What's this? Change, again?

I've been hearing a lot lately that change is the only constant. Not only is this a paradox, but it's also very confusing. If it's constant, then it's not change is it huh?! But if change is the only constant, I don't want to carry shrapnel with my everytime I go shopping. It would be very heavy, and you know me; I'm not very fit, and I won't get to use that money clip Jonny and Alvin gave me for my 21st.

No, the change it talks about there isn't money, although if you checked your pay slip, you'll see that the tax cuts have taken effect. The change here is about change in general. It seems to be the main thing behind day to day things. Changing job positions, changing trains, changing tax thresholds, changing lenses, changing batteries, changing car oil, changing just about everything except my underwear (no, no, just kidding I change that too as regularly as the vikers [see the comments]).

But I keep thinking that it would be so good just to keep everything constant for that period of time so that you could just enjoy what you have for that moment. I mean imagine eating an ice cream that changes flavours all the time! You'd just never get the chance to get the flavour you want, and when it finally comes along, you'd wished you ordered more of that mango stuff.

But life isn't like ice cream. It's just a silly analogy I made up. Like seriously, do people taste like mangoes or strawberry? (Girls, you seriously gotta stop using those fruit smelling deodorants it freaks me out)

I guess it's a fact isn't it? Change will always occur. Change, change, change.

Now that I think about it, maybe that's why I like taking photos so much. It gives me some sort of mechanism to capture that specific moment before the change sets in - or doesn't set in if you get my drift.

Lorne - July 2002

Metcards.

About the only thing a metcard is useful for.

Half way around the world.

Melbourne's time zone sucks. Well it sucks because I always get outbid by UK people on products that end on UK prime time, like 1 hour ago. 'tis 7 am now, so having to wake up that early to ensure you try and win something is somewhat bothersome. I propose a new plan that everyone there can use GMT +10 hrs so that everyone is on the same time, so I can finally win stuff on ebay. There. It means I get to watch Premier League games properly too. Heh heh...

It'd also be good so that I can videochat more with Ally who's in London at the moment. It was really cool seeing the London trees from outside where she was staying. They were green, I remember that much :) The MSN video and audio capabilities is quite adequate for doing that with one person, but it only allows for one person I'd imagine. So a certain someone's rambling on about how Yahoo! Messenger is better could possibly have some truth in it.

I'm off to work.

Another Monday.

Odd spot

A law student in Montenegro got so bored during his final-year exam that he stood up and walked to the front of the hall, got down on one knee and asked his girlfriend, who was also sitting the exam, to marry him. She said yes.

Awwww, isn't that sort of... nice...

I'm sure he was planning it, but out of all the places to ask someone to marry you, why an exam!? Ah well, I guess some people love uni that much.
:D

Nana nana nana nana Batman

Kinda lame, but hey, now you know I'll be a good butler.

At last, someone who speaks up!

Trawling through the vast wasteland that is the Internet, it's refreshing to see someone truly vent out their frustration in quite a positive, yet somehow quite possibly offensively verbal way (which is why I'm guessing, they were frustrated in the first place).

The Gamers' Manifesto by David Wong and Haimoimoi brings out what most computer gamers for the past 25 years has been wishing that developers/creative teams/ideas people actually use in making games, as opposed to giving us crap games that are shinier and faster.

When we're on our deathbeds, we're going to wish we could reclaim the time we spent wandering around for save points long after we were done playing every night. Imagine if your word processing program did this, refusing to let you save your progress until you typed six more paragraphs. Or, made you retype your last paragraph six times while zombies tried to shoot your cursor...

Go have a read if you've got time, it's fairly long but worth the read if you've got a gaming history ;)

Spheres of light

It was a foggy night in Melbourne town. It was pretty apt that the night Alison picked to have her going away dinner to London was as foggy as, well, London. Luckily my camera was with me too, and the way the light was dispersing from overhead lamp posts was fantastic and I wasn't about to let this opportunity go to waste.

Product names

Next time you think of a clever invention, try to think of a name that is cross cultural as the manufacturers of some of these products seem to have missed. I just thought it was hilarious. The Homo Sausage Beef jerky really got me cracking. Maybe I've just been working too hard.

The dangers of double meanings
The Coco Rocks concept was initially launched outside the UK without mishap. But it follows in a long line of international brands which don't translate well to new markets. Like these that caught our fancy:

Spunk - Danish sweet bar
Zit Lemon-lime - Greek soft drink
Colon Plus Liquid - Spanish detergent
Polio - Czech detergent
Krapp - Swedish toilet paper
Homo Sausage Beef jerky - Japan
Mucos - Japanese soft drink
Pansy - Chinese men's underwear
Fockink - Dutch liqueur
Pshitt - French soft drink

Source: The London Line