Now it’s time for a little braggadocio, while I swing my arms like Ralph Macchio.

Home sick today, which is very lame. On the bright side, we did get to have a look inside the house yesterday, after all the builders (and sunlight) had left for the day. The more time wears on, the more obvious it is where you can get into the site without jumping the fence. I almost feel like they aren't trying to keep things secure any more, there's a huge gap in one section of the fence.

Mind you, it does make life a little easier for nosey future home owners.

Anyway, there were a few interesting things to see on the site. As mentioned the other day, part of the internal driveway has been put in.

Unfortunately, this is not in our area of the site at all. Still, it's good to see progress around the place.

However, there has been some things happening around our end of the site, namely a kitchen and some painting!

Here is the kitchen in question! Note Dana sizing it up with a professional eye. The bench tops are a pale ceaser stone and the splash back is a white tile. Interestingly, it looks like the telephone line comes into the kitchen, which actually makes it a bit of a weird spot in terms of router positioning. I might look into getting a second outlet put in when we get the phone line installed, just so we don't have to have the router on the kitchen counter. 

I'm also pretty happy with the bench space and cupboard space - it's heaps more than what we have at the moment!

There's also been some painting going on - no idea if the final coat has been done yet, but it's all a lot whiter than it was before. There's also tiles in the bathrooms and the laundry now!

The skylight's mentioned the other day have been installed on the roof, but haven't quite yet made their way down into the interior.

To round out the post, here's a clip from nerdcore pioneer, MC Frontalot. The visuals aren't much, but the music's better. I did have to look a few words up in the dictionary though. To help you out, braggadocio means empty swagger, or that style of rap where the MC talks up how awesome they are.

Edit: I swapped in a better clip - the recording in the previous one sounded a bit poo. This one is from the intro to the doco "Nerdcore Rising".

Skylight

Popped past the house this afternoon - unfortunately there were people working on site (industrious buggers) so we didn't get to check out the paint job that was going up last time we popped by. Things are coming along nicely around the site though - I think all the buildings are just about water tight, but some of the garages are not quite there yet. Some of the internal roads are going in as well, which makes the place that much more finished.

From the outside, there were two new additions to our unit that were of note - they've installed the skylights! I was quite happy to see this, as the en suite and the laundry were looking quite dark on our last visit. I was also pretty happy that there is one installed in the laundry - I haven't checked in a while, but I didn't think there was one on the plan!

Things are coming along nicely anyway. I still think they're going to be pushing things to get everything finished this month, but I can always hope. The silver lining, as always, is that the longer it takes, the more money we'll have in our pocket when we're ready to go. Barring some horrible intervention, it will certainly be ready by December, when the contract stipulates it must be ready, and we start being in danger of missing out on the first home buyer's boost (touch wood). However, I'd be lying if I said I was happy at the prospect that we might have to wait longer than the end of August to move in.

Anyway, the completed skylights remind me of this track from the Blade Trinity soundtrack:

 I enjoyed it, even if it does sound like futuristic elevator music...

Anyway, I'm going to get back to enjoying a lazy quiet weekend - have been feeling under the weather all week, and I think being a hermit for a weekend is the only way to go.

I leave you with a little video a found care of Google Reader's recommended feeds. It's a video made by a student of the University of Hannover in Germany - check the original Vimeo post for the full details. Anyway, it's a CG projection of Super Mario Bros on to a wall.

Super Mario Bros. from Andreas Heikaus on Vimeo.

BIG BANG BIG BOOM

This was a lunch time Google Reader Play find - hasn't had a bajillion hits on YouTube yet, so I thought I'd repost it here. This is BIG BANG BIG BOOM, a wall-painted animation by artist Blu.

The YouTube description calls it "an unscientific point of view on the beginning and evolution of life ... and how it could probably end."

I like it, but I can't even begin to imagine how much time and paint went into it!

PS: no updates on the house, haven't had time to make it up to the site recently.

Entertainment, art and clothing

Having just handed over an exorbitant amount of money for stamp duty (that I wouldn't have to pay if I'd bought a house any where else in Australia), my mind has already turned to things that I want, but cannot afford to purchase at this juncture. Some of them may well still be mine in the future, some less so.

The first would be in the "probably not" category - the artwork of Shawn Smith - which was featured on Engadget Alt recently.

The two pieces pictured above are "Gemsbock" and "Re-kindling". I encourage you to check out some more of his work at his website. Shawn created these three dimensional versions of pixel art, which I've always rather enjoyed. I may even have blogged about it at some stage. Anyway, they look excellent. They seem to be mostly made of small painted wooden blocks.

The second item I was lusting after this morning is an AV receiver and some decent speakers. This are firmly on the list of things to buy when we move into the new place. I haven't really made a choice yet, and there are ongoing discussions with Dana about the aesthetic nature of such a purchase (she thinks they're ugly, whereas I think they're beautiful), but we'll get there in the end. Speaking of Dana, she's discovered the magic of RSS feeds and is now subscribed to this blog. Hi Dana!

Anyway, at the moment, I really like the options from Yamaha.

Pictured here is the YHT-694AU, which retails at around a grand. I'm hoping that discussions with Dana can be progressed by the smaller "bookshelf" style rear speaker, and the knowledge that the receiver and central speaker will probably be hidden by a TV unit. It remains to be seen if that will be a successful angle. Wish me luck.

The last is a very groovy t-shirt from Etsy store Happy Family featured on gizmodoAU (if memory serves me correctly, anyway) called "Robot and Triceratops.

Two mortal enemies, together at last. Not really much more to say on that one.

To round what has been a thoroughly nerdy post out, here's a rendition of the Tetris theme on bottles....

PS: I totally forgot to mention, the Fonzy and the Shark Jumpers, my netball team, had an epic victory last night. We are also pioneering a special move I like to call "the Shark Jump" where you do a cross between a star jump and an epileptic fit in front of the opposition if they get the ball. Go the Jumpers!

Couch update

We put some more thought into the couch situation on the weekend and visited a few stores. I'm much more positive about the whole thing. For starters, it looks like we could maybe still get the couch we wanted in the first place, but just in a slightly different configuration. Instead of the L shape with a two seater and a three seater arm, we could go down the parth of a three seater with a chaise on one site. This would still get quite a bit of seating (and crucially, allow 2 people to lie on it at the same time) and fit into our living room.

However, we also rather liked the alternatives available at King furniture as well. Those funky modular jobbies are actually looking rather attractive, especially with some of the cool fabrics they come in.

One thing is certain after the weekend's shopping - there are whole warehouses of terrible couches out there that I never want to go near. I think we've narrowed down the choices quite well, now it's just a matter of refining and ordering.

It has also not become apparent that there will be at least a six week wait between couch purchase and one turning up. This may put a crimp in our original plan not to order one until we move in...

Heh, crimp....

ELO rule

I was reminded at the pub the other night how much I love ELO. You should love them too.

Yeah.

Has everybody seen this or what? WHERE'S THE GODDAMN ARNIE AT?

I saw this in an ad this afternoon (well targeted, google ads) and it's blowing my mind. I don't know what to make of it.

I mean I'd heard they were remaking the original Predator with Adrien Brody instead of Arnie as Dutch, but had dismissed it as hyperbole. It seems like it's not a total remake, and I'm actually rather glad of that.

But holy crap! Lawrence Fishburn!? The "are you a mexi-can or a mexi-can't" dude (aka Danny Trego)? EPIC LOLS!

The best part? The cast list on IMDB lists characters called "Bezerker Predator Black Super" and "Dog Handler Super Predator".

HA!

PS: I'm a Mexi-can!!!