8 things about me meme

Patrick Games, General, Website News

I’ve been tagged by the 8 things about me meme thanks to Gerrod. The rules start something like this:

  • Each player must post these rules to begin the meme.
  • Each player starts with eight random facts or habits about themselves.
  • People who get tagged must blog about their eight things and post these rules.
  • At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.
  • Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

Not one for rules (and because this meme’s been going around for a while) not to mention that most people haven’t been following the last one, consider yourself tagged if you’re reading this and blog about it if you want to participate.

  1. My hair grows ridiculously long ridiculously quickly. This meant either very shaggy hair, or a haircut every two or three weeks. I always get comments about how quickly my hair grows out. I took nature’s hint and just let it grow.
  2. I had a shaved head in grade twelve. Of course, back to point 1, it was all fine by school formal later that year.
  3. I’m pretty disinterested when it comes to watching most movies, but I’ll always happily watch any horror or thriller movies when the opportunity presents itself.
  4. When I read a book, I generally don’t finish it all because it doesn’t interest me, or I have to read through it as fast as I can.
  5. I always carry a pen and paper with me (where it’s practical) everywhere I go, in the form of a Moleskine journal, or more recently the leather Ciak one that Suz and Al got me last year for Christmas. You never know when you will have a great idea and want to write it down.
  6. I went to my first memorable concert during my first year at work. Amber from uni invited me to see Endorphin at The Zoo in the Valley and since then, I’ve been addicted to seeing live acts where I can.
  7. I never thought I’d last more than two years in the same job for the same company. I’ve now been working for Thoughtworks for over three and a half.
  8. Despite considering myself a foodie, I don’t consider myself one of those foodie snobs. I think some people feel pressured to take me somewhere nice or cook over the top food, but I’m just as happy with what you might consider fairly ordinary food.

Facebooked

Patrick General, UK Life

I managed to miss the entire myspace thing probably due to generational things more so than anything, but it seems like the Facebook wave has hit me. I can definitely say I’m not (yet) addicted to it (I don’t have plans for installing the Facebook Firefox sidebar). In a good way, it’s at least put me in contact with people from school and University I’ve not chatted to for a while.

Exposed to iPhone-mania

Patrick General, Shopping

Last night I had a few people around at my flat for a bit of a catch up. Mike, currently visiting from over in the States, who’d recently bought an iPhone fortunately had it with him so we all got a little hands on sneak preview. Strangely he’s had to take the sim card out since they can’t disable global roaming at the moment and would cause his bill to sky rocket.

The iPhone looked a lot smaller than I imagined it would be, approximately the same size as the current standard iPod. The interface is simple, with a single button at the bottom and everything else controlled via either motion or touch sensors. Its interface is, for the most part, very intuitive. For example, unlocking the phone simply requires a finger drag from left to right across the “lock” icon displayed on the screen. Predictive text input is much more advanced, context sensitive if you’re web browsing or texting and autocorrecting based on the letters in the vicinity (and not just the buttons you pushed).

My most favourite bit was definitely when you put the phone into iPod mode. Turning the phone on its side turns it into a visual display of all the albums where you can flip through each and every one that’s currently on your phone. A flick of the finger moves either left or right, and a longer drag results in a much faster way of going through them all. Visually very satisfying!

I can’t say that I’m going to convert any time soon considering I’m pretty happy with my current phone and can’t really justify the premium.

It’s Only Been Just One Week On Holidays

Patrick Annoyances, General, Travel

I’ve been away for a week of skiing in Andorra and I’ve just spent the last hour or two fishing through the 120 built up emails in my gmail box, deleted the 150 or so spam emails in my work one, and then filtered another 200 or so work ones to determine which ones are worth catching up on. I haven’t even had a chance to hit my regular must read blogs, let alone catching up on my own entries. More to come though…

Five Things Meme

Patrick General

Late in the blog tagging rounds… here’s five things you may or may not know about me (courtesy of Mike Roberts):

  1. I speak more Japanese (which is not that much) than I can either Tagalog/Filipino (where I was born) or Chinese (my ancestry).
  2. I have really flat feet and a podiatrist in Brisbane told me I’d never win a marathon. I like to think that these help me swim at least.
  3. If I didn’t become a software developer and agile coach, I probably would have been an accountant. Did you know that there is such a thing as forensic accounting?
  4. I’m only in my second professional job ever.
  5. I’ve had long hair for four years now.

And so I pass this strange token to the following people: Stickfly, Gerrod, Christine, Dan North, and newcomer to the blogosphere… Oikos.