I don't need to know about your problems in the middle of this movie...

In the USA, before every screening there are service announcements telling you to respect your neighbours by turning off your phone and not to be too noisy. Well, there no such announcements here in Sydney. The last five times that I've been to the movies here in Sydney, there was always one noisy couple discussing something in the same theatre as me. I have no idea what they're talking about because they have all been Chinese and I don't speak Chinese. It's only been the Chinese movie goers. On one occassion, a Chinese couple sitting near me even had a fight. Apparantly she wanted to leave but because of the packed house (watching X-Men Last Stand) she couldn't leave and/or her boyfriend didn't want to leave. The most she did was moved away a couple of seats for about 5 minutes before scurrying back beside her bf. After an hour and a half of being subjected to this, I finally had enough and turned to them and asked them to take it outside. They were completely dumbfounded because they had no clue why I was mad. I politely told them again to be quiet or take it outside. The whole time they were being chatty kathys, they didn't even try to whisper. This was with all the Chinese couples. I suspect they lack the ability to lower their voice to a whisper. I couldn't figure out why no one else sitting around them "shushed" either. The only conclusion I could make was that people watching X-Men that night had no concept of being silent inside a movie theatre at all. It was dark and I think everyone sitting within ten seat radius of me that night were more Chinese students. I really need to find another metroplex to go to.

Wearing shorts to work

Last week at work I noticed a coworker came in wearing shorts as part of his uniform. He's an RN and he had on shorts. Granted it wasn't hot, as it's winter here in Sydney right now-but it's not cold either. It wasn't the weather inappropriate attire that got my attention. It was the dress code. I guess here in Australia, men wearing shorts to work is not an uncommon sight. Actually most (more than 90% by my anecdotal awareness) of male day labourers/construction workers here wears shorts as part of their uniform. One reason is that it can get sweltering hot here in Australia during the summer months and jeans are just too restrictive to work in.

In this situation, the coworker was a nurse working inside a building and yet shorts are part of the dress uniform. It wasn't about the temperature but instead just part of the local practice or national consciousness. This is another aspect I like about Australia. Its informalness. Its unpretentiousness. You would never see that in America. At least I have never seen it anywhere I've lived in America. I haven't seen American construction workers wearing shorts. An these are not the loose fitting, baggy style shorts favoured by the American public. Aussies wear short, thigh exposing, crotch hugging shorts. Actually, I can't recall any American workmen wearing shorts except for water delivery men and maybe UPS guys during the summer months. I have never seen American male nurses in shorts. So I guess I was the only one that gave it any notice because neither the others in the nursing team nor the patients made any notice of this coworker wearing shorts.

I'm full, thanks, I don't want anymore cookies...

The cookies I am referring to are the ones website set on your computer when you visit a website. I don't mind accepting ones I go to directly or visit on a regular basis, but I deny all those who piggy-back. With most of the piggy-backers being ad cookies. In the past I have set my security preferences to low or mid where all webpages are allowed to give me a cookie. Of course I never knew who was giving me what.

One practice I noticed was when I did a search in Google, the first site on the list tried to give me a cookie, even though I have yet to click on their link. I only found this out when I started using the web browser Camino and set my preferences to not allow any cookies, and having to ask for my permission for each time with a new webpage I go to. So now Camino maintains a list of "allow" and "deny" websites.

And you would not believe how many websites, some having nothing to do with the site you originally went to, that want to give you a cookie. Most of the requests seems to be from advertisers who have ads on the site I visit. And to make it worse, these sites tries to give you the ad cookies before giving you the originating cookies. To them all, I deny! Unfortunately, some sites, like Yahoo, don't work at all if you don't allow cookies.

$599 for a PS3!?!

OK, Sony, I hope you know what you're doing. $599 for a fully loaded PS3 is pretty steep and a lot of dough to ask gamers to cough up. (There's also a $499 PS3, but it lacks MS/SD/CF card reader input, WI-FI, and HDMI output). What's the point of giving gamers Blu Ray if they can't output it in true HD? I hope Sony isn't resting on their laurels and just expecting the gaming public to jump right in. Remembering back to the 16-bit era, Nintendo, the champ at the time, did just that and Sega swooped in with their Genesis to beat out the SNES. Continuing on to the 32-bit era, Nintendo and Sega rested and Sony swooped in with their winner, the PS2. Sony was able to repeat their success with the PS2 when others couldn't.

So sony was able to repeat twice when no one else in the business could. Can they do it again with the PS3 the third time around? I don't think they can. Not they way they are setting themselves up with this pricing scheme. Sure, the lower priced package will attract the casual gamer, or even the odd generous grandparent or mom/dad to buy; but that's still a hefty price tag of $499 to swallow. Out-pricing everyone else on the playing field-this isn't such a smart idea. Sony should have stuck with selling PS3's at a loss, and making it up in the long run and through software sales like they did with the PS2.

I predict that Nintendo has a winner with their strategy of attracting back gamers with good games and innovative controller design (which they've always done with every system they've made), Microsoft maybe in 2nd with their Xbox 360 (as much as I hate to admit it), with Sony coming in third place. I will be glad if I am proved wrong. I have an Xbox 360 and am not happy with it as I have previously mentioned before on this blog.

Tough semester...

Classess this semester is tough. So much more work and presentations. The instructors are even more pedantic about spelling...correcting minor Bristish vs American spellings in words that end in -ise, like "speacialise" instead of "specialize". Last week, there was two days straight that I didn't sleep trying to get my presentation materials in order. Then on the weekend I just slept for 16 hours. I know they say you can't make up sleep, but I sure did!

My mundane life...

Let's see, after many months of being in Australia, I finally went and opened a bank account today. I guess it's life as usual here. A routine of school, home, and the occassional beer at the local pub. I am almost done with school. I can't believe it has passed by so fast. I'll be complete in November and will have my RN here in New South Wales. Then back to California to sit for my RN exam there. Hopefully, it should be too difficult to pass and then I'll be allowed to work in Cal as well. Woo-who!