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Well, there goes any chance the Queensland Reds had of making the Super 14 semi-finals this season. Without Chris Latham in the side, the Reds will be battling not to finish in last place with the South African teams, and probably the Western Force also. That sucks!

What’s more, is that his chances to represent Australia at the World Cup in France later this year are slim. Even if he is there, it is unlikely he will have had a good chance to play himself into any decent form. In my opinion, the Wallabies weren’t a good chance to win it, but even less so now that Latham is out.

What is interesting is the news that Wallabies coach John Connolly is furious about the injury, and has asked for a please explain from the Reds, as all Wallabies players were supposed to refrain from contact drills.

Just came across this, about the forthcoming Microsoft Home Server. Looks very cool. Just unwrapped at CES in Vegas, but not shipping yet (knowing Microsoft it will take another 18 months!).

This is pretty darn cool if you’re into home computing & electronic gadgetry.

My mother, who has recently decamped to Seoul, asked me to look at some Toshiba Notebooks she was considering. After googling the part numbers, I realised that the only info was in Korean. I don’t read Korean. I then noticed that there was an option to have Google translate the page into English. I thought is might be useful so I clicked on it. It took close to a minute to complete the translation, and here is the result. Now, it it useful in the sense it was able to provide some basic info, but the translation is an example of Engrish at its finest. Check it out - pretty funny.

Apparently any Australian resident travelling to the USA may soon have to submit to having all of their fingerprints stored in an FBI database. There is nothing official yest, but according to the Sydney Morning Herald, it could happen soon. Furthermore, there may be nothing in place to prevent this information to be widely distributed amongst the many US law enforcement agencies. This doesn’t inspire a lot of confidence in me, and could seriously make me not want to visit the US while such a law is in place.

In other news, if you are willing to risk your life in ‘conflict zones’, there are apparently lots of business opportunities for the adventurous entrepreneur.

This is a little belated, but my hearty congratulations to my friends Tim & Danette, who are now the proud parents of their new born boy River. Well done guys!

My brother linked to this funny clip on YouTube. I work in sales, so I can relate to this, although when I showed my friend Simon, who is a Horticulturist and trade assistant, he didn’t really get it at all. I guess it needs context to be relevant…

Just a brief link to Session Computing - this appears to be a neat resource for Thing Client Computing products.

I’ve made mention of it in previous posts, but I have a casual fascination with Autism & Autistic people. I haven’t looked at it myself yet (I’m currently at work), but I wanted to link to this video so I can view it later. Apparently it tells the story of an Autistic woman who has an uncanny ability of understanding animals.

Link via BoingBoing.

[Bonus Link] I learnt Morse Code as a 12 year-old (but since forgotten it) as I was aiming to get my Ham Radio License with my father. BoingBoing has a link about this, although it may be specific to the USA (I’ll have to read this properly later).

Yes, its true. Even the boss man says DRM sucks, and that you’re better off buying a CD and ripping it. Of course, this isn’t a major revelation, but it sure is interesting to hear him admit it penalises the honest majority of users.

I’m back at work today. It is a slow day, but to be honest I’m thankful for that. I’ve only had a little over a week off work, but it’ll take a couple of days to get out of holiday-mode.

As mentioned in the previous post, I went camping at Straddie. By and large the weather was good. I expected it to be ridiculously hot, but the temperature was quite pleasant the entire time. Even the mosquitoes stayed away! It did rain for a couple of days, but we spent most of the rainy days playing cards at the house that Jules was staying in. It was pretty relaxing.

But I am now back at work, and looking forward to a big year, both professionally and personally. I am wanting to really get some strong momentum with my job, and to kick some early goals, so to speak. I’m continuing with my studies at university, and I want to make some inroads on obtaining my degree. I also plan on doing some traveling this year , with South Korea, Japan & New Zealand the likely destinations. Most of all, I’m looking forward to spending a lot more time with Jules.

I don’t really believe in New Year Resolutions - I just plan on keeping on doing what I’ve been doing, but just trying to do it better.