Thursday 14 June 2012

Government House, Sydney


Tuesday 2 August 2011

Colorado Police Pepper Spray an Eight Year Old Boy


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"After becomming unruly, the Colorado police were forced to take action against an eight year old boy, Aidan Elliott, to prevent him from, in his own words, "whacking" his peers with a sharpened pole..."

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Read more: http://andylaa.quazen.com/news/colorado-police-pepper-spray-an-eight-year-old-boy/#ixzz1TuszSiWh

Monday 25 July 2011

Man Finds Kidney Donor Over Facebook

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"A man from Michigan, after being told he’d have to wait longer than he could survive for a kidney transplant, miraculously found one of the most generous men in the world to give him one of his own kidneys. The correspondence began over Facebook..."
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Read more: http://webupon.com/social-networks/man-finds-kidney-donor-over-facebook/#ixzz1TB8nWocd


Tuesday 19 July 2011

LulzSec Returns!

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"After claiming that their 50 days (of hacking) were over, it appears that the hacking group, Lulz Security are at it again, this time hacking The Sun Newspaper’s website. It appears to be in protest of the recent scandal involving Rupert Murdoch."
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Read more: http://computersight.com/computers/lulzsec-hackers-return-to-hack/#ixzz1SXdcWiEc


Friday 8 July 2011

Wendy Cobb Filming a Lorry Driver’s Illegal Driving for Evidence Survives a Plank of Wood Being Inadvertently Hurtled Into Her Windscreen. and Films It All!

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"Wendy Cobb a 40 year-old U.S citizen of North Carolina was attempting to film a lorry driver’s breaking of the road rules on the highway, with the intention of turning it into the driver’s boss. He was playing a game of “Cat and Mouse” and therefore holding up traffic whilst also breaking the law..."
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Read more: http://webupon.com/video/wendy-cobb-filming-a-lorry-drivers-illegal-driving-for-evidence-survives-a-plank-of-wood-being-inadvertently-hurtled-into-her-windscreen-and-films-it-all/#ixzz1RW5MuNCZ



Photo taken by me.

Monday 27 June 2011

So...I made it to Australia...finally

As some of you may be aware, my girlfriend is Australian and I'm English, well on the 22nd June I *finally* made it to see my girlfriend. Considering I started my journey on the 19th, you can understand the "finally".

Some witty banter on the toilet roll holder in Heathrow:


The flights...well not to mince words, the flights were absolute hell. Moreso than the last time I remember them. Started off in good cheer with a 40 minute (I think) BA flight from Manchester Airport to London, after all the teary goodbyes to my family, I was off and arrived all fine at London Heathrow for the 2 hour wait for my flight to Singapore which, by the way, was NOT told to me by the travel agent.

An illegal take-off photo:

I was under the impression that it was a direct flight to Melbourne and even asked her numerous times "So it definitely doesn't stop off anywhere before then?" but anyway, it happened and that was fine. Gave me a chance to stop off and have a couple of cigs in the greatest humidity I could have ever dreamed of.

The wing of the airbus:


On the flight there, I was stuck in a window seat all the way, even though I specified aisle and tried my luck asking the couple sitting next to me if we could switch which they obviously didn't want to (fair enough). However, it was a Qantas flight and even though I was in economy, there was a perfectly fine amount of legroom and even a little space between myself and the  window, so all was good and they were a nice couple whose name now escapes me (of course - see the soliloquy about "single serve friends on planes" in the awesome film "Fight Club" to understand where I'm coming from).

At one point in the 12-13 hour flight, I actually scurried out of the seat prison to the toilet and just stood around talking to people for an hour. Yes I was that toilet goblin who forced you to talk with him while he stretched on QF10. Good times, eh?

In Singapore I turned on my phone to find a message from my lovely girlfriend. "Aww that's nice" you may be thinking; it read as follows:

"Please text me whenever you get this. This bloody volcano is an arsehole."

Which...*isn't* really what you want to hear when you're in an airport, soon to take a plane to the very place that has been having disruptions due to the Chilean volcano...after some foraying back and forth of texts, I found out that the Aussie news was saying that all flights into Adelaide and out of Melbourne had been grounded for safety reasons. Oh joy.

Anyway, one 8-9 hour flight later with a screaming baby (but this time an aisle seat donated by a girl I met in the airport who was doing exactly the same thing as I was - working holiday visa to be with her partner - she preferred the window, so awesome, anyway, after that you hit the goddamn Aussie customs line. And by line I mean population as in it could legally constitute a separate state with how many people were in it. That took about half an hour of my life, but I got through no problems - no great big interview or anything (which I was expecting), just an "enjoy your stay" after exchanging a few friendly words with a passport inspector which cheered me up. Then the same huge queue to collect my bag and go one-by-one through the...bag...man? I don't know his proper title.

About 10 single serve friends later, I made it to the check-in desk which, as I expected, told me no flight to Adelaide. Got their information to reclaim my money and high-tailed it to the city-link bus to the coach station for a ticket to Adelaide. Of course, the "20 minute" bus journey became roughly 45 minutes and when I got to the bus station, I was told the soonest bus they had was the next morning (it was about 10:00am local time). Yeah. Awesome.

So, hotel down road, check in, get breakfast, watch TV blah blah, end up sleeping (for the first time in 2 days) at 3.30pm local time after a riveting episode of "Charlie's Angels". When I woke up, decided a smoke will make things better, and as I was having  one a guy across the road parked about 2 feet over the parking line in a clamping/fining area, mentioned he might want to back up a bit and received...a rather aggressive and unfriendly reaction (Aussies hate criticisms of their shit driving) The conversation was as follows:

"You might want to back up a bit there mate, you're a bit over the line."
"What?"
"You might want to back up a bit there."
"What?"
"You're over the line; you might want to back up a bit there."
"Do you want my keys and you can get in and park it?"
*confused*"...no?"
"Then why don't you shut the fuck up then?"

This is getting really long so I'll cut it short: one 11 hour bus journey later sitting next to a "psychic", Christian monarchist (the very antithesis of myself), I arrived to see my beautiful girlfriend on the 22nd June 2011.

A photo taken on the coach journey:


TL;DR
29hours 40minutes total travel time.
Flight cancelled, coach got.
Don't criticise an  Australian man's driving.
I got here.

Currently:
Awaiting my tax file number so I can legally work.
Awaiting response from Qantas for the outstanding $200(ish).
More in love now than ever.
Psyching myself up to deal with a long overdue Aussie summer...

Sunday 26 June 2011

How do I make my passwords/PINs more secure?

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"Passwords are basic protection for essentially everything to do with a computer – from accessing your information in shops like Blockbuster to your banking details via Paypal to social networking sites like Facebook or Twitter and you need to be sure that, at the very minimum, your important stuff is protected with a password to which only you could know..."
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Read more: http://computersight.com/communication-networks/security/what-is-a-secure-password-or-pin-number-ways-to-make-your-passwordpin-more-secure/#ixzz1QRt3npSf