Twilight

Sunday, November 2nd, 2008 | Doyle Reviews, Fiction, Reading | No Comments

If a book can be as addictive as Stephanie Meyer’s “Twilight” series, then somebody should put a warning on the cover.

Warning: This book will take over your life, and will deprive you of sleep until you finish reading the whole bloody thing.

I’m rather alarmed at how far I’ve sunk into my addiction. If books were drugs, I’d be a librarian junkie.

Dude, I just need a quick fix. Just one more chapter, man…

The problem is that I read before bed. So, now I’m finding myself getting ready for bed earlier and earlier, JUST so I can spend some quality time with the characters. Tonight? Tonight, I was on a date and felt the compulsion to leave. Not because the date was going badly, quite the opposite, but it was eating into valuable reading time.

In addition to that, I’m sleeping less and less as it’s so hard to put the book down and turn off the lights! It’s literary heroin, dude.

I’m just off to get my latest hit.

Damn

Tuesday, October 7th, 2008 | Bad Days, Doyle Reviews | No Comments

The last few days have been pretty topsy-turvey.

I’m not really one for a set routine, or living my life to a rigid agenda - but things are getting a little out of control!

The weekend was pretty awesome - I managed to catch up with my two younger cousins, and drag them along to Whitewater World. Ok, so there was very little dragging as it was more a case of “Keep up, Jac!” Waterslides and me have been friends for quite some time, so when the Crash asked me: “Hey Jac, wanna go on the Ultra-mega-scary waterslide of DOOM?”
My response was rather casual.
“Race ya there!”

After a day filled with energy and adrenalin, the only way I could top it was to pierce my bellybutton. So I did. Surprisingly, it didn’t hurt. Prior to actually having it done, I didn’t believe anybody who told me that it didn’t hurt. STICKING STEEL NEEDLES IN YOUR ARM HURTS!! I didn’t quite understand why sticking a steel needle THROUGH your bellybutton would suddenly not hurt at all.

But, y’know, it didn’t actually hurt all that much.
I’ve had more painful experiences with bikini waxing.

So, I’m now entirely focused on keeping my belly button squeaky clean to stop any goobers from infecting my new little piece of body art. I’ll have to find somewhere else to store my goobers. Advice?

Then, yesterday, after a bit of a torrid day at work I ventured forth to see Wall E. Was a bit of “sweet overload” but quite entertaining. I think I ‘awwwed’ and ‘ooooohed’ a few dozen times - but I think I may have strained my cuteness muscle.

And it totally managed to take my mind off the fact that I had just put a very ugly scratch down the side of my fucking car.

PRICK OF A THING.

$500 later, AAMI will be making poor Girty feel like her pretty self once again.
Fuck it. I know I wasn’t having a brilliant day, but jeeze.

Tags: bad day, car, movies, piercings

The Happening

Wednesday, June 18th, 2008 | Doyle Reviews | No Comments

Well, I finally managed to catch up with two of my good mates last night. It’s always great to see Miss C and D-Man, so last night we all dragged our sorry arses to the cinema to catch a flick.

Now, I’m not a scary movie type of girl. My definition of fun doesn’t involve being scared out of my wits. In fact, you could almost call me a Disney Girl. Disney never make scary, gory movies. They’re always “Sunshine and Lollypops” with cutesy little talking animals who learn important moral lessons throughout the film. I want to walk out of the cinema feeling uplifted and happy!

So, “The Happening” wasn’t produced by Disney. It was directed and produced by M. Night Shyamalan. He’s the guy who gave us “The Sixth Sense” and “The Lady in the Water”, so you can really predict what kind of film “The Happening” was going to be.

The IMDB Plot Summary simply states:
“A paranoid thriller about a family on the run from a natural crisis that presents a large-scale threat to humanity.”

This ‘natural crisis’ isn’t particularly scary - the earth decides that Humans are a plague and releases toxins into the air that make humans self-destruct. It’s the wide-scale self-destruction that’s a bit freaky. Seeing hundreds of people top themselves in all manners of gruesome and creative ways was not an experience I was really prepared for.

At one stage, a gent decides to top himself by starting a combine harvester looking contraption, then lying down in front of it. I dont actually know what happens after that, because I covered my ears and buried my head in my jumper. The Turtle Response.

The movie itself was a bit of a splatterfest, rather than a psychological scarefest. I actually walked out of the cinema without any serious phobias or nightmares - result!

I cant begin to fathom the quantity of fake blood that was consumed on such a gruesome film.

In any case, I can recommend going to see this film if you get your kicks from being scared. If you’re like me, and you’re likely to pull your jumper up over the top of your head, then perhaps wait until it comes to DVD. At least you can then jump up and run to the kitchen to grab a “coffee” and retain some dignity.

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.

Family

Sunday, April 2nd, 2006 | Doyle Reviews | 3 Comments

My family is not post modern. We’re thoroughly up-to-date and as screwed up as any other you’ll care to name.

This weekend was my sister’s wedding. I went into the whole affair with a slight sence of trepidation - I knew my sister, and I know her fondness for the bohemian ’stylish’ coture.

My sister got married underneath a big old tree in the Byron Hinterland. With all due respect, it was a little magical. The food was very Gourmet Traveller, and the setting was straight from Tourism NSW’s 2006 Escape brochure.

The rest of my family aren’t quite so Vogue. Typically, at a Frog Family gathering, we had a few sessions of family bonding, a few sessions of swimming with the kids, a session or twelve of intense alcohol consumption, and one or two sessions of intense blood boiling.

Where the F’k are my F’king keys?
You have to be F’king kidding me.
F’k you.
No, F’k YOU.

So, the keys had been locked in the boot of the car. This was a total accident, that involved several members of the family and a really freaky chance coincidence.

Why dont’ you just F’k off!?
F’k yourself.
Get F’ked.

So, with the keys secure in the boot of one car, and the second car safely blocked in by the first car, we were getting a little short of transport.

Get out of my F’kin way.
I’ll drive that F’kin car out past that F’kin car any F’kin way.
Piss off. (That was Aunt Nat - She’s not really like the rest of us.)

This is the unique way that my family pronounces endearments. We tend to scatter the warm and cuddlies throughout the multitudes of terse confrontations.

Hours later, we were all seated around a BBQ, drinking beer and laughing about the nuclear fallout. Everything’s all ok, but for F’ks sake, dont ask anybody about the F’king keys.

I love you all. But you’re all seriously F’ked up.

Mate!

Wednesday, November 19th, 2003 | Doyle Reviews | 1 Comment

After having a bit of a scan through the local network, I’ve discovered that there’s a huge controversy going on about “Finding Nemo”. It all came as a bit of a shock, but it all revolves around those sodding seagulls.

Here’s a clip, so you can hear for yourself:
Finding Nemo - Seagulls.wav (150kb)

Do they say “Mate!”, or “Mine!”, or “Mike!”???

I’ll tell you what I think.

I guess it all depends on where you live in Australia. I come from western queensland, and the word “Mate” is usually the first word of an infant and the dying words of a centurian. Of course, it’s different in the city, everything is, but the word “mate” is an all-round word that fits all occasions. Australian’s dont tend to use linguistics to convey their thoughts, but the intonations and the stresses placed on the words themselves seem to mean so much more.

“Mate.” - “I’ve forgotten your name, but I love ya anyway.”
“Mate?” - “Are you okay?”
“Maaaaaate!” - “Hello there! It’s great to see you!”

The legend of mateship is what our country is built on. I didn’t realise just how much I said it until I left our shores girt by sea, and arrived in the UK. It’s in our constitution for crying out loud. It’s typically Australian. Just like “Bruce” the shark, and “Sheila” the dentist’s assistant. If you’re an Aussie, tell me just how many people you know called Bruce, or Shiela!

For that very reason, the word ‘Mate’ becomes somewhat cliche in an international movie. It doesn’t seem to matter a damn if we dont say it. It’s an aussie in-joke, ok mate? But then the popular counter argument is, why would Pixar use the word “mate” that’s so typically australian, when it’s an international movie? Why would they include an in-joke for a country other than America, who directed and produced the film?

Despite the film being set in Australia? HA! Let’s not turn this into something international, we are talking about the seagulls, after all. I guess the issue of “Mate” versus “Mike” versus “Mine” is going to linger on a little while longer. But she’ll be right, mate. Hat’s off to Pixar. It’s a bloody great movie!