So the plan for the weekend (or at least part of it) was to put all my usa photos into a mysql database, and write a set of scripts to display the files in various indexes.

Yah like that was ever going to happen.

Spent the entire morning staring at my excel file trying to figure out how I'd do it. Now sure, if it were just a directory of photos I'd have no trouble. But I have my own photos, panoramas I've created, scans of my parents photos, mpg movies, as well as maps, daily routes, state routes, extra images of National Park "splash" pictures, and some images have been used more than once, while others were added in special orders at the beginning of states etc.

The more I stared at it, the more I realised how complicated it was, and how many exceptions would need to be made to get it to do what I wanted it to do.

So I thought stuff it, I'll just make 42 day index pages, and 14 state index pages. Generate the actual code in excel (where all the data is) and hardcode it into html. Sounds like a copout I know, but I could see myself never ever getting these photos online (and it was a *year* ago that we were away).

Then I thought I should probably add some more descriptive notes to some of the images, and of course that takes hours too. That's what I did most of the afternoon/evening.

So by the end of the weekend you never know, I might actually have it done.

Unless I get the urge to go through everything again putting in Google Maps references... :)

FQ1: What's your native language? Do you speak any foreign languages? If so, how did you come to learn them?
I speak english, having been born in Australia. I can ein bischen deutsch, but only a very little bit (learn in high school for a couple of years).

FQ2: What's your native country? Have you visited any foreign countries? If so, which ones?
Oh, already answered - Australia. I've been to New Zealand, Canada, and the USA (three times)

FQ3: Are there any foreign foods, books, movies, or other items that you are particularly fond of? Name some of your favorites.
The good thing about living in Sydney is that we get an amazing variety of foreign food. I like Thai, even though I don't like chili spice heh, italian, lebanese, mexican (again without the chili :) ).. well at least aspects of all sorts of things.

FQ NATIVE: If you had to trade your nationality for that of any foreign country, which would you choose and why?
Well I don't think I would for a start (Australia is the best country in the world ;) ). Possibly British or something European like German. I dunno.

FQ1: Any pets as a kid?
I got a budgie for my 7th birthday which I adored. He was called Bluey and could talk. He died three years later and I was devastated. We had a couple of other budgies, and some goldfish in a pond in the back yard.

FQ2: Any pets now?
Lotsa tropical fish :)

FQ3: Name your favorite famous pet from television or movies.
I dunno.. something that flies perhaps.. was Pegasus a pet?

FQ BEST FRIEND: If money and legality were not a barrier, what exotic animal would you like as a pet?
I always wanted a horse as a kid. A big parrot like a macaw would be cool too.

So tonight had an evening with Peter Jackson (Lord of the Rings). Didn't think I was going to make it though. First was worried that I'd have to pay $45 not $30 because I wasn't a Powerhouse Museum member (Luc had bought tickets based on his id). Then I missed a train and the next one was ten minutes late, so I didn't get to the theatre til after everything had started. And the State Theatre usherettes had *no idea* where the seats were in the dark. So I never ended up sitting with the people I was meant to be with, and even then that turned out to be just Luc as Guy couldn't come. So then Luc raced off to get a bus after, which meant I didn't see him all night. heh.

So anyway. It was a really interesting night. He talked at length about how the deal with Miramax fell through and they had to get a new studio to back the films within four weeks. And how it ended up being three movies instead of two, or even one. And he talked somewhat about his background in making movies as a hobby, and also about King Kong which he's currently shooting. And just for fun, he had a dvd of LotR bloopers which he'd collected. Some of them were utterly hilarious.. like Gandalf done up with brides-maid style hair.. a bunch of setups like that and the usual line fluffups. Fun stuff.

FQ1: If you could own any item from any movie, what would you take and why?
A teleporter, as in Star Trek. The little personal air carts like in The Incredibles would be cool. An invisibility cloak like in Harry Potter would be lots of fun, and the Delorean time machine from Back to the Future would be unreal.

FQ2: If you could become any character from any movie, who would it be and why?
Sticking to girl characters (I mean, I should have been a boy, but I still think like a female).. well Supergirl would mean I could fly, my greatest ever wish. I'm very similar to Hermione Granger from Harry Potter (good at school work), and being able to do magic would be, well, magical. If I was Sarah from Labyrinth, I'd fear Jareth, love him, do anything he said, and he would be my *slave* ;) .. or I could be Beverly Crusher and live in the Star Trek world and get Jean-Luc Picard.

FQ3: If you could visit any location from any movie, where would it be and why?
Being in the Matrix, or on an Enterprise holodeck where I could live out any fantasy I wanted would be a lot of fun. And Jurassic Park would be awesome. In terms of real-life locations, I really want to do a Sound of Music tour in Austria, and doing a helicopter tour around Queenstown New Zealand (cf Lord of the Rings) would be spectacular.

FQ MOVIE MASH-UP: Combine some items, characters, and locations from different movies to create an entirely new film! What would you call it and what would it be about?
meh, I give up, it took me all night just to do the rest of the questions!

Watched Episode I on telly tonight. It's alright to watch repeatedly if you don't worry too much about the fact that it has no story (a pod race and a completely CG battle). Good cinematography and great music, means you can have it on in the background without causing too much offence. They're doing eps IV/V/VI in the coming weeks, but the "special" edition version. I'm still protesting and won't be buying the "special edition" dvds cause they ruined it by changing and adding all the digital crap. I grew up on the original movies, and seeing them adulterated like that is just wrong. If they'd ever bring out dvds of the original version I'd buy those.

As seen at JC and Bren's.

Rules:
Pick 10 movies that you enjoy.
Pick a line of dialog that you like.
As people guess the film, strike out that entry.
NO cheating

1. x never ever marks the spot - JC and Kirk
2. morning. morning. morning. morning. morning. morning. oh look! Howard's being eaten - Dave
3. Mawwiage. Mawwiage is wot bwings us togeva today. - JC and Kirk
4. This one's gonna be close
5. Give me the child. Through dangers untold and hardships unnumbered, I have fought my way here to the castle beyond the goblin city, to take back the child that you have stolen. - JC and Kirk (actually I should have used "Just fear me, love me, do as I say, and I will be your *slave*" .. would you have gotten that?)
6. Don't you two *read* ? - Kirk
7. There's no such thing as fairies - Dennis
8. It's not a job, it's an adventure - Dave
9. Men and women can never be friends, because the sex part always gets in the way - JC and Kirk
10. You can't marry someone when you're in love with someone else - Mushroom

1. What did you do in 2004 that you'd never done before?
   Met someone whose blog I read
2. Did you keep your new year's resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
   This year I made up a Bible reading plan that I managed to stick to, for the first time ever. I read the entire New Testament and a third of the Old Testament. For next year I'll be continuing my effort to be more relaxed and happy
3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
   Yep, Jodi at work
4. Did anyone close to you die?
   No
5. What countries did you visit?
   USA and Canada
6. What would you like to have in 2005 that you lacked in 2004?
   A boyfriend
7. What date(s) from 2004 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
   Probably the 16th May, which was when we left for the USA (the day is also the anniversary of when I settled this place, and my friends got married, and I hooked up with Vic, and my brother moved into his place).
8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
   Probably switching over to w2k3/active directory
9. What was your biggest failure?
   File server disaster, with a corrupted file system and hours of down time
10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
    I got sick twice, once probably from some old cheese, not sure about the other time. No flus which was awesome. Only real injury was a snowboarder wiping me out at the snow
11. What was the best thing you bought?
    My Sony DSC-F828 camera
12. Whose behaviour merited celebration?
    um..
13. Whose behaviour made you appalled and depressed?
    Probably my father's
14. Where did most of your money go?
    On the trip to the USA
15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
    Probably the trip to the USA :)
16. What song will always remind you of 2004?
    Double Trouble
17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
    Happier or Sadder? - happier I think
    Thinner or Fatter? - much the same, maybe slightly fatter
    Richer or Poorer? - much the same, the trip to the USA kept me fairly even
    
18. What do you wish you'd done more of?
    Sleeping
19. What do you wish you'd done less of?
    Complaining
20. How will you be spending Christmas?
    This year or next year? Silly question to ask for an end of year quiz
21. Who deleted question 21?
    It wasn't me I didn't do it
22. Did you fall in love in 2004?
    If you count crushes on Jason Isaacs and Dave.. otherwise no
23. How many one-night stands?
    None
24. What was your favorite TV program?
    Survivor or ER
25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?
    No
26. What was the best book you read?
    Probably Prisoner of Azkaban, although I'd read that twice before
27. What was your greatest musical discovery?
    Yvonne's keyboard
28. What did you want and get?
    A new camera
29. What did you want and not get?
    A dvd recorder
30. What was your favorite film of this year?
    Peter Pan
31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
    Went down to me little brother's place for lunch, then went to a dance party in town. I turned 31
32. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
    A boyfriend
33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2004?
    Jeans and a tshirt
34. What kept you sane?
    dvds
35. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
    Jason Isaacs
36. What political issue stirred you the most?
    The US election.. even more than our own federal election, go figure :)
37. Who did you miss?
    Dennis and JC, they don't post nearly as often as they used to :(
38. Who was the best new person you met?
    Dave!
39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2004.
    um..
40. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.
    "Something gotta go wrong cause I'm feeling way too damn good" - story of my life - whenever I'm feeling happy something will come along to make me feel grumpy

So another year over. Another year older. I spent far too long rereading this years blog entries to get highlights and lowlights of the year. Strangely there were more highlights than lowlights. The lowlights tended to be just ordinary day-to-day rants. The only big disasters I had this year were the file server disaster, where we lost files and had daytime downtime for hours; and Faiele in Italy stole a big chunk of my money on ebay, and ebay refused to help.

At work, we upgraded our domain to windows 2003 with active directory, which we managed to acheive without too many dramas. I setup quite a few servers during the year, but my favourite was later in the year when I migrated our main production notes web server to new hardware in a total of an hour and a half from pulling out of the box to being live. We also got audited while I was overseas, and felt very happy that I'd done detailed documentation for all the servers before I left, which probably saved my boss. Lunches with Jim and John became the norm this year, as it was a lot easier to coordinate four people with Luc in our office than when he was elsewhere.

My cia work mostly dried up, after they hired Nhat to take care of Gamera. He had his trial by fire shortly after he started, having to rebuild the machine in the middle of the night when there was a multiple disk failure in the raid array. The relief of me not having to stress about the box anymore was enourmous.

My lego obsession kicked into high gear this year, with the completion of the classic space lego collection, all the Harry Potter sets, tonnes of plain bricks for making mosaics (of which I made four instructed ones and four of my own design), and later in the year getting Yoda and the Imperial Star Destroyer.

I had several fish losses during the year, but didn't really replace any. I did however get a tankful of baby kribs which was very exciting.

I saw David Bowie in concert which was phenomenal. Been waiting fourteen years for the chance, and it was very moving for me. Also saw the Lion King stage show which was fantastic. Quidam was good but not as good as Alegria.

Crushes included a massive one on Jason Isaacs, a little one on Dave, and the ongoing one on Jim. No prospects of any boyfriends tho.

Three decent trips this year - a short one at Easter to my uncle's wedding in Queensland, a six week adventure to the USA and Canada, and a three day skiing trip in September. The USA trip was amazing, probably the biggest highlight of my year. I took 3800 photos and movies on my wonderful new Sony camera, which I still haven't finished sorting out!!

The weather this year went Summer, Autumn, Autumn, skipped winter, went straight onto Summer, and now Spring.

And now I have to get ready for tonight's general partying. Happy new year to everyone!! :):)

Or in the case of the Wizard of Oz, I do believe in spooks, I do, I do. Every time I watch the Wizard of Oz, I pick up stuff that's been referenced in other movies. Although the reference list doesn't include Labyrinth. I was only half watching Oz, more just listening, and lots of stuff reminded my vaguely of Labyrinth (Didymus had the exact same voice manerisms as the wizard dude). Nothing really specific though, just a feel.

I finished the Star Destroyer :)

FQ1: Share an obscure movie or show and tell use why we should watch it.
hrm. I have a tendency to like mainstream stuff. Jerry Bruckheimer knows how to appeal to me :) And all my favourite movies aren't exactly obscure. A couple of Aussie ones that may not be well known overseas include Young Einstein and Strictly Ballroom. Great Australian flicks (ok Young Einstein may not have been exactly great, but it was beautifully silly).

FQ2: Share an obscure band or musical talent and tell us why we should listen to it.
Going with an Australian theme, my favourite Australian band of the late eighties was 1927. Pity they don't exist anymore, although I did see an ad recently with Eric Weideman in a where are they now situation.

FQ3: Share an obscure blog or web site and tell use why we should visit it.
How about Kirk's, just because it is relatively new to the blogsphere (and it's Australian :) )

FQ 15 Minutes: There will one day be an event in your life so big that it will drag you out of obscurity and make your name known to the entire world. Speculate on what it will be that brings you your 15 minutes of fame!
I've had my 15 minutes of fame. Closer to 45 in fact. I was on Romper Room in 1979 when I was five, and on Catch Phrase a couple of years ago. I've also been in the newspaper a couple of times.