I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t neglected the Shuffle in recent weeks. There’s just been so much going on. So here’s the plan: Three short, sharp posts detailing a few of the big events of my life this past month or so… Stay tuned! Continue reading →

The question is: What exactly is in a Wookie Cookie? Bantha Fodder? Cream of Ton-Ton? Jar-Jar Binks? Well, we can only hope that the last one is true… Star wars Cookbook Wookie Cookies Features Recipes Like Boba Fett-Uccine | Star Wars, Edible Geek, shopping | geeksugar - Technology & Gadgets. Continue reading →

It took about a month, but I’ve finally got our new bookshelf. It’s massive. Now I just need to put our books in there.. Continue reading →

This week, I found myself without a decent working loaner laptop for the first time in a long time. And I needed to head into the office. And I needed to work on the train. So, I was left with no option but to pull out my old Dell Inspiron from 2002… Yes that hideous thing you see above. Considering that it was slower than a sloth on Sunday, I decided to give Ubuntu a good old college try as my OS of choice. Continue reading →

Yesterday Lauren and I headed over to the Big Day Out, courtesy of HP (who had a stand at the event). The only way to describe the experience come from the immortal words of Danny Glover: “I’m getting too old for this shit”. For a start, it was bloody hot. Even though I had sunscreen on every conceivable part of exposed skin, it seems that wasn’t enough - my scalp feels well and truly sunburnt… I guess my hair is thinning faster than Amazonian rainforest at the moment. Continue reading →

So this week marked my one year anniversary at the helm of Gizmodo… and what a year it has been! Here are some figures to mull over: Monthly unique browsers in December 2007 – 220,240 Monthly unique browsers in December 2008 - 678,311 (and keep in mind that December is a slightly quieter month thanks to Christmas/New Years. November 2008 had over 800,000 uniques). Monthly pageviews in December 2007 - 967,297 Monthly pageviews in December 2008 - 2,964,645 Continue reading →

[vimeo vimeo.com/2809991] I love this. It completely made my Friday. Continue reading →

We spent the better part of the past week painting the study. While it’s still not the perfect home office – I still need some decent shelving and we haven’t moved 90% of what we took out back in yet – it’s so much nicer. It’s actually a workspace, rather than a child’s bedroom. I didn’t take any photos of the room prior to painting, but I do have some pics from when I made a short film for a story in T3 which should give you an idea of just how horrible an office environment it was to work in. Continue reading →

On the last day of 2008, I thought it would be prudent to sit back and look at the year that’s been. All told, Lauren and I have had a very big – and successful – year. After all, I started at Gizmodo, we got married, I travelled around a bit and now Lauren’s been promoted to manager of her work. Not a bad year for a couple in the penultimate year of their 20s… Continue reading →

So I turned 29 last week, and one of the presents my lovely wife gave me to celebrate my slow and deliberate approach to retirement was a copy of the graphic novel Watchmen. You know: the one they’re making a movie of.

Now despite my slightly geeky disposition, I never really threw myself headfirst into comics. When I was a teenager I did start collecting X-Files comics, but that was more an obsession with the X-Files than with comics themselves. Don’t get me wrong – I’ve always been a fan of Superman, Batman, Spiderman and their superhero kindred, but more their on-screen and merchandising aspects than the comics from which they are based.

So it was with some surprise (to me, at least) that I initially found reading the graphic novel format a bit… well, a bit weird. For someone who reads as much as I do, the notion of actually taking time to take in each comic square - both pictures and text - took some getting used to. But the end result is one of fascination - not only did I absolutely love Watchmen, but it has become something of an obsession - I find myself constantly thinking of the characters, the imagery, the awesomeness that is Dr. Manhattan…

It’s also gotten me very excited about the movie. I’ve probably watched the trailer half a dozen times since finishing the book. And pretty much every scene in the trailer, I can picture the illustrated frame in the book. Considering how bad movies based on novels tend to turn out, I’m hoping that the opposite happens for this graphic novel.

I’m also hoping to read even more graphic novels, although I am a little bit lost for somewhere to start. Any suggestions for me, people of the Internet?

And if you’re a bit like me at the moment and can’t get enough of the Watchmen trailer, click through to watch it again… :)

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What’s the deal, Activision? I’ve been looking for Guitar Hero: World Tour (full band kit) for the Xbox 360 for about three weeks now, and it’s sold out everywhere. Not only that, but apparently stores aren’t getting the next delivery until January. Meanwhile, you can pick up a full-band Rock Band at pretty much any store you walk into… Now, I did a fair bit of research before deciding what I wanted, and I decided on the 360 GH:WT because you can a) play Rock Band on the GH Instruments and b) there is sooooo much more downloadable content for both games on the 360 as opposed to the PS3. Continue reading →

Today is a good day for us. After 8 months or so, we’ve finally paid off our wedding. It was hard work - I worked a little harder and longer than I otherwise would have, and we had to manage our money extremely carefully, not to mention going without a lot of nice little extras, but in the end, we’re now in a pretty good economic position. Sure, we still have debts (including a mortgage and a nice new TV), but we’re in a position where we can afford to pay those debts, as well as start saving a little. Continue reading →

… I past the 1000 post mark on Gizmodo Australia. It was such a momentus occasion that I didn’t realise until 2 days after it happened. Continue reading →

Time management is not my strong point. Organisation is not my strong point. Keeping my inbox under control is definitely not my strong point… I guess you could say that I’m a bit chaotic when it comes to managing my workload.

But that’s not where I want to be. I want to be organised. I want to manage my time effectively. That’s why I jumped at the opportunity to partake in a time management seminar last week put on by the guys from BlackBerry for freelance journalists and technology bloggers like myself. It was run by a gentleman named Dermott Crowley from Adapt Training Solutions, and all I can say is that I walked away a changed man. A changed, organised man.

The seminar lasted for a couple of hours - but in those two hours I learnt enough to completely restructure my work systems so that now I can manage my time much more effectively and improve my productivity tenfold. Here’s how I did it:

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I’ve been brewing my own beer for almost two years now (my original kit was given to me for Christmas ‘06), and sadly I have to admit that the sight you see here isn’t that uncommon for me. Out of the dozen or so batches I’ve brewed, more than half have spewed forth beer-flavoured froth as the yeast goes crazy trying to convert sugar to alchohol. The weird thing is that when I was using brewing kits from the Homebrew shop in Camden (rest its soul), this wasn’t a problem at all. Continue reading →

I finally managed to get my thoughts together long enough to write a post on the Rudd Government’s planned internet filter. It’s up on Giz AU now – check it out, link to it, Digg it… spread the word. Because no matter what Conroy tells us, filtering the internet will do absolutely nothing to stop illegal material – it will just slow down the Internet and make regular business owners suffer. Continue reading →

So slow! It seems I exceeded my peak-time download limit this month, and now I’m paying the price. I’ve been capped at 64kbps, and considering that I work from home and that I work pretty much exclusively online, this isn’t an enviable position I find myself in. On the upside, I got a review copy of Iron Man on Blu-ray today, which should distract me from the online frustration for quite a few hours. Continue reading →

I have just hopped on a train at Central after waiting for 32 minutes on the platform. At least, that’s what the board said when I arrived. The train is an old, smelly thing with only 6 carriages. I got a seat - but only just. If there was some kind of malfunction to cause this wait, I might be a little more sympathetic. But no, this is just how long you need to wait for a train to get to Campbelltown during the day. Continue reading →

Last week, we had our brand new, 50-inch Panasonic plasma delivered and installed. When I say installed, I mean “stuck up on the wall”. Coupled with the new entertainment unit, the loungeroom is starting to come together. Now all we need is a surround sound system… I wrote up a feature for Giz on the wall-mounting process that I’d thoroughly recommend reading and, if you are so inclined, Digging. The end result of wall mounting is a gorgeous look, but getting it done by a professional is thoroughly recommended. Continue reading →

[youtube=www.youtube.com/watch I just finished playing The Force Unleashed on Xbox 360. When I say finished, I mean I completed the story mode for the first time. My verdict: awesome. I’ve hardly enjoyed any game, let alone a Star Wars game like this for a long time. The game takes place in that 20 year period between Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope. You play as Darth Vader’s Sith apprentice, an assassin sent to kill Darth Vader’s enemies. Continue reading →