The Whole Story

It's time for another episode of the greatest show on earth…well, just kidding. I have just put out episode 3 for your listening pleasure, back for another week of revision on what's been happening with me, news here on my blog and any major announcements.

Show Notes:

• High score in Tetris DS - NEW personal record: 417 lines cleared, LV 43, 834,000 points scored
• Back to Uni we go - Back for another 5-6 weeks of hitting the books
• Apple 8GB & 10GB Nano models - Cool if you don't yet have an iPod, kicking yourself if you do!
• Wrap-Up - Interest in show music, any ideas?

I've been really excited about finding new artists which licence their music under creative commons or freely distribute their music. I'll be using a favourite tune on each episode, hope you guys like it. If anybody has any suggestions on any really cool 'Indie' bands or cool artists who freely distribute their music through various licences (creative commons) please let me know, i'll be happy to track them down…maybe you'll hear your favourite song next episode!

Thanks guys for sticking with me while i've been ironing out the bugs on this new idea. I've had few tough hosting issues but have finally sorted them out i think now.

Enjoy Episode 3! 

835,484 points I scored the other day in Tetris DS by playing for 35-40 mins solid on one standard 'endless' marathon game. I got to Lv 42 with 417 lines cleared essentially beating the game more than TWICE over! I was so amazed, my previous best was LV 23 with only just over 300,000 points so this was a huge step.

I'm definately not joking, for proof I took some photos of the game after I finished:

I tried to upload some more of these photos but wasn't working for some reason, maybe i'll check back later and see if its working then. Was pretty crazy, thought i'd just share that with you guys.

I've started back at uni now to finish off the rest of the semester. I so can't wait until its over, it will be great. I have an exam today which won't be fun at all, but i'm never going to be any more ready than I am now, so we'll see what happens with it, hopefully its easy! lol. 

Remember Episode 3 will be out friday, just got done recording it before, throw some music in on it (creative commons of course, no lawsuits please) and it will be all done for another week! It will be up Friday afternoon AEST. 

Episode 2: Rain, Hail or Shine was just a little over 2MB and I can't seem to upload any files to wordpress over 1MB so I decided to try my luck and keep this episode off site. Some people are having trouble downloading the file which is unfortunate. It wasn't my intention to make a big deal out of these audio posts, just doing them for something different.

I am seriously going to try and keep each episode under 1MB so I can keep them here on wordpress without any hassles. I don't particularly want to encode each episode in any less quality than 56Khz which is the lowest bitrate i think which doesn't affect spoken word all too much. To combat this, I can either lower the quality of the audio which I don't really want to do, or cut each episode's time down to around 2 minutes. If I plan each episode I think I can manage 2 mins without any hassles.

Episode 2 is 5:25 minutes long and will be the last episode over 2-3 minutes from now on. Doing this will obviously help me out a lot, and it will help you guys out too. You won't be getting stupid error messages when your trying to stream each of the files which i'm totally pissed about happening.

Episode 3 will be out on the 28th and will be easy to download, don't you worry and will be hosted right here on wordpress.

Sorry for all the problems with episode 2 guys, some people didn't seem to have a problem and others did, but it won't happen again. Thanks for hanging in there with me, trying new things it was bound to happen sooner or later.

Well my mid-semester break is over and back to school I go. I so can't wait until this semester is over, will be awsome. I was really loving not having to goto school, but I guess its ok going back. I still like it no problems there, but I just really can't be bothered doing anymore schoolwork. I need to take a break I think. After this semester I will I think.

Mmm what else has been happening… I was out saturday night in Melbourne having dinner at the Hard Rock, it was fun. Heidi you'll appreciate this, we had this waitress that night, her name was Candy (i think). Such a fun waitress and was bubbly and did spins and twirls, really looked like she totally loves her job. It was just the two of us and unlike most of the waitresses there, she would stop by often just to see how we're going and if we liked the food and stuff. I tipped her $10, she was very appreciative.

So just a quick post for today, gotta go get ready for school anyway, have to leave in like 10 minutes. Longer post next time i swear!

For all the iPod fans, summertime will see the release of two higher storage capacity Nanos. The rumored touch screen iPod is still in the works. Pictures of the new versions are available — although it appears that there have been few if any cosmetic changes.

Anybody (myself included) who has an iPod Nano will probably feel like screaming and kicking with this news. Who knows how much they will retail for, but the notion of larger nano’s at least x2 the size of the largest Nano at the moment just sounds too hard to refuse. If they do come out soon, I don’t think i’d sell my nano just to get a larger version, but if you were ever thinking about getting a nano i’d say wait jut a little longer and see what Apple does with these new models.

Sounds like it will happen soon, and as with the rumors of a new iPod with touchscreen capability who really knows with that. I’d say just a rumor at the moment, but would be really cool if Apple do decide to incorporate a touchscreen into either the nano or current iPod (video). Interesting, sounds pretty cool.

read more | digg story

Hey there guys. Last week I came up with the idea of doing a 'podcast' style audio blog on each post. I thought this was a great idea but thinking about it further, thought it might have just turned into a huge headache. I've really wanted to do something like this for a while, so I took that initial idea, tweaked it a little, now I think I've come up with something a little more reasonable, and still easy to do.

Each Friday (AEST) I will release an audio blog or 'podcast' if you like which will only be a few minutes long where I will go over some posts over the previous week which I found quite amusing, interesting, etc and give you an idea on what's to come in the week ahead. Audio will be encoded in 56Khz MP3 which will keep the filesize down.

I won't be spending much time on post production of the 'episodes' for each week but don't worry, it will still be very easy to listen to just no fancy audio effects or whatever.Each episode will be made avaliable here on my blog on this page and the NEW audio news section on the left pane of the homepage will notify you of the curren clip. The current clip and the past 5 weeks of clips will be listed on this new page.

Episode 1: Introductions is now avaliable for download from the Audio page, check it out and let me know what you think, any comments, concerns, queries are greatly appreciated. Episode 2 will be released tomorrow. Thanks again guys!

The emergence of another possible billion dollar business, based on bottling and selling a free, natural commodity. Bottled water has become a $9 billion dollar industry in the US alone, and distributors look to repeat this success with canned, flavoured oxygen.

If you are one of those people who practically live off energy drinks and sports drinks such as gatorade (myself included) this could be the next product to keep you alert and feeling like a million bucks. Sure, the whole concept of bottling air sounds a little ridiculous, but read through the article, the author does make a great argument. I can see how something like this could appeal to the public, just as bottled water did.

The very idea of having oxygen bars in the future is such a funny thought, but I can see its broad marketing appeal. This is such an interesting concept, be sure to check out the link below to read the entire article.

read more | digg story

The first two doses contain fragments of HIV DNA, which prime the patient's immune response system. The second two doses contain an altered poxvirus designed to boost the immune system.

It worked in rhesus macaques, protecting 22 of 23 vaccinated monkeys from AIDS for more than 3 1/2 years.

This is actually really amazing. HIV/AIDS is one of the most highly rampant diseases of the world, especially in many African nations where proper health care is very hard to come by. I remember reading stats of like 1 in every 4 people in Africa have the disease, not to mention countless others spread across the entire world.

With new technology and new research projects on the cure for this disease, im sure that we are as close to a cure as we've ever been before. This new HIV vaccine trial to begin soon is by no means a 'cure' but it a giant step towards it. Check out the link below to read the article, its an interesting read and hopefully leads to bigger things in the search for a cure for HIV AIDS.

read more | digg story

Results from a recent study undertaken by Professor Richard Wiseman of Hertfordshire University suggest that men aren't so shallow and judging of women after all, it is in fact quite the opposite.

Half of women who took part in a recent study of dating and relationship interaction were found to have made up their minds within the first 30 seconds of meeting a man and whether he is 'potential' boyfriend material or not. There are a few conclusions that can be drawn from this study and one is that the initial 'pick-up line' a guy uses is more important than ever, and from the woman's eye, first impressions definately last.

So, if opening lines are so important, then what were the most successful lines of the study? Well opening introductions which were successful always involved getting the woman to talk about what interests her, and what she likes to do. Conversational topics were important also. Less of the sample subjects found success talking about films, television and music, with the most successful topic being travel. Travel seems to be the topic of interest for both parties that really seems to attract women more than any other for some strange reason.

"The study also found that women were twice as picky as the men".

Now I know there are females reading this right now thinking, "hang on a minute, im not like that at all, you've got the whole idea of women all wrong". Well, that might be true. Obviously some (not all) women aren't this shallow at all and tend to go about dating in a whole different manner, I totally agree with you 100%. So maybe take this information to heart whatever woman you are, and cut guys a little slack when your out on the town. Its hard trying to impress a dog in 30 seconds let alone trying to impress a woman in that time.

I didn't conduct this study, so I don't have any hard statistics or data on the subject, but I did find this article quite interesting and gives you another look at what women are really thinking.

So guys, when your girlfriend of female friends tell you that your being too shallow or too judgemental, just reffer them to this article and let them read it for themselves. An interesting look I thought.

I came across an interesting article on Medical News Today which discusses new technology for a possible cure for Cellulite, acne and the ever deadly Heart Disease.

"Scientists at Massachusetts General Hospital, USA, are using the Free-Electron Laser at specific wavelengths (selective photothermolysis) to heat up fat, which is then excreted by the body - without harming the skin. They say this technique could be used for treating cellulite, acne and heart disease".

This is totally amazing and does look very promising. With more and more people becoming overweight and obese, Heart Disease has been on the increase and latest statistics show that it doesn't look like its getting ready for any major drop any time soon unfortunately. Whilst people continue to eat themselves to death (granted most of the time its not by choice) coming up with curative measures is the next best thing to give some of these people a second chance, especially with a disease as deadly as Heart Disease.

Food addiction is fast becoming a global 'epidemic' as it has been called by a number of sources. But can people really call it an addiction? Can eating hamburgers and tremendous amounts of bacon be even marginally related to heroine or cocaine addiction which are both more common forms of addiction. Well, sure it can. If you are constantly doing something to your body that can cause harm and often times prove fatal, then yes why not call it an addiction.

A great point Morgan Spurlock brings up in his documentary film "Supersize Me" is that currently at this present time, it is socially acceptable to hassle smokers telling them that its bad for you, and its bad for people around you, and that you should stop it immediately its bad for your health. So, the question is when will it become socially acceptable to hassle overweight or obese people into loosing weight. The same logic can be applied to obesity, but its just not the 'thing to do'.

I can definately say for certain that nobody WANTS to be overweight right? And most people will often do/try anything to loose that weight.

"Obese people can testify to the overwhelming power of food allergy addiction. Compulsive eaters crave and continue to eat those allergenic foods to which they are addicted day after day. The obese person has no idea that his daily food cravings or eating habits are based on a physiological need to stop withdrawal symptoms caused by food allergy addiction". - Sephen Levine, Ph. D.

It's not so much a physical problem that people have, but often times its an emotional problem that makes it difficult. Im not a doctor, but im sure often times addiction begins because of an emotional breakdown perhaps and eating, smoking, drinking are all ways to temporarily escape those bad feelings but unfortunately these 'temporary fixes' are doing serious damage to us and whilst under the influence of these fixes, we loose sight of what's happening around us and before we know it, we're 20, 30, 40, 50kgs more than we used to be.

I once read in an article online that the only thing food addiction is good for is attracting business to fast food restaurants and lawyers. We are we headed? I'm not the person to tell you that answer, but it is a serious problem that more and more people are becoming aware of which is good i think. Food addiction awareness is playing a key role in society today, and personally i think we will see improvements. You just watch.

Personally, I've never had a problem with weight. I'm 6"1, 80Kgs (176lbs). I've never really been on a diet, but I do know people that have. In Australia anyway, I have definately been noticing the huge increase in Subway restaurants in recent times. I would estimate that in 1990 onwards, I would have seen maybe 1 subway in the whole of Melbourne. Now if you look in the same places today, there is a subway on almost every street in downtown Melbourne. I think subway is doing a tremendous job at changing the eating attitudes of a vast amount of people across the world which is only a good thing, making eating healthy something that is both fast and easy, thats not going to kill you.

Until next time…seeya guys