Projects

Just so I have this on metaphorical paper, there's a few things I'd like to do

1) Fit out our storage shed into a bit more of a workshop.

There's a neat little storage room off our carhole that I think would make a suitable workshop such as to be relevant to my interests, and to avoid having lots of plastic shavings inside the house. It has enough space for a workbench, already has a pegboard on the wall, and has power and light. It the carcass of a set of drawers in it (and about 3 of the drawers) from a previous tenant. I'll move some of the more "violent" tools out here (hammer, spanners, drill, jigsaw, tap spanner, washer reseater, spraypaints etc) and keep room in the laundry cupboard for my more civilised precision tools.

1.1) Build worktop for drawers

The drawers aren't tall enough to use as a workbench, nor strong enough, so I'll build (probably with Eliz's dad's help..) a bit of a tabletop workbench to screw onto there. I'm thinking with a slot for a jigsaw to run through and some form of retention forms for when I'm using it. Also, a vice. The drawers are a nice width and the carcass seems strong, thankfully.

2) Layer cake of doom monitor

Build an enclosure for the LCD + Controller + Inverter + PSU I got in Japan. This sort of depends on the first project, since doing it on the dining table would be a) painful and b) inadvisable for my relationship :)

2.1) Buy Dremel press

Srsly, these are the coolest things evar, and having one would make my life a lot easier for this project, but they're about $100, and I'm a cheapskate. We shall see.

3) Photo Frame mk2

UCC member and co-worker Shay Telfer has asked nicely if I'll make him a digital photo frame. He also has a spare laptop of the correct model (Powerbook G3 Pismo), so once my plastics workshop is set up, I'll talk to him about that. Co-worker Mark and Elizabeth's father have also expressed interest in such items too. I have got a spare Pismo and I think Mark has one as well, so I might be making another three of the things all up. This also depends on the first project

Hong Kong so far..

So we've been in Hong Kong since wednesday, and poor lizbyrd hasn't seen that much of it, going pretty much straight from the plane (to the train, to the bus, to the hotel, to the shower) to bed and mostly staying there since then, thanks to a bit of an unplesant plauge she seems to have picked up. Her mum says (jokingly :P) it's SARS, and I always trust primary school teachers to make immunological prognostications without physical diagnosis or laboratory testing.

That's not to say we haven't gone out at all. We went to the Peak Tram on Thursday night, and saw the lights of Hong Kong from the Peak, which was very pretty. We've also gone out to dinner last night and the night before (though last night was in the hotel).

While Elizabeth has been staying in the Hotel room and getting well, I've been out and about. My favourite haunt is Apliu Street (and the Golden Computer Plaza) at Shim Sha Po, which seems to be Hong Kong's answer to Akihabara. I went there on wednesday and friday afternoon, and bought entirely too much crap. See, the problem is that everything is too cheap. HK is very close to China's major industrial city of Shenzhen, so these people go over the border, buy stuff REALLY cheaply, bring it back to HK and sell it in shops, or even street stalls. Some examples, with AUD equivalent prices - PS2 to USB widget ($2), USB to SATA/PATA widget with PSU ($3), Sanyo Eneloop batteries ($21 for 8 x AA), 1M HDMI-HDMI cable ($15), minijack to TOSLink fibre ($5). It's all very frightening. I also saw an unlocked 8Gb iPhone for AUD$715, but decided to pass on that. There are people doing mobile phone repairs and refurbishment all over the place, including doing SMT and BGA reflow work on street corners, which is fun to watch.

ETA: Also while shopping in Apliu yesterday, I had some random Asian guy in a shop ask me if I knew anything about Ethernet cards, and was the one he was going to buy any good. Careful inspection showed it to be a RTL8139D reference design board. I gave him a brief run-down and pointed out that while it wasn't the world's best ethernet card, it'll work pretty well, and for AUD$2, who's to care if it doesn't? (ok, obviously this guy, he probably wanted a working card). Anyway, I thought it was pretty amusing that he asked me.

Also while at Apliu yesterday, I saw some billboard signs setup protesting China's treatment of Falun-gong. I say to myself, well hey, it's a free count... wait. I must say I admire their guts. It was still up there several hours later too.

Thursday I hung out around the waterfront at Kowloon and took lots of photos of the metropolis that is HK, before going to Starbucks and sipping on my Mango Frappucino while reading the South China Morning Post, before heading to collect our laundry (mm $9 for two loads? thanks chinese laundries. Our hotel wanted about $100 for the same amount, and I later found out, they would have done it at the same place). While there I got some business shirts made (about AU$40 each, not a great price, but at least I can do up the top button without strangling myself, and I've picked them up and the quality is great).

But it's not all giggles. While stuff is cheap, everyone here is SO RUDE compared to say, Japan and Singapore. But then, I suspect that every other nation on earth is rude compared to those two. But here is particularlly bad. Also, the Indians on every block trying to sell you fake Rolexes and/or tailoring services is annoying. Elizabeth and I did have a bit of a peer into some Jeweler's windows, but after 30 seconds people would come out and start trying to sell you stuff. I'm sorry, I don't shop that way, and many of them didn't/pretended not to have enough english to understand what "We'll come in if we're interested" means, so they all lost sales. I hate looking like a tourist/easy money, which is why I suspect I don't desire to go to many places in south-east Asia. Also, the haze is annoying. You can't see across the bay some days because of it, and Elizabeth can't talk at ground level, I suspect these two are not unrelated.

Lastly, while getting my thoughts together to write this post, I find myself having the Arrogant Worms Toronto-song going through my head. "Alberrrrrrrta... doesn't suck.................. but Calgary doeeeeeeeeeeeeeessss"

One last post..

So I was going to make this post earlier, but Elizabeth was all like:



But she's in the shower now.

So yes, I made a lot of posts this morning, simply because it's been a while since I've been in front of a computer with a keyboard. I've been using my iPod Touch exclusively for web browsing for the last couple of days. I'm still amazed at what a great job it does. However, it's only good for browsing. Entering more than two lines of text is PAINFUL. Today it was posting tiem because we went to bed at like 9:30, and so I woke up early and had time to ponder the posts I wished to make. This having been done, I snaffled the computer, opened some tabs, wrote some notes and then went to work writing the posts.

I miss my Macbook Pro, but not lugging around has been good too. I bought it a present of some wrist rests, but I think it may be too late. But that's ok, the package had two in them, so if I buy another MBP, I'll have one for that one straight away. The rumours of the Internets say that the Macbook Mini/nano will finally be available October 25 this year, along with 10.5 and friends. I want to believe, and at under 3 weeks away, I may be able to hold off on purchasing a new laptop until then.

Also, what with a wedding etc coming up, I think I may try to stay at UWA for another year or so. Don't want too much on my plate really. This means I will get to salary sacrifice another laptop. Woot. Hopefully I can get my contract extended, so I'll see how that goes when I get back. It runs until Jan 2008 currently.