anthonybaxter

If melb peeps want to say hi, I can meet up at the lounge on swanston tonight (sun) from about 630

Hope to see some of you then.

Oddest experience of the trip so far: sitting at dinner with the former Malaysian PM Mahathir. I was, of course, wearing an old google australia tshirt and jeans. There were a bunch of photos taken which will be online later, will post links to prove it happened.

The people here are lovely - so many people are asking to have their photo taken with me, it's kindof freaky. The conference food is also yummy Malaysian food.

Wifi access here is a little too flaky to try and upload lots of photos, will have to do it when I get home.

Oh, and talk went well, despite horrible jetlag.

Off shortly to San Francisco for Google I/O and to catch up with App Engine folks in the SF office. Next Sunday I arrive back in Sydney. For about 7 hours, then I'm off again to Kuala Lumpur where I'm presenting the opening keynote here.

Oh, can't remember if I mentioned this, but I moved house successfully. Everything's unpacked, new furniture acquired (goodbye to the last of the crappy old ikea stuff, hurrah!)

The other bit of fun was losing my glasses last Thursday night. The wind literally blew them off my face, into someone's front garden. I spent ages hunting for them, and went back the next day to look some more. To no avail - other friends also looked. Turns out you pay quite a bit extra to get next day service :-(

Saw Jerry Springer the Opera on the weekend. Twice. One of the best bits of musical theatre I've seen in years. The sheer childlike joy of seeing every possible boundary of good taste and decency gleefully crossed, combined with a great score and impressive singing. That it was in the Opera House added even more fun - I doubt that building has heard such bad language and tasteless lyrics sung in such quantities before. Highly recommended - hopefully it will tour other cities in Australia. Note though, that the easily offended probably want to pass on it. It really does push back the boundaries of taste. And hey, tap dancing klan!

Moving house tomorrow - moving to Lord St, just a block away. The cats are off at the vets for a couple of days until the move is done. The househunting was extremely stressful, as it was at the same time as my project finally launched. Yay App Engine Cron.

Back to writing slides for the talk tonight. Last I looked, over a hundred people have RSVPd for it so far.

http://blog.indecisionforever.com/2009/03/13/jon-stewart-and-jim-cramer-the-extended-daily-show-interview/

Trust me. If you want to see an exercise in brilliant, wonderful interviewing. Just watch this. Everything you wish someone would ask "what the fuck, man, just.. what the fuck". Stewart does it.

CFA website is melting under load. Co-workers put this up: http://mapvisage.appspot.com/fires/FireMap.html (updated)

Requires Flash > 9.
Updated every 5 minutes.

Alternate maps available from http://google-au.blogspot.com/2009/02/mapping-victorian-fires.html

Take a 1 litre carton (milk, juice, whatever) that's empty. Wash thoroughly. Take a kg of sultana grapes, pick them off the stems. Stuff into the carton, top off with water to fill the gaps. Put in freezer. On hot day, take the carton out, and slice off an inch thick slice of yummy frozen grapes. The cardboard carton acts as a way to hold it without getting too sticky. om nom nom nom.

Option 2: Google for "White Sangria". Had this in Barcelona, very yummy.

Hope you're all not too melty in the heat.

Ok, seriously? Sydney? You can fuck off with this ridiculous 2am heat and humidity.

... goes back to sitting in front of airconditioner.

Wow. I haven't posted here for a month now? Time flies. Anyway, still alive, hi, hope you all enjoying your 2009. And to my merkin friends, enjoy your new-found Bush-free country. Congratulations to all of you.

So no real excuse for not posting, other than I've just been busy and not keeping up with things like LJ. In an attempt to try and keep track of what I'm up to on a day-to-day basis, I've now become the latest person to start using twitter, - I'm sure you can find me there easily enough if you care to. Didn't feel like I could justify the time for LCA this year, I have some stuff coming due at work soon. Will be at Kiwi Foo and almost certainly at PyCon, though. Not speaking at PyCon, although may pull together a lightning talk. I think I worked out that I did something over 15 talks last year - I think this year I will take it a bit easier.

Other than that, here's the Team Fortress 2 guys doing their version of Where The Hell Is Matt?

also, following up on last night's post about Slumdog Millionaire - I should point out that if you're a pathological cynic, it might not be the movie for you. If, however, Where the Hell is Matt made you smile and happy, it's totally something you should get out and see. In addition, having grabbed it today, soundtrack=killer.