Aye, me blarney!

It just occurred to me that this time last year (today being St Patricks Day), I was living it up - if a little fatigued - in Dublin. It also occurred to me it'll still be a long, long time before I leave Australia's shores again.

How depressing - I'd better go have a (definately inferior, exported) Guinness!

I Am Not a Violent Man.

Another wholly geeky moment. These come to me more rarely than is probably good for me.... So, anyway, I was playing Halo 2 on Xbox Live last night (Coagulation, multi-CTF), and I got my first Triple Kill medal. A dude on the other team was making off with our flag, and he had two buddies - one driving a Warthog, the other a Ghost - zooming up to give him a lift and cover him. I throw a speculator frag grenade from far away, which (with some luck) lands directly between the vehicles and totals them and their drivers! That was cool enough, but while the grenade was still in flight, I was already drawing a bead on the flag-carrier with my SMG. Three kills within four seconds = Triple Kill medal. I was so excited, I had to run downstairs to tell my girlfriend, who nodded with polite bewilderment.

It's true the game was already won by our team, and all this happened in the final minute, but it made me giggle nonetheless.

Netgear, I smite thee

My latest geeky obsession is Wi-Fi (aka "wireless networking"). Well, that and Xbox Live, but I'll leave that for another post. But in a world where you can't go on an overnight trip without taking 4 seperate types of power adapters with you, it's infuriating to see companies still out there making techno-life difficult for the simple things.

In this example, I wanted to create a seperate "LAN segment" upstairs (consisting of my Xbox and perhaps another PC), and then connect that, wirelessly, to our Netgear DG834GT wireless modem/router downstairs. "Right," I'd says to meself, "I need another Wireless Access Point, then I'll be able to bridge the two together!"

Wrong. As it turns out, it's not the case that "an Access Point is an Access Point is an Access Point." The DG834GT is supposed to have a 108Mbps "Access Point" in it, and it does - but only to a degree. It only supports wireless "client" devices, such as USB/PCMCIA/Ethernet adapters. It can't bridge or repeat; that is, it can't talk to other Access Points.

I had ordered a Netgear WG602 Access Point, which I thought would have been able to seamlessly Bridge my "upstairs" and "downstairs" LANs; countless angry posts on support forums now confirm that I would need TWO WGE602's to do this. And even then - they don't support WPA-PSK security while Bridging. None of that's listed on the box, of course.

Luckily I was able to cancel the order; instead I've got a WGE111 "Gaming Adapter" coming; it's been designed with Xboxes and PS2's in mind - connect an Ethernet device to a Wireless AP. Unfortunately it only WiFi-enables one device; not the perfect solution, but I can live with it.

I knew the WiFi world was a tangled web, but I thought things would have been getting better, not worse. So the moral of my story is: An Access Point is not an Access Point unless it is an Access Point. If it's a Netgear. Ahem.

So here's what our network topography will look like. Our house now has connectivity coming out the wazoo (wherever that is).



Normally scheduled Bloggings will now resume.

It's good to be excited

Just bought the Shihad "Alive" EP. That heavy, percussive rock just makes me all tingly. Highly recommended. It makes it seem like I'm driving faster than I am when I battle the Ipswich motorway every day.

Also, just got myself hooked up to Xbox Live for a free 2-month trial (Gamertag: DunnyPanMan!). I'm slowly working my way up the Halo 2 ladder. I can't hope to compete with the current crop of Asian 14-year-old professional gamers :(

It's good though; I've had a couple of laugh-out-loud moments sitting there on the lounge room floor, getting punted by a Warthog halfway across the map, or stealing someone's Banshee. Now I just need a headset so I can join in the trash-talk!

Blogosfear?

It just occurred to me... In a world where every person is a publisher, who would be there to read any of it? Hmm.

Goodie! Oh... Darn.

The Goodies was an awesome show. Unlike Monty Python, I was actually born in time to see it in first-run on Aussie TV. Now I hear that no only are the original trio STILL ALIVE, but they're in Australia for a sort of Reunion tour. Awesome! I did have thoughts of going along, but I obviously ruminated for too long, coz they're sold out. *Guh*

What's next? A Monkey reunion???

Vets are the *Worst*

Okay, I don't know if my liver will be up to this, but the UQ Vet student community that I've embedded myself in has returned to Uni, and their first "Smoko" of the year is on Friday. Theme: "Back to School". Yeah... real original, whoever thought of that. At least there's sure to be a lot of young women (and she/men, for that matter) flitting about in School Uniforms!

Look for photos depicting many acts of debauchery soon. Should be fun!