Guy Sebastian on Catholicism

so guy sebastian, winner of the first Australian Idol competition in 2003 and someone who "identifies himself simply as Christian"^[1], has written and recorded a gospel song titled "Receive The Power", chosen to be the theme anthem for the World Youth Day 2008 congress - the Catholic Church's week of events for youth and with youth.

He is quoted as saying:

I am not Catholic as such but I guess the fundamentals are in place, which is Christ-based faith.^[2]

i assume by this he's basically saying something like "I'm Christian. I'm not Catholic. But really they're quite similar aren't they?" now i'm not sure if he's being diplomatic or ignorant, nor indeed what type of "Christian" he really is, but if he means anything along the lines of protestant/reformed/evangelical christianity, then (despite the seemingly large area of similarities) there are some serious fundamental differences between the two. perhaps the biggest being that one believes in salvation by faith PLUS works^[3], and the other in salvation by faith ALONE^[4], a subtle but deadly^[5] difference if you get it wrong.

on a sidenote, i'm also not sure where the gospel is in the song itself. can you pick it?

though granted it's the journalist who uses the label gospel, not someone else whom one might expect to have a better grasp of what the gospel really is... anyways, for another look at the lyrics and some "theological reflection on the song by WYD08 Coordinator Bishop Anthony Fisher", check out this blog entry (this link/referral does not constitute endorsement).


[1] Guy goes gospel: Anthem moves Vatican, by Jonathan Morgan, The Sunday Mail June 24 2007 p. 29
[2] ibid
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Catholic_Church#Salvation
[4] http://www.carm.org/catholic/faithalone.htm
[5] http://www.carm.org/catholic/saved.htm

saving on CTP

i could have just saved over $15 on my CTP (compulsory third party) insurance renewal, if only i had bothered to check the CTP premium calculator at http://www.maic.qld.gov.au/ctp-premium/ctp-calculator/ctp-calculator.shtml before assuming my current insurer is already offering me a good deal, and proceeding to pay my rego/CTP bill.

wonder why there is a variation of around 5% in premiums between the various insurers, when CTP is a pretty stock standard thing (or so i thought). but i can't quite be bothered to look into any differences there might be in the actual policies... maybe i'll remember the lesson learnt when it comes to next year's renewal...

have psp, will travel

noodlez lent me his psp (playstation portable), the original intent of which was for me to be able to finish watching all the lost season 3 episodes so that he can discuss it with me when i get back from my overseas trip.

i have watched a few episodes on the psp - i never thought watching video on a small screen could be so nice (nice, if you had to watch anything on a small screen).

i have spent considerably more time playing lumines, the simple but addictive game he also passed me with the implicit challenge of wanting to know how i'd score. so far, i've knocked him down to #10 on the high score chart. i think i've been playing waaaaay too much, to the detriment of other things i really should have been doing with my time :|

anyhow, am about to head off to the airport, for my third trip to singapore in the past 6 months. meanwhile here are a few photo albums from my last trip, some of which i've only just recently uploaded:

• the first few days
• the day E took leave to spend with me
• miscellaneous shots from the first week
• an outing with E's bible study group/DG
• gourmet dinner party
• miscellaneous shots from the rest of march
• outing to sentosa
• miscellaneous shots from the rest of april
  

and no prizes for guessing what i'll be doing while waiting at the airport ;)

the ATA decorations

we had our site ATA presentation last week (representatives from the ATA came to view our entry to the ATA awards), and there was much activity from the teams putting up their decorations, which created an interesting tension between the need to service phone calls (after all, we are a call centre and we're there to answer phone calls) and the need(?) to complete the decorations in time...

my work was pretty hectic and i didn't manage to see the results until after the event. as i was on overtime duty this weekend i brought my camera to take some shots of the decorations that were still up - unfortunately most of the stuff in my section (with the star wars theme) had been removed by then.

well, i recently found out how to embed picasa web album slideshows in blogger, so am giving it a whirl :)

[edit 20070526] have just found out that there's an easier way to embed album slideshows, direct from picasa web album. slightly less functionality but less fuss... should have just read the help file from the get go :p
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related posts: darth vader's many siblings

by request: quop vader

this post is dedicated to mr DT, who is signing up for the briefing, and who came up with the quop vader sugggestion. well there's no mask, but i have wielded a more fancy looking lightsaber in the past. this video is from my trip to KL in september 2005, where i met my high school friend kampung chick, dropped by her house and found that her husband is a huge star wars fan, and had this fancy fancy lightsaber. it lights up and turns off with the appropriate sounds, also when you swing and make contact with something. it was fun :)

NB. original video was taken in portrait mode - i finally figured out how to rotate it but transferring to youtube has squashed it somewhat... nevermind.

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related posts: darth vader's many siblings

the "help us grow The Briefing readership and get your next annual subscription completely free" campaign

i'm a subscriber to the briefing, an excellent monthly christian magazine from the folks at matthias media. it's an irritating publication - and here's why (in their own words):

We know that sometimes we irritate our readers. In fact, we plan to.

Wisdom is a pearl born of irritation. We grow and develop not by having comfortable, familiar words wash over us like a warm bath. Growth comes through challenge -- through hearing something new, or grappling with something foreign, or discovering that an old comfortable truth has some uncomfortable sharp edges.

And so if The Briefing never makes your pulse quicken, your brow furrow, your brainwaves agitate or your blood boil, then we'll have failed.

If the only people who ever read The Briefing are people who agree with every sentence, then we might as well pack up and go home.

We want to provoke more thought and more passion. We not only want to encourage minds and hearts, we want to change them, so that together we all come to think more biblically about life and ministry.

So if The Briefing sometimes irritates you, do something for your friends: share the irritation around.

they're seeking to double their readership by year's end. as an existing subscriber, i have been given some subscription cards. if you want to sign up as a subscriber we can both gain by using these cards:

• you get $10 off your subscription
• i get 4 issues added to my subscription for free

i need 3 friends to sign up for new subscriptions (not renewals of current or recently lapsed subscriptions) to get my year's worth of free editions :) so drop me a line and i'll hook you up! even if you're not sold on handing over your money, you can still browse the site for some free articles (webextras) and the regularly updated CHN (couldn't help noticing) blog/column. highly recommended food for your mind from the guys who provide resources for growing christians.

buddha birth day festival

went along to the buddha birth day festival at southbank on the weekend. not that i have any inclination to celebrate or remember some dead religious figure's birthday, mind you. i'm happy to admit that my reasons are a lot more shallow - i'm simply drawn by the accompanying food fair :p since first stumbling across this annual festival a few years ago, (it's now in its 10th year), i've made it a point to try to drop by for a meal if i have the chance, though i think i tend to forget that the food is all vegetarian until i get there!

this year i went with a few clay people, watching a somewhat lackluster lion dance performance before searching for options to satisfy our rumbling tummies. there were probably around 20 stalls selling food and drinks, with a lot of signage in chinese which is always helpful for the majority english-speaking population... (though granted the bulk of visitors to the festival itself would probably be chinese). anyways, i always have trouble choosing, never knowing how to separate the good from the bad, or the good from the ordinary, until i hand over my money and taste the food for myself. bumped into an old high school friend who recommended a few items, and i ended up getting some fried dumplings, a drumstick (which was itself a smallish and fairly expensive piece of faux meat), a herbal tea drink, rice (pyramid) dumpling, and a "fresh roll" (like a spring roll, but not fried, and more like a spring roll than a popiah) for a total of $12. i was quite satisfied, at least in terms of quantity. quality wise, the fresh roll and a salt and pepper chicken item (recommended by my friend, and which i tasted thanks to the sharing of my dining buddies) were the yummiest. everything else was fairly average, with the "drumstick" the least value for money.

we stayed around for more performances at the suncorp piazza, including some martial arts demonstrations (which i think involved a certain "chik" i know) and a hip hop / breakdancing routine by planet fresh, from which i was hoping to see more breaking. i wasn't initially intending to record this, but thought that the name of the group sounded familiar (i think i know people who know them) so got out my camera...


after this it was time for the fireworks. we got there early enough to have front row position, which i don't think i've ever done before. good vantage point for more video recording. the ~15 minute footage is split into two parts due to youtube's 10 minute limit.


more photos on my multiply album.

darth vader's many siblings

because we (meaning my workplace) were a state winner last year, we're in the running again for the 2007 ATA (australian teleservices association) awards. the various teams in the call centre have been assigned themes for decorating their work area - this time round movie titles were picked out of a hat, and my current area drew "star wars". one of my colleagues brought in a toy lightsaber (with sound effects) and a darth vader helmet and accompanying gizmo that emits authentic darth vader noises and quotes, as well as modifying your speech to make you sound like the masked heavy breather. another colleague was playing with it, and i happened to bring my camera to work that day, so shot a little clip:

could he be darth vader's long lost brother??!!

for a dose of video fun starring darth vader's "real" brother, check out "chad vader: day shift manager" by blame society productions. it's a fan film series featuring the less well-known brother of darth vader, a guy who works as a day shift manager in a supermarket. the episodes follow his run-ins with colleagues and his boss, and his lacklustre love life. episode 8, which is supposed to bring season 1 to a close, is rumoured to be released this coming week...

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related posts: sorry dr. spin, i'd like a second opinion please

effortless improvement!

six months ago, i submitted an application for a role. i was told that my written application was quite badly done, and that i barely scraped through for the practical assessment. in the end, i made it to the order of merit, but was ranked fairly low in the pecking order.

a few weeks ago another round of application for the same role was conducted by the same person, using the same job description, selection criteria, and application format. i was on leave overseas at the time, so my superior (the one conducting the EOI - expression of interest) sent me my previous application for review. in the end i was unable to write a new application by the deadline, so i SMSed him to say if he can accept my previous submission then please do so, otherwise i would sit out from consideration.

this is the response i received today [with specific details removed]:

Thank you for your Expression of Interest in the [...] position within [...]. The position attracted a high quality pool of applicants and having considered all the applications [sic] advise you that, in this instance, you have been rated as "Fully Effective". Higher Duties will continue on a short term basis pending a permanent selection process.

We wish to thank you for the time and effort you put into preparing your application.

If feedback on your application is required please let me know.

Thankyou

so, by spending no time and effort on preparing my application (since i was reusing my previous one), i had managed to go from "barely scraped in" to "fully effective"! anybody want me to write their next job application?? ;)

(of course, there's a bit more beneath the surface which goes some way to explaining this farcical situation. hence i didn't bother asking for feedback. i'm actually not very good at writing job applications :p)

making sense of advertising

does advertising work?

It's easy for us to think that we aren't affected by the things we watch, but if that's the case why do manufacturers pay thousands of pounds every month for TV advertising? And why, now that technology exists to record TV shows while skipping over the adverts, are more and more manufacturers paying for product placement in top shows rather than sticking to traditional advertising? We are fooling ourselves if we try to claim that TV has no impact and influence on our lives.
-- Get more like Jesus while watching TV, by Nick Pollard & Steve Couch, Ch 1 (p. 4)

my agreeance with the advertising argument[1] is ironic for (at least) two reasons:

1. i watch a lot of tv, but disproportionately few ads. i tend to record shows, and fast forward through the ads when watching them later. i'm typically not interested in being sucked in by advertising. spurred on by my recent spate of travel (VCRs were just not meant to handle looking after half a dozen weekly shows for more than a week... yup, no HD/DVD recorder for this tv junkie), and now thanks to the combined powers of xvid, bittorrent, a broadband internet connection at home, and those nice(?) people in america who encode episodes from there which haven't even screened here, i catch most of my shows on a CRT of a different kind (yup, no LCD screens for this computer junkie). which of course means i miss all the ads, cos the encoders always edit them out to make the file smaller. even if the ads were left in, they're meant for a north american market, and won't typically be relevant to me.
   
   
2. i have started advertising on this site. which i guess means at least part of me wants advertising to work! i've signed up with google adsense, and spent the last few days upgrading my blog from the old classic templates to the new layouts structure (trying to reapply the few tweaks i'd added over the years took a bit of time -- i just know i'd never get a job in web design!) and incorporating a number of adsense products on the page. i have to be careful about what i say about the ads, eg i can't ask visitors to click on them, nor click on them myself (though i'm curious how that would be policed/verified). what if i go the reverse psychology route and say don't click on them?? haha. anyways, just trying it out to see if i can generate additional income. you can too, but i can't tell you how i can refer you so that we both benefit... (but maybe if you wanted to, you could work that one out for yourself)
   

[1] of course, "advertising" is used to demonstrate/argue that what you watch in general (ie not just the advertisements) does have some impact and influence on our lives. and i agree with the general statement. (hopefully) more on this later...

here today, gone tomorrow

it's been barely two months since i returned from my last trip to singapore, and i'm gearing up to return. thanks to the ability to take some leave without pay, this trip will be the longest i have ever stayed (and the longest i ever plan to stay) -- 5 weeks. within those 5 weeks i'll be hopping over to hong kong for a few days, catching up with YC, seeing some of the sights and maybe catching a movie or two at the hong kong international film festival. then island and i will also be joining up with noodlez, mellow yellow and slam man for a a week in kota kinabalu, including climbing mt kinabalu.

should be fun :)

i've barely caught up with the uploading of photos since the start of the trip... but here's a roundup in pictures of some of what i've been up to since late december.

• clay caloundra outing
• SWANS christmas gathering at oishii sushi and nza's place
• Singapore trip
• day 1
• day 2
• isabelle (my neice!)
• day 4
• days 5 & 6
• stillfishing DG retreat day 1
• stillfishing DG retreat day 2 + ARPC NYE dinner
• new years day
• week 2 (can you tell i was getting a bit lazy with my albums by this stage? :p)
• sydney pit stop for some nice ribs... hmm... yummm!
• BLT (brisbane leadership training conference)
• NBL finals game 3

phew!

got a few days left to get all my packing and other prep done... i feel quite disorganised and tight on time, so probably shouldn't be sitting here blogging! anyways, gonna go salivate at the prospect of eating some nice nice food, such as the likes of the fare featured on singapore food blogs like ieatishootipost. might even try to tag along as a makankaki if i get the chance :)

cccb.org.au

not quite a LAN party, as looks might initially suggest :p

cccb now has a website! MC conducted a workshop to brief content managers on how to add content etc. hope to see it grow into a useful resource.

the intricacies of airfares - part 2

i decided to add a hong kong leg/side trip to my upcoming overseas holiday to singapore, somewhat spuriously as a result of jetstar's sale fares from singapore to HK. after checking with YC - the only person in HK i know well enough to rope into the role of tour guide/interpreter - i changed my travel dates to be outside of the sale period, so as to coincide with YC's already planned leave from work. when i finally got around to booking the flights, i was pleasantly surprised to find that my outbound leg was again on (a different) sale. so in the end i get to fly for only a bit more than the original sale fares, and enjoy the availability of a local host. it was then that i struck another peculiarity of the world of airfares...

having learnt my lesson from the last time i almost missed a bargain, i made an immediate booking for the SG-HK leg of the journey, but decided against booking the return leg in the hopes that the price would drop. i then found out the reason for the cheaper SG-HK trip, and concluded my hope for the return leg might be in vain, so i proceeded to book the HK-SG leg. here's the thing:

if i had booked my return leg together with my outbound leg, it would have cost me SGD209 ($149 for flight, $60 for taxes). but if i book it as a single one-way trip from HK, it costs HKD906 ($628 for flight, $278 taxes).

converting to AUD that's a total of about $175 and $145 respectively. exactly the same flight, but with a variation of about $30 depending on where you book from. don't ask me why! i'm just glad i stumbled across the unexpected saving, as a result of trying to hope for a different type of saving :p

it's a bit like the travel between singapore and KL, from what i understand... the same numerical figure fare applies for flights from KL to singapore and from singapore to KL - the former you book/pay for in malaysia, using malaysian ringgits; the latter you book/pay for in singapore, using singapore dollars. at a conversion of roughly 2:1 for MYR:SGD, that's a significant difference!

the intricacies of airfares - part 1

i don't understand how airfares are priced. i'm sure there's some economic model that determines when they go up and when they come down, accounting for factors such as the busyness of the travel dates, length of time between booking date and travel date, fixed duration promotions, competitors' price movements and the like.

i also don't understand the value of travel agents in the travel industry when it comes to booking (simple A-to-B-and-back type) flights. i've long stopped bothering to contact travel agents for domestic flights, heading straight to the likes of the virginblue and jetstar websites when i need to fly. the last time i tried to book a domestic flight at flight centre, i was quoted a much higher fare on a qantas flight than what i had already found on a vb flight. when i mentioned this, the consultant checked the vb website, and i ended up making the booking with vb. but what really happened was that the flight centre person made the booking for me on the vb website, and when i asked what the difference was between her doing that and me doing exactly the same thing at home on my own computer, she muttered something about their lowest price guarantee and arranged a $10 refund to my credit card.

the web has also become my first port of call for international flights. i used to book through one particular travel agency because the boss/owner is a family friend, and has authority to give some discounts. however the last few times i've done the brisbane-singapore round trip, i've consistently found that the lowest price i could get was direct from the airline's website (in my case singapore airline). not even the likes of zuji or union shopper's travel service could compete in sourcing cheaper prices than what my buddy firefox and i found with a few mouseclicks. so the moral of this story is: book directly with the airline if you can, as this cuts out the middle man and associated costs.

having said this, i saw that zuji's price for the qantas flights were slightly less than the price you get from qantas' websitef! go figure... so the moral of this story is: don't immediately book directly with the airline, but first see if the middle man is offering discounts/incentives.

in the end, i went with british airways, as they happened to be having a sale (half price tickets!) just when i was about to book. so i scored :) the funny thing with this is that although these BA flights are actually operated by qantas, the equivalent qantas flights (same physical plane, different code/flight number) were still at about $11K. so the moral of this story is: when a flight has multiple personalities, seats may vary significantly in price depending on which 'person' you speak to.

i first found out about the BA special via an smspup advertising email. the prices it mentioned half shocked me from my morning not-quite-wakefulness, and i was rejoicing at such a find of cheap tickets available for the dates i wanted to travel. at $760 (including tax) for the return flights, who wouldn't be happy when every other airline's starting price was something in the $11-12K range. but i had to go to work, and didn't have time to check into conditions etc and make the actual booking, so left it for after work. when i got home, the cheap seats were no longer showing! i was spewing big time at the thought of missing out on such a rare bargain, particularly as the price of the singapore airlines flights i was originally intending to book had just gone up. thankfully, the next morning i saw the special prices available once more for my desired dates - this time i couldn't get my credit card out fast enough. so the moral of this story is: when you see a bargain, carpe diem!

remarkable customer service

"I'm using the word remarkable literally—the goal is to provide customer service so good that people remark."

so says joel in a recent article on the topic of customer service. i guess i'm not ignorant of the theories and principles in customer service, as mostly covered in the 7 steps joel expounds in the article. having worked in various customer service roles for some time now, i am much more aware of the occasional good and often ordinary or sometimes bad customer service that i receive as a customer - but i can't say that i set out to provide remarkable customer service. maybe because i'm getting rather sick of my current role, and because the 8th step to providing customer service seems to be somewhat lacking in my workplace...

and maybe if customer service staff were given the freedom to provide customer service without the constraints of having their performance measured by average call handling times and the like. one colleague, when asked by a customer as to what it's like to work here, answered:

"I have two words for you: battery hens."

i thought it was funny. if only it didn't sometimes feel too true!

happy new year?

there's never much of an atmosphere for chinese new year in these parts of the world. i wasn't even sure which day CNY actually fell on. in a more asian setting, one might break out the mahjong set and go a few rounds. but not me (mostly because i don't have a mahjong set :p) - i've been getting into a bit of texas holdem poker, so took the opportunity last night to break in my new set of chips after the clay intro/dessert party ended.


i thought i'd post the few pics i took at clay, since k seemed appreciative that her efforts at arranging the food did not go unnoticed ;) even the humble lamingtons were given a bit of a lift!

and of course there's a pic of my poker chips... thanks to some dogged and savvy ebay bidding, the beauty of multiple purchases with combined shipping, and a bit of onselling, my set are effective free - not bad for something that would retail in the 3 digit mark :) there's even some surplus that i'm puting towards better quality cards (the ones in the set were... let's just say not the greatest), viz. a double (duo-tone) set of classic bicycle 808 rider backs.

oh and i'm also getting a black tiger and ghost deck, mostly as a differentiation device (and cos they look cool :p) and as a bit of indulgence/spending of the ang pao money that i don't actually get anymore! i didn't realise these cards are used more widely for magic tricks than playing, until i found blank cards which you obviously can't play with but are handy for tricks like this:

neat huh? for the curious, here's how it's done.

chicago's... not famous for ribs!

i can't sleep, so i'm tending to my much neglected blog...

i can't remember if i've been back to chicago's piano bar & grill since my first visit for lunch over a year ago, but in any case i found myself dining there again on friday night when i met up with some clay folk for dinner. this time i sat outside, where a male duo on guitar and tambourine sang some pop songs, thus providing a bit more of an atmosphere than during the day.

perhaps spurred on by the fond memories of the ribs i had last month in sydney (see previous post for pic/details), i thought i'd try it from a local eatery. prior to tony roma's, the only other time i can remember eating ribs in a restaurant was some years ago when i tried some from a friend's sizzler meal... and so i went for the "smoky bbq pork rack of ribs".

well, this turned out to be probably the worst ordering decision i had ever made. the only point of redemption was to get the half rack with chicken rather than the full rack - at least the chicken was ok, and the combo was $1 less than getting the full rack. so i didn't feel quite as cheesed off as ST, who ordered the full rack...

now i'm not an expert on cooking ribs (ok i'm not an expert on cooking anything... except maybe 2 minute noodles??), but from what i understand, the aim of producing good ribs is generally to end up with tender meat that almost falls off the bones. this is certainly what i was served at tony roma's. chicago's on the other hand served a rather antithetical version, with meat quite unwilling to come off the bone despite the best intentions of teeth or knife (ST said her teeth were sore after getting through her rack). the meat was tough, chewy, and just unco-operative to the efforts to tear and pull off the bone and into the mouth. i did manage to cut up the ribs (never mind the tearing apart by hand idea of eating ribs though... you'd be building some muscle if you tried that method!), i tried to cut the meat off each individual bone. bad idea... whatever meat or non-bone matter that was, it wasn't coming off the bone without a fight. in the end i gave up and returned to the more primal means of hand and teeth. honestly, can you imagine ribs that are difficult to cut even with a knife? i'm talking proper meat knife here, not your butter variety.

ok enough ranting. apparently the vast disappointment i had with the ribs was not repeated with the dishes the others ordered, with the pizza apparently worthy of repeat ordering. some say the meat might have been old, and hence my experience an anomaly. i don't know enough about food and its preparation to know whether i got a bum deal, but i know that it was frustrating to eat and i had no satisfaction for my monetary investment. the more i reflect on the situation, the more i think i should have taken the dish back, even if it was somehow meant to be served that way... oh well. live and learn.

previously on...

greetings from singapore. now that i'm on holidays, and internet access outside of APAC have been severely disrupted by the recent earthquake in taiwan, it seems a perfectly logical time to blog... right?! anyways, entries have been somewhat infrequent around here, so i thought i'd try to do a bit of a recap of what i've been up to in the last month or two, before a new year begins. here goes:

• saturday 04 november -- visit to the newly opened ikea logan. i was enticed by ivan's ravings about ikea's famous sausages which he regularly ate in KL. alas, this particular ikea did not serve them! anyways we went for lunch and a walk around the massive store. [photos]
  
  
• saturday 04 november -- went along to a surprise birthday party for ST, and subsequently hung out with a few unicellers for more surprises and dessert at the newly reopened (and relocated) blue lotus dessert lounge. [photos]
  
  
• sunday 05 november -- watoto childrens choir performance at a local church
  
  this is a video clip of their opening sequence. it's the second time i've seen the choir perform, and much of it felt familiar / similar to the first viewing. i guess the novelty wore off, but the message they bring still makes an impact. check out their tour dates to see if/when they're coming to a venue near you.
  
  
• thursday 09 november -- dinner at the ottoman cafe in west end with ST and HZ, catching up a year after we last had a similar meet and eat. [photos]
  
  
• thursday 16 - tuesday 21 november -- flew to sydney to meet ES and co. from singapore, visiting to attend MH's wedding. [photos]
  
  also caught up with my sister and BIL, who took us to bills surry hills for brunch. they have almost all of bill's cookbooks, and reckon his food is a goer - simple but tasty. my scrambled eggs with toast and gravlox salmon don't look as interesting as the sweet corn fritters sis ordered, but it was a fairly filling if not inexpensive meal. nice decor and fairly busy venue.
  
  photos specific to david and michelle's wedding on saturday 18 november are here.
  
  
• saturday 25 november -- visit to sirromet winery, as requested by ES. the shtes joined us for the winery tour and winetasting, followed by some scones for afternoon tea. a somewhat cultured feeling afternoon, leaving me as sure as ever that i just plain don't like wine. [photos]
  
  
• thursday 07 - monday 11 december -- went to sydney again for another long weekend to attend another wedding. flex leave is good :) a few of us from clay made the trek, and while there caught up with some other ex-brisbanites for a meal at tony roma's, famous for ribs. the collage shows the onion loaf entree my table had - a bit of a change in presentation from your usual onion rings - and also my regular slab of (what i think were the) carolina honeys ribs. i don't often order ribs but i have to say these were very nice indeed. anyways, photos of alex and jenn's wedding on saturday 09 december are here.

well that's about all i have up till about mid december. will probably post more about my christmas holidays etc when i get around to uploading photos and the like. which probably won't happen until after i return to brisbane. which means it'll be after i get back to work. which means i'll be slack again... ;)

out of the frying pan...

"But know this, that if the owner of the computer had known at what hour the hard drive would die, he would not have left his computer to be without a backup. You also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect."

-- from the apocryphal Lucan narrative (IT edition), chapter 12 and verses 39-40.

about two months ago, i spent about a week's worth of spare time during my nights and weekends trying to sort out an annoying problem my PC had developed with outlook, IE, and by association other apps that use IE to render webpages. despite plumbing the depths of google and trawling through the annals of microsoft support, no potential solution i came across (and there were many that looked promising) resolved the problem. i had ruled out the virus/spyware factor, having scanned my entire machine multiple times with multiple scanners. circumstantial evidence hinted at a possible bad patch - i had just completed a round of windows and security updates before this problem appeared on the scene - and i was close to the point of laying blame for the whole saga at the cashed up feet of the microsoft monster. but then i came across a detailed troubleshooting procedure on the MS site, and even though many of the steps involved had already been tried in various combinations, i decided to give this one more try. and by the books.

in the midst of this last effort, i was sprung by the dreaded BSOD. my PC rebooted past the bios and turned percussionist with mechanical ticking/clunking noises now emanating from my primary hard drive. this cannot be good, i said to myself. sure enough, after speaking to a few data recovery places and computer technicians, and doing some preliminary tests (which may have rendered the drive even more useless), i decided it was time for the professionals to take over.

nevermind the software problems, i now had some serious hardware issues to contend with. compounding the joy was the fact that my backup/recovery strategy for such disasters was... well, let's just say fairly minimalistic. hugely ironic for someone who has worked in the IT industry, and specifically dealing with aspects of backup/restore for machines whose power and value tower over the likes of my humble PC, the only backups i had were

1. "my documents" folder, done over 2 years ago, and
   
2. an outlook pst file, done over 6 months ago

everything else has gone the way of all matter when encountering a black hole. thankfully i did have much of my other data sitting on a separate drive, which is still running strong :) *knock on wood*

anyways, i was now faced with a recovery bill ranging from $5-600 through to several $thousand (assuming successful recovery). is my data worth that much? if it was, would it not have made sense to have some protection/insurance against this sort of thing happening? hindsight always oozes wisdom...

so i spent i think about a week sweating on the thought of wiping a few zeros off my savings, and vacillating between wanting to do (almost) whatever necessary thing it takes to retrieve as much of my data as possible, and wanting to live out a bit of the que sera sera philosophy (mixed with twinges of guilt about spending so much money on bits of ones and zeros, the benefits of having which don't spread too much farther than me myself and i). in the end, the damage to the drive proved to be unrecoverable. it was about 2 or 3 months out of warranty. having heard stories of successful recovery following much more severe damage, i was a bit surprised by the status of my drive. in any case it solves the dilemma of whether i should spend the money on getting the data back...

and so i've now invested in a couple of new (and bigger) hard drives, and embarked on a slow process of rebuilding my computer, coming across some useful and note-worthy tools along the way. i'm keeping a changelog of sorts, so that it'll be easier to repeat the build if i need to. but hopefully with my backup strategy in place (part of which involves a sleek looking Cooler Master X-Craft external HDD enclosure), i won't need to do any rebuilds unless i choose to, or until the next you-beaut version of windows is finally released.

recommended tools (all freeware):

• nLite - Deployment Tool for the bootable Unattended Windows installation (a tool for permanent Windows components removal and pre-installation Windows setup, with the option to make a bootable image ready for burning on cd or testing in virtual machines). I used this to create a custom installer CD for my OS - it wasn't quite as unattended as I would have liked, but it still made the installation a lot easier to manager.
  
• DriveImage XML - program for imaging and backing up partitions and logical drives, with images stored in XML files (can be accessed and processed by third party tools), and support for "hot backups" via microsoft's volume shadow service. I use this to clone my whole OS drive to another physical disk, effectively giving me a reasonably up to date (depending on the frequency of backups) spare OS drive that's ready to swap in should the main one die. I'm also using this to create images of my two internal drives, on my external drive.
  
• SyncBack (free version) - backs up and synchronises your files and directories to a choice of destination media. With support for filtering, compression, and scheduling with Windows scheduler. Runs very quickly and efficiently (if not using hashing to check file changes). I use this to keep a backed up and synchronised copy of my data drive.

here's hoping i've learnt some lessons from this experience!

oh, i should add that despite the trouble this whole episode has caused me, not to mention the hours spent on the computer (hmm... actually i do a lot of that anyway), i am thankful for things like:

• the seemingly anal but nevertheless prudent decision i made in the days when gmail invites were scarce and a much sought after commodity, to forward a copy of all my emails to the welcoming and deep spaces of the gmail inbox. basically this meant i had copies of my emails which i could import into outlook, to replace those lost due to the crash.
  
• the goodness that is dell axim - i had synchronised copies of all my outlook notes, tasks, contacts and calendar items on my pda. again, a relatively easy way to replace the data lost on my pc.
• the competitive computer hardware market in this town, meaning i get to upgrade to bigger hard drives for cheap.
• learning to deal with the loss of something i wouldn't choose to give up, but when it's forced upon me to more or less get on with it. well, what else can you do really... if you don't have a choice, you don't have a choice.
  

lay-(american)Z

didn't feel like getting out of bed today, and it wasn't even a work day. just felt like closing my eyes and staying off the moving sidewalk of life a little longer.

after waking up a few times -- thrice due to phone call/SMSs, and once when the wind/air pressure forced my partially closed door to open, thus exposing me to the sounds of other human activity in the household -- i eventually succumbed to the increasing heat, hunger and wakefulness and rolled out of bed at about 1pm.

i think that's the latest i've gotten out of bed for a while. i did sleep pretty late last night though, having discovered a blog of someone i know, and browsing through the archives -- some good laughs there.

i feel so lazy.

which partially explains why i haven't blogged lately, and why i'm revisiting this space. though there are more factors involved than a general lack of motivation.

it's december already. man.. *yawns*

[photo: caught on camera trying to get a moment's rest]