thursday : 29 dec 2005

Just saying g'day quickly on the brink of New Year's Eve. As the social calendar winds down, movie watching has taken over as the main time sponge. Playing catch-up with this many capsule reviews is almost doing me in, but on the other hand, it's fantastic to indulge to this degree. At the very least, I have to make the most of things before new flatmates are recruited early next year.

Some scattered highlights since the last update: work Christmas function, roast lunch at Code Monkey's place on Christmas day, visiting the Stanley Kubrick exhibition at ACMI (disappointing, and only recommended for Kubrick completists), the warm weather, hearing that dad has settled into a new residence after being kicked out of home, seeing My Favourite Film three times on Aunty, and buying a secondhand Meridian G08 CD player, which is currently in transit from the US, according to the courier's parcel tracking website. Either that, or I've purchased the world's most expensive cardboard box.

For some reason, I can't get excited about celebrating on New Year's Eve. It feels like I'm over 2005, and want to get cracking with 2006 now. No doubt I'll use the public holiday for reducing my pile of unwatched DVDs, and finishing what should be the last reading assignment of 2005, Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury.

tuesday : 20 dec 2005

monday : 12 dec 2005

I've been away from the computer of late, watching TV, DVDs, or staying outside. In other words, journal updates will be slow while the summer festivities kick on. The big one is the work social Christmas dinner function on Friday night, which has a head count of roughly 400 revelers. Should I wear the tux? Can I get my battery powered LED name tag working? Can I start a romance with a receptive and beguiling lass who doesn't smoke?

friday : 9 dec 2005

8:46am. Where the hell is that bright, glaring light coming from? Oh yeah, from the sun, Sol, Earth's primary, a star fusing hydrogen atoms and releasing energy. Urrrghhh. Your Humble Narrator is not feeling 100% this morning, due to near-excessive liver marination yesterday at our divisional Christmas Lunch. I kept to my own steady pace and avoided shouts pretty much, so I didn't fall down too far on the evolutionary tree, while certain other attendees were losing their motor skills in alphabetical order at a rapid rate. I expect them to be using non-verbal communication in the office today, if they turn up at all. All very amusing and a fine day out for us techos.

Date – Wednesday 7th December
Start Time – 6:40pm
Finish Time – 9:00pm
Attendees – Mike and Gayle
Venues – Bar near work
Overview – Why use air conditioning in a bar on a cold day?

Date – Thursday 8th December
Start Time – 1:30pm
Finish Time – 11:01pm
Attendees – IT division staff (shift 1), about 10 drinkers (shift 2)
Venues – Lawn bowling centre (North Fitzroy), bar on Brunswick street
Overview – Filling BBQ, lawn bowls in sunshine, quality boozing

I suppose I should get ready for work, huh. Do I have ta? Don't wanna.

tuesday : 6 dec 2005

Life has been great lately. I've been going out after work virtually every night, usually with different people, or at some point there is a shift change and new faces turn up – all fine with me. What time did I get home last night? Ah yes, 12:02am, delivered by the penultimate train for the evening. To make the chore of relating the events simpler, Mike suggested listing the details in short form. Great idea, so here goes...

Date – Monday 5th December
Start Time – 5:20pm aka Beer O'clock
Finish Time – 11:00pm
Attendees – Tim (shift 1), Dave and Andrew (shift 2)
Venues – Bar near work, Long Room, Young & Jackson's, Transport
Overview – Perfect outdoors weather, drinking on Monday night? Why not!

Date – Tuesday 6th December
Start Time – 6:30pm (pretending to work late, heh heh)
Finish Time – 9:10pm
Attendees – Tim, Mike, Osman (shift 1), Mike and Osman (shift 2)
Venues – Bar near work, Asian restaurant
Overview – Delish vegetarian Singapore noodles, torrential rain

Despite the heavy downpours today and especially after dark, I managed to stay dry. When I stepped off the train tonight near home, the whole landscape was so damp and sodden, it looked like a suburb of Atlantis newly risen from the ocean depths. As I write this, another Biblical deluge has begun outside in earnest, beating against the spires of Toxic Towers. Maybe I should take an umbrella to work tomorrow at long last?

The search for a new CD player is turning into a bloody saga. I'm torn between walking into a shop tomorrow and buying a brand new shiny player that will be obsolete twelve months from now, and waiting interminably for a secondhand unit from last year to show up in cyberspace that will perform 97% as well as newer models for 40% of the cost. The only trouble with the latter approach is that you have to (a) wait for suitable candidates to appear on E-Bay and Audiogon, and (b) compete with hammerheads who have the same idea and know that the turnover of digital technology is 18 months at most.

One good thing is that the CD format is enjoying an extended lease on life, thanks to the collapse of the two competing high resolution audio formats: Super Audio CD, which was launched by Sony, and DVD-Audio, a format engineered to ride on the coattails of DVD's spectacular success. I think their failure was due to (a) older audiophiles not wanting to upgrade their expensive CD players and vast music collections, and (b) younger music fans preferring the convenience and portability of swapping audio files. High-end CD players can now play normal CDs (known as the Redbook format) at a level that approaches SACD and DVD-A. To give you an idea of what I'm going after, here are some juicy upsampling components:

Meridian G08 – Nothing but raves from owners, $6700 retail.
Arcam CD36 – Latest 192khz model of the Arcam dynasty, $3600 retail.
Musical Fidelity A3.5 – Obsolete and not very sexy, but a solid performer.
Meridian 508.24 – Even these older Meridians get snapped up.
Arcam 9 – One step up from my player, too old, local seller.
Exposure 3010 – The paucity of opinions makes it risky, $3400 retail.
Cambridge 540C – Turbo charged with upgrades, $600 retail unmodded.
Eastsound E5 – Cheap Chinese player, rave reviews, $1200 delivered.
Cyrus CD 8x with PSX-r – My pick of the new players, $4000 retail.
Linn Sondek CD 12 – For comparsion, 'only' does 16-bit, $30,000 retail.

One plus about the Cyrus player is the modular design: it allows for future upgrades, which makes good sense amid the digital 'arms race' going on right now. Their CD 6 player can be upgraded to an 8x, although these are both current models, so I'm not sure how smart this kind of thinking is. On the other hand, winning the Arcam CD36 auction for a good price would be ideal. I expect it to close on about $1200 US. Considering that the player is only destined for my bedroom headphone set-up, and that I am hardly home these days, treading with caution is a must. Sealing the wallet shut with Superglue might help.

Yet another consideration is modding an old player like my faithful Arcam 8 to upgrade the electronics. Replacing the internal power supply, putting in an expensive clock, and refurbishing the output stage can make a huge improvement in sound quality. It's like putting turning your grandmother's battered Toyota Corolla into a muscle car. But wait, there's more. One could buy an external DAC (digital to analogue converter) that replaces the antique chip in my Ye Olde Faithful Arcam VIII, turning the player into a mere 'transport' for sucking information off the CD and passing it to this metal box for processing. Unfortunately timing errors or 'jitter' – the mortal enemy of CD sound reproduction – can be introduced when you use DACs that don't have high quality (i.e. expensive) re-clocking circuits. All in all, lotsa fun for the whole family.

friday : 2 dec 2005

8:09am. Yours Truly has been out every night this week with fellow party man, Mike. I have lots to write about but the time to do it has not been available. This is a good thing. Check out Saw II – bloody good fun.

11:58pm. Just walked home from the train station in the pouring rain, using a copy of the local newspaper as an umbrella. It wasn't particularly effective at keeping the rain off, but it killed the urge to run like an drongo all the way home and risking a heart attack. Now I'm inside with Rammstein – those poster boys of goth and fetish clubs – hammering out of my ALR/Jordan home theatre speakers. There is something addictive about such simple and accessible guitar music, and the lyrics sung in German always prompts a giggle. What's on Rage tonight? Should have a look, I suppose. The website lists the following metal tracks after 3:30am...

Twisted Transistor – KORN Virgin
For The Masses – GOREFEST Riot
The Sickness Within – HATESPHERE Riot
Seasons Wither – MACHINE HEAD Roadrunner
Convalescence – DARKEST HOUR Stomp
Rectify – KIZMET Independent
Ignorance Policy – PUPPETMAN Independent
Scrutinized – HYPOCRISY Riot
Enemies Closer – THE WHITE ROOM Roadrunner

Tempting. Gavin at my headphone meeting said that Machine Head have finally returned to form after their brilliant debut album Burn My Eyes. Unfortunately I won't be awake at three thirty aye em to catch their video clip, since my eyeballs already feel like poached eggs: the result of tiredness combined with too much secondhand smoke at The Purple Emerald on Flinders Lane, the bar we had drinks in after work. At about 30 minutes before we left, a large crowd of people from the Swinburn uni payroll came in and started lighting up cigars. Yeah, thanks a lot. I've been dealing with passive smoke since my early 1990s clubbing days in Brisbane, but four cigars going at once was like visiting Spearmint Rhino on a buck's night.

Well, the Australian drug mule in Singapore went to the gallows at 9:00am this morning. I was getting ready to walk out the door to catch the 9:15am train to the CBD (central boredom district). My views on the situation don't need to be splashed across cyberspace; just ask me in person. The important thing is that you have a strong opinion about it, and that it's consistent with your other world views and belief systems.