One Good Eye

Well, I was just thinking about this today and it looks like Facebook now allows you to update your status via RSS…….which means that finally people will know when I have put something up here, and also that a lot of you will be bombarded by TWITS (people that use twitter to “livetweet” dropping their kids off to school, school running carnivals, dances, presentations and the rest of their inane lives that no one really cares about……if I cared, I’d follow you on twitter, NOT facebook…..phew, glad thats out of my system) .

I know most of you reading this are technical luddites, and I mean no disrespect, but when I talk to most of you about RSS, most of you think I’ve made a typo spelling ass or something, anyhow lets see if this appears on my facebook status.

Kirk Nesbitt Announcements Facebook, RSS

In a recent google search I found that you can run the following command to fix up corrupted zip files

zip -F “filename.zip”

I have been on the download marathon, I’ve currently pulled down around 20GB of VMWare images for work, so that I can do some prep / study in the few weeks that I am home, and surprise surprise one of the 5gb zip files is corrupt!

Happily it looks like the above command has saved the day and my download quota.

Kirk Nesbitt Computers Computers, Linux, tips

QANTAS and I have been married for almost 10 years now.  We started out with short trips over to New Zealand, a few domestic runs between SYD, CBR and MEL and the odd weekend sojourn to Asia.  Like any relationship it was great at the start, QANTAS couldn’t do enough for me, extra legroom, no problem, upgrades not a drama, points bonuses…absolutely and special meals, every single flight.  We decided to take it to the next level and throw in a few trips to SIN, HKG, PEK, BKK and even LAX, LHR and BOS.

As the years flew by, I think QANTAS and I become complacent, we stopped working on our relationship and it just sort of stalled.  We settled down to the day to day drudgery of CBR, MEL, SYD, BNE and back again.

We took some time out in 2004, and I tried a relationship with V-Line, I realised I was a fool and that QANTAS had more to offer, so we soon got back to our international routes and for a while, life was good again, a new honeymoon phase if you will.  The break reinvigorated us both, it gave me hope for a bright future together again.

But, lately I’ve been getting frustrated, I am working hard in the relationship, showing commitment above and beyond what should be expected, but I get nothing in return, I fear that the thrill has gone, QANTAS has become cold, somewhat distant, we are in a rut, but once you are both comfortable, it seems too hard to find someone new, familiarity breeds complacency, but there must be more to life than this?

I’ve been traveling in Asia, I’ve been lonely.  One day, at the airport, Cathay Pacific caught my eye, it’s younger, hotter, available and Asian…….and therefore unexplored, exotic and mysterious.  Since I was away from QANTAS, I decided what the hell and I hooked up with Cathay.  A holiday fling if you please.

With Cathay, it’s like it was with QANTAS in the early days, extra legroom no problem, meals from business class in economy, absolutely, Cathay even lets me sneak on extra luggage AND calls me by name, QANTAS just doesn’t do that anymore.  Cathay can’t get enough of me, Cathay makes me feel young and important again.

Now I am torn.  Can I throw away what I have built with QANTAS over the last 10 years, I have spent years building points and status, but it just seems so fresh and great again with Cathay, that I am prepared to walk away from all those years of marriage with QANTAS, throw caution to the wind and chase Cathay to the far east.

There just seems to be so much more action for me in Asia, if it doesn’t work out with Cathay, I can always try JAL, Thai or Singapore.  All these airlines can’t seem to get enough of me, I’m getting more attention than an overweight old balding man in a Bangkok bar, it’s unbelievable how popular with all the airlines I am up here, QANTAS I want to love you, but how can you compete with all of these exotic beauties that give me nothing but attention and flattering comments, surely they love me for me and are not simply after my money.

If I am lucky and play my cards right, I may get to have a crack at Virgin!!!

Sir Richard, if you read this, can I have a job doing something or other?  I can work with Oliver Beale.

Kirk Nesbitt Airlines Airlines, Travel

What can I say about snow, pretty for 10 minutes, annoying and shitty for the remainder of the time it hangs around.  Especially if you can’t ski on it.

This morning, in Beijing we had a good dusting of snow, 20 – 30 cm’s in fact.  Being from Australia, it was only the third time that I had seen it actually snowing.  You see, in Australia, we have mountains, some would even call them alps, but our “alps” are usually covered in 50 cm of hard white slush that every wannabee with a Volvo, a ski rack and some snow chains seems to get mildly excited about each winter.  I say bugger that and fly to New Zealand, where they have REAL snow…….but I digress.

Snow sucks, because it made me fall over.  I was walking into work, stopped to take a photo and down I went, I fell on my laptop, which now has a bent chassis, however as a testament to IBM engineering, that was sold to Lenovo, the old T60p, takes a licking and keeps on ticking, even after being crushed under the hip of a Large Lumbering Western Giant.

Snow, is apparently a rare event in Beijing due to the dry climate, so you can imagine how “great” it made traffic and getting around.  Drivers here just dont seem to comprehend how to modify their driving technique, speed, or distance to other cars, be it snowing, torrential rain or sandstorms.  For example leaving work at around 11:30pm, we turn onto a secondary road, only to hit a patch of black ice and perform a slow and graceful full 180.  Much hilarity ensued, however I think mine was more nervous laughter.  This same peanut, whilst driving slowly, did manage to overtake a truck with no lights, on a blind corner, under a darkened bridge, whilst it was snowing, at midnight and none of us were wearing seatbelts, because they were not installed in the back!

No one owns snow tires, chains or the ability to drive properly in icy conditions.  I had one driver still thinking he could drive at 110 KMPH in snow!  You’ll be happy to know that when I thought I was telling him to slow down in Mandarin……I find out later It actually means speed up!  For any Chinese or non Chinese Mandarin speaking smartarses I was saying “Ni Kai Che Hun Mun”, can’t be arsed putting in the tones, figure it out for yourselves!

Here are some photo’s of snow that all look the same.  Enjoy!

12►

Kirk Nesbitt Beijing

It’s been well over 40°C all week here in Melbourne, it’s the largest heatwave since records began in 1855. Today topped out at 45.1°C.  Respite may be coming tomorrow, in that it may get down to a rather more “palatable” 37°C.  Half a million homes are without power as the grid struggles to cope with all of the air conditioners, coolers and fans people have cranked, the trains are running at reduced capacity, people were trapped in lifts due to the power outages, traffic lights were out in the City, shopping centres are packed as people flock there for the cool, 30,000 people went to the beach last night, the pokies at Crown lost power and even my Yuccas are struggling………we are basically in meltdown.

Melting in Melbourne's Biggest Ever Heatwave

For you US folks yet to discover the joys of the Metric system, here’s a handy table to let you work out how hot it REALLY was in Fahrenheit……

Kirk Nesbitt Melbourne Melbourne

OK…….Just to put this in context, I have seen more totally weird shit in Singapore in the last two weeks, than I did living in Shanghai for 8 months.  Maybe it’s a different kind of weird, maybe 8 months in China totally de-sensitized me to the “little differences” that would be as obvious as a smack in the face with a wet newspaper to a total China newbie, but here in OneGoodEye, I bring you a new kind of strange.

Fish Day Spa

What is Fish Day Spa, I hear you ask?  Well for $SGD 28, you submerge your legs in a communal tank filled to bursting with Doctor Fish (Garra Ruffa) that attach to your body like Remoras, cleansing you of dead skin cells and unwanted toe jam, leaving your legs glowing with youthful beauty and your mind wondering where and when you will develop your next fungal infection.

Stunt Feet with Doctor Fish

Not my feet….lifted from this informative Wikipedia article

Kirk Nesbitt Singapore

I can’t even type……….just see the picture.

Kickapoo - People drink it

Kirk Nesbitt Singapore Singapore

We caught a cab from the “Roxy” on Friday night down to Boat Quay for a few beers and to catch the F1 Vibe.

Now for those that are not in the know, the Roxy is located right near The Paramount, which is the sort of place if you’ve had one too many Singapore Slings you’re likely to wake up with a crisply ironed copy of the Straights Times on your lap………it’s a classy classy joint.

Anyhow after approaching a cab out front and being told to “hurry up…..don’t waste time lah” as we were all getting in…..whilst the guy was driving off, I knew we were in for an interesting ride.  After the usual spiel of how the F1 Grand Prix will be the ruin of the Singapore economy, because trade is down in the Suntec City Mall for all of 3 days and that the city is now full of “jams” the conversation turned decidedly “blue”.

According to our cabbie, there is a linkage between the Singapore grand prix, world oil prices and……wait for it….the price of “pussy” (his words, not mine).  Yes, our cabbie proudly informs us that not only does he fork over the princely sum of $SGD 50 per month for some “love you long time”……he goes into excruciating detail of his sexual prowess…….”I’m a diesel motor lah…..I take a long time to get warmed up…….but once I am going I get good fuel economy lah………I can go a long long time lah”.

At this point I can’t decide if the traffic jams in Singapore due to the grand prix road closures are a blessing or a curse…..where else am I going to get entertaining content for the blog, oh and ladies, because of the grand prix, and world oil prices Mr Diesel Motor can’t afford to indulge once a month………so form an orderly queue.

Oh and to add to this weirdness, I saw Ace of Base sing “All That She Wants”…….live…….I had a flash back to my 1993 school formal.

Trust me, I couldn’t make this stuff up!

Kirk Nesbitt Singapore Singapore, taxi

Back home and it feels great!

Catching up with friends, wandering around in the crisp Melbourne weather, drinking good coffee and tasting the sheer freshness and quality of food here is amazing.  It’s cliche and trite, but Australia is a truly amazing country.  Although, I will miss China.

Keep your eye’s peeled though, as I plan on putting up more photo’s and a few more retro posts that I never got around to writing.

Kirk Nesbitt Announcements

Well, If your all wondering what goes on in the womens toilets, and at the same time what the Grammy award winning, American pop/rock band Toto have been doing since Africa was released, feast your eyes on the photo below, snapped by my lovely blogging assistant Tanya.

The Toto Toilet Control System

If you don’t believe your eye’s or are just dying to experience “Wand Cleaning” first hand, then get yourself to the QANTAS Club lounge at Pudong Airport T2.  After a good old fashioned “Wand Cleanse”, you may opt to warm up with some “soft” rear cleansing, chuck in some oscillation and pulsation and finalize with some “Hard” rear cleansing for dessert.  There’s even a “Front Cleansing” for those that like it moist and for those that want to feel a toilets warm breath on their nether regions, we have “Dryer”.

It looks like it even does forward and reverse, and if my eye’s aren’t deceiving me……..is that an iPod dock in the top left……..you be the judge.

Oh and if you weren’t laughing out loud already…..Tanya tells me that Toto’s “Africa” was playing as soft soothing background music…..for real.

Toto…..their future’s so bright…..they have to wear shades….

Toto

Kirk Nesbitt Shanghai