Groovey Yellow Keepon Robot in Spoon video

Hamutsun Serve: Popping Duo from Japan

3 days till holidays!

that's right, you read correctly, I'm off on holidays soon. One glorious week sans work!
Myself, my lovely girlfriend, and ours friends Chris and Ronnie are going to Thailand.
It's going to be brilliant. All I have to do is not kill myself with work beforehand.

I spend some time on Sunday designing some new blog headers. They're based on the city view of KL from my apartment window. Technically it's actually the view away from the city, but you know what I mean. If you hit in your browser I think there's a 30% chance you'll see one. 30% depending on how random the random function is in javascript, which is probably not that random at all.

We've got Rick from our Sydney office visiting us for most of this week. Sounds like there are going to be some very significant changes in our department, but without saying too much, I think they're going to be a really good thing. More details as they come to hand.

Not that much else new to report from KL, I haven't been going out at all recently as I've been saving my pennies for this trip [and trying not to completely break the bank in the process], although there have been the necessary splurges on dvd's and the like.

I, like apparently most people, have recently joined up with Facebook and I'm amazed by the number of people I've been able to re-establish contact with. Still almost no-one from my hometown of Leeton, which is a bit of a pity. Hi Tammy, if you're reading.

I've really got to get back to Leeton next time I'm in Australia, it's been about 8 years since I've been back, which is waaay too long, even for a place I really couldn't wait to leave when I was 18. Leeton seems tremendously far away when you're sitting in your little apartment in hot, humid Kuala Lumpur.

Things that have made me laugh recently:

..the local [chinese?] breakfast-cereal-in-a-cup, Chlorella, not to be confused of course with Cholera, the insidious disease that causes massive diarrhea, and kills millions of people each year. Bad marketing? You betcha.

Awesome rotating canvas paint jam!

overview of the Chinese Technology Cloning Industry

"In 2006, NEC, one of the 25 biggest consumer-electronics firms in the world, went public with the results of a two-year investigation. The company had been receiving complants about products it didn't even make: DVD players, cellphones, MP3 players.

Investigators from International Risk, a private security firm employed by NEC, ultimately uncovered a shadow version of the company operating out of corporate offices in China, with ties to more than 50 manufacturing facilities.

"On the surface, it looked like a series of intellectual-property infringements, but in reality a highly organized group has attempted to hijack the entire brand," says Steve Vickers, the former Hong Kong police inspector who was in charge of the investigation for International Risk.

Executives had their own NEC business cards and e-mail addresses. They had marketing plans and distribution networks in place. Some "company" facilities even had electronic signs bearing huge, lighted NEC logos. Most bold of all, the bogus NEC actually charged the manufacturers it worked with royalties on its designs."

.. Read the full article