The Whole Story

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

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.

Well guys, It is finally the middle of the semester and you know what time that means…Mid-semester break, yay! I have 2 weeks off which is going to be great. I have a chance to catch up with some work in various subjects and best of all, get to go out more than I have been.

Unfortunately, I have quite a bit of schoolwork to do over this break (2 assignments, an essay and exam study for my app.statistics class) but i'm just glad I don't have any classes to attend. so great.

The last few nights, I have been going crazy on DVD's. At the start of the week I felt the urge to rapidly expand my DVD collection, so on that impulse, I went out and bought 5-6 or so to watch over the break in between going out and study of course. So i have just been watching DVD's alot, last night I was watching SAW which was pretty good. I was going to go see it at the movies when it came out but didnt get around to seeing it, so was good to watch it. Reservoir dogs is another great movie I picked up, Quentin Tarantino does a great job at both directing and writing the film. Tonight I might watch Ladder 49 I think. I saw it at the movies (would have been like a yr ago now) but still a good film.

Heidi, you will be interested to know that I have finally gotten around to ordering in Tetris DS and I should have it by Monday or so which will be great. I think that game will be so fun with its new game modes and espeically online play. Anybody who has a Nintendo DS and are thinking about this game, I would recommend getting it if you got as addicted to the first tetris as I did (we can play online also :)).

I've been playing alot of PS2 lately also. I have gotten back into playing Gran Turismo 4 recently. I few months back, i was playing it but got stuck on a race I couldn't finish, but now that I have, I've unlocked all sorts of new tournaments so definately not stuck anymore which is good. A few nights ago, i was racing one of the endurance races - Tokyo 120 laps (i think). Was pretty late when I finished it, but racing endurance races in GT4 is nowhere near as boring as it was in GT3. Now you can strategically plan your pit stops, fuel, tire changes and so on so get the most out of the race. I really like the pit animation which takes place when ur pitting in, all your fellow team members quickly swarm around your car, refueling, swaping tires, etc…never gets old watching that.

So thats about all from me, so glad to be on holidays now. Anybody wanna get in touch with me, now is definately the time. I'll be online a whole lot more obviously now that I am @ home and not always at uni. Whenever my computer is on, im always connected to MSN if any of you wanna chat, feel free. Thanks guys, take it easy.

Well, lets start with yesterday shall we. I had a mid-semester math exam for uni @ 2pm and boy was that a fun filled exam. Its only a mid-semester exam worth 20% of the final or something, but it was damn near impossible. It consisted of only 4 questions (but considering each one is complex in its own right and we only had an hr to do them), I am pretty sure I got question 3 all right, but looking back on it I think I kinda stuffed up a small part of Q1 (prob get 1/2 marks) stuffed half of Q2 (i think, time will tell) and Q4 covered topics that weren't even suppose to be in the exam. So all in all you could say I had an eventful day yesterday at school.

Today, i came across this really cool website called Questionville. Questionville was derrived from the very popular digg.com site (different authors though) using similar ideas to convey their information, but taken to a whole new level.

Members of QuestionVille can submit questions. When a question is submitted other members can then submit answers to that question. As new answers are submitted members can pick the best ones. As each answer gains more picks it gets moved to the top of the list, and the #1 Answer naturally bubbles to the top. If someone has already submitted an answer but you would like to recommend a slightly different approach or point something out you can add notes to that specific answer.

Its a really good idea and a great way to get those answers to questions that are hard to find. You could use it during your study time and ask something you don't quite understand, or just ask a more generalized question about the world, politics, current affairs, whatever.

So I've been good anyhow, this week is my final week of uni then I get a mid-semester break of 2 WEEKS! How awsome is that. I was originally thinking I would be getting like 4 days or so over the Easter long weekend, but turns out to be 2 whole weeks which is great, I'm not complaining.

I wanna send a big thanks to everyone who has visited my blog over the last few days of craziness with the change of format, but looks like the new idea has totally taken off. Instead of a technology centric blog, this new 'more personal' blog where I can talk about whatever the hell i want, whenever i want seems to be what people want to read about, and not really technology news, which i'm fine with.

Just glad to see people are taking a real shine to the new blog and I'll keep the posts coming, don't you worry about that.

I'm trying to add a little more diversity into the posts also talking about all different areas so If anybody has any ideas, please post your comments and let me know. I'd be happy to write about something of interest to the masses lol :).

Well, that it for me today guys, enjoy and until next time…

Justin's Techblog has finally sailed away into the sunset (waves goodbye, wipes a tear) off to explore uncharted new worlds, new people, and possibly new management. It is safe to say that Justin's Techblog is no more, but there may be plans for the future of the blog, not quite sure yet. I am no longer the author, but the blog may be given away to new management under a new name and new URL. I'll post any new information here as it comes to hand.

Now for my new venture… As one door closes, another one opens right.

Followers of my old blog Justin's Techblog (formerly on tblog) then with a recent move here to wordpress will know that I have been gearing up for a complete change of the format of the blog (hence the move from tblog a few months ago). Well I have been working hard coming up with new ideas, new content and new perspectives to introduce, and now release date has arrived….Welcome, The Whole Story!

I am now the administrator, editor, author, contributor and subscriber to The Whole Story. My new blog is all about bringing you the stories of my life, and indeed the stories of the world.

Not having to be news stories as such, anything even remotely interesting about anything…something funny, something beautiful, something dangerous, something horrible, The Whole Story has you covered. Think of The Whole Story as talk radio in blog form. Mindless chatter (and maybe even a traffic report here and there) 24 hrs a day, 7 days a week.