One day i went to drop off some of my ex-boxes, and discovered the Reservoir Tip computer recycling facility. Masses of old rubbishy broken machines, and one smashed up MacBook Pro!!

i thought maybe Tim could use the parts so i surreptitiously grabbed it and drove off. Sure enough, later on that night we took it to pieces, and found the hard drive and the battery were still in working order.

Working enough to find out that somebody had left all their data on the drive. So Tim gets all the data off and then does the decent thing, contacting this person and asking if they need the backup.

Turns out this person, whose identity shall remain secret, had taken the laptop to the shop. The mechanics had said, “Can’t do anything love, it’s broken. Can’t get your data off, but don’t worry we’ll make sure noone else does either.”

What kind of computer shop doesn’t know how to get the information off a working hard drive??

The moral of this story? Don’t trust a computer shop with your data.

And don’t sit on your macbook pro.

It was katie’s birthday, so i spent the whole day making cupcakes with margot. Seriously fun, if slightly nerve-wracking. Turns out mum is the genius when it comes to getting the mixture in the patty pans. She learned from her Aunty Phyl .. back in the day.

And look, here’s the cake backstage at Handsome Steve’s.

Yes i know Katie really wanted a profiterole mountain made out of mini-magnums, but i just couldn’t work out how that would be as much fun.

So tough luck kt you’re stuck with a mountain of cupcakes.

Some serious research before-hand led me to find out that there are dedicated cupcake bloggers out there. That’s right, people who blog about cupcakes and nothing else. take a look at the vietnamese coffee cupcake recipe.

Nice one Albert. i get an Einstein quote every day in my iGoogle feeds. This one made me jump. i think Albert spent much of his life regretting his contribution to inventing nucular weapons.

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Daryl the lovely minister at Northcote’s heathen / community church, has pulled together a bunch of performers for a big event in support of bushfire sufferers.

• 3-8pm this Sunday 1st March at
• Northcote Uniting in High St.
• Heidi’s choir Expressive Women
• Kavisha Mazella
• Rod Quantock as MC.

$10/15 money goes to uniting church Victorian bushfire appeal.

Daryl says: “Please come and have a great time with us in solidarity with those who have not only lost so much but now contemplate a long physical and emotional rebuilding process.”

(Some moments of reflection involved.)

PS: i caught Heidi’s choir, and they were really good. Heidi sang solo and she was fab. Then Zeena and i fled the choir scene, over to Wesley Anne where “The Tiger and Me” were playing. They Were Good. Alt-Country-ish.

plus: get your Flyer here: Northcote-Concert-Flyer(pdf)

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photo credit: alana jonez

Thinking back to my time in Vietnam, one of the best things about travelling is the people you meet along the way ..

• Like the Vietnaustralian guy from Sydney who had had “such a boring time” returning home for his sister’s wedding;
• or the Parisien woman returning to her native Cambodia for the first time since 1974, to share christmas with her Son who’s moved to Sydney;
• the German art student who’s half Vietnamese, and studying in Saigon .. to get a better feel for her father’s culture;
• the UK couple, an entrepreneur and his partner, who sold up to go travelling, and flee the UK economy because it has changed shape .. into something more pear-like;
• a Dutch woman who takes a couple of 8-week-long travelling holidays every year.

And that’s not even counting the flocks of wonderful people in Phnom Penh, lovely exPats and aid workers, volunteers, NGO people, teachers and masterful communications officers!

Really it’s all about the people isn’t it

so tell me .. who did you meet in an exotic location?

photo credit: shapeshift

This is too hilarious.

Never heard of it before, but microsoft has a program called songsmith, which puts a backing track to your vocals. So people added in vocals from famous songs to find out what would happen. Here’s the murder of one Radiohead classic.

You’ll find more examples of songicide over on the original article in the Times (uk). (And more on youTube of course.)

Seriously the company should be charged with songslaughter.
(is that songs-laughter or song-slaughter?)

Unlike garage band from apple which i’ve heard inspires creativity.
go microsoft, go far.

Plus, someone’s had a go at songsmithing one of Obama’s speeches.

i’ve posted 17 of my favourite photos up on flickr. Selected from a range of ooh about 3000. Is 100 photos a day too much when you’re travelling? i don’t think so.

Some of these shots were taken without looking .. that is i would point and click in the rough direction of whatever i wanted to capture. Usually it would be terrible, but occasionally it worked.

Here’s a slideshow .. or you can look on the flickr site direct, and add comments etc. Go on.