Leopard added support for recording video through photo booth, as Ben discovered tonight.

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Well, I still get a lot of spam – around 60 messages a day – but GMail is still doing a good job of filtering it out for me, so most of it skips past my inbox. Today however, one message got through – but it actually made me laugh! Check it:

Of course there was then a bunch of links where I could “read more” about the “outstanding” singer’s death, but I gave them all a miss.

Last night I was watching Doom – which, not surprisingly, was terrible, though I thought the scene where he effectively becomes the guy in the game was quite amusing. Anyway, despite how bad the movie was, I couldn’t help but thinking how great movies are when they’re shot in widescreen mode.

So this got me thinking, what if you could spend your whole life in widescreen mode? Figuring that having your eyes fully opened equates to fullscreen, I tried half-closing my eyes, which eliminates the top and bottom 15% or so of my vision. And to my delight, this was like having the two black bars at the top and bottom of the TV moved to my eyes, which gives a wonderful, widescreen effect!

It also has the added bonus of making my eyes look less puffy. Yep, I think this is definitely how life was meant to be lived. I think I’m going to try and use widescreen mode as much as possible, and see if it catches on!

Cathy and Jeremy had us over for dinner tonight, and as always it was a pleasure to see them and their kids. Jade (4 years old) is currently seeking sponsorship for a fun-run she is doing at our local YMCA, so Kristy and I sprung a ten for her single lap around the running track.

Since it seems like quite good money to me (it’s a really, really short running track) I asked Jade, “So, since I’m putting up ten dollars, do you think you can win the race for me?”

Jade looked at me blankly for a second, and then in her fairly thick kiwi accent replied with: “look – I wrapped my pen in a piece of paper!”

Kids. You gotta love ‘em.

Click here.

I’ve heard a few corkers today…

• “If you have skin, you need this product.”
• “And remember. Babies are portable, so you can carry them to the telephone.”
• “You’re pretty and all, but frankly your look is a bit too ‘Gold Coast’.”

I’m sure you can guess which one was an Aussie programme!

There must be a rule in journalism that says, “if you include a live report, it makes the story more credible/easy to relate to/accurate/etc”. Every time we watch the WB11 morning news, they always (and I really mean always here) have a reporter live at a scene of something-or-other.

Sometimes the live at the scene reports are fantastic. Like a couple days back, when the Roosevelt Island Trams (think: cable cars) stalled half-way through their journey, and police had to rescue the 68 passengers aboard (over a period of 11 hours) – their on-the-spot coverage really gave you a sense of the chaos at the scene. Great!

However, sometimes the shot is… well, not so effective. Like today for example – there’s a looming threat of a doorman strike. At midnight tonight, it’s more than likely that doormen across the city will be standing down from their posts. So to report this breaking news, Julie Chang was live on the scene, outside a rather nondescript building awning.

Or, if it’s a particularly cold day you can expect, “we’re coming to you live from the scene right now, where Julie Chang is standing on the street to show you just how many coats people are wearing”. Or when there’s something important happening in (say) China, you can be assured that they’ve secured a great broadcasting post, live from across the street from the Chinese embassy – which, at that time of the morning, is closed.

The thing that makes it so strange, is that they’re always so serious about it. Then again, that’s also what makes it so funny. Keep up the great work, WB11!

Quote of the day today goes to the Corel corporation for this brilliant one-liner about using their Wordperfect MAIL software.

Change your outlook. Classic.

There are some things that are just plain tricky to explain to these Americans. Especially when they can’t understand your accent.

My recent fave was the confused look I got for (apparently) mentioning “tall puppy syndrome” to a woman from Nashville who, incidentally, owns a rather short dog: a miniature dachshund.

I assure you I said “tall poppy syndrome”. I eventually spelled it out to get my point across. Once we’d overcome that hurdle, I tried explaining the concept. Her rather astute response surprised me… “So where’s the motivation to do well in Australia?”

With Kristy’s birthday pending (2nd of October, as you all knew) the topic of birthday presents naturally arose in conversation the other day. This year has been a hard one for present shopping; we’ve basically gone all year buying only the things we need, and splurging on some things that we want every now and then too. Without too many shopping sessions together, there hasn’t been many opportunities to pick up on subtle hints about things that we’d each like to purchase.

As such, I was kind-of short on ideas for presents for my wife. Talking about it, I realised that I was further down the tube than previously thought. You see, women want something personal for their birthday. They want an experience – dinner at their favourite restaurant, followed by a movie. And not just any movie; one that they’ll like (i.e. one without the words “death”, “alien”, “battle”, “robot”, “nightmare”, “exorcism” etc. in the title). Or perhaps a trip to their favourite chocolate shop, with a home-made gift voucher which informs them to spend until their chocolate loving heart is content. But most importantly – it’s what you say that counts. A lovely card, a heartfelt poem (note: inspiration from Bec is not advised), or a dedication over a toast of champagne. It all comes down to making them believe that you put some thought into personalising your gift to them.

So here’s the problem; boys don’t want to do that for girls, because boys don’t want that for themselves. Note well here ladies – men don’t want you to spend hours baking their name in heart shaped chocolates; though I’m sure they’d enjoy eating them, the sentiment is lost. Boys want something to do. Something to play with. Most importantly, boys need to have something they can show off to all their mates, preferrably by dropping (not so) subtle hints such as, “guys you’ll have to talk a bit louder to me today, I’ll have some trouble hearing you over my new iPod nano.”

So, with my number one present for Kristy obviously being a new gadget, I am suddenly left in the position of not knowing how to supplement it with the personal touch. Oh well, still have 6 days to go, I’m sure I’ll think of something…