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Glize and I travelled to Australia in March, Glize’s first trip down under.

We took the long route — flying from Singapore to Darwin then spending two days on The Ghan tran to Adelaide, and The Overland to Melbourne. I love long train rides, be it Bangkok to Singapore, or Chengdu to Lhasa. It’s the first time I’ve travelled far in Australia since departing nine years ago.

On the way to Adelaide we stopped for an extremely hot hike around Katherine Gorge, and a camel ride along The Todd.

We stayed in Adelaide for a couple of nights, bringing the cold weather with us (the most rain and coldest weather for months). I’ve always been fond of Adelaide, and it was full of charm beyond what I remembered after fourteen years between visits.

The Overland to Melbourne is now privatised and a vast improment on the skungy night trips of the past. We brought the cold weather with us, ending months of heat.

We timed our trip for cousin Martin and Shaku’s wedding, held at a winery in Coldstream.

It was wonderful to see my family again (and soon to be our family). We had a fantasitc trip, complete with meeting old friends, seeing Alex and Emma’s new baby Thomas, and topped off with a trip down the Great Ocean Road (during which a once-in-several-years wind storm passed through the state and raised massive waves — you get the idea).

A tight and packed itinerary, and “nothing went wrong!” Here’s are some photos

Oh, and it looks our trip will bring us a baby this Christmas.

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Gliza and John visited from the Philippines over Chrismas, and Mum flew up from Melbourne.

We pottered around Singapore and spent a few days up at Cherating, on the east coast of Malaysia. It was the first time I’d been up there since January 1999. The place has lost its charm a little, though I’m not all that sure it had much charm to begin with.

Here’s an album from those couple of weeks

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Young Modern, the fifth album by Silverchair, is the best album of 2007. I haven’t heard them all of course, but this album did it for me. I’ve been a semi-irregular fan of the chair since picking up an MP3 CD of their first three albums in Pantip plaza, Bangkok, in 2000. The complete album of Young Modern was available on the inflight entertainment system when flying back from Melbourne to Singapore in June 2007, and I found myself listening to the album on continuous repeat for the entire flight. Since then I just can’t stop listening to this album. Superb is an understatement.,

This isn’t a review. Buy it here.
And I mean it.

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Throw your chair, Steve

It’s really very simple:

• Install xserver-xorg-input-vmmouse in your favourite package manager (adept / synaptic / apt-get…)

• Edit /etc/X11/xorg.conf and change the mouse driver from mouse to vmmouse

• Restart X

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Well here we are. Something Changed has finally had a redesign!

The new layout is 99% borrowed from Gentle Calm by Phu Ly — thank you. The main alteration is the header image, cropped from a photo taken in the Singapore Botanical Gardens, and some alterations to the style-sheet.

As before, Something Changed runs on the awesome CMS system Text Pattern.

There are a few bugs around; Clicking on full-article view or comments brings up the Search page, and the Sidebar navigation links to empty pages. All in good time, but here’s to some action her at Something Changed.

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When I first bought my Trek 7700 bicycle back in 2002, I decided that 21,000 kilometres would be a good distance to cycle to get the value out of the bike. Well, I finally made that figure today.

In that time the bike has had one service, way back at 8,800 kilometres. I’m thoroughly impressed with how well the bike has run so far.

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Please service my bike [1]

I finally cycled around the full perimiter of Singapore in a single ride yesterday. I paced myself and ate well (had a large brekky, rice lunch, a rice meal (Indian curry) at Kranji, and finally the all-important Snickers bar and 100 plus at Jalan Buroh 26 km before home).

As expected I got caught in the rain, dried off, then got caught in the rain again. No puntures, a few dogs chasing me, a few idiot drivers, pretty much a run-of-the-mill ride.

Here are some stats and facts:

• Distance cycled: 155.15 km
• Cycling time: 6 hours, 19 minutes
• Time including stops: 7 hours, 15 minutes (1.30pm to 8.45pm)
• Average speed: 24.54 km/hour
• The route taken: Kampong Kayu Road-Mountbatten Road-Fort Road-East Coast Park-Changi Coast Walk-Changi Coast Road-Nicoll Drive-Telok Paku Road-Loyang Avenue-Pasir Ris Drive 3- Pasir Ris Drive 12-Tampines Avenue 10-Tampines Link-Tampines Road-Hougang Avenue -Upper Serangoon Road-Sengkang East Avenue-Sengkang West Avenue-Jalan Kayu-Edgeware Road-East Camp Road-Seletar Club Road-Yishun Avenue 1-Yishun Avenue 6-Yishun Avenue 7-Yishun Avenue 2-Sembawang Road-Admiralty Road East-Admiralty Road West-Admiraly Road-Woodlands Center Road-Woodlands Road-Kranji Road-Kranji Loop-Kranji Way-Neo Tiew Road-Lim Chu Kang Road-Jalan Baha-Jurong West Avenue 5-Pioneer Road North-Upper Jurong Road-Benoi Road-Jalan Ahmad Ibrahim-Tuas West Drive-Tuas South Avenue 1-Tuas South Avenue 3-Tuas South Avenue 5-Tuas South Avenue 14-Tuas South Avenue 9-Tuas South Avenue 6-Tuas South Avenue 5-Tuas Crescent-Tuas Basin Link-Tuas Road-Pioneer Road-Shipyard Road-Jalan Buroh-West Coast Highway-Pasir Panjang Road-Telok-Blangah Road-Keppel Road-Anson Road-Robinson Road-Collyer Quay-Fullerton Road-Esplanade Drive-Nicoll Highway-Stadium Road-[footbridge over Geyland River]-Tanjong Rhu Place-Tanjong Rhu Road-Geylang Park Road-Kampong Kayu Road

Conclusion: my legs are sore and roads here seem to change names every block.

My fairly out-dated cycling page is here .

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Get on the bike

Here ’s an album of some photos taken over the last year or so that aren’t already in an album.

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