The Killing Dance

Sunday, May 20th, 2007 | Reading | No Comments

The first hit man came after me at home, which should be against the rules. Then there was a second, and a third. Word on the street was that Anita Blake, preternatural expert and vampire killer extraordinaire, was worth half a million dollars. Dead, not alive.

So what’s a girl to do but turn to the men in her life for help? Which in my case means an alpha werewolf and a master vampire. With professional killers on your trail, it’s not a bad idea to have as much protection as possible, human or otherwise.

Bloody Bones

Tuesday, May 15th, 2007 | Reading | No Comments

First, there were the dead in the graveyard, two hundred years dead. I’d been hired to raise them to settle a dispute over who owned the land they were buried in. Then there were the three dead teenagers in the woods, slaughtered in a way I’d never seen before.

And then they found the dead girl, drained of blood and left in her bed. I knew what that meant of course. It didn’t take a degree in preternatural studies to figure out that something was wrong. And I was right in the middle of it. My name is Anita Blake. Welcome to my life . . .

Gunna be a badass

Friday, May 11th, 2007 | Uncategorized | No Comments

Went in to surgery today to get rid of the freeloading cancer.

Still a little groggy and numb from the whole affair - but just a quick message to all those on the inca-net to let you all know that I’m all ok. Doctor was great, I’m pleased that it’s all over!

The Lunatic Cafe

Thursday, May 10th, 2007 | Reading | No Comments

You don’t volunteer for slugfests with vampires. It shortens your life expectancy. And you don’t fall in love with a werewolf. It interferes with your work. Especially when you’re a preternatural expert, like me. My business brings me up close and personal with all shapes and sizes of monsters. And not all of them want to kill me.

Take, for instance, the local pack of lycanthropes - they’re werewolves to you. A number of them are missing, and they’ve come to me for help. Maybe because I’m dating the leader of the pack. I’ve survived a lot - from jealous vampires to killer zombies - but this love thing may kill me yet.

I love my job - Jasjam vs Treo750

Wednesday, May 9th, 2007 | Doyle Reviews, Geeking, Work | No Comments

As part of my job as IT Manager, I get to play with some cool toys.

Like many companies, we have several road-warriors in our company that rarely see their desk from day to day. These cowboys are rarely tech-savvy, so that’s where I need to step in and tell them what’s what.

Today, I need to compare and contrast the joys and frustrations of an iMate Jasjam vs a Palm Treo 750.

Now, both of these little devices run Windows Mobile 5.0, and have GPRS and 3G. This means that they can be configured to run Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync with DirectPush. The Good Mobile service can also be configured to run on both devices, however we currently prefer to stick with the standard Microsoft platform. Additionally, both have touch-screens and a full qwerty keypad.

We’ve got a few of the iMate Jasjams in our fleet already (Listen to me! Mobile Fleet! Yessir, Wing Commander!) - to begin with, we had nothing but problems. We’ve had busted batteries, busted microphones, busted antenna’s and synchronisation issues all the time - overall, the initial build quality was really rather poor.

iMate and Telstra put their heads together and came up with a firmware update that solved most of the problems. After we returned the faulty battery (which was covered with iMate’s fantastic 2 year hardware warrenty) we’ve had fair weather sailing all the way. I have to commend iMate for their great product support.

In fact, the only issue we’ve had with the device is a few cases of mobile phone envy - “Can I have a Jasjam, too??”

Now there’s a new kid on the block in terms of WM5.0 and DirectPush technology. I’ve been told by a reliable source that the Treo 750 is the business. Actually, I was told that this was the device that would leave the Jasjam for dust. Wonderfully, Palm has given us a 14 day trial of the new 750, so that we can have a look at how this new gadget ticks.

My initial impressions were something along the lines of

“Ooooh… it feels so nice in my hand. Like my hand was designed to hold the 750…”

And it does feel nice to hold. My impression of the Treo is that it has far superior build quality when compared to the Jasjam, but that could be in part to the fact that the Jasjam has the slidey keypad bit that gives slightly.

Now, the iMate’s screen is 45×60mm in size, wherease the 750’s screen looks marginally smaller at 47×47mm. Of course, the resolution on the iMate is higher, but both devices have the option to increase/decrease the font size to suit the eyesight of the user.

Now, one other distiguishing feature of the 750 is the front facing qwerty keyboard. This is much like the blackberry style of data entry, however I find that the buttons are way to small for my blunt club-like fingers to push. The iMate, however, has a nifty slide-out keypad with keys that are large enough for any man-ape to use. What’s more, as soon as you slide the iMate’s keypad out, the screen flicks to landscape mode, so that you’re not trying to type all wonky.

Date with Johnjohn

Wednesday, April 11th, 2007 | Good Days, University | No Comments

Last night I kept my date with John Mayer. We had a nice evening together - I enjoyed his company enormously, despite the fact that he probably wasn’t aware of my attendance. It was still fantastic, even when I was 11 rows back and tucked away on the left hand isle.

He’s -amazing-

Even Mr Frog agreed. He’s sexy, cool, talented and humble.

Although Johnny was totally thrilling, it was the sudden appearance of one of my Uni mates that totally floored me. I knew that Shan and Natman were big JM fans, but I didn’t really expect to bump into them. I totally didn’t expect to be sitting right next to them in the seat that’s totally next to mine - We couldn’t have organised that if we had’ve spent a week trying. In a concert hall full of, say 7000 people, I randomly bought a seat right next to the people who introduced me to JM in the first place. Full circle, no?

In all, I had a great time last night. Good friends, good music - I went home with a huge tingley grin across my face.