Idiologic.com

Expect the Unexpected Expectables

2009-07-17T11:14:11Z

Hi ladies and gentlemen! And how are we doing today? You wouldn't guess by the tone of my writing but I am seriously pissed off. I'm pissed off at the university I was supposed to attend. They are such fuck-offs. I really wonder what they sit around doing all day... probably with their thumbs and car keys up their anuses. You'd think since they were getting like $20,000 that they would do their fucking job. Basically they JUST told me today that they got checks for my loans and I need to get my ass to class... so a nice surprise.

So that aside, I made some really good kick-ass chilli tonight.

And I tend to forget I'm typing these for some reason... probably an hour has passed since I typed the last sentence. But still it was really good chilli and I'm sure it will be a heartburn nightmare tonight and tomorrow.

I'll be busy this weekend with house inspections on Saturday and the Melbourne Open House on Sunday.

Also, a few people have been asking me if I am stopping my podcast. No, I'm not. Not right now.

My Accent? From Where?

2009-07-15T10:44:58Z

I'm just goofing around and I took a "Which American accent do you have?" quiz. Here are my results:

Which American accent do you have?

Western

Western is kind of neutral, but not quite since it's still possible to tell where you`re from. So you might not actually be from the West (but you probably are). If you really want to sound "neutral," learn how to say "stock" and "stalk" differently.

Click Here to Take This Quiz
Brought to you by YouThink.com quizzes and personality tests.

Were you expecting something else? A lot of people in the USA and in Australia can't really pinpoint where I'm from. Maybe that's why.

It looks like I'm going to be heading off to bed a little early so I can wake up at a decent time tomorrow... well, we'll see. I slept way too much today and felt like crap when I woke up.

Leaving Sooner than Later

2009-07-15T01:56:53Z

After yet another argument concerning money, I've decided that I'm going to leave sooner than expected. How much sooner, you ask? Well, as of today, I've halved the time I'm supposed to leave, so a month earlier. I'm actually not comfortable leaving that early but I pretty much have no choice, sadly. My ex puts me in some really horrible situations sometimes.

So now I have to book more tickets from LA back home. I usually fly Frontier Airlines when I go back home. And I'm not sure if you remember me saying this or not, but I really like them as a budget airline. The staff are very friendly, the flight attendants make me smile and when the flights get delayed, they let you know what exactly is going on. I have nothing but good things to say about them. However, due to the fact that I fly Qantas overseas, I try to book a ticket with American Airlines (who I think of less fondly) so they'll carry my luggage all the way home--for free since I'm flying internationally. That's because Qantas and AA are code share airlines.

It's sad that it's coming to an end but 'oh well'. I saw this coming.

But let me make this clear, I still HAVE NOT booked tickets since I can't make up my mind. :)

In lighter news (and out of pure boredom) I wanted to see how straight my posts on Twitter are. And well, I am almost smack in the middle bisexual for mentioning "mashed potatoes", "ass", "booking", "opera" and "shopping". I don't know, does using Opera make you want to sleep with people of the same sex? Must be. And if that's OK, then I'm perfectly fine with that!

So anyway, here are the results:

idiologic is 56% HeteroHow hetero are you? How hetero is Martha Stewart? Try out any Twitter name and get the real picture. Are we really the words we use? Hope to see you at Stockholm Pride!

idioPod 84: Mind Burps

2009-07-13T23:01:05Z

"Too much on my mind... but most of it is fat."

I couldn't be bothered to go back and listen to this podcast episode again so I'll tell you what I did talk about: rethinking my return, my latte and also how much I need your input on a few things.

Download: Right-click or listen on your iPhone/iPod Touch
Subscribe: Subscribe here
Length: 24 minutes 48 seconds
File Size: 11.4 MB

idioPod Loves Your iPhone

2009-07-13T06:56:39Z

I was extremely bored today and was playing around with Dashcode. So I made an iPhone/iPod Touch friendly version of my podcast. Would you like to test it out (assuming you can)?

Head over to http://www.idiopod.com/m and if you have an iPhone or iPod Touch, you will be redirected to the correct page. However, if you're going to try to be tricky and not use Safari Mobile, then you'll get redirected to idioPod.com.

And something else I have to mention... this is a web application, not something you have to download from the iTunes App Store.

Hope it's useful for you.

Burning Hearts and Crappy Macs

2009-07-12T08:06:18Z

I kind of unintentionally left off with a sponsored post, so I apologize for that. The weekend's almost over and I am absolutely exhausted. I just woke up about 30 minutes ago from a nap. The only reason I woke up is because I have terrible heartburn from eating a Big Mac and Filet-o-fish from McDonald's. Every so often, I get cravings for both of those things but it seems like their stuff never stays together. The buns and meat slide everywhere... which sounds a little, um, sexual but I promise you it's not.

And I'm not sure if you realize this, but around the date I am moving, there will be a few weeks of silence here at idioPod. That's because I'll have to relocate and get over my jet lag. I still don't have a concrete date yet but will be looking this week for a good deal. I have moments where I think that it's not a good thing to leave but I've already told my parents that I'm leaving, plus I'll be missing my extended deadline to get school stuff together. That means I'd have to sit around for another year and work my ass off doing things that I would rather not be doing. I'm not sure if it's worth it or not.

Oh, and my iMac's giving me more issues with uneven coloring on my screen. The left side is brighter than the right. I think it might have something to do with the fact that I have to tweak the fans so the damned thing won't melt or the graphics card won't fry. This probably isn't the best Mac I've owned. In fact, it's the most problematic one. Speaking of which, I was playing with my old PowerBook and miss the thing. Now I just have to get my MacBook from my friend who's been borrowing it for about 4 months now.

So that is my small update. Podcasting? It will return this week sometime. I'm shooting for a new one on Tuesday. We'll see if that actually happens or not.

It's a BluWorld Here

2009-07-09T22:21:09Z

There's no place anybody would rather be for New Year's Eve than New York City, right? If you enter the contest "Its a BluWorld", you can do exactly that. I know I'd love to go back to New York City, especially on New Year's Eve! I know if I won, I would be absolutely ecstatic (and having a celebratory margarita) but I'd have a really hard time picking a friend to go with me. I'd probably bring Brandi because I really think she needs to experience New York City at least.

Of course, that's not the only prize you can win. You can win one of the following prizes too:

An Xbox 360 Elite Gaming System with a Rock Band 2 bundle
A trip to Chicago with a friend and tickets to Lollapalooza
A Richard Petty Driving Experience in Orlando
A trip to Aspen for the 14th Winter X Games from ESPN

They have several ways you can win such as leaving a comment on their blog and tell them which experience you want to win and why. Just head over to Its a BluWorld and leave them a comment. Or do it by Twitter as long as you include #bluworld and http://bit.ly/UiiJy in your tweet. OR if you have a blog, make a post about the contest and which experience you would choose if you win! But as I said you should really check out the link above to do that. (And don't forget to comment here letting me know if you entered and what you're wanting to win!)

I wish you a lot of luck in the contest and I hope you win something cool. I also hope that you consider me as one of your best friends and you want to bring me to , oh, let's say NYC. Ok, bring whoever you want with you but if you win, you gotta let me know! But first you have to do one of the options above, right? Grab your BluFrog and let's go!

idioPod 83: Gold Dust in My Hands

2009-07-06T22:30:36Z

"'How did it go so fast,' you'll say as we are looking back and then we'll understand we held gold dust in our hands..."

I talk about my plans to return to the USA, racism, the work I'm doing on "Gold Dust" (a video of memories here in Australia) and a few minutes of the song I'm using to make my video.

This podcast contains a few minutes of music by Tori Amos: "Gold Dust" from her "Scarlet's Walk" CD. It's really good. One of my favorites. The full version can be found on iTunes if you're interested.

Download: Right-click or listen on your iPhone/iPod Touch
Subscribe: Subscribe here
Length: 20 minutes 35 seconds
File Size: 18.9 MB
Note: This podcast is roughly twice the size as normal due to increased sound quality.

To Come and Go

2009-07-05T11:04:47Z

Another weekend come and gone, another national holiday (for the USA) passed... and here I am yet again. I haven't really updated recently... well, at least I feel that. It's only been about 3 days I think but those three days have lasted forever it seems.

So OK, most of you know that I have full intentions of returning to the USA in the next few months. I've updated my countdown so it reflects the date that I'm going to try to go back. It's not exact but it will give a good indication on the time frame I'm giving myself.

I posted a message to my Twitter that says that I'm booking a return ticket. I think a lot of you know that it's really impossible for me to do something that's set in stone. Do I have hopes that things will work themselves out? No, because I know that it is impossible now to work things out. I know that things are really that screwed up. Especially after today's tirade about me telling him not to be racist and him telling me that he can do whatever he wants in his car and if I didn't like it to get out of the car. I can see now that he's using his "power" to make sure that he makes me know who's the boss. He expects me to do things his way as usual but I guess those are the perks of living together still and another reason I need to make like a tree and get out of here.

I realized what ugliness lies within this person and how disgusting it is to judge people based on the color of their skin or where they're from. People tend to think that I am just kidding when I say I don't like people being racist, but I'm not. There is no room for unwarranted hatred in this world of mine. But anyway...

So that's what today was like. I screamed for the minorities here. I want you all to know that. I really did. And it got me into a lot of trouble and and at the end of it, I was treated like the horrible person. What turned into a heated argument about racism ended with me being labelled as a "free rider". I know it's not going to stop. And I still firmly believe that if I worked 40-60 hours a week it wouldn't be enough. I just need to enjoy life right now, if possible.

I may or may not make any sense. But if I don't that's OK. I guess in a way, I want to get back to focusing on me but in a way, I don't want to leave an established (or half-assed established) career behind. If that's the only thing that's holding me back, then... yeah, I should go and never look back.

Graphs!

2009-07-02T04:40:17Z

I mentioned a graph in my last podcast episode and here it is. I call it my "Relationship Satisfaction" graph.

You'll see that relationships have times of rollercoaster-type of emotions. And you'll notice that things haven't been spectacular for the both of us for the past few years, right? I'm not going to go into too much detail about it but you can see for the most part I was a happy man. And I guess you're curious why the graph doesn't look like this:

Well, I don't think anybody can be 100% happy with the quality of their relationship. Everybody has good times and bad times. Sometimes things people say things to you and it's so hurtful, the relationship can't go back to the point it was before. I think everybody starts out at the point where they ask themselves "Is this the right thing to do?" You tend to build a little bit of caution into what you're going into. Once a person is comfortable where they are, then the happiness increases and just major things happen along the way. What lead to the demise of this relationship? Lack of communication and also different cultural beliefs. I'd have to work hard to "change myself" which is a dramatic kind of change. And after trying for so long to please someone else, you get to a point where you don't want to do it anymore.

Oh, and if you want to make fun graphs for your presentations and to show how nerdy you are, try OmniGraphSketcher for Mac.

idioPod 82: Decision Day

2009-07-01T00:57:50Z

A life-changing decision in the making...

So, as I said before, I would make a decision about what I would do as far as moving by today. I knew that I would make the decision a lot sooner than that and I did. Leaving Australia won't be easy but I think it's the right thing to do.

I also talk about Pride 48, looking for places back in Texas (from across the world), some of my favorite Mac apps (Omni), my learning style, my confusion of why people are attracted to me and a few other things.

Yes, I am fully aware I am posting outside my "schedule". I couldn't post on Friday due to appointments.

Download: Right-click or listen on your iPhone/iPod Touch
Subscribe: Subscribe here
Length: 20 minutes 30 seconds
File Size: 9.4 MB

idioPod is Late

2009-06-30T12:43:04Z

I probably don't have to tell you this, but the next idioPod episode will come later this week. I didn't feel like recording a new one early this week, so yeah, I didn't. I'll wait until Thursday or Friday to post a new one. Probably Friday though. As far as my decision goes, I'm sure you all know where I'm headed.

So alright, I've relayed the message to you. That's all that I was obligated to do.

Shleepy Ben

2009-06-26T22:34:21Z

So alright. It' Saturday morning and I'm absolutely exhausted. I stayed up until 3 am playing Bejeweled 2 for my iPod Touch and earlier I was playing Bejeweled Blitz on Facebook. So naturally I didn't wake up until 8 am. Of course that wasn't my own doing, that was more like my dog driving me crazy to wake up for about 5 seconds, then hauling himself in the living room to take a huge, wet crap in the floor. I also had to do my weekend cleaning stuff that I hate to do like washing dishes and getting the clothes together. I'm still very tired though and contemplating going back to sleep for an hour or two.

Speaking of sleep, I, again, had really strange and vivid dreams. This time it was about my sister and I finding a big stone angel in the middle of the forest and I did something to knock it down and it shattered. People were around and they were pissed. They were Australians... they even had the accents.

Nothing else has happened in the world. That's because the media circus has started once again about Michael Jackson. So I'll spare you all of that and you can hit up one of the news sites and read all about it. And just some useless trivia, my favorite song by him is "Smooth Criminal". When I was a kid, I thought he was singing about Annie Oakley. I thought the lyrics were really her.

So anyway, that's it from me. I'm going to attempt to sleep a little bit more.

idioPod 81: Humble Jumble

2009-06-25T22:49:59Z

The focus is now, the blur was yesterday...

Mark in Canada asks me questions about what's happening with me with my finances, moving and such. I complain a bit about the religious right in the USA, pros/cons of going back (religious pressure, the location of my parents, not being able to bring my weenie dog, etc.), financial unbalance between partners, my love for Canada, my cookies and a few extras.

And though this is not in my podcast, I feel sad for Michael Jackson. As scary as he looked, he was a huge influence on a lot of artists. You guys have heard enough of that anyway, I'll spare you.

Download: Right-click or listen on your iPhone/iPod Touch
Subscribe: Subscribe here
Length: 24 minutes 30 seconds
File Size: 11.2 MB

Idiological Fluff Stuff

2009-06-25T12:26:25Z

Hey ladies and gentlemen (and those that fall in between). This isn't going to be an exciting weblog entry but I just wanted to let you know there have been a few little updates to the website lately.

New Projects Page: I was never happy with the way it looked. I have changed it and removed a few of the projects that didn't really need to be up there.
Menu Fixes: A few links were opening new windows when they really should have been doing that. Fixed it.

So what now, you ask? I'm going to be working on a few other things with the site over the next few days. Those are:

Listen to the latest audio podcast episode while you do other stuff on your computer. It's actually up, but no links to it yet. It needs cosmetic work.
General code cleanup: My stylesheets are a mess. My code is a mess. I've crammed a lot of javascript in my site and just need to clean it up a bit.

What does tomorrow bring you ask? Why, I'll be posting not one, but two podcast episodes. Both were idioPod 81 but only one gets the privilege of being on the feed. I thought I would show you what exactly I throw away. There are actually a few podcasts where I started over but saved what I already made. Some of them include my very old ones I did in 2007 with Brandi.

So look for "Humble Jumble" tomorrow. Hopefully soon I will be back to my pre-2000 self. j

Oh and have I mentioned how much I am looking forward to Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland?