By Ruben(nerd) Schade, a UTS university student and IT guy in Sydney and Singapore. c.2004
I'd react the same if I were given a mint Commodore 64 box! I got my 64 (and 16, and Plus 4) second hand on eBay when I was 18, and have loved them. Born too late for the home computer revolution, too early to have the internet in primary school. Never used datasettes, but had 5.25" floppies. Feeling sorry for me yet?
Found by @elkeee on The Clearly Dope. C=
For the first couple of years since we lost mummy on Yule Eve-Eve, the 25th of December was a pretty sombre affair. Last year was bittersweet.
This year, for the first time, I felt as though Yuletide joy was with us again. My dad, sister and I sat around and exchanged presents to an awful vinyl record of 1980s pop stars butchering holiday classics, then had a nice late breakfast (Schade family savoury French Toast!); talked and joked for hours about life, the universe and everything; played some traditional Nintento Wii bowling; and chowed down on an amazing home cooked turkey dinner made in the way only my parents know how.
Along with a can of original, imported Irn-Bru and a registration code for OmniFocus (YES!), my sister and old man also bought me a MacBook Air which should be arriving on the 31st. Speechless!
A few days prior, over some coffee, tea and cuddles at a lovely French cafe in Sydney, my beautiful girlfriend Clara gave me some of the most thoughtful presents ever. She is responsible for practically my entire nendoroid collection at this stage, and to have one of Nagato Yuki from the enduring Suzumiya Haruhi franchise is particularly apt ^^. I'd argue she's cuter than Yuki though.
Above all else though, as with my family on the day itself, the best present I could have ever wished for was her company. I hope to share in that with her for many years to come :'). Happy belated holidays!
Via NoScript.net. I am in approvance! Is that a word?
It's that Yuletide season thingy, so I'm doing what any self respecting, atheistic, masculine, terribly intelligent 24 year old would do, setting my desktop backgrounds to super cute pictures and all that. 56k warning, run for the 56k hills! Slowly!
K-On! Used it JUST for Mugi's nose and antlers XD. Snow Leopard, 1920x1200
Suzumiya Haruhi and Co. I like Yuki's hat :). Leopard, 1920x1080
Toradora. Taiga doesn't look too impressed!. Fedora 14, 1024x768
Photo from our 2009 winter trip. Germany is so amazing. FreeBSD, 1280x1024
Lucky Star, in honour of their rumoured new season. Warm and happy :). OS/2, 640x480
It's a cruel irony that my close friend Jerry Novak lost his wife and I lost my mum and best friend to cancer around Christmas, as I'm sure many others have. My family isn't religious but we always had massive trees, big Christmas lunches and swapped masses of prezzies while we listened to Tony Bennett and Bing Crosby carol CDs. Even decorating the tree was a huge event we all looked forward to, and in the last 12 years even though she wasn't physically strong enough to join in we purposefully rearranged my mum's chemo treatments so she could sit there and watch.
My dad, sister and I haven't unpacked the decorations since and don't celebrate Christmas any more, for obvious reasons. To all of you who are though, have safe and happy holidays, and to my friends in Europe and the US I hope you're somewhere warm.
Peace, health and happiness,
~ Ruben
Me pretending to be a Christmas thinker :)
A great example of how you can use Google Maps to represent information in a far more interesting way than simply presenting a dry list of locations. The Adelaide Advertiser has plotted a map of Christmas light displays around the metro area of Adelaide.
ASIDE: It makes far more sense for The Adelaide Advertiser to plot maps of Christmas light displays in Adelaide than if The Adelaide Advertiser plotted a map of Christmas light displays around Northern Siberia. I'm just saying.
You can view the full Google Map here.
If there's any other way to celebrate Christmas, I certainly don't know about it ;-)
The super dark sky no cohesion episode!
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
You can also stream this episode and view its Internet Archive page.