Train is spoilt.

10:34 am, February 23rd, 2009 | No Comments »
Posted in girlthings, local, traaiiiiin by Liz

She keeps eating all our plants, so the other day we went out and got her some cat grass. She’s had it in the past, but it died because, well, we didn’t take care of it. So, this is our second attempt in the hopes she’ll stop ruining our other plants.

My bag contains useful things.

9:19 pm, February 22nd, 2009 | 1 Comment »
Posted in girlthings, internets, plinky by Liz

Mobile phone.
So I can waste hours on mobile internet, and annoy Jarod via sms. (He loves it, I’m sure).

Wallet.
So I can buy things like train tickets and lunch.

Umbrella.
Because Sydney’s weather is so unpredictable.

MP3 player.
So I can listen to the musics.

Keys.
So I can get back in the house.

Tissues.
Because they’re useful.

Stamps.
Unfortunately my most recent stamp purchase has Russell Crowe’s face all over them, so I’m finding reasons so post things so I can use them up and get a better design. I think the lady at Australia Post thought she was doing me a favour.

Anyone want a postcard from me?

Pens/Paper
For lists and important things. Nevermind that my phone has a notes capability. Sometimes it’s just easier to write things down.

PS. Yeah, we’re still here and stuff. Our time is mostly taken with work and house hunting.

It’s a Ruben’s Tube…

10:39 pm, February 14th, 2009 | 2 Comments »
Posted in boythings, geekery, internets, roundups by Jarod

… and my newest favourite science guy!

Bye Bye Jules Face

6:03 am, February 8th, 2009 | No Comments »
Posted in boythings, geekery, girlthings, local, photography by Jarod

Cya Julie! Hope Melbourne treats you better than Train did.

Elephant!

7:17 pm, February 7th, 2009 | No Comments »
Posted in cuteness, girlthings, local, photography by Liz

I usually don’t like doctors. Since I’ve had to go to one more than usual ‘cos of this whole iron thing, I’ve been lucky to find one I like. And who learned how to draw elephants at med school…

Not often you can do to a doctor and make jokes about the things wrong with you (and your lack of iron-medicine taking) and have the doctor laugh.

New and old blogs to check out

7:19 am, February 7th, 2009 | 3 Comments »
Posted in boythings, geekery, internets, photography, roundups by Jarod

And they’re all SPB‘ers. Hurrah!

Fata Morgana is V’s new blog. He’s leaving flickr which makes me sad, but he’s jumped out of the blocks on the new blog by updating super frequently (this makes me happy!)

JamesM’s JiMagery has been given a new domain and fresh start. James is also leaving flickr having less of a presence on flickr so the blog will be the best way to keep in touch with all his jamesm manoeuvre bokeh++ photos.

Finally there’s Tim, who’s found the keys to Pushed Over Tree after almost 12 months. What’s more, he’s started posting photos and words again!

And that is all. Add them to your bookmarks list, feed readers and Christmas card lists. They do good work.

Little Webby Children

8:46 pm, February 6th, 2009 | 1 Comment »
Posted in geekery, girlthings, internets by Liz

When we hand over one of our web designs, it’s like handing over a little web based child. Y’know, we built it from the ground up, we made it look stylish with nothing but our brains and a computer and then we give it to the new owners. Sometimes we help maintain them, but most people are self sufficient these days.

Every now and then we like to check in on our little webby children (the ones we don’t maintain), just to see how they are. When you first glance at them, they look the same as when you first handed them over – all shiny and new and awesome. And then you look a bit closer and you realise that instead of ten fingers, your child now has twelve. And an extra eye in the middle of it’s forehead. And then you take a quick look at the code, and you can see that it’s DNA has been hacked at with a blunt axe. And you think, oh well, I’ll just disown this one. And then you realise you’ve disowned about five of your ‘children’ now and that makes you a bad mother.

Just sayin’.

Only in Kenya!

10:00 pm, February 5th, 2009 | 2 Comments »
Posted in geekery, girlthings, internets, local by Liz

[Plinky question 'Name a bizarre gift you received']

The gift wasn't bizarre so much as the circumstances. To this day I have no idea who bought it for me, but back when I was working at DHL a package arrived from Weebls Stuff which contained a Lion plush toy, from the 'Kenya' toon:

(Original higher quality version here)

It had no billing information, and was addressed to me C/- DHL. So, so weird.

Homehound.com.au

8:35 pm, February 1st, 2009 | 2 Comments »
Posted in boythings, geekery, girlthings, internets, local, roundups by Liz

Jarod and I are looking to buy a house in the inner west. Nothing special – just a 2 bedroom thing that hasn’t got structural issues and has a bit of backyard if we’re lucky.
As such, we’ve spent countless hours looking through domain.com.au and realestate.com.au and countless hours bitching about the aforementioned websites. I guess why bother developing your offering when you have no competition?

Silly things like:
- ‘I searched for house, and it’s bringing up apartments.’
- ‘I put in the max $ amount and it’s going heaps over.’
- ‘I told it I’m searching in NSW and it’s asking me if I want to look at Enmore in QLD or Enmore in NSW.’
- ‘It thinks Homebush is in the inner west!!’

Then the functionality. There is limited functionality around marking houses of interest, or houses that you’re totally uninterested in. If you want to view more photos for a place you have to click into the listing. It thinks ‘Virtual Tours’ are the same photos displayed stitched together. (Although this could be the fault of the real estate agents). And searching for ‘houses’ means nothing, as you get apartments, land and everything else thrown in.

In this new world of the internet, you would have thought someone would have come along and made it better. Jarod and I were theorising on what we would do if we were to build a new real estate search engine (not that we could) and there were many things to improve on.

Today, I stumbled across an alternative. And they’ve incorporated some of the functionality we had thought of (idea stealers!).

Homehound.com.au with the tagline of ‘your best friend in real estate’, offers things that I like:
- You can mark properties as ‘viewed’
- You can save them and then add notes to your saved properties (and view them all on one map!)
- You can choose not to see properties with no price, or properties for auction
- You’re not forced to register for the site if you’d like an email subscription with new properties
- A map is displayed in conjunction with the search results
- You can view all of the images available within the search results
- In the listing, there is a little option which is brilliant: ‘Was the information provided here useful? Yes | No’

The only downside is that it doesn’t seem to be updated by the agents nearly as often as the other two — there were houses listed which I know have already sold, but still, it’s a good move in the right direction.

Of course, we’ll probably have to keep an eye on domain/realestate to ensure we don’t miss anything, but I’m certainly going to use it as my main search engine.

An Ice Skating Blister

12:51 pm, February 1st, 2009 | No Comments »
Posted in boythings, girlthings, local, photography by Jarod

Gladly, not mine. Sadly, it’s Liz’s.

Last night Liz and I headed out to Canterbury Ice Skating Rink with a few friends. All six of us were nervous as we’d all skated before, but it was years since any of us had strapped on the skates.

All went well though. Everyone had bucket loads of fun, and the only trade off was one minor fall and Liz’s blistered up foot.

Shall definitely be heading back out there before too long.