While playing with Facebook Chat I wondered if it supported emoticons. Turns out it does. But when I tried the >:-) emoticon (a ‘devil’) and saw it printed as boring text, I wondered, “what smilies does facebook actually support?” So with the help of Safari and some javascript hacking I present to you a complete list of facebook emoticons. smile :-) :) :] =) frown :-( :( :[ =( tongue :-P :P :-p :p =P grin :-D :D =D gasp :-O :O :-o :o wink ;-) ;) glasses 8-) 8) B-) B) sunglasses 8-| 8| B-| B| grumpy >:( >:-( unsure :/ :-/ :\ :-\ cry :’( devil 3:) 3:-) angel O:) O:-) kiss :-* :* heart <3 kiki ^_^ squint -_- confused o....

Just saw this awesome interview with Rick Astley on the LA Times where he comments on the “rickrolling” internet meme he is at the centre of. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the concept of “rickrolling” check out this enlightening introductory article explaining what it is.

I love music and the internet has certainly fostered that love. No longer do I have to depend just on the radio, friendly recommendations and music-store-serendipity to find music I might like. With the Internet I can now pull up an artist’s bio, scan through a complete discography, sample their music, listen to similar artists, and then buy the single song I was looking for. So I thought I’d share some of the sites that I’ve found and use regularly (see below). You probably know some of them already, but if I missed one, leave it in the comments. ...

I started work late last year for a company based in St Leonards. This means everyday I spend over an hour each direction in transit as I travel to and from home in Sutherland. This now affords me a very significant amount of time disconnected from the Internet and somewhat alone. Now instead of frittering away such time studying the many details of the scenery passing by the carriage window, I have decided instead to spend it reading. Real books that is, not magazines nor MX. It is one of my resolutions this year to spend more money on books than DVDs and CDs, and more time reading than watching television. Therefore my goal is to complete 48 books in 12 months (i.e. 4 a month). A book generally counts if it has more than 75 pages with a standard word density per page - so no children’s books or comics. There is no limitation on genre which means all topics and styles are readable. The primary reason for this undertaking, apart from occupying my train time, is to stimulate my mind. Reading a book requires a mental investment far beyond that demanded by TV and the internet. It forces you to participate in ways like grappling with the author’s reasoning, or through the images evoked in the imagination, or also through the comprehension of new knowledge or a new paradigm. It’s impossible to passively read a book and so I’m hoping to have mind broadened. Another reason is that I am no longer content to leave culture defining literature unread. Many times I have been told of a book worth reading but only got so far as thinking I should read it. No more. If a book is worth reading I am determined to read it. So that is the challenge. Right now I have completed 6 books and am about to complete the 7th. Only 41 to go.

I’ve been doing some photo uploading. Kim Mansfield’s farewell at Coledale a couple of weeks ago: Dragon boat racing, which my flatmate James was competing in:

Saturday night was the relaunch of Rev for Menai Anglican Church, our young adults group. This album has some higher quality photos taken on Saturday night. More Photos…

In an effort to reduce the noise in my inbox I have closed my long standing email address: [email protected]. As far as free email services go it has served me well. It gave me free POP3 email and wasn’t hotmail at a time when it was king and free POP3 services were rare. Since then free webmail has changed dramatically. Google came along and gave enormous storage and a good interface and made everyone else pick up their game. I’m not sad to see this address go. It was always a temporary stop gap until I bought my own domain and it had become so overrun with spam. It has served me well for the nearly 5 years I’ve had it.

For those who care my blog is now running on Drupal 5.7 instead of the v4.5 it was on before. Amusingly enough v6.0 is almost out now. Comments have been broken and should be working again now. Most of the site is the same except a few small look and feel changes. The new version allows me a little more flexibility which I’d like to try out, so things might change over the next few months a bit more dramatically....

New Year’s Resolutions tend to be given a rough treatment by society. The popular expectation is that no one will succeed at anything they label a new year’s resolution. However despite knowing this people continue to set resolutions. I suspect the idea of self improvement is so desirable it leads people to make resolutions. But it seems the idea of self improvement is desirable only until the point of first failure, after which we try to ignore our lonely goal while it follows us around, nagging loudly, until we give it another chance at the next New Year celebration. People really need to learn to factor failure into their resolution setting, and make the end of the year the deadline - not the 2nd of January.

So over New Years a few of us travelled to Victoria for some fun. New Years Eve in Melbourne, hot days traveling the Great Ocean Road, climbing over the Grampians, cheese and wine at sunset, great Indian food in Benalla and much silliness throughout it all. My Photos: The long awaited video clip (thanks Mitch for the editing):