buter's BABY blog

That last comment about using writely reminded me of the last time I experienced the joys of beta software.

Here is a transcription of a conversation that took place between D™ and me recently. Hang on, that implies there was actual talking going on that needed to be transcribed. In fact this was an email conversation. Anyway, whatever, here goes:

1. Me

YYYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYY

my links now work.

bloody stupid IE7 beta preview thing.

If you have:
1. Firefox as your default browser
2. MS Outlook 2000 (presumably also outlook express) - maybe other versions, whatever
3. IE7 beta 2 installed
4. Oh but then you have to reset FF as your default browser coz IE doesn't even ask, it just sets itself...
then: when you click a link in outlook you either get nothing, nada, zip zilch, not a thing, or you get an explorer window into C:\Program Files\Common Files\System\MAPI\1033\nt - wtf?

So then after a little bit of a hunt around MS forums I thought it might be something in MAPI or DDE or some such, but without running registry-killing fixmapi I thought I'll just check the forums. And lo and behold someone else had it. Love the internet.

So now I've uninstalled IE7 and things are all better. You can shove your beta software up your arse, microsoft. (uninstalling IE7 returns me to IE6 and I can cope with that thankyou very much).

2. D™

two words
well 2 acronyms
. . . well 6 words . . .
and some punctuation

ie7? wtf?

3. Me

yessm? didn't you know about microsoft's attempt at tabbed browser goodness? internet exploiter 7 (which is now in beta2, whatever that is).

Remind me again why I don't use beta software.

:)

4. D™

Because you write betas and you know what unwholesome goodness goes into them
And besides, betas are bad for you and they rot your teeth.

He's full of wisdom.

The other night, $1.2million was the winning bid at an auction for a Victoria Cross and assorted other medals of an Aussie soldier killed in WWI. Or was he a kiwi. Anyway, a big deal is being made of this record amount being paid. And a bigger deal is being made of the anonymous patron who is going to generously loan the medals to the Australian War Memorial in Canberra for permanent display.

What I want to know is, who was the previous owner. The person who put the medals *up* for auction. They get $1.2million and they laugh all the way to the bank. Wouldn't it have been better all round if they'd loaned the medals to the War Memorial in the first place?

Then the mysterious War Memorial patron could spend his $1.2million (or perhaps a wee bit more) to upgrade Caves House and preserve some 340-million-year-old Australian heritage instead of this paltry 90-odd year stuff.

Seriously though folks, if you're looking for somewhere to spend your $1.2million you can't go past this place. It's not a shopping blog, and frankly, it's shall-I-say awesome. D™ reckons he can hear my voice when he goes there, either because they write in a style not dissimilar to my own, or because I'm usually talking to him while he's surfing.

Hmmm.

edit: I posted this using writely and it garbled my $ symbols into a very long weird looking string of characters. Remind me again to stop using beta software.

A totally fun aspect to living in Telopea is the absolute mind boggling astoundingness of the daily commuter train to the city. There's 1, count them, one, (which by the way is neo spelled backwards) train that goes direct from our little station all the way into bustling Sydney town without having to stop and cool your heels, your backside, and other important parts, at Clyde for 20 minutes waiting for a connection. So if you've got any brains in your head, you'll either buy a dinosaur, or you'll make sure that you get to the station in plenty of time to get on the commuter train.

Once you've arrived at the station, with nothing to do apart from fight with the ticket machine, you might stand at the railing watching cars, err dinosaurs, go past. And if you do, you can't fail to notice the big ol' gazebo summerhouse thing...

Or is it?


Yes well I've been staring at it for nearly a year's worth of train trips and I still don't know what the tank thing is for.

Here's a close up in case you thought it really was a summerhouse:



Yeah. Didn't think so.