Hurray! I’m reaching the stage of my flu where about half of my coughs win me exciting prizes! It’s like a lucky dip!

Drunkenbatman posted this image over at his site, and I thought it would make Crumpet laugh, so…

I got bored at work today (Bored? Doing my job? Inconceivable!) and spent a couple of minutes booking some time at my accountant to do my tax return. I’ll be there at midday on Monday next week with my trusty shoebox full of receipts at my side. I figured it was best to get it done as soon as possible so I could whack another thousand dollars off the credit card debt.

Yes, I’m back, and about 90% well. Damn flu.

I can’t be arsed blogging about Sydney, check out Crumpet’s blog for photos and such.

Last post before we head up to Sydney for a few days. Back on Saturday to help Giz and Kym with their working bee (assuming I’m over this flu/cold/whatever-the-hell-it-is). Until then, try to amuse yourselves by imagining what your life would be like if you were a happy little monkey in the jungle.

I tried out GarageBand 2 and the orchestral instruments today while Crumpet was at work. Not shocking for an hour or so’s work, I guess.

EDIT: Added a verse. No lyrics yet as I seem to be coming down with the dreaded lurgy. Filesize has jumped from 1MB to 2.1MB.

Yeah, my voice has gone to shit from lack of use. I have no breath control at all… I’ll have to work on that, because it’s sticking out like a sore thumb to me.

On the positive side, GarageBand 2 is so much better than the first version. Not to say that it previously sucked (it was good enough for me to forget about saving up for Logic) but Apple have really optimised the hell out of it. That piece of music has 14 tracks, 11 of which are software instruments, and the PowerBook plays it easily on reduced processor power. If I did need to add more instruments and my power supply had been eaten by the dog, I could lock the tracks, which writes both the original audio content and the effects to disk.

Funny how supervisors create rosters in which the support staff work 3 Saturdays in 3 months, but the supervisors only work 1 Saturday in 3 months. Funny how I’m looking for another job.

I’m sure they’ll be glad to see me go. Plenty o’ monkeys to take my place.

I came into work today to find my package from Apple waiting for me on my desk. Great stuff, now I have the entire weekend to tinker with enormous horns… as it were. *cough*

edit: Not the entire weekend, though. As it turns out, I need GarageBand 2 for this Jam Pack, unlike the previous ones. I’ll be visiting Desktop Power for iLife ‘05 tomorrow, an expense I’d hoped to avoid by getting it for free with my iMac in October. Waiting three months to use this pack just to save a few bucks seems ridiculous and I’m not willing to pirate iLife… soooo… it’s only money, right? Also, by buying it now I can legally run GarageBand 2 on both my Macs later this year.

edit #2: Desktop Power have one copy left, which they’re reserving for yours truly. Verily do I rocketh.

I spent some time last night digging through my piles of shit filing system for IT-related receipts. It looks like I’ll be claiming a little over $2,000 worth of deductions this year (RAM upgrades, HD replacement, OS upgrade, a portion of my internet costs, donations to charity… it all adds up).

This is for me more than anything. A little reminder to investigate WP-Cache, which is a plugin that converts the dynamic code generated on the fly by WordPress into static pages (much like Movable Type does). The paltry amount of traffic the server shifts a month doesn’t strain it at all, but it’s nice to have something to fall back on if the unthinkable happens and I get Slashdotted for something.

Dear Apple Customer,

The following products shipped on 14.07.2005. Depending on your
location within Australia your order should arrive within
1 – 5 working days of shipment.

_____________
M9819Z/A GB JAM PACK 4,SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA RET-INT

Yay! I bet it’ll arrive on Monday, giving me Monday night and most of Tuesday to work on some stuff. On Wednesday I’ll be heading up to Sydney with Crumpet to do random things.