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I recently purchased a whole bunch of computer parts to assemble into a new Vista-capable PC. Yes – I am a sucker for punishment.

Examining the boxes, I was amused by computer parts manufacturers who put strange, and positive-sounding mottos on their boxes, labels or documentation. Alastair suggested that we create a game of “match the part to the motto.”

So here it is. See if you can match the PC part to the motto.

Motto

1. “Burn. Flip. Burn.”
2. “The Wow starts now”
3. “Get more”
4. “Cooling your live”
5. “Leap ahead. Leap ahead. Leap ahead.”
6. “Rock solid. Heart touching.”

Part

1. iCute Computer Case
2. Mushkin DDR2 RAM
3. Intel E6600 Core2Duo CPU
4. Asus P5B-Plus Motherboard
5. Windows Vista Home Premium
6. Asus LightScribe DVD Burner

Note that the motto could be for the manufacturer, the part, or just a spontaneous expression of joy for being part of colourful packaging.

Answers below…
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Moral: From now on I’m going to carry a spare memory card or two with my camera, and swap them around every now and then.

I recently took my son and one of his friends to Roar and Snore at Sydney’s Taronga Zoo for his birthday present. As a relatively fresh owner of a Nikon D40 digital SLR I saw this as an opportunity to give Mr 7 a birthday to remember, and my new camera a good work-out.

Roar and Snore is a chance to see nocturnal animals and the early morning feeding routine up close. There are very few people there other than you, the keepers and the security guards. You sleep overnight in tents pitched for your convenience in the zoo’s Education Centre area.

Our evening started at 6:30pm Sunday night with snacks and the chance to learn about and touch echidnas, pythons, shingleback lizards and wallabies. Many great, once-in-a-lifetime photographs of kids and animals were taken.

The next part of the evening we all went on a tour of the zoo with red torches to see the nocturnal activities of the animals. In this part of the tour flash photography is prohibited. I had prepared by bringing my tripod, a by-product of owning an Astroscan portable telescope (I hadn’t brought the telescope to the zoo).

In minimal lighting with a tripod I was able to take some quite clear photographs of elephants, anteaters, zebras, and tigers. Thankfully the night was overcast and there was a little ambient light, and the animals I was taking photos of were not moving around much. Non-SLR users marveled at my ability to get photos when their cameras were just refusing to operate without flash assistance. “I guess it must be the five second exposure with 1600 ISO,” I bluffed. Many once-in-a-lifetime photographs of animals were taken.

Near the end of the evening we stopped at a spot where there was a clear view of the Sydney CBD, taking in the Opera House and Harbour Bridge from Woolloomooloo to Kirribilli. There was a storm passing by to the South (or so I thought) so the city had a backdrop of impressive clouds and occasional lightning strikes. I took many once-in-a-lifetime photos of Sydney at night with an impressive thunderstorm as a backdrop.

We retired to the camping area, had cups of milk and tea, brushed teeth and went to bed in our tents. Then the most violent electrical storm for years hit Sydney, and us.

Thankfully the tents held out. The kids and I were kept up until about 2am by nature’s disco lightning and percussion solo. No roaring or snoring was evident.

We emerged from out tents at 6am to be treated to breakfast and photo-ops with very friendly hand-raised Koalas (you’re only allowed to hold a Koala if you’re an accredited animal handler).

“Quick! Take a photo of us with the Koala” said Mr 7.

“Memory card is corrupt, please insert a new card” responded my Nikon D40. Many once-in-a-lifetime photos were suddenly gone.

“Hmm,” I thought. I’ll swap out my 4 Gig card for the old 256 Meg card I always carry with me and diagnose the problem with the giant SD card later. Hmm… I don’t appear to be carrying my spare.

So I went through a morning of getting up close to giraffes, zebras, chimpanzees, zoo food preparation, tapirs, thai swimming cats, elephants and birds without being encumbered by a camera.

The SD card is officially dead and took all of my photos with it. A month earlier it had become corrupted in such a way that I had been able to get 99% of the images off it before reformatting it. I didn’t think it was anything more than a temporary glitch at the time.

Yesterday I was hunting through my wallet and my 256 Meg SD card fell out. It was with me all of the time I was at the zoo.

Oh well, it was enjoyable and memorable even without photos.

Threadless.com is an online T-shirt design competition which “publishes” “winning” “T-shirts” all the time. I recently got 3 Threadless shirts, which I like… a lot. They aren’t real cheap (about AU$29.00 per shirt), but they’re not too shabby compared with typical local shirt prices.

Sadly, I didn’t see this T-shirt when I ordered:

Classic. Sorry for the run on politics, but this really is quite an entertaining time.

Paul Keating on The ABC’s The World Today

ELEANOR HALL: What did you think of Peter Costello’s performance in the parliament, though, when he raised this?

PAUL KEATING: Well, the thing about poor old Costello, he’s all tip and no iceberg, you know. He (laughs), you know, he can throw a punch across the parliament, but the bloke he should be throwing the punch to his Howard. Of course, he doesn’t have the ticker for it.

Now, he’s now been treasurer for 11 years, the old coconut’s still sitting there, araldited to the seat, and, you know, the Treasurer works on the smart quips, but when it comes to staring down the Prime Minister in his office, he always leaves disappointed, you know, he never gets the sword out. You know, you know the thing ‘I’ll huff and puff and blow your house in’, that’s Costello (laughs).

ELEANOR HALL: Has the Government, though, now taken the high moral ground with this by removing Minister Campbell?

PAUL KEATING: Look, for John Howard to get to any high moral ground he would have to first climb out of the volcanic hole he’s dug for himself over the last decade. You know, it’s like one of those deep diamond mined holes in South Africa, you know, they’re about a mile underground. He’d have to come a mile up to get to even equilibrium, let alone have any contest in morality with Kevin Rudd.