Socceroo's campaign is underway

Last night I went to Star City Casino and saw the Australia football team play against Greece in their first warm up match for the World Cup. Though not a full strength, the Socceroo's were good enough to dispatch the current European chanpions 1-0 on the back of a great goal from Josip Skoko. Some of the passing was patch, the efforts infront of goal lacked sharpness and fatigue really showed towards the end, but in terms of preparations, things are looking really bright. Thats Mike (fellow World Cup traveller) in the spot light, we got front row seats :)

It was really cool, they had plenty of promo girls running around and former socceroos Paul Wade and former aussie coach Frank Farina on hand to provide some expert commentary and views on the Socceroos.

Sticky-Bot

This is the latest creation from a research team out at the Biometric Dextrous Manipulation Laboratory at Stanford University. It's a pretty amazing little creation, a robot Gecko known as Sticky Bot. This thing was designed to walk up walls and on ceilings and uses a new anistropic adhesion pad made up of tiny hairs, fashioned from elastomer that use an intermolecular force known as van der Waal's force to stick to things. There seem to be many great applications for this technology and its little surprise that the Pentagon is interested in this research.

They have posted some awesome (but large) videos of the Stiky Bot.

Hair Show

I was out having lunch yesterday at Myer when I came across this. A hair demonstration by hair stylist Joh Bailey. It was really short and he basically spoke about taking care of your hair and did a quick styling on the model, who asked nicely prepared questions to keep the demo moving along.

When is too much, too much

Have you ever wanted more megapixels? Just when you though 10MP was big, Hasselblad of Germany have a 39Megapixel SLR camera. This this is a beast, it weighs just over 2.1Kg and 153 x 131 x 213 mm [W x H x D].

At 39 Megapixels, each photo works out to be a whopping 50Mb compressed, and 78MB raw capture. Its a good thing that this comes with some decent internal storage, its got a 80GB internal HD. I'd be interested to know how many of these things they sell considering each one costs over $40,000.

Home and Away

Now we are really getting into the spirit. Our official Socceroo's jersey's have arrived. We have both the home and away strip so we can clad ourselves in aussie glory for a few days before doing the laundry.

More good ticketing news, we have gotten an extra ticket. It's a conditional round 16 match, so that if Australia cna qualify for the second round, we are going to see their match and if not, we should be refunded our money. I hope they can come second and with any luck we will get to see both Austraila and Brazil in their knockout matches. Those matches would top the Ireland vs Spain game (which went to penalties) I saw at the last World Cup.

World Cup Fantasy Football

Here is the official Fifa World Cup Fantasy Football competition. I've just registered my team and set up a private league to keep track of our scores. It seems pretty staright forward and if you've ever done the BBC's Fantasy Football, you'll be pretty familiar with the set up.

McDonald's / FIFA World Cup Fanatasy Game

You get McDonalds plastered all over the place, such as the McDonalds team captain which recieves double point for his match. Its novel, but definitely commercialism at its finest.

I've picked my 23 players, my team is called socceroos and am ready to go, but I can't find whether or not they will give away prizes anywhere on the site. Maybe a Maccas voucher.

Ukelele Magic

Here's a cool video I accidentally sutmbled across. Its ukelele maestro Jake Shimabukuro performing the George Harrison peice While My Guitar Gently Weeps. Pretty amazing what you can do with only 4 strings.

I've fixed the video, just press play.

A new printer

I just picked up a new printer. Its the Canon Pixma iP4200. The main reason why I chose this printer is because its colour inkjet, has a built-in auto duplex function (which I love) and its cheap. I paid a mere $140 for this and it will keep me going until the colour laser printers with auto duplex become cheap enough. Print quality is great, and photo printing is good. A 40 page document (duplexed and 2 pages a side) took 13 minutes to print.

Now if only I could get work to somehow reimburse me for it and get me a shredder so that I can "thoughtfully" dispose of documents.

Thierry Henry Masks

With the Champions league Final kick off just minutes away, we can all now look like one of our favorite players. Arsenal's only true world class player, Thierry Henry. Just download the pdf, print out the image (colour printer prefered), and attach it to your face.

Kindly donated by the BBC, they also have masks for Sven, Becks, Roonaldo, Ruud and bug eyed ref Collina. I'll have to pre-make my masks and pack them for Germany.

Look like Thierry Henry

Go Choc

There's been so much hype and anticipation over the man vs machine fight, it was virtually inescapable. So I decided to go and see the fight live at the Eastwood Hotel and like most bars around the place, it was packed to the rafters, standing room only. I was half expecting an anti-climax, but was I glad to be wrong. It was a great fight and worthy of the combatants. Now I'm not normally one for boxing so this was the first time I've seen one of Mundine's fights and I have to say, I was impressed. He was polished and precise in the way he fought off Green, out manoeuvring him both in tactics and physical agility. He held his own in the power punching stakes. Although I would have like to see him get knocked down and consequently humbled for being so cocky.

New Apple MacBook

Apple has just released the MacBook. A slightly toned down and smaller verion of the MacBook Pro. The first thing you'll notice is that it comes in shiny black (a great case). It comes in a 2GHz Intel Duo Core processor, with a 13.3" widescreen WXGA (1280x800) display, 80GB SATA HD, Optical Super Drive, wireless and bluetooth, MagSafe power adapter (I want this) and the goodness of the MacBook pro's bootcamp. The shift from 12" standard to 13.3 widescreen is a welcome one as I've become a real widescreen fan of late.

I'm almost tempted to return my new laptop for this one. Well maybe not, but the fact that I thought about it for a second is a huge swing in attitude for me.

Singapore Stopover

On my way through to India I had a 3 day stop over in Singapore. I stayed with some friends who were able to show me around and provided me with a bed to sleep in. A big thanks go out to Hiro and Mel. I know this post's a bit late, seeing as I hit Singapore prior to India, but better late than never I guess...

Singapore is an interesting place, its a funny mix of east and west, modern and traditional. The highlight of my stay was definitely the Night Safari. Its pretty cool and something that I haven't seen before. Our safari guide was really funny, she sounded typically Singaporean, until we got to the tigers and she suddenly started to sound like Steve Erwin trying to stalk "tie-ghers". The shopping was great (I bought a new laptop) and there is great selection of affordable yummy food (chicken rice from $3 is a steal) and plenty cool of places to chill out and have a few drinks. I could definately hang out here for a few more weeks.

Hiro works at this Hotel as a "consultant", sounds like a cool job

I had a coffee in the lounge while waiting for Hiro, I love the way they serve their coffee's and check out the rock sugar on a stirring stick
The famous Durian inspired convention centre

How cool is this, a shop dedicated to Astro Boy paraphernalia

I saw this bus stop in Singapore on Orchard road, they love their football in Singapore. I tried to find the Australian bus stop but no such luck.
The Night Safari. Unfortunately its a "night safari" and there is no flash photography, (incase we scare the animals) so I have no photos except for these lit up fake ones.

Here is the new laptop, a Fujitsu Lifebook P7120. It's equiped with 1.2GHz CPU, 1GB RAM, 60GB HD, 10.6" WXGA screen and optical drive. I really like this machine and the best bit, it runs silent (no cooling fan)

O2 in a can

Now you can buy oxygen in a can from Seven-Eleven stores in Japan.

Why I hear you ask?
"The idea behind the product is to allow buyers to replenish their oxygen levels anytime they feel a lack of it due to stress, fatigue, or other factors"

I can see it now, people skipping the cafe and a coffee and heading down the the local convenience store for some air. The can delivers about 35 2-second long bursts of air thats 95% Oxygen. Available in Strong Mint and Grape flavors, they go for 600 Yen a pop.

Lano & Woodley Good Bye

Last night I went out to see Lano & Woodley's Goodbye tour at the Enmore Theater. After 20 years performing together, they are calling it a night.

The show was hilarious, with some of the old favorite acts wheeled out for posterity. As always the best parts were ad-lib when they were interacting with the audience. I'm sad to see them splitting up, but appreciate their extensive body of work and will definately miss the gags.

The worlds thinnest phone

Samsung Mobile has shown off its latest mobile phone creation and its a very impressive feat of engineering. At a mere 6.9mm thick, it is the thinnest phone to be released on the market. The dimensions are 113 x 50 x 6.9 and weighs in at 66 grams. The Samsung SGH-X820 is pretty impressive when you consider that its fully featured with a 2MP camera, bluetooth, GPRS/EDGE support, MP3 player and 80Mb internal memory. Although a release date for here hasn't been announced yet, I can't wait to check this out personally.

Birth rate decline awareness

This is hilarious. You gotta love this...
"A model displays Triumph International Japan's bra, called "Stop the birth rate decline", in Tokyo on Wednesday. The bra features embroideries illustrating children supporting elderly women and was created to increase awareness of the issue of serious decline in Japan's population, the company said. (Reuters)"

Final Fantary VII Advent Children

I just picked up this movie on DVD. Although its was released late last year, its only just come out on DVD here so I've only just seen it. I am truely impressed. The visuals are first rate, hair and cloth are amazing and honestly, the fight scenes in this are some of the best I've seen, animated or not. This is what the CG in the Matrix should have been instead of that comical kung-fu fighting between Neo and Agent Smith in the Matrix Revelations. The pace of the fight scenes was insane (too fast at times) and I found myself rewinding to watch in slow motion in case I'd missed some detail. Whether you're familiar with the games or not, this is worth the 85 mins, better than spirits within which I thought was abit too abstract and dificult to follow for me.

CeBIT Australia

Today I took time out of my busy schedule to head down the the Sydney Exhibition and Convention Centre to check out CeBIT Australia 2006. So after pounding the pavement and checking out all the exhibitors, here are some highlights.

Getting in was a quick and painless process, particularly with pre-registration. Most of the stands had barcode scanners so supplying contact information was easy too. With 4 halls chock full of exhibitors that was plenty to see and lots of walking.

I think the best thing I came across was when I ran into an old friend. He's working with a US startup company that is developing voice testing and simulation software. Its primarily a diagnositc tool, but they are developing monitoring and reporting applications to enhance the tool set. Sounds like it warrants some further investigation.

Here's a touch screen handset from Splicecom. A UK outfit who produce an IPT solution. This is their top of the line handset. To me it seemed like a medium to low end fork-lift PBX replacement system. The system is supposed to scale from 8 to 5000 handsets and supports multi-tenanting upto 300 separate businesses (some possibilities?). Based on a Linux appliance, it has voice mail built in and supports call centre functionality like intelligent skills based routing, attendant console and IVR. They wer'nt too forth coming on pricing, but were willing to talk about reseller options.

The folks at Intranet Dashboard have a pretty interesting suite of tools for setting up and maintaining Inranet, Extranet and Portal sites. It looked very promising and really easy to set up. Pricing seems reasonable too since its based on admin accounts, not end users.

Over at the CSIRO stand they had this air hockey table, split in half so you could play against someone on the otherside of the stand. It was to demonstrate realtime video conferencing with the use of sensors. In the game, the puck is fired from 4 slings that shoot at random. Unfortunately the puck had no direct association with the angle and speed of the opponents shot.This is the LCD TV that I'm going to get. Its the 37LP1D, a 37" LCD with built in HD tuner. I'm thinking of pairing it up with an Intel Duo Core Mac mini as my media centre PC, now that bootcamp is out.

I am definetely going to buy this. Its a noise cancelling headset from Jabra. This is the C820, its due to be released here in 2 months and will retail for AUD$179. I tried them on for a while and they a alot more comfortable to wear than my Sony, sound better run on a single AAA battery that is housed within the speaker. There is also a new Limited Edition black JX10 bluetooth headset coming, which looks very swanky (designed by Timothy Jacob Jensen of B&O fame).

FreshTel are offering this little UBS contraption. Its called the Freshtel 4030 Stick Phone and retails for AUD$69.95. It runs the firefly voip software from the USB memory stick so all you need to do is plug it into the USB port of any internet connected computer and so long as you have a firefly account, can make calls. Sounds perfect for travellers who use internet cafes to dial back home. Perhaps I should've taken one to India to try out. The back of the USB stick has an audio plug for mic and headphone.

Here's a seminar of Venture Capitol and entrepreneurial business cases. It was interesting to hear the differences in the US and local Venture Capitol markets. Now I just need that genius idea that'll make me rich.

OK one for the kiddies, a cute Disney USB web cam.

I was surprised to see Huawei were exhibiting at CeBIT as most of the large networking heavyweights don't usually bother exhibiting at CeBIT. They were a major sponsor of the event and had quite a large stand. I was interested in some of the IPTV and enterprise switching solutions, but they weren't particularly helpful or nice. Took me ages to get their attention and when I did, they didn't really answer any of my questions and tried the old answer and question with a question trick. Perhaps it was because I had my Cisco emblazoned shirt and bag, who knows. Maybe I will try again tomorrow and dress down for the occasion.

The WorldCup tickets have arrived

Its really happening. There's less than 5 weeks to go till the start of the Football World Cup. Our tickets have arrived. The flights are booked and our accommodation settled.

We got 3 matches;
France vs Korea
Mexico vs Portugal
Rnd 16 1st group F vs 2nd group E
Possibly Brazil vs Italy (I hope, unless Australia can top their group)

Aren't they pretty?

Back to Delhi

Its almost over, we made it back to Delhi by train from Amritsar. We had a slight problem with our accommodation for that night. The hotel we were supposed to stay at cancelled our booking so we got bumped 40mins across town to another Shipra hotel. In the end it was abit frustrating and something we didn't want to deal with after a long day of sightseeing and travel. I didn't get to sleep until 2am that night.

One thing that I found really taxing was the hotel sign in process. Every time we had to hand over our passports and fill in paperwork that just promotes endless bureaucracy.

The next morning, we headed out and as my travel companions were due to head back to New Zealand that evening, I checked into my lush 5 star hotel. This was definitely just reward for the long slog over the past fortnight.

The last day of sightseeing we stopped at the national museum. As I had to pay to take my camera inside, I ended up taking a photo of practically everything. There was plenty of historical artefacts on display, some as old as 3500 years. Hears a snippet of the stuff on display. They also provided an audio tour of the museum which was excellent.

I was most impressed with the facilities Le Meridien New Delhi and the highlights of my room was the 42" plasma hanging on the wall and the commander remote that allowed me to control every aspect of my room, including the A/C, lighting and the do not disturb/make my room button.
The place had a great bar on the top floor and a night club. Jeff commented on numerous occassions about the James Bond-ness of the hotel and how appropriate it would be if it was a location for an actual Bond movie. This was the best way to spend the last night of my India trip to help recharge the batteries before the long flight home.