I've suddenly become interested in ebay. In the past I've occasionally searched for things on there to see what they have, but now one of the guys at work has started educating me about bidding tactics and how it all works. Therefore, I am starting to compile a list of things I would like:

• A digital set-top box, to get better TV reception. Quality brands on offer include DigiCrystal, Yess, Wintel, and the occasional Teac.
• A universal remote control. I've thought about getting one before, but they're a bit pricey in the shops.
• A USB-IRDA adaptor. Haven't seen any going for a reasonable price yet though.

Stupid computer

The other day it decided to continually chew up 100% CPU. Running top showed some very strange memory usage: Mem:       256548k total,     251656k used,         4892k free, 2689218652k buffers
Swap:       39276k total,               0k used,       39276k free, 1605943368k cached


Leaky office

This week we had some contractors at work to "fix" the roof. On Friday it rained, and we discovered that they had installed a new water feature. My office was (surprisingly) ok, but we had a leak directly above a monitor (luckily switched off at the time) and the waterfall in the ladies' toilets was quite spectacular.

Wedding photographers

The time has come to choose a photographer for our wedding. On Tuesday evening we went to look at Wilde Studios. I thought they were excellent. They provide two photographers on the day, and cover both parties getting ready, the ceremony, the start of the reception, and everything in between. All their photos were of a very high quality, and the skill of the photographers was evident in plenty of shots. The albums were very nicely done and there were a huge number of options for how the album is organised.

On Saturday morning we had a look at Midland Photographers. I was not very impressed. Their photographs are unremarkable and lacking in creativity. The proofs album they provide is tacky. Some of their photos appeared to have technical deficiencies, lacking in sharpness and with some weird marking apparent on a few photos. The album itself was mostly ok, but in a couple of spots they seemed to have cut too far when making a hole for a photo. A couple of the photos were falling out as well.

Wilde Studios is far more expensive than Midland. Probably too expensive for our budget. We're looking at another place on Tuesday.

Western Australian Wine and Food Festival

We went over to the Burswood Dome on Saturday evening for the Wine and Food festival. It was very pleasant. I liked most of what I tasted, but managed to restrict my spending to a bottle of Sinclair 2000 Cabernet Sauvignon. There were some very nice cheeses as well. Mmmm... cheeses.

One of the places offering free tastings was Viet Nosh, which is a Vietnamese restaurant just down the road from work. I've seen their signs up before and considered getting take-away lunch from them. Now I'll definitely go in there.