People often say that the years go faster as you get older and I can definately attest to that fact. It seems like only yesterday we were celebrating Christmas, and yet here we are counting down toward the end of the year again. I’ts been a while since my last post due to everything being pretty hectic (when isn’t it though). On the good news front I have finished uni exams which means I am on “holidays”, these “holidays” however have been generously filled by Safeway with more shifts.

One thing that is looming on the technology front is the release of the new 3G iPhone. For those of you who know me well, you will also now that I was very critical of the original iPhone (I mean seriously what company launches a ’state of the art’ phone that is only 2G?), however now that the 3G iPhone is on the horizon I must say I want one. The reasons are simple, I prefer ease of use and practicality over stupid features that your never going to use (eg. Video Calling which I have done once in the past 2 years). During my limited time off from work today I went into a T-Life store (Telstra’s version of an Apple Store) and had a play round with the new release phones including some of the touch screen models. I must say after playing around with them, nothing compares with the ease of use that the iPhone has.

So like many other people who are into technology I am eagerly awaiting the release of pricing from the mobile carriers (I was pretty impressed with Telstra’s to be honest).

My trusty Nokia 6288 died on Friday for no apparent reason. After spending the day trying to resurrect the thing I concluded that I would have to replace it. So yesterday I went to Big W and bought the cheapest ‘3′ phone I could find which turned out to be the Skype phone. I am actually pretty impressed with the Skype phone, although it is harder to use than my Nokia. The phone cost me just under $130 which I thought was pretty good, especially since its RRP is $149.

Other than my new phone nothing overly exciting has happened at all over the weekend, not that I have had much of a weekend with work and all. Although on Friday I did get to supervise the GAT at Haileybury which was alright, though I must say the only thing more boring than doing the GAT is watching people do the GAT.

Also Happy Birthday to Luke who turns 19 today.

Well as some of you already know my recent house moving has meant that running network cable to connect my computer to the internet is no longer feasible. So on Thursday night I went and purchased a Netgear wireless card for my desktop computer. So after setting it all up on Saturday afternoon I found that I could receive very little wireless signal. So after testing the signal with the laptop I found that I should be getting a strong signal. So basically I concluded that it was the Netgear wireless card that was the problem, so I returned the card back to JB Hi-Fi who gave me a refund (now try and get that on ebay) and then proceeded to give me a discount on the D-Link card which made it roughly the same price as the Netgear one. So the D-Link card is working very well (with an “Excellent” wireless signal) and I strongly discourage anyone from buying a Netgear product (look them up on the internet, they have nothing but bad reviews, especially the product I purchased) and I would certainly encourage people to shop at JB Hi-Fi who have been nothing but understanding and helpful through this whole ordeal and it is their service (particularly when their is a problem) that makes me shop at their store rather than saving a few dollars by going on eBay (which in this case would have cost me money).

Well 2007 has finally ended and what a year it has been. It amazes me just how fast 2007 went, it seems like it was only yesterday that I was recapping 2006. So here’s what happened in my life in 2007.

• Turned 18 (probably the biggest thing to happen)
• Subsequently went to Crown and a great time was had by all (you all know the story)
• Got my license (again a very big thing)
• Began, and successfully completed Year 12
• Graduated from Haileybury.
• Went to the Year 12 Formal
• My Great Grandmother passed away
• Had a fantastic year as a School Prefect and Vice Captain of Editorial
• Bought an iPod (who’d of thought!)
• Also bought a GPS (yeah I know it was only a couple of days ago but it was a highlight of 2007)
• Went to the Boxing Day Test
• Drastically improved this blog by getting a domain name, a host and moving it to the Wordpress platform
• Went to Sydney to visit my brother and see the city (twice)
• Went down to Phillip Island for ’schoolies’
• Saw the school play ‘Inheritance’
• Saw the school musical ‘Fame’
• Saw the Castlefield musical “A High School Musical” (Luke also went to see it as he “received” tickets for his birthday)
• Applied for University, and received my VCE results.

So that’s 2007 in review, I wish everyone a happy new year and I look forward to recapping what I hope will be a wonderful 2008.

Well today I went out and finally bought myself a GPS. Since I wanted a simple unit without all the bells and whistles I opted for the TomTom ONE Version 3. It is a nice little unit, and after giving it a bit of a run today I am very impressed. In other news I also went to the second day of the Boxing Day Test which was good, although India’s excessive caution practically brought the game to a stand still.

Today was the dreaded day for VCE results. I received mine via sms at approximately 7:18am. I must admit I am marginally disappointed, one subject in particular, National Politics. Here is a breakdown of my scores;

This gives me a grand old ENTER score of 81.55 which is enough to get me into the course I want to do which is what counts. What has really annoyed me is the scaling which makes these modest results look appalling.

Well I have arrived in Sydney (yesterday actually) after an extremely bumpy flight which resulted in us circling Canberra. The weather up here unfortunately isn’t great but it has improved this afternoon. I spent most of the day looking for a new wallet after my last one got a hole in the coin area which resulted in me spilling coins everytime I removed my wallet from my pocket. There’s not much more to report except I will be going to the Sydney Aquarium tomorrow (apparently it’s much better than Melbourne’s). Then I will be off to enjoy the sights and sounds of Darling Harbour.

On my way to buy a new printer and other computer goodies my car decided that it no longer liked its occupation and died. So after a call to the RACV my car was being loaded on the back of the tow truck to take to the mechanics who will look it over. The RACV guy reckons it was water leaking all over the distributer that was causing the problem so if thats the case it will be a simple fix and may mean that my head gasket is indeed fine. So without a car I have resorted to buying things on eBay which is annoying because I hate waiting for things and I absolutely hate people that charge outrageous postage (especially from the US).

Today I did my University applications through VTAC (Vic) and UAC (NSW). I put University of Melbourne down as my first preference with their new generation Arts degree, and then Monash with their Arts (Global). I also applied through UAC for Australian National University in Canberra and the University of New South Wales in Sydney. So overall I think I have a very high chance of getting an offer for a course I will be happy with. I must say, UAC have got a far better system for their applications, it has far less questions and is way less confusing than VTAC’s process. UAC also let you print out the bill so you can pay via PostBill pay, rather than waiting for VTAC to send out their invoice.

Today I also went down to JB Hi-Fi and bought two CD’s that I’ve been looking forward to. I’m now the proud owner of The Cat Empire’s new album; So Many Nights, and I also got Jose Gonzalez’s new album In Our Nature. Both definitely lived up to my expectations and the artists seem to get better with each album.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was released yesterday to great fanfare. I had the morning off so I decided that I would join the hundreds of people at Borders Chadstone. Now your probably wondering why I, the same person that can’t tolerate standing in line at the canteen for longer than a couple of minutes actually managed to wait in line for a couple of hours on a Saturday morning. The reason was, I had agreed to pick up a number of people’s pre-ordered copies thinking that it would take me 15 minutes max, I also had my pre-ordered copy (and owl) waiting. Also if I had been at home dad would of had me busy preparing for my brothers 13th Birthday (more about that later on). The experience of being at Borders yesterday morning was pretty cool, and it is probably the only time I will see hundreds of people queuing up for a book (some sad people actually felt the need to dress up, I mean if it’s a little 8 year old then yeah it’s cute, but seriously if your 45 and went to the launch yesterday dressed as a wizard then you really need to re-evaluate your life). I felt sorry for the staff at Borders who a) had to dress up b) had to deal with hundreds of screaming kids & c) deal with their normal workload on top of that. I was very proud of myself for cutting about an hour from the wait time by going down to the magazine and CD level where the queue was drastically shorter, you see people don’t realise you can pay for books down there, they think that you can only buy CD’s. After that I headed to school and got the team photo for First Football which turned out pretty average. Then I headed home to help set up my brothers 13th. He ended up having about thirty kids over which was good for me because I was on alcohol patrol, you see my parents had decided that they weren’t allowing alcohol at this party so I went around and confiscated it off all the kids who ’smuggled’ it in, the best part is I got to keep it all because none of the kids wanted their parents to find out, so I now have (well at least did have until I decided to drink it) about $150 worth of booze including a full bottle of Wild Turkey (still sealed) and a bottle of Vodka (I still can’t believe these kids brought so much). Dad also managed to score some fireworks off one of his many ‘contacts’ which was awesome (we of course warned all the neighbours so they could lock their dogs up) I am still amazed the cops didn’t turn up. Finally today we dropped my brother off at the airport (he had flown down for the weekend) after having lunch in Lygon Street.