Was a totally perfect autumn day today. Not too hot, not too cold. A little rain storm that swept very quickly through the city to leave the sky scrubbed clean.

To the right is a photo of my new fish tank as of last night. I put the smallest danio in there tonight, and tomorrow I'll probably add the other small male so she doesn't get too lonely.

And now for a Friday Five:

1. Would you consider yourself an organized person? Why or why not?
In some ways I am. Like I hate clutter and like putting things in their proper places, although I'm happier to clean up other peoples' mess than my own - I'm too lazy to clean up after myself. In other ways I'm not though. Like I have yet to find a diary/calendaring system I can use. I organise most events in my life on memory. I don't have too much trouble with this, as generally my life is so uneventful it's not a problem.

2. Do you keep some type of planner, organizer, calendar, etc. with you, and do you use it regularly?
I have a filofax that almost never gets used. Before that I had an electronic organiser that almost never got used.

3. Would you say that your desk is organized right now?
Nope. Although plans for the weekend include organising it.

4. Do you alphabetize CDs, books, and DVDs, or does it not matter?
Not really. I try and categorise them though.

5. What's the hardest thing you've ever had to organize?
Other people I think

Saw the coolest thing I've seen in a long time in a book yesterday.

It was called a "Fulgurite" and is caused when lightning hits sandy ground, fusing the sand into a lightning shaped hunk of rock. Very cool!

Got my second fish tank filled tonight and the heater and pump/filter are working. All I need now is a lid.

Just watching survivor at the moment, it's getting really interesting now. Only six to go with people with all sorts of twists and people changing their minds.

Up and down kind of a day today. Sucky people at work and frustrating .wk4 file formats. Long and lively staff meeting at cia (and I'd just like to say for the record right here that I think nothing will change - it's one of those laws of entropy isn't it?). Longgg catchup with Luke after which was great, haven't talked to him much recently. We chatted in the middle of the road for two hours about work, hobbies, fish, collectables, dvds, etc, was excellent. Ploughed through the support mail getting it from 25 to 4 in under 2 hours.

Just enough time for a this-or-that:

1. TV or radio?
CD jukebox! Radio in the car, tv I try to watch only when there's something specific on, otherwise I don't get anything done
2. On the radio: talk or music station?
Music. Actually on the way home tonight was listening to the Phil O'neal show on triple m, and someone had written in saying how much they like the format of the show (which is partly talkback). I actually have to agree. I dislike talkback as a rule, but there's something about this particular show that's considerably more interesting to me than any others around.
3. Actual books or books-on-tape (or e-books)?
I don't do much reading.. if I had books available on tape I'd probably listen to them in the car, but otherwise real books
4. Actual newspaper, or web version?
Web version .. when I read anything, which is rare
5. Wall Street Journal or National Enquirer?
Sydney Morning Herald or Daily Telegraph? Stoopid american questions again.
6. TV news...news channel such as CNN, or your local broadcast news?
I only get local (sydney) news.
7. A movie you've been looking forward to seeing gets bad reviews all around. See it anyway, or pass?
I'd most likely see it anyway, unless I couldn't find anyone to go with (which happens more often that not anyway)
8. See movies when they first come out, or wait a few weeks for the lines at the theater to get shorter?
I like seeing them fairly early - you get the better cinemas that way
9. TV: cable, satellite dish, or just plain old antenna?
I still have the old-fashioned antenna
10. Thought-provoking question of the week: If you had to choose only one form of media to come into your home, which would you choose...print (newspapers, magazines) or electronic (TV, internet)? Why?
Electronic. Everything you need is on the internet, why would you need paper? :)

OK so I thought *I* was obessed with Lego at the moment .. check this dude's site out! Wow!

I was "busy" all day today, but acheived nothing more than a slightly tidied house, and lots of videos watched.

Friday five.. hrm I think I might have trouble with this one

1. Who is your favorite celebrity? I don't really have a favourite at the moment.

2. Who is your least favorite? um..

3. Have you ever met or seen any celebrities in real life? I think the most famous person I've ever seen would be Princess Di - in 1988 for Australia Bicentennary celebrations she and Charles were cruising around Farm Cove on a boat waving to people. The most famous person I've seen up close would probably be David Hasselhoff - completely by fluke in New York, we were walking past a theatre where he was starring in a play and was outside the theatre signing autographs etc

4. Would you want to be famous? Why or why not? Not really.

5. If you had to trade places with a celebrity for a day, who would you choose and why? gee I don't know. How about Emma Watson so I could spend a day on the set of the next Harry Potter movie..? :)

OK so I'm cruising down the M4 this morning, zipping through the E-way gates in the left of the two lanes (best thing since sliced bread the new toll "gates" on the M4) and as we're merging back to four lanes after the tolls, this truck tries to cut in from the cash lanes. So I move over to the right lane to avoid having to brake. OK so now I'm cruising in the right lane, but they're doing roadworks at the moment and the limit is 60. So I ease off and try not to exceed the ridiculous speed limit by too much. Now this truck moves over right behind me and then just sits right on my tail, obviously wanting me to break the law or get out of his way. Well having already proved himself to be the rudest driver on my trip, I certainly wasn't going to get out of his way. Anyway after a couple of kilometres sitting right up my backside he decides to give up and go around me - just as the speed goes up to 90 again. So of course I take off and leave him behind. For then at least. You can't really get very far very fast on the M4 in peak hour, so I ended up not being more than a couple of cars away from him on my entire trip to work. Bastard.

This afternoon was not much better. I was trying to decide if it's just me (I seem to get tailgaters a lot), or the car I happened to be driving today (which looks as if it should be going a lot faster). But if it is the car, they should realise that my brakes are probably a darned sight better than theirs, and if I had to stop in an emergency they wouldn't have a chance. Neither would have that damned truckie.

I also got to experience the joys of the M5 east tunnel at peak hour today. Picture a 4km tunnel that's not properly ventilated, filled with drivers that seem to panic just because there's a solid wall next to them instead of air. So I'm sitting there averaging 30km/hr in a very warm car with no ventilation to stop the pollution getting in, then as soon as we hit open air it's back up to 80km/hr. Sheesh I wish people could learn to drive sometimes.

wow.. what a rant .. I wonder how I managed to make it home in one piece!

I was going to post this last night, but the day got away from me and I managed about 30 seconds with a computer, not really enough to blog.

I've avoided most of the news coverage of the war in Iraq, but did see repeated footage last night of the US soldiers and the Iraqi people pulling down the statue of Saddam Houssein. It's good to see that so many of the ordinary citizens of Baghdad are happy with the outcome, although I can't help thinking that the media is only showing half the story. Of course we'll probably never know for sure how representative it was.

At any rate, it looks like the war may be drawing to a close, which can only be a good thing.

It's still Tuesday in oz.. normally we don't see the This or That's til Wednesday..

1. Sexier (female)...Pamela Anderson or Jennifer Garner? Well Pamela Anderson is a bit of a turn off, so Jennifer Garner I guess
2. Sexier (male)...Ben Affleck or Matt Damon? Neither really do it for me, but probably Matt Damon more
3. The better piano player...Billy Joel or Elton John? I've seen Billy Joel in concert once and it was awesome, so I'll say him
4. Funnier...David Letterman or Craig Kilborn? Don't watch either
5. The dumber cartoon cat...Stimpy (of *Ren & Stimpy*) or Tom (of *Tom & Jerry*)? Dunno
6. A better news anchor...Tom Brokaw or Dan Rather? Who writes this stuff? More international people, please, some of us have never heard of these dudes
7. A better TV chef...Emeril Lagasse or Jacques Pepin? See above
8. The trashier talk show host...Maury Povich or Jerry Springer? Who knows, never watched them (I don't even think they're on in australia)
9. The worse fast food burger joint...McDonald's or Burger King? I think Burger King makes slightly better burgers (more veggies), but McDonalds have perfected the French Fry
10. Thought-provoking question of the week: Only a handful of U.S. Presidents have been considered to be *great* Of the following two, which one do you consider to be greater...Franklin D. Roosevelt or Abraham Lincoln? Why? Well I couldn't even tell you what Roosevelt achieved in his lifetime, so I guess I'd have to say Lincoln

Well that was a rather silly one (again). If this poor standard keeps up I probably won't keep up This or That.

Twice a day I walk past a bunch of grass plants that are currently flowering. They have these big fluffy seed heads which I take great delight in running my hand over as I walk past them (kinda like Russell Crowe in Gladiator only these are a lot softer). It's the little things like this that make life worthwhile sometimes :)

Saw a pretty cool website last night - FireArtFanatics - check out their photo page, it's awesome.

One of my recent hobbies (aside from collecting ancient space lego) is reading blogs at random. There's an awful lot of students blogging out there, and most bloggers tend to be American it seems. Every so often I find one that's mostly interesting, and the blogger blogs most days. These I'm adding to a list, and one of these days I'll link them on mine so I can easily read them every day. If by chance you're reading this and think your blog is interesting, let me know and I'll have a look :)

Oh yeah, linked to on one of the blogs I've started reading was wilwheaton.net. It took me a moment to realise that it was *the* Wil Wheaton from Star Trek (among other things). It's pretty cool - it's an ordinary blog and the website was done entirely by him, so you get an insight into a star's life that's not being pushed by marketing people. Worth a read.

I had a thoroughly suck day. Spent half the day stressing over our servers and their (lack of) backups. We've been fighting a running battle with Dell for the past week to get a working DLT tape drive happening. Complicated by the fact that we can't reboot the server it's attached to during the day because too many people use it and could potentially lose work if we do so.

Then we discovered the joys of LVD vs HVD. I didn't even know those TLAs before today, now I do. A last ditch effort was replacement of the terminator they supplied us with in addition to the new DLT drive, and KH was going to reboot the server tonight. It's been rebooted, but I don't know if it detected the DLT or not. I'll find out tomorrow morning I guess.

Was a big effort to stay awake in Bible Study tonight, I think I nearly fell off my chair a few times.

Time for bed, nite