sketches of the mind

what’s been happening in my world lately?

Let’s see.. last week was very unproductive. Work-wise I was busy, but I’m talking personal goals and stuff. I’m also quite conscious of the fact that I lack motivation and planning.

Everything revolves around planning. Be it social life, health, career, relationships, finance, and whatever else - without sufficient planning there is no progress or success.

Laziness will get you nowhere. Even so, why is it that I am devoid of motivation? Why do I procrastinate, only to beat myself up for not taking any action sooner?

If only I knew…

Not all is gloomy though. I’ve been helping Toz with preparing for a few job interviews. After several months of applying for jobs, without much success, he’s finally getting somewhere. I’m happy for him, and I’m glad that I can offer my knowledge and experience.

Anyways, another week lies ahead. Tackling it one day at a time.

I attended a charity event called Doing It For The Kids last night. Held at the Star Room in Sydney, the purpose of the event was to raise funds for the Save a Children Tsunami relief. The Star Room had an interesting layout but the one thing that stood out was the amazing views of Darling Harbour outside the windows.

Featuring prize auctions, volunteer auctions, live band, singers, and latino dancers and a “find your match” game (I didn’t find mine dammit!) - there was enough entertainment to keep most people around. Most entertaining were the auctions. Some fellow bid over $2,000 AUD for two tickets to Vietnam. Good on him.

Considering the amount of time the organisers (one of them a friend of mine) had, I think the night was a relative success. I’m still yet to confirm whether or not the target goal was achieved but I’m sure they did well. A few friends came along and I’m thankful that they did. I don’t think I would have had nearly a good a night otherwise - just wasn’t feeling incredibly social.

Oh and the formal attire was great. I love to see people nicely dressed once in a while. I hadn’t worn a suit and tie for a long time, since a wedding a couple of years ago I think, and it was a bit uncomfortable driving with the tie on. Eventually it was alright, but inside the Star Room it was getting pretty hot with the tie on. The amount of suffering we must go through to look good, just not sure if it’s worth it sometimes. At least that was only one night. I feel sorry for those buggers that have to go through it every night.

Enough rambling from me. If anybody is interested in donating to the charity, and I encourage that you do, please click here.

Check out the Mobile PC Top 100 Gadgets of All Time.

Tamagotchi, Nokia 5100 Series phone, the abacus, etch-a-sketch, Apple Ipod, Nintendo Game Boy, Atari 2600, and Sony Walkman are all there.

As for #1, that title goes to the Apple Powerbook 100.

Apparently Paris Hilton’s mobile phone provider (t-moble) has been hacked. Being the information age and all the guilty hacker posted the details online for all to see.

Here we go.

On the list are:

Aguilera, Christina
Eminem
Kournikova, Anna
Lachappelle, David
Lohan, Lindsay
Mark ‘The Scud’ Phillipoussis
Olsen, Ashley
Pharrel
Roddick, Andy
Vin Diesel

Also online, apparently, are images from her mobile camera.

Of course, all this smells like fake but there are three possibilities (in no particular order):

1. Hoax, some little nerd getting off on the publicity
2. Real, the hacker pleaded guilty (refer first link on this post)
3. Real, Paris’ own pre-arranged publicity stunt (wouldn’t put it past her)

According to some forum geeks it’s legit, but who can trust a forum these days?

Only one way to prove it I suppose, and that’s to pick up the phone and dial a few numbers.

As of 1st April, ‘unlimited off peak data’ will be replaced with a new promotion called ‘yes’ Data. Very similar to the current offer, it will give customers an additional round of quota to use between the hours of 2am and 9am AEST. Users on the “Unlimited*” plan will continue to have 12GB of usage in peak hours, but will also have 24GB of ‘yes’ data for off-peak. Users on the “Unlimited Pro” plan will get a whopping 40GB of ‘yes’ data.

Optus announced the new promotion following Telstra’s introduction of automatic capping last Wednesday.

From Whirlpool: Australia’s largest ISP, Telstra BigPond, will implement dramatic slow-downs on customer accounts that exceed 10GB of usage in a month, starting from today.

Telstra’s new automatic speed capping system will limit users to 64Kbit/s speeds — just a littler faster than a dialup modem — if they exceed 10GB of uploads and downloads combined

Great move Ziggy… idiot.

Let’s compare…

Cable Telstra BigPond Unlimited - $59.95 /mo, Max down /128 up, prepaid 10 GB, Shaped excess (64k), upstream Counted

Optus Unlimited* (rewards) - $64.95 /mo, Max down / 128 up, prepaid 12 GB peak / 24 GB offpeak, Shaped excess (28k), upstream Free

*rewards applies where you have an optus phone product also

So not only do I get my ass capped when I hit 10 GB (I’ve averaged 30 GB per month for the past 5 months), but now Optus users get an extra 24GB offpeak. I’m rather sore about it because I can’t get Optus in my street (no plans to implement cables here apparently, Telstra won’t let them) and my last application for ADSL was rejected (by Telstra).

DAMN YOU BLOW$TRA!!