What’s that, it’s Spring? Really? Feels like Summer, or at least it has for the past three days. Temperatures soaring above 30 deg and we’re not even through September yet. Basically spent the whole day sitting outside, drinking ice water and bitching about the heat. Late afternoon all we could smell was smoke, I think fire season started early – probably all deliberately lit too which is the sad part.

So the new HTPC is still kicking along nicely, now powered by AMD Semp0rn(TM). Still wish we had the remote so we could change channels etc. Also, my server / gamer whatever (as it is my only PC now) is still without LAN, I really need to get a switch or something, I can’t even game on it at the moment. I haven’t even been bothered to plug in the hard drive (74GB Raptor) from my gamer in to it yet, which I need to do so I can transfer my save-games and my steam cache files.

I’m basically out of money again, but I’ve had a decent weekend so I can’t complain. I’m still waiting on payment for that website job I was doing, I’ve got 99% of it out of the way now, just need to use Photoshop to resize a few images and upload them. And of course Tuesday I’m off to work at the local electronic slaughterhouse, I still haven’t worked out how that place turns a dime. Either way I need the cash, especially since Ruxcon is on this weekend…

So I’m pretty sure my bank account is now in minus figures. I’ve got some money owing from a web design job that I’m doing that I’m not even sure when or how much I’m supposed to be paid. I also managed to pick up some work locally, but that hasn’t paid yet either, and I’m not even sure if I’m going to be asked back.

Finally got some news about my Logitech keyboard and mouse I sent off almost a month ago. The reseller is claming that it’s outside the 12-month warranty period, yet on the box it clearly states 5 years, Logitech Australia also confirmed this to me and said it was still the reseller’s responsibility to honour the warranty within that period. I understand the reseller is only compelled to provide a statutory 12 month warranty on new products, generally extended manufacturer’s warranty is handled directly by the manufacturer, but Logitech Australia do not deal with returned products from end users. Hillarity ensues.

It looks like social security aren’t going to be any help, they want information that I cannot provide and their attitude is basically ‘too bad’. So, that leaves me with selling my stuff on eBay. At least there’s finally a decent digital camera here so that I may start taking photos of stuff to sell. Oh right, I also no longer have a gamer PC, the EE processor and 6800 have been transported to my server. Upgraded the HTPC as well, it now has a digital tuner and runs MCE, which was a real pain in the arse to set up. I couldn’t believe how much dust I pulled out of the machines in this house…

So I’m still under the effects of Steve Jobs’ reality distortion field. I’m compelled to buy myself a 6th-gen 80GB iPod for some reason. Maybe it’s the brighter screen, the improved headphones, the longer battery life, or the whole video / movie thing. If you haven’t seen the keynote and have no idea what I’m on about, you can view it online here. It aired about 3.00AM this morning, I was almost going to stay up but tiredness caught up with me by about 1.00AM. I was sort of hoping for an iPhone but I’m not so sure it’ll ever happen, despite all the crazy patents Apple have taken out recently.

Anyway, I finally got my resume up to date, if you’re interested in a look, or want to give me a job, you know how to contact me. Also went in to the local social security office to apply for financial assistance while I look for work, Aussie’s will know this as ‘the dole‘. It should help me pay rent until such time as I can find some work, which unfortunately isn’t looking great right now. Plenty of positions available for people who have a car, or don’t mind answering phones, but neither of those are particularily suitable for me. Need money one way or another, it’s definentely time to get stuck in to that garage and start putting stuff on eBay…

Just remembered I haven’t updated this in quite some time. Late last week I was simply flat out with work, yes it seems as soon as you turn your back on something and give up on it, you get inundated with things to do. It seems the floodgates have closed again as right now I’m sitting on my couch watching daytime television. Mind you I probably wouldn’t be out working even if there was work to do as I’ve had the flu since Sunday. It was just a sore throat initially and then it progressed in to this strange head cold. I’ve had a migraine headache since Tuesday that I just can’t seem to shake, that coupled with coughing up all shades of green (and red) as well as a slight loss of hearing, makes me practically useless.

On the bright side, yesterday I managed to post out an article I had sold on eBay, that helped pay last week’s rent, buggered if I know what I’m going to do this week. Once again I’m back to considering ripping apart the garage looking for things to sell. Although more immediately, I’m basically ready to rip apart my gamer. I’m keeping the processor, the RAM, and the graphics card, the rest can go. Especially the WD Raptor hard drive, which as I discovered the other day is failing almost all SMART tests. I wouldn’t be surprised if next time I booted it up it says “Missing operating system”. Should probably get my save games off it before that happens, but right now I’m waiting for the next round of painkillers to kick in, so until then, daytime television it is…