#Anime Yule background fun

Anime

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!

iMugi the Mac Pro

iMugi the Mac Pro
K-On! Used it JUST for Mugi's nose and antlers XD. Snow Leopard, 1920×1200

MacTheKnife the MacBook Pro

MacTheKnife the MacBook Pro
Suzumiya Haruhi and Co. I like Yuki's hat :). Leopard, 1920×1080

Senjoughara the ThinkPad X40

Senjoughara the ThinkPad X40
Toradora. Taiga doesn't look too impressed!. Fedora 14, 1024×768

mikurubeam the Homebrew C2D

mikurubeam the Homebrew C2D
Photo from our 2009 winter trip. Germany is so amazing. FreeBSD, 1280×1024

Ami the Libretto

Ami the Libretto
Lucky Star, in honour of their rumoured new season. Warm and happy :). OS/2, 640×480


Perplexing Qantas greeting cards

Media

Does this Qantas greeting card make no sense… or is it just me?

It was probably just me

From time to time I check my Gmail which — now that I use PGP and my own hosted mail — has been relegated to the role of receiving email from newsletters, site registrations and other such disposable crap so I don't have to handle it on my primary address. Handle… that's a bit of a pun, as you'll read in a second. Or however long it takes for you to read posts like this, it could very well take longer. Handling.

So I was checking my aforementioned junk email account like a good little slave, and I got an electronic Christmas greeting card from Qantas. As with all their electronic communications they never include the intended message, but rather a brief hello proceeded by a link to follow.

Hello Ruben

As 2010 draws to a close, we would like to wish you and your family a wonderful festive season. From all of us at Qantas, please enjoy this message as we share the spirit of the season.

Find out more at the link below.

[Some super long, narly link]

The link is the drink

Clicking the link, I was directed to a festive web page loaded up with… Flash. Making an exception for it in NoScript, the page loaded and I was presented with a perplexing video of a 747 having cargo unloaded, then loaded again. It looks just like any other movie player with a timeline and a pause button. Once the movie had finished, the player faded out and a thank you message appeared.

While the latter was touching, I haven't the foggist idea what the video was supposed to be for. There were no Christmas or other holiday images anywhere, no people in fuzzy red and white hats, and despite watching the whole clip in anticipation of a Santa popping out or reindeer being offloaded from cargo pallets… there was nothing. Just a video of baggage handlers and bags being unloaded and loaded from planes.

Check out the link for yourself if you so wish, and tell me if I'm missing something. I have no idea what's going on!

Well actually I do know what's going on, their marketing department wants me to talk about Qantas. Mission accomplished! Speaking of which, how funny are Trent 900s, I'll bet Rolls Royce aren't getting any confusing Christmas greeting cards from Qantas.


Hey, its a new theme thing

Internet

Screenshot of my new blog on the iPhone 4.

A few observant readers have noticed Rubenerd has a new theme. Gosh!

Almost!

If you've been reading my ramblings for many years, you may recognise it! This theme is a rehash of the one I used for a few months in 2005, but with a cleaned up stylesheet. I also modularised all the the inline PHP I wrote, and wrapped up most of WordPress's API calls so I'm hoping it'll be more portable. shudder, PHP!

The irony is, at the time I didn't know much CSS, so the design was simple and basic. Now I consider simple and basic a feature not a liability, because its minimalistic :D. Its the reason why I love Apple hardware, and why if I were into sports cars I'd have an Audi TT. I don't care that it has a tiny engine and is apparently a girly car, it's cute and minimalistic and awesome. But I digress.

There's a financial benefit too! My previous themes were 512KB, 434KB and 262KB, and this one is only 70. It may look silly to quibble over tiny kilobyte differences, but with several hundred unique visits an hour they add up pretty quickly. Like a boss. At some point I'll upload screenshots of these old ones, if only to remove all doubt that I made the right decision to be a developer/system designer and not a graphic designer ;).

So far most of the feedback I've received has been positive, with a couple of resoundingly negative ones. Oh well, se a vida é.


Cancer bullshit

Annexe

This post originally appeared on the Annexe.

Tweet discussing study that Australians are less likely to develop cancer

Bull… shit.


Nice weather didn’t last!

Annexe

This post originally appeared on the Annexe.


Trains Ruben Taketh: S77

Annexe

This post originally appeared on the Annexe, in a post series pointlessly documenting every train I took.

Photo of the forementioned train.

S77 from Central to Town Hall


Trains Ruben Taketh: M15

Annexe

This post originally appeared on the Annexe, in a post series pointlessly documenting every train I took.

Photo of the forementioned train.

M15 from Bardwell Park to City


Nice day

Annexe

This post originally appeared on the Annexe.


Debra Schade, three years on today

Thoughts

Me and mummy in 2006

Rest in peace mummy. I love you. And I still think about you every day. Lot has happened in three years, wish I could tell you.


Milo Đukanović resigns

Annexe

This post originally appeared on the Annexe.

BREAKING:
Milo Đukanović resigns as the prime minister of Montenegro.

:O What happens now? Wonder what Slobodan would say -___-