode where Unplugged material is played here, unless someone uses an effective form of persuasion against Ruben such a gun, or grilled cheese sandwich.

Download MP3 to listen ↓ 15:53 7.4MiB

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From Adelaide: Finally some beautiful weather in Adelaide, river walking paths late at night, the Mawson Lakes suburb, Rubenerd Unplugged inspired by The Overnightscape Rampler, a new use for my Ourmedia account, advice from Jerry Novak and a scary almost lethal close encounter!

Music for this episode performed by Chris Juergensen from Magnatune.com.

Download MP3 to listen ↓ 30:56 14.3MiB

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Hashing out and talking through some ideas about the future of Rubenerd.com and how I want to move my five separate sites over to it. Might be listenable for a pleasant background distraction if you mess around with weblog engines, databases and whatnot, otherwise don't feel bad giving this one a miss. Looking at Dave Wares' Photo Gallery as an example of where I want to be.

To make it somewhat more interesting, I've included some retro audio easter eggs :-).

Download MP3 to listen ↓ 01:12:11 33.1MiB

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A rant episode in response to a new technology reported by Webware and an article calling the exposing of P2P as a red herring; talking about net neutrality, attacking symptoms not causes, RIAA/MPAA inspired bullying tactics. Not the same calibre as a Jimbob Kloss rant but I try my best!

Also briefly talk about a fascinating interview article from Slashdot from the inventor of C++, and the internets are working again at home!

Download MP3 to listen ↓ 40:24, 18.6MiB

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Locations in web form thingys, a huge power outage in Singapore, nostalgia comparing how we thought of computer speeds in the 80s, 90s and noughties, my vintage 200MHz Pentium MMX machine still running, the megahertz myth, building computers from Sim Lim Square, the Commodore VIC-20, Commodore 64 and Commodore 1541 disk drive, 6502 chips in everything, TMnet "high speed" monopoly in Malaysia, getting paid to podcast, stalling internet connections driving me crazy!

Download MP3 to listen ↓ 33:38, 13.8MiB

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Spending more time dealing with people not problems, university folks moving from Windows to Linux and Mac, university assignments, compulsive fanboyism, SQlite, Microsoft C#.NET, squeaky clean OpenBSD, actually finding someone who likes Windows Vista, skies getting dark really fast, comments from Rubenerd Show 241, too many interesting people on Twitter, Twitter traditional news sources (Aussie ABC, BBC News, BBC SciTech, Reuters, Channel News Asia) and personal nuclear missile silos.

Download MP3 to listen ↓ 33:38, 15.5MiB

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Relevant links:

• The FreeBSD Project
• Debian GNU/Linux AMD64 Port
• NVIDIA UNIX Drivers
• DistroWatch

Download MP3 to listen ↓ 27:00, 12.4MiB

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ACT ONE: Labour Day in Singapore, sexism you'd be shot down for in Australia, Garfield quotes, mouth clicking is not professional, gorgeous pink sunsets.

ACT TWO: Jimbob finds out what's wrong, my cat versus dog debate: which one do you prefer?

ACT THREE: Max Brenner restaurant review at the Esplanade, absolutely incredible chocolate! Branches in the US, Singapore, Australia, the Philippines, Israel. Drinking out of Hug Mugs, comparing it to the Starbucks Chantico, Aztec style chocolate goodness!

I took the sunset photos in such a hurry none of them really turned out that well, so I posted a camera-phone picture from Max Brenner's instead. Sorry folks!

Download MP3 to listen ↓ 33:43, 15.5MiB

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ACT ONE: On hobgoblins and small minds (courtesy of Cranky Geeks 113!), where we are in Singapore, diamond shaped thingys.

ACT TWO: Pontificating on the reason why McDonald's started printing nutritional information on place mats, a McChicken burger surprise!

ACT THREE: Discussing the question: would you prefer to study in a Starbucks or in McDonalds? Reading comments by Neil from IntoYourHead, GeekMommy and Sharon in Singapore!

ACT FOUR: Singapore housing boom, ridiculously tall buildings, weird designs that just don't look stable!

Download MP3 to listen ↓ 33:10, 15.2MiB

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ACT ONE: Twitter is back, and so is the spam! Frustration with my Nokia e61i's speed, awesome Canadians in Singapore, university and high school have much in common, Elke's polytechnic adventures, The Levels becomes Mawson Lakes (WTF?).

ACT TWO: Silly university entrance requirements and an Elke and Ruben combined teachers and students rant!

ACT THREE: Even more dang Twitter spam messages, the lead singer from the Crash Test Dummies rocks!

Download MP3 to listen ↓ 37:20, 17.1MiB

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A bit more serious: discussing the reasons why I became an atheist from experiences in my early childhood to the present, including most recently my beautiful mummy's struggle with cancer and passing on.

Also briefly refuting some of the misconceptions about atheists including intolerance, arrogance, spirituality, materialism, wishful thinking, heaven, the celestial dictatorship, and why statements like this are completely untrue.

BONUS: A very quick, foolproof test you can use to see if someone who trashes evolution has actually studied it.

DISCLAIMER: This episode was not recorded to insult people, it's just an explanation for why personally I'm atheist. If you are religious you may be offended, but please know that in my heart that it was not my intention.

Download MP3 to listen ↓ 1:08:56, 31.6MiB

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ACT ONE: Elke in Malaysia, different sized pond thingys, scared of copyright law, making more money from concerts than recordings!

ACT TWO: Answers to my philosophical Twitter question, why I'm confusing even myself!

ACT THREE: Reviewing songs from The Renovators album Rhythm & Blueprints including Rip Up the House, It's Been Done, Blue Reggae, I Don't Ski.

ACT FOUR: Audio from a Whole Wheat Radio Audio Magazine including an American NBC anchor in the 1970s, the I Could Be Wrong song, and why I also can't stand Dr. Phil!

STRONG LANGUAGE WARNING!

Download MP3 to listen ↓ 39:45, 18.2MiB

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ACT ONE: Roel247's comments on electronic voting, compulsory voting in Australia, Senator Bob Brown of the Greens meeting the Dalai Lama.

ACT TWO: My label printing obsession! The Brother PT-80, labeling CDs, boxes, magazine holders and everything in my father's home office, there's no need to write anything anymore!

ACT THREE: The growing complexity of CMSs and why I'm moving over to home brew again using Ruby and SQlite, WordPress 2.5, loudly dropping aerosol cans, Elke's gigantic honey sandwich.

ACT FOUR: Converting metric to imperial in Google, Russian mail order brides, Ruben's idea for a standardised New World Order (patent pending), seeding torrent files, too many tabs in web browsers!

ACT FIVE: Why South Park is actually a great show to watch, being able to laugh at yourself, not taking life too seriously!

Download MP3 to listen ↓ 48:01, 22.0MiB

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ACT ONE: The Simpsons Bombardment, Elke's first live morning Whole Wheat Radio show, Elke on The Sims 2.

ACT TWO: Slow Singapore internet today, Microsoft gets new open source chief, Ruben rants about "shared source" nonsense, CalgaryGuru on Flickr's new video uploading service, is Yahoo's brand failing?

ACT THREE: Elke on different social networks across the world, suss people on Bebo, verbose MySpace video profiles.

ACT FOUR: Rant on people intentionally misspelling names, Ruben versus Reuben, Miss Cook adventures in primary school in Melbourne, Web 2.0 buyout baiting, Jerry Yang's haircut, Wikipedia as a drug, Yahoo Mash.

ACT FIVE: Facebook discussion including remembering 30 passwords, Elise Hopkins, The Schade Clan group, rant on how useless nationalities and patriotism are becoming, origin of the word expat, Mr Slave.

ACT SIX: Ridiculously long lists of Facebook requests, fun in my own introversion, testy-pops, 2005 was a very good year, "Liberal" meaning different things in the US and Australia, Lotus SmartSuite, Microsoft Plus 95, my OBSESSION with screeshots!

ACT SEVEN: Ruben's dad Rainer debunks mind-controlling chemtrails, huge ships near the Port of Singapore, illuminati controlling my mind as a sheeple, why it's hard to find words that rhyme with sheeple.

Download MP3 to listen ↓ 1:07:00, 30.7MiB

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Download MP3 to listen ↓ 1:02:12, 28.5MiB

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ACT ONE: Recounting childhood memories and obsessions from Melbourne, Ikea furniture, Lego.

ACT TWO: Is Starbucks having a positive effect? My favourite coffee house closing, improved coffee quality.

ACT THREE: Rant about public transport: are we better building new damned giant roads or new train lines?

ACT FOUR: General public's perception of security is wrong: YOU are the biggest security threat! Getting fascinating Bruce Schneier books for my birthday, security companies screwing consumers, using a non-administrative account on Mac OS X.

ACT FIVE: Comparing building your own computer and open source software to hot rod builders, being a 1990's kid, running Windows software on Linux and FreeBSD with Wine, why it's a great time to be alive!

ACT SIX: Comparing open source software developers to independent musicians, thanks to Jim Kloss and Esther Golton for the inspiration, sorry for the sacrilegious comparison! Are people worth what they're being paid? Who's deriving more happiness from what they're doing?

Download MP3 to listen ↓ 1:23:03, 39.0MiB

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A full show will be done by the end of the week, but I wanted to do a show on my birthday. Cool timezone checking site, blog post about the big two two, camera phones, purchasing music from Whole Wheat Radio, birthday lunch at Brotzeit, UPS shipping, FreeBSD and a convenient apple juice handle.

Featuring Elke Schade as a Kmart announcer.

AFTERWARD: I noticed after uploading that the music is a bit too loud compared to my voice for the first 10 minutes or so. I will remember to check my levels more carefully next time!

Download MP3 to listen ↓ 23:03, 10.6MiB

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I would post a description, but it would just be a conspiracy! Warning: heavy ironic and satirical undertones!

Download MP3 to listen ↓ 35:27, 20.3MiB

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ACT ONE: Too much stuff and not enough time, evil overcast-ness, shipping eBay goods overseas, Synclair ZX Spectrums and Commodore 64s, five times at the Singapore Post centre, duty is a bum, Asian obsession with cool gadgets, efficiency escaping snail mail, Bureau of Oversight.

ACT TWO: Using the Griffin iMic and the LAME encoder, hope it makes the show sound better :)

ACT THREE: Celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Commodore 64, old video clip from the Computer Chronicles, wanting to meet Jack Tramiel and Woz, boardroom stupidity, Schade family IBM machines, Gary Kildall.

ACT FOUR: Smart Singaporean bus stops, tracking buses with GPS, big brother-ism, live twitter posts from Dave Wares, Dave Winer, Leo Laporte and Robert J. Berger.

Download MP3 to listen ↓ 34:41, 19.1MiB

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ACT ONE: Show reminiscing, exponential curves in the morning, This is Why I'm Hot, Wikipedia excesses, getting Snitters, interconnected crap, Compton, Anglosphere rivalry, pavlova and trifle.

ACT TWO: Yuletide and Christmas coming, family shopping always the hardest, the Ducati USB thumb drive, 9-11 conspiracy theorists heckle Bill Maher, YouTube reviews, The Google, locked doors, senility, Nokia e61i, iPhones, Casey Stoner, Elke playing Neopets, great nerdy insult, grand pianos on lanyards, impromptu Starbucks thermos review, Costa Coffee in the UK, Singapore Post.

ACT THREE: Singapore PrimaDeli food poisoning scandal, the Ministry of Health is MOH, unfortunate cake ingredient lists.

ACT FOUR: Cheap bulbs in lava lamps, music review of Ska Cubano, Ay Caramba and Istanbul is Constantinople, Last.fm account, losing music in iTunes.

ACT FIVE: Alien DJs, music is the soundtrack to your life, work sucks time (no, really?), floods in Singapore, storms closest to snow we can get here, Dave Wares on tudor houses, and crazy dead lifts.

Download MP3 to listen ↓ 1:07:00, 32.10MiB

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New iPods introduced

What Elke thinks of the new Nano, what I think of the Touch, Apple disabling Linux support, downloading cover art in iTunes.

Local Singapore news

World's largest water pumps being built in the Marina Barrage, what prevents people from being sucked in?

Facebook news

Microsoft buying a pointless chunk, profile gluttony, voting for the Aussie Greens, Elke's rant on registration woes, I use Twitter to pretend I update my profile, CSS customisation would mean death.

Ruben tries to make Mr Kloss proud

Why doesn't everyone use metric, what they teach you in school is pointless, why the whole Product Red scheme is no good, why can't Microsoft even create a spreadsheet app that multiplies properly, why are all men on television fat and stupid?

And the ratholes...

Lava lamp confusion, Lance Armstrong's LiveStrong armbands, eating grapes, failing MadPlayers and tossed salad and scrambled eggs.

Download MP3 to listen ↓ 54:46 minutes, 25.10MiB

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Testing a new Rode NT3 microphone, flying these days is a bitch, discovering Uranus on the 13th, Adobe Photoshop 7, quotes from Leo Laporte's 2003 TechTV Technology Almanac, a brief history of TechTV from the outside, Leo Laporte's evil smile, out of sync background music, needing QWERTY on a phone, academic discounting, Aeroline buses between Singapore and KL, Merdeka 2007 in Malaysia, ridiculous numbers of PCs, South East Asian colonialism, the southernmost tip of the Eurasian mainland, Freecycle, resetting GNU/Linux passwords, Larry Craig Pervert Scandal Is Tip Of The Iceberg, Warp's Artificial Intelligence series, silly sports, Patrick Norton installing GNU/Linux in 2003, hardware router firmware things, WinPopUp, Schmap Guide photo finalist photos, driving from Inverness to Singapore, airports in the middle of nowhere, way too much time on Mobile Twitter, a Nokia e61i mobile phone review, Frank Nora's Bagel Report and his head on 3G, fantasy football in America, FreeBSD versus Linux security, people on Twitter (Felix, Frank, Andrew, Dave, Manny, Roel, Dadaist), ticket and medical guinea pigs, cable versus DSL, and meeting people on the stair, posting 666 sites in del.icio.us, moving back from Zooomr to Flickr, secret Windows software, waging on horses and people who walk up the stairs who aren't actually there.

Some overdrive audio errors in parts of this episode. I've calibrated this new mic for the next episode.

Download MP3 to listen ↓ 1:10:00 minutes, 32.10MiB

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Rubenerd sister Elke joins us to discuss ridiculous news articles, stalker arguing social networking page was misleading, debating seedy MySpace profiles, gyrating at nightclubs, wasting time on Facebook and Friendster, Ruben's and Elke's Twitter pages, giving away personal details, Aussie PM John Howard trying to filter the internet, easy to stumble on sleaze online, Ted Steven's series of tubes, is there blame-shifting going on, oxymoronic fuel efficient SUVs, combatting efficient Japanese cars, hugging trees, good publicity without substance, Elke's mass communication studies course thing, actually learning nothing useful, chemistry and economics, high school friend Boyd Anderson's site is mysteriously down, friggen mouse pointers, Blackle is my new favourite search engine, lesbians in The Sims, dark background on light text, energy efficiency tips, Freddo Frogs, comparing American to British, Aussie and Belgian chocolate, Hershey's Kisses are icky, New Zealand accents, Russell Crowe on South Park and throwing phones, no breast implants in space, voting Green not Libertarian, Ruben's heterosexuality, hacker webmasters, reading Twitterrific posts from Felix and Frank Nora live, furnaces in the tropics, Japanese and Aussie expats in Singapore, friggen ang mohs, caucasian guys like being special, Elke's immaturity and unpleasantness, mysterious Champs-Élysées song discovered by surrealist, faulty Nokia phone batteries, URL redundancies, random women forcing themselves on you, Frank's QuarkXPress woes, The Sunscreen Song and John Howard's contorted facial expressions.

Download MP3 to listen ↓ 51:00 minutes, 23.40MiB

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