Guitar Hero Metallica

So I clocked GH: Metallica in hard over the weekend - I was a little disappointed by how easy the final track (The thing that should not be) was, but the excellent pain of completing One on hard more than made up for it.

What it really did though, was remind me how much I love Metallica! I've had a real craving to listen to them the last two days as a result, but I don't have any of their albums (I had a bit of a boycott against them after they made Napster cancel my account years ago in the whole Napster v Metallica thingy). I think this is something I might have to rectify at some stage.

The one track that has really been spinning round and round in my head, due to a combination of the weekend's gaming and the frenetic pace of work at the moment is Battery - what an awesome song!

I look like an idiot listening to this stuff at work, because I can't quite stop my head from bouncing a little to it. Speaking of work, it's been getting pretty challenging recently, but I've actually been really enjoying the uptick in pace - makes me feel like I'm squeezing everything out of the day

I would also like to share this excellent video that came to me via Glennboi and the H dog.

More awesome than a double rainbow...

More house stuffs

Progress on the house continues - the valuation from the bank came back last Friday, with the excellent figure of $445,000, which represents a capital growth of like 8.5% since we signed the contract last year! It also means that our loan valuation ratio will be 75%, meaning no mortgage insurance and we should qualify easily for the rather excellent home loan package that we applied for.

We've also made some movement on curtains, after an initial set back. The set back was that the fabric that Dana and I had chosen and obtained a swatch of is no longer available! We've had to go back to the drawing board, which I think Dana has found quite frustrating. I've got a slightly more philosophical attitude about it...

Anyway, we have chosen some likely swatches from the shops and we have arranged for the real estate agent to let us into the house to get a couple of quotes on Friday. I'm really excited about this, because it means that we should be able to get the curtains done fairly quickly after settlement, so we won't have to live with sheets on the windows for too long.

Here's one of the fabrics that Dana is quite keen on at the moment:

I might add some more after I've been home and seen what Dana has brought home from the curtain shops today.

House update

The last couple of weeks have actually been kind of a big deal for the house, but I've been too busy to blog about them. In roughly chronological order, we've visited a different mortgage broker on a colleague's recommendation, chosen and applied for a home loan with him, done the pre-settlement inspection of the unit and got the certificate of occupancy!

The last one happened late yesterday, and it means that the registration of the units plan should now be underway. That process should (fingers crossed, knock on wood, etc) take about 2-3 weeks, at which time the 14 day settlement period should begin. Which means that we should be taking possession of the house in 4-5 weeks, like forreal.

The house itself is pretty much complete, sans appliances and hot water system, which go in pretty much the day before settlement (otherwise they get nicked). This is a little unfortunate, as we were hoping that they would be in when the bank did their valuation (also this week), but we didn't really think we should hold off any longer.

More on the valuation and the loan and what it all means at a later day. Right now, I've got a date with a glass of beer.

As a wise woman once wrote: "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a public servant in possession of a pay cheque, must be in want of the pub".

I am Iron Man

Good news and bad news (both unrelated to the house).

The bad first - my headphones went walkabout from work during a moving day last Friday. There was much wailing and gnashing of teeth - they were a fairly nice pair, bought for around $80 from the Akihabara shop while in transit in Tokyo. They were getting on a bit, but still had good sound and I had some sentimental attachment to them.

Now the good news, I got to go out and buy some new Sennheiser canalphones (CX300 - II)! They sound great and have excellent sound isolation, which is a mandatory requirement for open plan office living. Some more good news - we got newer (second hand) computers as a result of the moving day, with new shiny (for me at least) Windows 7. And I netted a window seat again, with an excellent view of the plaza outside the front of my work.

I'm using the new headphones to listen to Black Sabbath. Here's a video of Metallica covering Black Sabbath's Iron Man, I think at Black Sabbath's induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame or something. Anyway, it's a good cover. Yeah.


There are other things to blog about, but I need some more time to think about them before I put them up. Which makes them sound more ominous than they are, it's more just that I don't have time at the moment!

Friday video art

Another lunch time browsing find, this is a result of the "lets colour" project. And it's awesome.

Via Gizmodo.

Hopefully that's some colour to get you through your day. Quite frankly, I cannot wait for mine to be over, thank feck it's Friday.

PS: Pulled the trigger on a home loan application yesterday morning. I was pretty sure we weren't going to bother with a broker and just go to the bank, but we took a last attempt at a broker a colleague of Dana's recommended. Long story short, he was excellent, and I think we got a really good deal on the loan. I cant wait until the pre-settlement inspection on Monday!

Eat them up, yum yum.

Found this video in a hazy, post luncheon haze today. Stop motion pacman on a large scale.

In other news, it turns out Sri Lankan food is really excellent. I'm so full, I just want to take a nap.

cs_747

Watching Wesley Snipes muddle his way through 'Passenger 57' reminds me so much of playing counter strike, specifically the map cs_747, which was based around a hostage situation on a 747. Good times, I feel like a nervous teenager just watching videos of it on toutube. It reminds me of a golden age of gaming where my reflexes were massively fast, and I could focus ridiculously well on games for hours on end....

I might be pretty rusty these days, but around 5 years ago, I would totally have hit you with a BOOOM, HEADSHOT!

Ah, the memories...

PS: HA, FPS Doug - the epitome of BOOM HEADSHOT!

I have more in common with that dude than I like to admit.