Come along to the annual Hyde Park picnic to see the latest crop of breeder spawn and catch up with people you may not have seen since last year.

3pm Sunday 13th December, near the water playground on the Vincent Street side of the park.

Please pass the invitation on to anyone you think might be interested.

So, fellow Saggies, the date for the picnic seems to have firmed up as being the 13th. What time? Last year it started at 4pm, but that was with daylight saving - 3pm sound about right?

Tony. Abbott.

*head explodes in schadenfreudish disbelief*

From Gamespot:

After being banned from Sony's PlayStation Network during a game of Resistance: Fall of Man, a San Jose, California gamer sued the electronics giant, alleging a violation of his First Amendment rights...earlier this month he filed a new suit against Microsoft and Nintendo. In that case, he alleged that a broken Xbox 360 caused him undue stress, and that a Wii system update blocking access to the Homebrew Channel third-party program interfered with his inalienable right to pursue happiness.
...
The gamer, Erik Estavillo, provided GameSpot with copies of his latest civil suit, a case against Activision Blizzard filed this morning in the Santa Clara County Superior Court of California.
...
The suit comprises a handful of complaints against Activision Blizzard, specifically relating to the company's successful massively multiplayer online role-playing game, World of Warcraft. Specifically, the gamer accuses the publisher of maintaining a "harmful virtual environment" with "sneaky and deceitful practices."
...
Beyond the monetary complaints, the suit also references the 2001 suicide of an EverQuest player, attributing it to a sense of alienation related to the game and mental health problems. The suit goes on to say the plaintiff has suffered from similar problems, including major depression, obsessive compulsive disorder, panic disorder, and Crohn's disease, and he "doesn't want to end up like [the EverQuest player] did as he relies on video games heavily for the little ongoing happiness he can achieve in this life, via the gaming medium."

In addition to the suit, the plaintiff also wants a pair of celebrities to attest to the effects of alienation. The gamer is subpoenaing Depeche Mode's Martin Lee Gore "since he himself has been known to be sad, lonely, and alienated, as can be seen in the songs he writes." He is also calling Winona Ryder to testify, saying the actress' appreciation for Catcher in the Rye will make her a relevant witness "to how alienation in the book can tie to alienation in real live [sic]/video games such as World of Warcraft."

The gamer is asking for $1 million in punitive damages and a court order forcing Activision Blizzard to address the problems alleged in the suit. As of press time, representatives with Activision and Blizzard had not returned GameSpot's requests for comment.

Periodically I scan the spam file for our section email account at work. Most are annoying, but some are hilarious. I never cease to wonder how some of the scams actually make their originators any money. "Salutations, I is your bank, please by the grace of God to be sending me your password", that sort of thing. Another one that is amazingly common are variations on the basic theme of "Congratulations, you have won x million dollars/euros/yen/conch shells in an international lottery - your email address was automatically entered in the draw. Please send us your bank account details". WHO THE HELL FALLS FOR THIS SHIT??

The various 419 Nigerian scams are usually of this level of quality. But one today really caught my fancy. It's from the "Economics and Financial Crime Commission" in Nigeria and says they are contacting us on behalf of the Nigerian Government Reimbursement Committee. I think you can see where this is going. They say that since we fell victim to one of those awful scams we are entitled to claim some money back from the government. All we have to do is give them our bank details. However, "you are hereby warned not to communicate or duplicate this message to anybody for any reason whatsoever as the U.S. secret service in conjunction with The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has swage into action to track this criminals down."

I particularly like the fact that we are to contact the sender's secretary, "Reverend Frank Leo". Well hey, who wouldn't believe a man of the cloth? For me the crowning glory is a statistic about the targets of these nefarious "hoodlums": "50% of the Victims are from the United States, while about 40% are from other parts of the world."

I guess the other 10% are from outer space.

I've mentioned before that Astrid, currently in grade 3, did the sample NAPLAN literacy and numeracy test and scored in the percentile range expected of kids in grade 5. She did the test for real a while back and scored off the charts in most of the criteria. I was speaking informally to the principal after our last P&C meeting and he told me off the record that this time she scored in the percentile range expected of kids in grade 7. OMFG. This doesn't mean that she's doing work from the grade 7 syllabus, but the work she does do is up to the standard expected of them.

Next year she sits the PEAC test to see if she will be admitted to the gifted student program, with one stream being offered at the high school just next door. I'd have to say I'm pretty hopeful she will get in. Carys looks to be heading the same way, being hands down the best reader and writer in her pre-primary class. I give good genome.

Once upon a time I plugged my birthdate into Excel and worked out when I turned 10,000 days old. I then threw a party that I called "The 10,000 Days of Talbot". I thought it was a cute idea.

I turn 15,000 days old on the 27th of December. I missed out on having a 40th birthday party last year, and a Talbot 15K barbecue looks like a good substitute. But before I commit to it, do people think that they would be likely to turn up to something the day after Boxing Day, or would they be festived out? (Over-festived? Festivus interruptus?) It's on a Sunday with two public holidays to follow, if that makes any difference.

Post-spawning, you get less conversations about whether Superman could beat Galactus in a fight, and more about whether Foofah could take down Iggle Piggle. I think she'd own his narcoleptic arse.

Turns out that Peter will be in halo traction for longer than initially expected, about another month or so. I think I'd go completely spare being totally immobile on my back for nearly two months only able to look at the ceiling, but he seems to be handling it well.

He's asked me to do some research for him on the best choice of a netbook for him. I'm not sure on how he's planning to mount it so he can use it given his current posture, but hey. I've done some poking around, but my impending exams are absorbing all available time at present, so I thought I'd ask if anybody can give me a shortcut to some answers.

He wants something that's minimum 9" so the keyboard is usable, SSD rather than HD, Bluetooth, eSATA or Firewire 800 to connect an existing external drive (are there any non-ExpressCard options here?), preferably in black. He wants Debian or Ubuntu, but I think that's going to have to be a DIY, probably by yours truly after the exam apocalypse. Budget $600, up to $800 if spectacularly good

Any suggestions/warnings?

I've been to see Peter in hospital, and while he's not up for many more visitors at present he's grateful for the well wishes.

He showed me the x-rays. Hoo boy. His left tibia is a mess, but they've put in a rod and screws and he should be okay. The neck x-ray was a shocker. There's a huge chunk knocked off the front of his C2 vertebra. He's been told that if it had been a few mm higher, he'd be dead. He's in halo traction to try and get everything back into alignment and on serious painkillers. He'll be flat on his back in traction for a week or more before they move him on to the next stage of a halo brace, which he'll be wearing for a good few months.

He's in remarkably good spirits all things considered, with a lot of the "glad to be alive" thing going on. He's been brought lots of books and will be getting a laptop when he's upright so he can work on his artwork.

Heh. Shock can be a funny thing. He says he doesn't remember the impact, but remembers waking up on the road surrounded by worried sounding paramedics telling him not to move, and thought "Well, at least I don't have to go to work today".