You win some and you loose some...

I know about winning and loosing at the same time. It's sort of happening to me at the moment, but it's also happening to a few of the sporting teams I follow, as well as other things I do:

1. Celtics vs Lakers
The Celtics held back a last minute surge from the Lakers to win by 6 points, and gain a 2-0 lead in the NBA finals! A big "well done" needs to go out to Leon Powe - who contributed as many points as Kevin Garnett did in the same game, even though he usually comes off the bench, and hardly plays any minutes in the regular season. Definitely going to be a crowd favourite if he keeps that effort up. Come on championship #17. Make it a clean sweep!

GO CELTICS!

2. Australia vs Iraq
In a reverse of events that happened in Brisbane recently, Iraq has beaten Australia in football by 1-0. This opens up Group 1, and means that Australia has to attempt to repeat its game against Qatar in hope to remain on top of the group. I've got faith that the Socceroos will qualify, and make it to South Africa in 2010, but I also know the ball is round, and may somewhat be unpredictable when attempting to get it in the goals.

GO SOCCEROOS!

3. Upgraded to new kernel on my Gentoo machine
And in yet another seemless upgrade on Gentoo, I've moved to the 2.6.24-r8 gentoo-sources kernel. A quick change to grub, and a quick reboot, and I was using my new kernel. So why have I added this? Well there's a few things they're "not winning" on. The most troublesome to me is the madwifi-ng-0.9.3.3 package - it does not compile with the current kernel. I do not think it is a problem with the kernel itself, but more with the way the package determines which kernel it is. This could be solved if the Gentoo developers promoted madwifi-ng-0.9.4 to the stable tree, but it appears to be still having problems. It's the only thing stopping me from fully getting my WiFi card up and running. I have tested the WiFi hardware by booting up with a Ubuntu 8.04 LiveCD, and can confirm it is detected, and attempts to detect other wireless networks.

In other news from Gentoo (as also reported in the current Distrowatch newsletter), it appears that they may release another Gentoo LiveCD, but they do not know when this will happen. I know this is a difficult task, but let me re-iterate, you do not need a Gentoo LiveCD to install Gentoo. Any Linux LiveCD will do.

So when people ask how I am, I usually respond by saying:

Could be better... Could be worse... Always in the middle.

Socceroos getting closer to South Africa 2010

The Socceroos are one step closer to the World Cup (for association football) in South Africa in 2010. Their win over Iraq in Brisbane this evening puts them firmly at the top of Group 1 in the AFC qualifications. Well done to Harry Kewell for scoring in the 47th minute. Good luck Socceroos against Iraq at their home for your next match!

I've been thinking for a long time, that now with Australia becoming a force in football, I should start making plans to go to South Africa in 2010. I've got a few things I have to personally attend to at the moment, but it sounds more and more like a great idea every time I think about it. Anyone want to come?

It's like living in the 80s again! Celtics are in the 2008 NBA Finals

The Boston Celtics have gotten past the Detroit Pistons in game 6 to enter the finals against L.A. Lakers. I've been waiting 22 years for something like this to happen, and I couldn't believe it is so similar to what happened when I was young. The only thing to top it off would be to get the big three from 80s to be present at one of the final games (I'm thinking of Larry Bird, Kevin McHale, and Robert Parish) to support the Celtics to championship #17...

GO CELTICS!

Boston advance to NBA Conference Finals

I never understood the "home court advantage" phenomena that is displaying itself in the NBA's 2008 playoffs at the moment. While I write this, the home teams have won 22-2 times. And that is what happened in the case of game 7 between Boston and Cleveland. Boston won the final game, and advance to meeting Detroit in the Conference Finals. And if Boston keep going the way they're going, they do not have to win on the road, but just keep winning at home.

So what is this "home court advantage"? Is it physical, or more psychological? I can't say, as I have never been to a game with Boston live. I've watched many over the past 20 years or so, but they've been either via TV, or via the Internet. It may be a combination of knowing the home court a little better, but I doubt it with the standardisation of the courts by the NBA. All rings and backboards have to be of a certain height, all lines must adhere to certain standards, etc. What it is more likely, is the spectators chanting and teasing the opponents, and supporting the home side. Well that's my guess. I would hate to travel to another location, just to feel like I'm not welcomed, and the job I was doing was being ridiculed. I understand that top teams and top players are professional in this regard, and will rise above it, but it must be a very overwhelming factor. The other thing I think it may be is the care and support of the home city to the player. They're at home, with their own families, eating their own food, in a supportive lifestyle. I can attest to this personally, as it's been very hard for the past 7 months living away from my wife in a different city.

Anyway, I hope Boston sweep away Detroit, and move onto the NBA 2008 Finals.

GO CELTICS!

Celtics win over Cavs (but just)...

Congratulations to the Boston Celtics for their first game (of the second round) win over the Cleveland Cavaliers. I was tracking the game in the background on the web, and noticed it was see-sawing back and forth, but Kevin "The Big Ticket" Garnett steadied the team. Both teams had a pretty bad game, but the Celtics had less of a bad game than the Cavs.

GO CELTICS!

Celtics move into second round...

Well done to the Boston Celtics for beating the Atlanta Hawks and moving into the second round of the NBA playoffs. Keep the dream alive!

GO CELTICS!

Gmail... quick to respond with a fix.

In my earlier post today, I mentioned that there was a bug in Firefox 3 Beta 5 that would mean that gmail chat was not working correctly. Looks like the guys have google have fixed it from their end, as chat appears to be working again:

Well done to the guys at Google.

Ubuntu 8.04 - nice, but with a bug... and go Celtics!

I've just recently upgraded to Ubuntu 8.04 from 7.10, and I am very impressed. The only thing about the upgrade process I didn't like was the fact I did it on the second day it was released, and therefore the servers were very slow. That must be an indication of the take up of this distribution of Linux. The actual upgrade process itself was as smooth as anything I have ever seen in Gentoo, but with less user interaction. I've always commented to people who asked me why I choose Gentoo, and I've always replied that I would have chosen Ubuntu if it was around at the time. I still love Gentoo, as it has taught me so much, and probably would not have learnt so much using any other system, but Ubuntu is the system I would suggest to anyone trying Linux to use first. Chatting with a friend of mine recently, he's been using Fedora and loves it. I think it's partially because he has spent time learning about it, and the fact that they share many components with Red Hat - which is arguably one of two enterprise / industry choices - the other being SUSE.

So, what did I find so good about Ubuntu - besides the install process? It seems to be much of the same goodness that it was before. I think this is important as you do not want to radically change things between version releases - like what Microsoft did between XP and Vista. All the main applications are still there. The improved feature I've noticed is the video support that runs compiz and plays back movies. This was buggy in 7.10, but appears to be fixed (or at least working much better) in 8.04. Another thing which I found was the inclusion of Mozilla Firefox 3 Beta 5. While still in beta testing, it is very stable, but it appears that at least one bug has crept through. If I use Firefox 3 to access gmail, I cannot access chat, and some of the gmail features are not operating correctly. Luckily, Ubuntu still gives you access (via the package management system Synaptic) to Firefox 2 (2.0.0.14 to be exact). Running that on my system gives me full access - but at a slower rate - one of the advantages of running Firefox 3 is that its rendering engine is noticeably faster. Other than that, it's a great version release, and this one comes with Long Term Support (LTS) which gives confidence to people who just want to install it and keep using the same thing. Here is a screenshot of my upgraded system:


Lastly, I'd just like to wish the best of luck to a team I've been following since the 1980s - the Boston Celtics. I may not be from the United States of America, but I do have more than a passing interest in the NBA, more than I have in Australia's NBL. The games appear to be geared towards being more flashy - which when it comes to sports entertainment, is what I'm after. It's why I choose football (soccer) over AFL or Rugby. Anyway, the reason I'm mentioning this, is that after recruiting aggressively, the Celtics have finished as the NBA's top team and are the favourites for the finals. They are currently in playoffs for the finals at the moment, but all indications so far show it will be a clean sweep of Atlanta to advance to the next round.

• Celtics 104 - Hawks 81
• Celtics 96 - Hawks 77

The best thing for a follower like myself is that companies only make merchandise when teams win. Australia does not have as large a market as the USA, so obtaining Celtics merchandise is difficult at best. In the 1990s, all the sports shops were dominated with Chicago and Michael Jordan. This has finally ended (although you can still buy Jordan clothing and shoes). So on the hope that it will be their first championship since 1986, let me say:

GO CELTICS!

Telstra - another way to increase profits

This orginally came to me in an e-mail but I kept forgetting the number. So I decided to put it into a blog entry so at least I would know where to look for the information.

For anyone contemplating using the Sensis directory service number, 1234, DON'T!

Sensis, as you may or may not know, is a subsidiary of Telstra. The 1234 number is replacing the Telstra 12456 directory assistance number, but this time with outrageous costs attached: 40c to call the number, then 4c A SECOND! By law, Telstra have to provide a FREE directory assistance number, because they are still majority owned by the government. They choose however not to pass this number on to the public. What's the number?

1223

Thumbs up to Telstra for finding a way to charge for a service that is supposed to be provided for free.

Don't know how accurate the information is about Telstra and the law, but feel free to pass this information around.

Awesome looking wedding cake

Went down to Melbourne for the weekend that just went, and was invited to a good friend of mine's wedding. I never had met her future (now-) husband before the ceremony, but she looks really happy, so I'm thinking he's taking good care of her!

The really cool thing at the wedding, besides the ceremony, and the fact she's real happy (with a huge grin), was the wedding cake. It was made of cupcakes, and it had gingerbread people on it (as you can see below):
Good luck with everything Jellybean and Timtam... (I didn't make up those nicknames - actually... I didn't know that was their nicknames before the wedding). May your love and happiness for each other prosper more than what I saw on the day!