Category: Journal

Train Timetable

When do all the trains go?
General Metlink site: http://www.metlinkmelbourne.com.au

Tags Work

Singstar

Post author By Mark
Post date April 12, 2006
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Anyone who knows we even reasonably well, will know that I can’t sing. I generally consider myself tone-deaf (mainly because I have trouble picking the difference between sounds, for example the internal and external rings of most corporate phone systems).

So it was with some reluctance (trepidation?) then that I noted that Jase & Mon had bought a Playstation 2 and were preparing to play Singstar all night for Jase’s Birthday.

I knew no-one would pressure me to take part, but I think I knew my internal competitive spirit would probably rise up and I’d eventually want to have a go. So I set about relaxing myself: over 1/2 a bottle of red wine and a few cans of WoodStock later I was ready!!

Some background on the game: It is like a competitive Karaoke: 2 people sing the same song together, and the game scores each of you on how close you sing to the correct notes and tempo, which are displayed visually on screen over the top of the film clip. It’s a lot of fun, and at the end you get scores based on standard notes, gold (important) notes and line bonuses. It then gives a descriptive equivalent of the score.

My first song (there were quite a few in the end) I scored about 1/2 of what Bern scored, and it described me as “::Tone Deaf”:: kinda what I expected!

In testament to my tenacity, I never saw that description again, usually scoring 2/3 to 3/4 of what my competitor sang and being described as either Hopeful or Wannabe.

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Journal

Bourbon Guard

Jase spilt his bourbon on the couch at his place the other night, (It wasn’t his first) and said something along the lines of &quot::Thank goodness for Scotchguard^TM&quot::.

I said &quot::don’t you mean Bourbon Guard^TM&quot::

We laughed so hard we nearly fell off the couch.

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Journal

one thousand eight hundred and forty seven

Post author By Mark
Post date March 31, 2006
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1847. That’s the number of k’s I’ve driven over the last 2 weeks doing technician training (and the other reason there have been no blog posts).

We did day trips to Heidelberg, Frankston, Rowville &amp:: Moe.

Then a week long trip to Geelong, Horsham, Bendigo (inc rest day) &amp:: Benalla.

It was interesting, and fun, but a long time away from the family.

Tags Work

Journal

old old old

My mum bought me one of her friend’s computers so I could have a bit of a look at it, and see if it could be updated.

Mum did mention that it didn’t have a CD drive.

It was clearly old, and It didn’t want to boot, so I opened it up…

no dust inside, that’s always nice.

Oh my, are they 30 pins simms? where’s the processor??

ah, there it is under the sticker marked Caution and February 1993….

1993! It’s a 386-SX40, and it was still in use up until a week or so ago. In the same week that I put 17 computers out for hard rubbish, and all of them were 2 generations ahead of this machine… I think we can do an upgrade!!

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Journal

Melbourne 2006 Commonwealth Games Cleaning

Post author By Mark
Post date March 28, 2006
1 Comment on Melbourne 2006 Commonwealth Games Cleaning

Note: This is a delayed post. As part of our training we were told we were not supposed to talk to the media, so I didn’t talk to myself all week. Does that mean I was censored??

Our Church, Careforce, was given the opportunity to clean the Commonwealth Games Athletes Village as a fundraiser. Basically we had to provide 70 people per day for 23 days and the Cleaning Company, CleanEvent, would pay the church the better part of $250,000. That’s what I call fundraising!!

I decided to give up a week of my holidays to volunteer, especially as I wasn’t going to be able to go to any of the commonwealth Games because of work.

Just being at the Atletes village was a real buzz. The work was constant and full-on, but working with a great bunch of people made it fun.

Days for me started at 4:30am so we could leave at 5:30 (usually with a few pickups on the way) to be at Flemington Racecouse by 6:30. That would get us to the assembly point by 7:00, where we would assemble our team, get ready, put on our Cleanevent Shirts and head over to the Security Checkpoint. Once through Security and into the Village, we could collect our cleaning equipment and be on our way.

My Team (Red 39) were allocated 5 houses with a total of 147 Beds and 31 bathrooms. The rooms were occupied by The BlackSticks Womens &amp:: Mens Teams &amp:: The NZ Cycling Teams and the Teams from Barbados.

Lots of fun, and as a community building excercise, by far the best I’ve been involved in.

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Journal

Cleanup Girl

Bec got up early the other morning and noticed that Bern had cleaned up a bit of the lounge room, so she proceeded to pick up all of her and Liz’s toys and put them away in their respective toyboxes. All this before Bern was out of bed.

Bern also went to clean the kitchen after breakfast, and found that Bec had placed her bowl carefully in the dishwasher next to the other bowls. We didn’t have the heart to tell her that her bowl is plastic and can’t go in the dishwasher…

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Journal

Asterisk Install

install ubuntu 5.10 as &quot::server&quot::

sudo pico /etc/network/interfaces 
iface eth0 inet static 
 	address 192.168.1.x
	netmask 255.255.255.0
	gateway 192.168.1.254

sudo /etc/init.d/networking restart
sudo apt-get install ssh
from other machine ssh to ip address
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade

sudo pico /etc/apt/sources.list
uncomment the universe repository lines so you have access to more sofware.

sudo apt-get install asterisk

sudo apt-get install zaptel-source
sudo apt-get install linux-headers-‘uname -r’
sudo apt-get build-dep asterisk
sudo apt-get install gcc3.4
m-a a-i zaptel
you need to set an opermode if you live outside of the us so edit /etc/modprobe.d/zaptel (Australia used as example)

install wcfxo /sbin/modprobe –ignore-install wcfxo opermode=AUSTRALIA &amp::&amp:: /sbin/ztcfg
install wcfxs /sbin/modprobe –ignore-install wcfxs opermode=AUSTRALIA &amp::&amp:: /sbin/ztcfg