In fact, looking at the apparent drop off in blogging's popularity more generally, I may indeed be the last to post anything in 2008, too! We'll soon see I guess, but I hope not.
What's happened since my last post, then? Well, lots, but I'll try to keep it brief. Firstly, there was Christmas Day. We hosted my side of the family - a good portion of it anyway - and had a lovely lunch and dinner. I say "lunch" and "dinner" as if they were two separate meals, but as is oft the case, the two meals seemed to roll into one. Somewhere in between we managed a family-wide game of cricket at the park: it was heaps of fun, and something we'll have to build into a tradition...
(And Jessica got a fancy new trampoline, which she loovvves).
Boxing Day was spent with the in-laws, though I
didn't get to see quite so much of that: Jessica was exceptionally over-tired but wouldn't/couldn't sleep, so I drove her around the backroads of Nar Nar Goon North until she fell asleep, then stayed in the car with her, with the air-conditioning running, as she slept for a couple of hours. Probably the result of too much trampolining the day prior! We didn't do anything for New Years (unless playing Scrabble counts?) but on the 2nd of January we had an informal, low key celebration of Jessica's 2nd birthday.
I put my hand up to make the cake and decorate it, but neither endeavour was especially successful. The cake was pretty bland and dry, the cake surface was wildly uneven, and the icing was pretty patchy to say the least. As I was scraping the burnt outer edge from the cake with a grater, and as the four types of Wiggles-coloured-icing kept running into one at 1am, I had to keep telling myself that it's the thought that counts. Jessica seemed to be a very happy customer - refer unsolicited photo testimonial - so all's well that ends well.By the way, did you see the new products Apple released this week?
The new Apple Mac Pro now comes standard as 8-core - yes 8 processors! It can be configured with 4Terabytes (4,000 GBs) of hard drive space and 32GB of RAM (albeit that that particular configuration takes the price from $3999 to $32,500!). And then on Wednesday they released the MacBook Air, a ridiculously slim notebook computer that they pulled out of an A4 envelope. Crazy stuff. I can't possibly justify a new computer in the next year or two, so if anyone else is in the market for either of these, please let me tag along with you to the store so I can live vicariously through you for the da
y. Speaking of my iMac, I'm still barely scratching the surface with Final Cut Studio 2, or even the basic applications such as Garage Band etc. I so wish we used Macs at work, so that I could pick up on this stuff while I spend my 10 hours at work each day (which is where/how I learned anything I know about PC's). Alas, I can't see that happening any time soon - we're just too heavily invested in PC's for any bean counter to approve switching over. "But Boss, just think how much faster I can type up my emails on an 8-core Mac Pro with 32GB of RAM...and how much better those spreadsheets will look on a 30-inch Cinema Display!". 
Speaking of Apple products, it was my niece Erin's 16th birthday yesterday. No, Erin is not an Apple product, but a bunch of us were able to get her a 3rd Generation iPod Nano (the new one with video capabilities) as her present. From the excited call last night, I get the impression that it was a good choice: it's an amazing little (and amazingly-little) device, and really quite beautiful. The last week or so has also seen Mum & Bec moving out of our house. It was terrific having them staying here - and it really benefitted Jessica to spend more time with them both. I tried to entice them to stay by
promising more Ice Kachang, but that only bought us a few more nights. For Christmas, Stephen & Cordy & Tanya & Jasmine bought be an Ice Kachang pack, consisting of all the ingredients and a Mr Frosty ice shaving machine, and it's great fun to make up a few bowls as a special treat (Ice Kachang is a delicious dessert made of shaved ice, red kidney beans, corn kernels, lychees, palm seeds, evaporated milk, rose syrup & grass jelly - if you want to know more, Google is your friend). Mum & Bec now seem reasonably settled in the new place, but we have scheduled dinner with them tomorrow night. As we'll be having Berwick Thai, that sounds to me like a pretty decent excuse to follow up with Ice Kachang for dessert (never mind that the latter is really a hallmark of Malaysia not Thailand). Better go get some more evaporated milk in the morning. 
Well it's getting late and I should get to bed. It's a school night tonight, and there's quite a bit on my plate at work tomorrow (nothing of any significance or lasting importance, of course, but work that needs to be done nonetheless). I might just go and insert some photos first, which will probably take an hour to upload knowing my success with Blogger. The photos are all on my Facebook page also, and it's much easier to browse them, comment on them, tag them etc, so if you're interested in browsing them that way, feel free to sign up. You also get to play Scrabulous (which is a Scrabble game within Facebook) and that's a lot of fun too - I think I have 12 games running simultaneously at the moment, and I'm now just waiting for those 12 people to have their turns.Right. Bedtime. Goodnight.
Matt
