I just had to post this as soon as I saw it. It is is win! A USB Japanese-style bamboo fountain.

USB Bamboo Fountain

It’d be awesome to have in my room. I’ve always wanted a fountain, more specifically a bamboo fountain. This is a great step towards that dream, a mini one powered by USB! It’ awesome in itself. I’m just wondering if it will make the trademark sound that bamboo fountains do.

It costs $25 USD, who wants to buy me one? I’m not exactly sure if they ship to Australia or not at this stage, probably becaue I haven’t checked, but if they don’t, somebody is going to have to get it for me and post it to me.

What other awesome USB gadgets have you found? Do you own any? Do tell.

Currently I own a USB Plasma Ball and USB cup warmer/4 port USB2.0 hub.

Well, the HSC is finally over. Now I just need to go back to school to sign out (and purchase a 200GB IDE drive for $23. ). I should be providing some details of what’s been happening, so I’ll start with the exams.

HSC Exams

Well, they’re over. I don’t want to go into much detail, so here’s a brief overview of my thoughts on the exams:

• English Paper 1 - Moderately annoying
• Information Processes & Technology - Easy
• English Advanced paper 2 - Annoying
• Mathematics Advanced - Mostly annoying
• Software Design & Development - Easy, though I know I missed at least one simple mark due to an error.
• Information Technology - Easy

Lennox Head

Well, for schoolies some friends and I went up to Lennox Head, about 30 mins south of Byron Bay. There were six of us going, taking two cars. Our group left soon after my last exam, and we just happened to get stuck in traffic between Korora and Moonee Beach for an hour. Great fun. So, what should have been a 3.5 hour trip ended up being 5 hours. At least we had a good chance to listen to power metal (including some laughing at DragonForce) along the way (my music was supreme =D ), and some of Peter’s misc good-feeling music. Also, we can’t forget Sam’s spectacular iPod, broken in half and held together by sticky tape.

So, to briefly describe what we did up there, it involved drinking; watching Black Books, Cowboy Bebop, Hellsing, Big Trouble Little China and The Goonies (Thanks to Crowley I actually liked it.); playing Xbox/360; going out to Mexican, which was awesome (and included chilli beer); and going to the beach.

Anyway, ’twas great fun.

Nothing

Since then, I’ve been doing pretty much nothing mostly. Watching anime (Gundam 00, Azumanaga Daioh, Cardcaptor Sakura again), watching Cool Runnings, playing some games (Crysis WARHEAD, Modern Warfare 2, Assassin’s Creed and Plants vs Zombies), swimming a bit, and working on applying for a job. I plan on applying to a few computer repair places, a web design business, as well as K-Mart, Target, Big W, Dick Smith Electronics and Tandy.

That’s basically it for me, I’ve also decided o start using a few more Google apps. I’ve just started using Google Reader, and I’m liking it so far. I needed a decent RSS reader. I’ve also just downloaded a pre-rlease version of ChromeOS, so I’m going to test that out from a USB stick tomorrow.

So, now that I’ve finished school I’ll be able to do a few things, like continue to work on my blog theme, possibly convert to a new database app, although finding a decent RAD app other than Access is hard, and start working on IPTBB again.

That’s it for now, I’m off to drink some Mountain Dew at 2am.

The HSC is almost over, finally. 13 years of school, almost gone. Wooooo! I just have one more exam on Friday, IT. Should be easy.

So, after the exam I’ll be going up to Lennox with friends to stay in a rented house for the weekend. Should be good. I plan on commandeering Sam’s PS3 to finally watch Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within on Blu-ray, as I don’t have a BD player myself… ^_^;

So anyway, I’ll be back soon, with no more school and hopefully I will not have developed Motorphobia (fear of cars) in the event that Sam’s car turns out to be… The Yukari Mobile…

Wish me luck…

This must be the most annoying, yet hilarious ad ever. I felt the urge to post it here.

Enjoy.

Ok, before I get into this. I just have to mention how I was giong to post this an hour earlier, until Firefox crashed, and my unsaved entry was lost. I may have had 60+ tabs open at the time…

It’s been ages since my last blog, the reason being study for the HSC.

My first exam is in nine days, and they will last four weeks. I don’t think I’ll do particularly well, but I’d still like to try studying and see how I go. It’s not that I lack knowledge and logic, it is simply that I’ve lost interest entirely, due to English, the most pointless (yet the only compulsory) HSC subject in existence. Why is it crucial that we study our primary language in depth for another two years? We already know how to write essays and narratives and feature articles, why is it absolutely necessary that ALL of us study it for our HSC? After year 10 it is entirely pointless, unless we intend to pursue a career in journalism or something similar, or if some people still haven’t grasped written communication in the last 11 years of school. I would much rather have dropped English and continued to study Physics for the HSC.

// End of English rant

My result isn’t particularly important to me, as long as I pass. I don’t really need a good ATAR (Australian Tertiary Admission Rank - like the UAI, but now transformed into a national index), as I already anticipated my loss of interest, and decided to apply for early entry in three universities. I just need to wait and hope I get into either the Bachelor of Software Engineering at University of Canberra, or the Bachelor of Computer Science at UNE in Armidale. If both of those fail to accept me, and I am instead accepted into a Bachelor of IT at SCU Coffs Harbour (or not), I’ll just do a Diploma of IT for one year through TAFE, followed by an Advanced Diploma for six months, and finally finish my final year of the Bachelor of IT through SCU… Bachelor of IT completed in 2.5 years paying mostly TAFE fees? Deal.

So anyway, I’ll be missing for another month as I try to study and do moderately well in my HSC exams. Wish me luck. To keep you all occupied until then, I’ll show you some video tutorials I’ve been watching recently. Some are really intriguing and win.

1. Build a wind generator
2. USB air conditioning
3. Defending against high fives (Not that you’d ever want to, but just in case the need arises)
4. Turn a parabolic satellite dish into a WI-Fi antenna - similar, yet much more complex (and more effective ) approach to something my friend tried a couple of years ago. Perhaps the reason why his did nothing was because he used a a shiny bowl and a USB receiver instead of a parabolic dish?
5. Avoid speed detection with IR LEDs
6. USB through phone (RJ-11) cables
7. DIY Alpha clock
8. Swedish piano stairs to encourage stair usage
9. Photosketch
10. Vortex Cannon
11. World’s Largest Pumpkin Cannon
12. NASA bombing the moon
13. Extracting change from an unfriendly coke machine

Enjoy!

I’m also trying to come up with a new internet alias to replace HIM357 as it’s too impersonal, and not nearly as interesting as I’d like my alias to be. I also want to register a new domain for my personal site (this one), that would be suitable for my blogs, professional portfolio, projects I’m working on and such. I want to make something interesting, something that is me. It’d be good to incorporate my new alias into the domain, but seeing as I haven’t thought of one yet, it’s quite difficult. So, for now I’m trying to think of a decent alias, and an interesting domain that is still quite general, and not linked to any particular future alias.

If you can help me think of ideas, please do.:)

Ciao.

Lachy