Lads, are you constantly frustrated that your razorblades don’t stay sharp for more than a few shaves? Ladies, are you constantly frustrated that your better halves (c’mon, you know it’s true) don’t shave often enough? If you answered “yes” to either of these questions, then I have to say: RazorPit is for you!

The idea is simple – properly cleaning and sharpening your blades after use will extend their life, and that’s precisely what RazorPit does. Using it is pretty simple too – first, put down a layer of your shaving foam/gel onto the surface (I just wipe off the inevitable blob of excess gel that is left on my hand after applying to my face). Then, once you’ve finished your shave, push your razor firmly against the surface, then stroke “upwards” (i.e. in the opposite direction to what you’d use for shaving). Repeat three times, wash the blade, and you’re done!

I have to admit that I was already getting decent life out of my razors simply by drying them after use; however, since getting the RazorPit the blades are obviously sharper, and do a easier/better job of shaving. Seriously, it’s such a great product, and it’s so cheap, you should definitely get yourself one! And no, I do not get any commission from sales!

Yes, it was an exciting weekend, because I bought some new shoes.

Not being a big fan of shoe shopping, and having decided (after about half a day of wear) that the gray ones were about as comfortable as a pair of shoes could be, I lashed out and bought a second pair of new shoes. Better still – the black and white ones were on special, so I saved myself $20!

That’ll be going straight into the new PS3 fund, me thinks!

How delighted I was to come home on Monday to find that a small red and white packet had been delivered to our door!

Now truth be told, I had very much been looking forward to this packet’s arrival. See, when I left the UK, I traded in a bunch of stuff at Game in exchange for a credit voucher, which I was assured could be redeemed online. Of course, skip forward a few months to when I try and redeem said voucher, and what do I find in the fine print?

Trade in credit vouchers cannot be redeemed online.

Suffice to say, this did not impress me one iota, but I wasn’t going to let them get the better of me. Instead, I sent the card over to trusty friend Amjad (who I worked with at Lloyds) back in old Blighty, with clear instructions of how it should be spent. And so, after what seemed like an eternity of waiting (anything more than about 7 minutes seems like an eternity when I’m waiting for new games), it was here!

But wait! What’s this?

A care package! Inconspicuously disguised as a very well wrapped parcel of games! Make no mistake, part of the care package was indeed the games which I have long desired, and I suspect that I’ll soon be losing many evenings to Killzone 3 and Need for Speed Hot Pursuit. But our care parcel also contained some lovely new clothes for Oscar, and a microplane grater for our kitchen. Very nice! Finally I can make that butter chicken recipe that Amjad gave me many moons ago…

Thanks Amjad – love your work!

When we were living in the UK and we met up with visitors from Brisbane, we’d inevitably ask them, “So, how’s Brisbane going?”. And nearly always, the response that we received was one of two things; either: “Really boring since you guys left”, or, “Oh, the traffic is absolutely shocking!”.

We’ve done what we can to remedy both of these complaints though. Obviously the first one was pretty easy to solve, and our arrival on the 10th of August certainly brightened the city up; I’m sure the Lord Mayor will be presenting us with some sort of welcome home pack – perhaps a key to the city – any day now.

To help with the second issue – and also after some fairly heavy convincing by Ben and Jason – I decided to get a scooter for my daily commute. Did I also mention that I can park the scooter at work for free, as opposed to paying $8 a day for a car?

In Queensland, you’re allowed to ride a 50cc scooter with only a driver’s licence; but for anything higher, you need a bike licence (auto or manual). The training time is the same for both, so I signed up for a two day course, and after two days I had my motorbike licence!

It was a bit of a debate then as to whether I should get a motorbike (manual) or a scooter (automatic); I went with a scooter in the end simply because for the most part, I’ll be riding it in traffic, and constantly shifting gears on a motorbike is a bit pesky. That, and I was rubbish at hill starts! And so, I’m now the proud owner of a brand new Piaggio Fly 150 – not the one you see here, that was the test ride model. Mine is black!

Today was my first day riding to work, and for the most part it went quite well. Unfortunately, the scooter had some teething difficulties in the cold, whereby every time I came to a stop, the engine stalled! I took it in to the service department this morning, and they adjusted the idle mix (whatever that means). That seemed to fix the problem, at the time, but unfortunately, the scooter still stalled a couple of times when I started my commute home this afternoon. After the engine warmed up, it ran smoothly for the rest of the journey home, so hopefully it was just getting it out of its system or something.

Fingers crossed that it doesn’t stall tomorrow on the North Pine / Beckett / Queen’s Road roundabout like it did this morning!

Anyone who has ever heard me ramble on about speakers would know that I’ve been wanting to invest in some for ages. So much so, that when we were budgeting our money before our return to Australia, there was a line-item specifically in there for “speakers”.

And so, as of last week (yes, another new addition last week!) our lounge room is now home to a set of Sonique speakers, and they’re awesome! Specifically, we’ve got:

• Two SAV 4 SE floorstanding main speakers;
• A SAV C1 SE centre speaker, wall mounted above the TV;
• Two SAV DB1 surround speakers, wall mounted behind the couch; and
• A Thunderbox subwoofer, tucked away in the corner.

Movie nights are going to be amazing when our TV finally arrives from the UK!

Yesterday I was sporting my new t-shirt as gifted to me for Christmas, by Brother Jason and Sister-in-law Susan. Now, I had thought that the shirt was fairly self explanatory, and yet you’d be surprised at how many people asked me, “what does that shirt mean?”. (Truth be told – it was only three people which isn’t actually all that many, but there were a lot of confused looks. I’m sure they all wanted to ask.)

If you too are in the latter group of people who are a wee-bit confused by the shirt and afraid to make it known to the world – it’s a take-off from the iPhone’s “Battery Dead, plug into power” screen, only instead of a battery, it’s a cup of coffee, and instead of a plug, it’s a pot of coffee.

Thanks Jason and Susan!

Does this look like a happy face to you? Indeed it is! I went to the dentist, fearing the worst after not having been in two years. But it seems I’m in the clear, though I’m not sure if that’s because my teeth are ok or because the English dentist didn’t want to be too heavy handed and intervene. ‘Best to leave things to nature’, was the distinct impression I got from him.

I also recently collected these new sunnies from the optometrist. I’ve been without prescription sunglasses for a few years, thinking it would be a waste of money if I ever got up the nerve to have laser surgery. The optometrist recently told me that I wasn’t a good candidate for surgery, so I rushed out and bought these babies. I had a rather comical discussion with the dispensing dude about the type of lens I should get. He was recommending a lightweight lens over a darker finish that cut out more light. The minute I mentioned Australia, he changed his tune and decided I needed whatever sun protection he could possibly offer. He’s never been to Aus, but word of our powerful rays had seemingly made an impression on him.

I cannot overstate how excited I am to be able to see outdoors again. And how relieved I am not to need dental work. So bring on the sunny days and sugary sorbet!

For about as long as I can remember, or at the very least, since a few weeks ago, I’ve been wanting to build a Media Centre PC. It’s not the easiest thing to research – there’s a few places where you can buy something “out of the box”, but I couldn’t find any that would put a machine together out of the pieces I wanted. So, I finally bit the bullet, bought all the bits, and put it together myself!

I’ve never actually put a computer together from scratch before, so I was a little intimidated. The thing I was most worried about was the CPU, as there’s so many things that can go wrong with it. For example, if you don’t have enough thermal paste between the CPU and the heatsync, and it can overheat, burn out, and potentially damage the motherboard as well. Ironically, if you have too much thermal paste, the same thing can happen!

There were a few other gotchas as well, like just trying to get everything to fit. It’s a fairly large case, but due to the way it’s “zoned” (which helps with cooling), there’s not a lot of space for all the cables to fit in. Plus, I made a few n00b mistakes, such as not attaching both power connectors to the motherboard, and then wondering why nothing happened when I powered on.

But after a few false starts, I finally had everything up and running! Here’s the final product – as you can see, the machine fits perfectly into our existing TV cabinet:

The only thing that I couldn’t get working properly was the sound. I was relying on the sound from the motherboard, but as it turns out there’s no optical output. So after a number of frustrating hours trying to get that working, I’ve given up and ordered a Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Audio card instead. Awesome!

Update: The new audio card has arrived, and has been installed. Just wish I got this one in the first place, it would have saved a lot of headaches!

When we went to Prague recently, we didn’t bother checking any luggage since we were only there for the weekend. Instead, Kristy shoved all her clothes into a little backpack, and I took along my bulky old Targus Matrix backpack. Since you’re only allowed to have one carry on bag when departing from Heathrow, and the Targus bag was the only one which fitted my camera bag in it, I didn’t really have much choice.

Unfortunately, even though it’s a huge bag, the compartmentalisation is terribly done, so it fills up quickly without holding a lot of stuff. Well, the Prague trip was the final straw – I was on the hunt for a new bag!

Crumpler had a few backpacks in contention, until I found the Oakley Surf Pack 3.0, and instantly knew it was a winner. It’s such a cool bag! Firstly, it looks cool – at least I think so anyway. Secondly, the laptop sleeve has both top AND side access. And thirdly, the main compartment is exactly that – one big main compartment. Even when the camera bag is inside of it, there’s still a heap of room for clothes to be packed on top. And finally, the bag has lots of side pockets for easy access to cables and accessories, and even came with a clear plastic passport case, and a spare Oakley bag! Best of all, I think the bag is an end-of-line model, so I got it for an absolute bargain!

I love backpacks almost as much as I love watches (though I have no idea why…), and I think this one has already become the new favourite.

A massive fanks goin’ out to ma main man Karl, who be sendin’ me a wicked good package in va post! I was well surprised to come ‘ome today and find maself a nice, soppin wet pacakge from va States. Lucky for me, va rain didn’t be doin nuffin to va contents of va package, so it’s well good!

Va package be containin some Reeces cups, which is me favorit chocolates, and which I’m well missin’ since leavin va states. Also, a wicked new shirt, from Va Macchiato Cafe, our old coffee joint in va Big Apple. And just for a bit of a teesa, Karl be throwin in a little servie from Chipotle, which I’m well missin’ since departin from da US. Nice!

I’ll fink I’ll be wearin’ ma new tee ta work tomorrah! Fanks again Karl, very nice!