Mr Altruistic

It was recently mentioned by Brad that I plug ‘n’ played a Microshonk USB optical meese. *Gasp!* I can hear all the dedicated Apple users cry… Why did you do that?

Because I’m not one to stop using something simply because I have a fucked up notion in my head that I’m fucking cool because I use Apple. I don’t wake up thinking, where’s my iPod, and my iCereal and my iMilk, geez I need an iCoffee. If you think like that, and I’m pretty sure a lot of Apple users do, then you are an iDickhead.

The reason I use the MS mouse is because it is simply, far superior to a one button mouse that has no scrollwheel (whoever at Apple thought that was a step towards the future needs a bullet). It’s a fact. I apologise to all Apple users if this update was a little pro PC. Bill has 2 things going right:

1. An OS that can install fonts simply;

2. A mouse with superior functionality.

Fonts.

The building block of any designers work.

The backbone of an idea.

The strength, silkiness and confidence that allows one to say I can do that!.

The dilemma?

Font’s that wont install.

The software?

Apple’s very own Font Book and another commercial Font Manager that is proclaimed to be exceptional at handling fonts Extensis Suitcase.

The reality? Both programs are extraordinarily bad at handling something so simple as font installation. The Font Book just doesn’t work. Ask most Mac users and they either don’t know about Font Book (because they’ve never bothered using it) or they’ve tried using it, realise it doesn’t work, then tried something else. So what’s the alternative? Extensis Suitcase. This is described as “an expert font manager that lets you break down your large arsenal of fonts into nice neat compartmentalised categories of fonts”. Sounds great? But it isn’t!

When you try to install more than about 5 fonts at a time you are greeted with a colour wheel that seems inspired by Microsofts blue screen of death, because that is pretty much what you get, an application that requires a force quit. Sure, you can install the fonts one at a time absolutely hassle free. But who in God’s name has time to install 2000+ fonts one at a time? I never had this problem on PC, and it’s a sad indictment on Apple that claim to be “designed with the geek in mind”.

Considering that the Apple is the designer’s machine of choice you would expect that fonts would install effortlessly, but it seems the PC wins this war. Click left mouse button to select first font, Press [Shift], scroll to end of fonts, select last font, drag entire list to the font folder in the windows system directory, watch the progress bar as the fonts install themselves.

Try something like that on the Apple. colour wheel. Abysmal. Almost makes you want to go back…. Almost.

Australian Idol is starting to gather momentum with the final 12 now announced. They are (in no particular order): Amali Ward (f), Angie Narayan (f), Anthony Callea (m), Casey Donovan (f), Chanel Cole (f), Courtney Murphy (m), Dan O’Connor (m), Daniel Belle (m), Emelia Rusciano (f), Hayley Jensen (f), Marty Worrall (m), and Ricki-Lee Coulter. The Australian Idol Forum needs to start firing up now that we are in the final 12 stage of the competition, so sign up and share your opinion with the rest of the great people already there.

Telstra’s very own bum, Civick, introduced me to Salad Fingers one of the weirdest net freaks I’ve ever come across. This reminded me of that long running flash site newgrounds that has many many flash animations but none more classic or disturbing than Britney Spears Getting A Dirty Sanchez. Strong stomachs recommended (for the belly laugh) hehehehe.

It’s amazing how much you miss something so small when it isn’t around to take snaps of opportunities that don’t always present themselves to you. For those who don’t know I own a Canon IXUS 400 Digital Camera, which has been used for all the digital photography on the vilesilencer site. By all accounts it is an amateur camera designed for quick and easy snaps, and since it fits in your pocket it can come in handy. Especially for those armed only with tripod mounted behemoths that need 3 days of perfect light to achieve their ideal shots, the ixus gives you the freedom to take the shots that don’t require artistic perfection (which is about 99% of all the shots I take anyways)…For the last fortnight I have been without said camera (a family member currently in the Kimberley’s in outback Australia has borrowed it) and I have missed the opportunity to take photos of my friend Nathan’s 30th. Ahhh well a good time was had by all, and since I was well and truly drunkskies I probably wouldn’t have taken any in-focus shots anyways. Happy Birthday Old Man and congrats on making it to the big three 0.

Not much else to report at this stage… I still haven’t thought about the long overdue facelift that this site requires. The dilapidated nested tables are starting to crack under their own weight and with only 10 meg left in the hosting bank the animal is fast outgrowing its cage. With that in mind I shifted another resource to the CSS tutorials and SEO resources site. The Add URL page has been updated and moved as it is more an SEO resource than pure silencer content. It is an important page in the scheme of search engine optimisation as it contains a large list of directories and search engines (all free no catches) that you can add your site to, in order to increase your traffic. If those pages all contain good Pagerank (PR), then the in-bound links to your site will also boost your PR. In theory anyways

Ah Cityrail aka Shittyrail. This was the message that greeted me as I arrived at Hornsby Station on a Thursday night recently after catching a late-running train from work:

Attention passengers on platform 3, Due to an incident with a hand grenade at Concord Station, your 5:57 Cityrail service is running approximately 18 minutes late

So when my train arrived over 40 minutes late (where did they get that approx. 18 from?) I thought to myself Hand Grenades? Now who in their right mind would want to blow up Cityrail? The “hand grenade” in question turned out to be a plastic toy that didn’t even resemble a hand grenade… is paranoia setting in or what? One bad observation from a dim-witted passenger and the entire Cityrail network goes into chaos - Interesting how life works isn’t it.

While we are on hoaxes, as predicted by vilesilencer several weeks back, the internet beheading fraud videos have started. One 22 year old American chap by the name of Benjamin Vanderford has taken it upon himself to demonstrate how simple it is to create, with the help of a few friends, an authentic looking terrorist beheading video which the media will run as a story when really the cast of the video are sitting snug in their suburban homes not in Iraq.

The Olympics are also upon us, and I am similar to Dave who suggests in the latest Shintara update that he doesn’t watch much sport. I will usually watch the odd game of Rugby League if 2 decent teams are playing (watching the bunnies get flogged week after week isn’t my idea of entertainment), and I do like the Union internationals. In the latter’s case though after last weekends dismal performance by the Wallabies where no less than 3 penalties were given (where one resulted in a try) for not delivering the lineout throw in time, you could be forgiven for thinking it was a schoolboy match.

Back to the Olympics the latest drama seems to be the failure of young Sally Robbins to complete the womens 8 rowing final, and not being one to sit on the fence I’ve decided to dedicate some page space to my opinion on this issue. The other 7 rowers and the cox (the girl in the boat that keeps them in rythym) have all come out labelling Sally a quitter and a choker. Many top coaches have also said they have never seen this sort of thing happen in a rowing event before… BUT it has happened before, and it was the same rower involved. Sally Robbins. In the 2002 World Championship Quad Scull race she collapsed from exhaustion AND the current coaches and rowers in the squad KNOW of this performance. Why then did they not only have her in the team but put her in the “engine room” the number 6 seat in the boat, which is where you put the power source of the team, the most powerful and competent rower goes there. If they knew she had failed before, why do this??? Well it’s interesting and we could debate about it for hours, but it really all comes down to trust in a team, and they trusted her in that position. So to me, those that gave her the chance in that position are also at fault in this, if we are going to start blaming people.

After giving her all for the team Sally has let them down, and no one will be more hard on her than herself for that… Maybe she rowed too hard too early, but what’s been lost in this whole spectacle is that the Olympics is not about winning medals, or ruining peoples lives if you don’t win. Sure a medal is the reward at the end of winning the race, but surely the games is about mateship, sportsmanship and pride in your country and your team. Because the team didn’t win all the blame has rested at poor Sally’s feet. If Sally has rowed herself to the point of exhaustion, where was the rest of the team? Were they not pulling their weight forcing her to do more? I think its disgusting for 7 other people that have oars in their hands to blame one person for not winning. They put her in the power #6 position. They knew she had failed in a championship before. They are at the Olympics and should behave as a team, wether they come in first or last. I’ll leave the last word on this from Pat McNamara, Rowing Australia President, who passed on what one of the coaches said to the rest of the team “He told them the reason they were in the position they were in was because of Sally, Being in the engine room, she was the strongest. His comments were: ‘Don’t be too hard on her because she got you to the position where you were challenging the Romanians. If the rest of you had put in as hard, you probably would’ve been a length in front of them’.” I think that says it all

What’s happened to the wrestling? I flicked over the other day and none of the big names are ever on anymore… Goldberg, Nash, Steiner, Stone Cold, Big Show, The Rock, Mankind, Sting, even The Hulkster. None of them wrestle anymore… Whose this Chris Benoit bloke? He sux. Dodgiest champ they have ever had. I know he’s been around for a long time but he was never championship material, he was usually fodder for the other wrestlers. And what about John Cena? He’s like a 2k version of Vanilla Ice. Word! hehehe Bring back Stone Cold, the show sux!

Australian Idol have almost decided their top 12, and after the unheralded success of the Big Brother Forum and to a lesser extent the chatroom, we’ve decided to support Idol as it rolls into the top 10. The Australian Idol Forum is already off to a flying start. There is a lot of discussion, including a massive fan base supporting Chanel Cole and her bid to become the Idol. So join us at the Australian Idol Forum or the Australian Idol Chatroom and join in the fun

For a few weeks now I’ve been going to the Greengate Hotel on a Thursday night to have a few bevvy’s after work and play a few games of Big Buck Hunter (see image). A great cover band coverdrive began playing up there and made the nights a lot of fun… The guys played all throughout July and Thursday a few weeks back was their last gig. I wish the guys well and thank them for entertaining me during July.

After a big night on Saturday just over 2 weeks back, I blew the KFC ban the following morning. A Bacon & Cheese combo, with BBQ and satay sauce to compliment the large chips and popcorn chicken, went down like a dream, and cured the hellish hangover. Therefore the NO KFC counter resets after a mammoth 135 days without The Colonel. Perhaps the longest stint without those 13 secret herbs and spices since its inception into the Australian culture.

My final snippet this week is to share with you this hilarious picture parody I stumbled upon last night. It’s probably been around on the net for years, but I will share it anyways as its a clever way of showing why you should Never post your picture on the internet - enjoy

Apologies for the delay in creating Version 2.0 of this site. It really needs a facelift but finding the time to alter the text file to make these updates is difficult enough let alone finding the time needed to do some back-end coding, so the wait will continue.

Well, this year just keeps kicking onskies at breakneck pace, and I am finding it hard to keep up. The cash is exiting my wallet faster than I can earn it, even though I seem to be going out less and less these days. Why is it also, that work days just take forever to end, and the weekend just flies by in an instant? I was thinking about that on Saturday, then it was Sunday, and I thought, hang on what happened to yesterday… Then it was Monday…. and then Monday… and then MONDAY!… we’ll you know what I mean it’s like getting a dog up ya sideways - it’s not fun.

I’m fresh from a geek’s impression session with Brad and Dave and I’m mightily impressed with airport. The way it recognised the wireless router in the vicinity of the laptop has sealed the deal and im ready to sign to the Apple for a full season. The rockers and myself dined on take-out *tommy. I revisited the Ruby Foo’s experience in Times Square, New York, where my mate Filthy nearly died on the Kung Pow Chicken (thats the Kung Pow on the left above the soy sauce in the image above) whilst we were holidaying there last year. Unbeknownst to Filthy, the big bits of chicken he was stuffing into his mouth were actually chilis, and not even the several schooners of Stellas he downed could douse the fiery flames hehehe. So I thought I would give the dish a bash, and it came up trumps. A lot milder in Australia it would seem, the chilis were sectioned not whole like in New York, but it still has that zing, and I can highly recommend it.

*Tommy - many theories probably abound as to the origins of the word “tommy” when used in relation to asian food. There is in fact only one. Tommy comes from Tommy Nomchong, an asian chap a year ahead of me at high school. The phrase was coined when a good mate Moysie and myself were sitting in the infamous Wah Kee restaurant chowing down on lemon chicken and mongolian lamb after a session at the gym. It was an off-hand comment that stuck and is used to this day (over a decade later). This also gave rise to the infamous Tommy Knocker extension of the phrase, which I will leave to your imagination hehehe. So next time you’re thinking to yourself “Geez I could go for some Tommy right now” or “Man that Tommy is knocking already” spare a thought for the vilesilencer

After getting a trim on Saturday, I was sitting on the station reading the newspaper when I stumbled across a story about this bird in the UK that sold her virginity for $20,000 Australian (8000 pounds) on ebay. Her girlfriend (yes I re-read that too), apparently was in the next room whilst the “transaction” was completed… Even funnier is that the girl thought the first time was a bit of a dud, and she wanted to remember it as something special, so the gent that purchased her cherry, got a second bite at it, for no extra cost hehehe. For that kind of money I’d gladly become a born again virgin and let the highest bidding lady re-de-flower me

The Danny Williams King Hit on Mark O’Neill has been the talk of the NRL footy world for the last week. It’s occupied the back few pages of the sports section of my local rag paper. Danny, the Melbourne Storm forward, is claiming he suffered amnesia from an O’Neill tackle that concussed him prior to king-hitting O’Neill into hospital. If he suffered amnesia, how is it that he was able to wander across the play and locate O’Neill and deliver the knockout blow? What I also find interesting is that in round 13, Danny Williams broke O’Neill’s nose in a vicious tackle. There is clearly some history between the 2, why doesn’t the coward just own up to taking a cheap-shot on his rival and cop the ban squarely on his chin. After all he deserves it.

Looks like Telstra is back in the news again, and for once it’s not for one of Ziggy’s monumental fuck ups. Telstra is launching the Sensis search engine, which in their words is set to shake Google to its very core. Combining the power of the yellow and white pages, http://www.whereis.com.au/ and a few other databases it claims to have the wood on Google and it’s many rivals… Only time will tell, but my prediction is that this is another case of Telstra offering a Porsche and delivering a Daewoo… no offence to Daewoo.

Recently on the now defunct WPW forum, many mac users were extolling the virtues of the Mozilla Firebird Browser. I’ve heard people literally creaming their daks over using it. So it was with a very high expectation that I downloaded and launched what I thought was going to be the latest in browser technology. After using it I’ve got one word for all those WPW mac users - shithouse. The browser looks and feels like a beta of a bad Camino. Ok I won’t go so far as to say it’s as bad as Mac IE, but it’s down there in the toilet with it. So what do I use? Give me the freedom, speed and simplicity of Safari, which ships as the default with OS X. No fancy garbage, and no frills pretending to be something they aren’t. It’s no wonder to me now why WPW has gone down the drain. The majority of people that frequented that place have no idea about computers or the web. The so-called experts and moderators on the site were nothing more than glorified beginners spouting something they’ve heard or think they know.

As Homer would say “Woo Hoo!!!”. After a rather dull day at work, I was surprised when a customer brought in a CD to be printed containing a poster of (drumroll) The Periodic Table Of Beer Styles. I’d love to see a full screen image of this. I only managed to spend a short time reading over the poster when it was printed, but it is very detailed with information on every style of beer known to man.

While we are on the subject of the periodic table… Scientists have classified an element that has been perplexing man for centuries..

Element Name: WOMANIUM

Symbol: WO

Atomic Weight: (don’t even go there)

Physical properties: Generally soft and round in form. Boils at nothing and may freeze any time. Melts when treated properly. Very bitter if not used well.

Chemical properties: Very active. Highly unstable. Possesses strong affinity with gold, silver, platinum, and precious stones. Violent when left alone. Able to absorb great amounts of exotic food. Turns slightly green when placed next to a better specimen.

Usage: Highly ornamental. An extremely good catalyst for dispersion of wealth. Probably the most powerful income-reducing agent known.

Caution: Highly explosive in inexperienced hands!