Weekend in Sydney

My buddy Ali's family lives in Sydney, so he offered me the guestroom for the weekend and his services as tour guide, how could I refuse. Friday night we got in from the airport and went directly to an upscale bar filled with well dressed good looking people, think NYC with nicer people. After a couple hours at the bar we hit drove through the extremely seedy kings cross (crackheads and prostitutes lining the sidewalks) to Harry's Cafe de Wheels for a bite. Harry's has been around in Sydney for ages, it's a little trailer in a seedy part of town that's open late and serves tasty food to defile the temple of the body. I had a chicken pie toppped with mashed potatoes and cheese sauce, and what they called a chilli cheese dog. A harry's chilli cheese dog is bizzare, it's a hot dog with mashed peas (yes, mashed peas), onions, chili, hot sauce, and this bechamel looking "cheese sauce". Lemme tell ya, after a bunch of drinks it was delicious. The next day I took the ferry to Manly, got a great view of the city from the harbor and walked around. Went to the gym, then went out again. Sydney has this casino that looks great on the outside, and looks like the stardust on the inside. Ali's friend was celebrating her 29th, so we celebrated by going to this club in the casino with a bar that overlooked the casino floor. 80's music, and neat 'fiddich's for $6US, suffice to say, a good time was had by all. The next day was a little more sight seeing and recovery, then back to the office.

Social Networking + Product tie-ins= Metails.com

Metails.com is what happened when someone sat down and said friendster is great, but how can I use it's model to make lots and lots of money. This idea is great, a user comes on and looks through groups of friends and foafs to find out what's cool, when something catches the user's eye s/he clicks the link and is taken directly to the online retailer that sells it ( mostly to amazon). The site and the person with the link both take a slice off the top and everyone's happy. I don't think I'll join, despite the fact that it's genius. What annoys me the most about this site is that I didn't come up with it. If this thing were to get to friendster size ( and it won't), the people running it could make obscene amounts of money. Something like this could really catch on and be powerful in Japan where there is a huge culture of social status based on having the right stuff. The real questions are how can it be done better, how can they possibly protect themselves from copycats, and how could they collect and sell marekting datato really leverage the network.

Am I hot, or not?

The joys of seeking validation or humiliation from random people on the internet. I had a conversation about my looks with a recent acquaintance who shall remain namless, and we disagreed on my position in the absolute (national, not LA or bay area) 10pt scale. In order to settle this dispute we agreed to turn to the ultimate scoring medium, hotornot.com, using the only picture I seem to use online (as seen on this page, friendster, and orkut) . Feel free to click the following link, but vote honestly, a wager of drinks rests on the outcome after 200 people have rated me. Have no worries, I will neither be crushed nor get a swelled head, afterall, I know what I look like

I'm moving

Aloha all, it looks like the time has come for HarshKarma to get out on it's own and move locations.  So over the next week or so look for me to be moving to http://www.harshkarma.com,  and my cafepress shop with lou inspired tshirts will also be linked.  All I need to do next is find a good utility that can pull photos from an email account and ftp them to my blog and I'll be set.  So email or add comments for your recommendations fo software, for the time being I will stick to blogger to drive the blog cause I'm really happy with it, but in the futue I may go to MT, or dare I say it ... a full fledged cms like postnuke or something.

Ever wondered: What's My Pirate Name?

fidius.org: What's My Pirate Name? Arr, now ye can learn the name ye would have on the high seas. Those of you who follow this link, please enter your pirate name in the comments below.

It's the laptop, and me, and the code makes 3 tonight

The Sofitel Melbourne is a sweet hotel, tonight I got back to my room and found strawberries, chocolate, and a chilled bottle of white wine with a note from the management saying "hope your project goes well."   At first I found it cool, and then it sunk in that it had this kind of unintended backhanded feel to it.  The note may as well have said "we're giving you a gift cause you're here for so long, but we're rubbing it in that you'll be drinking this by yourself in front of a computer tonight ,if you get to drink it at all, oh and here's two glasses just as a reminder."  Good thing I'm bloody bold, and resolute. ( I saved the wine for a less depressing chance to crack it, but I was all over the strawberries like a fat kid on a cupcake)

My first footy game

Lions steamroll Pies (July 17, 2004) Today I went out and saw my first footy game. It was cold and raining at the Melbourne Cricket Grounds, and the game started close and low scoring. The match was almost tied at the half, but starting in the third quarter Brisbane Lions had their way with the Collingwood Magpies. Aussie rules football is a great brutal sport and a hell of a lot of fun to watch. It's got all the elements that make a sport exciting to watch, fast paced action, high scoring potential, feats of skill and luck, and a healthy dose of violence. It may be my new favorite spectator sport.

Melbourne day 5

Behold, it warms!!
Other than work and meals not much has happened so far in my melbourne trip, but I will still share some of the day2-day5 highlights.
For breakfast the other day I grabbed an awful vegemite sandwich just to say I've had one. Melbourne seems to be a great city for food, despite the vegemite. Night before last I had crocodile with scallions, ginger, and snowpeas at a chinese place, and last night I had a tandoori chicken pizza with a mint raita on top, the food here has treated me well. To replace the usual greeting of " 'sup?" I've picked up "How you going?" to which I guess the response is "great." I've also finally made real use of orkut and friendster to find out good places to eat and drink in Melbourne (many thanks to the orkut groups: melbourne foodies and melbourne, and also to the friendster user Miss Kate). This trip is working out pretty well, now we just have to get the deal :)

Hilarious CL personal

I don't kick puppies! Another good one forwarded from my aunt. This guy rocks, note the clever flow chart and ingenious use of the phrase "zombie dragon, powerful in life, unstoppable in death." Nerdy date seeking CL user, I salute you!

Day 2 Melbourne

Work and getting around

Today was my second day of work in melbourne. Began the day with a "long black" (kind of a double americano, easy on the water) and a bacon egg and cheese muffin. I'm really begining to dig this city, on the walk from my hotel ( melbourne sofitel) down collins street to work the melbourne feels like a cross between a european city and somewhere in the east coast. The europe part comes in with the walkable clean alleys and random interesting stuff: I walked by a shop where instead of mannequins in the display window they had a group of co-ed models in underwear dancing lip synching to YMCA. Work was a hard productive 11 hour day with a Pho break for lunch, and afterwards we closed the day with a great tapas dinner. I could get used to this lifestyle.

Down Under Playlist short but existent ( and updated) silverchair- hard to drink kylie minogue- can't get you out of my head the vines- get free AC/DC- back in black Jet- Are you gonna be my girl Ben Lee- Cigarettes will kill you

Weather- Melbourne, Australia

CNN.com - Weather- Melbourne, Australia
Woo Hoo, skipping 3 weeks of the best part of summer for a rainy winter, at least I come back in august.

Australia settled

Where women glow and men plunder
Finally after much deliberation, the details of my australia trip have been settled. From the 10th to the 28th of July, I will be in Melbourne programming up a storm, possibly having a vb or two, and augmenting my speach with such gems as mate, and no worries. If anyone has suggestions of things to do in Melbourne, or any friends in the city please leave a comment.