I was reading the newspaper on the patio early on Saturday morning when I heard what sounded like a commercial jet in the distance. In the couple of seconds it took to fly from a distant rumble to being directly overhead, I'd worked out there was no commercial aspect to this plane & I stuffed around to get my camera & take a few shots of a very low flying FA-18 Hornet.



A few years back the RAAF had planes flying over the same area & they circle around for twenty minutes or so before taking aim & disappearing over the city. The excuse this time around was the Australia Day celebrations & when they decide to open the taps to fly over the city at high speed, the noise is pretty darn incredible. Hearing a swarm of these coming at you dropping bombs must be horrific. Saddam was deep down in his bunker for a reason & this could well be it!



I've been using a point & shoot camera exclusively for the last couple of months, with the Canon S3-IS taking some time off from daily use. Unfortunately, when I pulled it out I struggled to figure out some of the settings which once were second nature. Thankfully, the jet passed overhead around ten times, giving me multiple chances to reacquaint myself! I carry a Canon Ixus 75 everywhere nowadays due to its size & convenience, but when a 12x zoom is required, the S3 was the only choice for low-level fast-moving objects.



As always, check flickr for the original size versions of these photos.

In other Australia Day news, Muse came out on top of Triple J's Hottest 100 with "Knights of Cydonia". I remember my first thoughts on the song from "Black Holes & Revelations" as being overrated & a bit naff, but if you see the film clip, I suspect that's how they intended it to be. It's certainly hard not to throw your head around when seeing the lads play it live!

 

I put some photos of my car on flickr a while back & it just so happens that yesterday was my six month anniversary with my pride & joy, so it's time to at least mention it. Kinda hard to believe so much time has passed. Feels like I picked it up only a few weeks ago & heck, everyone still comments about the new car smell!



Ownership has gone pretty smoothly despite stories on various Volkswagen forums about niggling warranty issues. The only problem encountered was discovered before the car was delivered & involved the electronic display in the dash with a line of dead pixels. When it went in to be fixed, it took a full week & the dealer never contacted me once to discuss it. I wasn't too impressed by their attitude, but it caused them a fair deal of stress. Apparently, this particular display is attached to the controller of all the car's electronics & so a small issue led to a much big problem. Eventually all was fixed & more importantly, everything works!



Fuel economy has been something I've watched carefully & over the time it's averaging a touch over 8l/100km, which isn't too far off the figure of 7.7l in the brochure, which are known for being impossible to achieve. However, the brochure seems to be more accurate than the Golf's trip computer which says I'm averaging 7.3l.



Performance of the GT was never going to match it's brother, the GTI, but it doesn't really matter when you hear the supercharger kick in and you get a bit of wheel spin in second gear. I had a mate come for a drive the other night who owns a Subaru GT Forester with a 2.0l turbo & he was pretty impressed, to the point he is desperate to have a drive.



I think the photo below shows the attention to detail Volkswagen put into their cars these days, with the logo hidden in the middle of the headlights! Actually, I have managed to find a fault with the inside of the centre console. It's only out by the barest of margins, but the lid won't close when using a standard CD cover. It seemed like the logical place to store them! Apparently not!



Now in the six months since the Volkswagen Golf GT was released, it's been superseded. The new version is the Golf GT Sport & the list of changes is substantial. Around the front grill is now black like the GTI instead of the body colour & the stereo now plays MP3 files. That's it! A full model change based on those two differences! Not quite sure where the "Sport" part comes in!



As far as I'm aware, mine is the only white GT in the state & I know of six GT's in Adelaide out of the 420 which came to Australia. Thankfully, that means it easy to find in any car park.

A few more artsy photos are over at flickr, so just click any of the above to head there!

 

I bought my folks one of those digital photo frames for Christmas. Dad always has his camera on him & Mum has a compact little number which she enjoys snapping on holiday. Whilst they have a computer, it's not the greatest thing to huddle around for a slide-show & printing is still a costly affair, so it seemed like a good idea.

They thought it was great too, but after setting it running a nasty dead pixel could be seen mid-screen! (Insert grumble here.)

On a side note, why is it that a dead pixel can either be off (black) or on (lit), but I've only ever seen pixels stuck "on"?! My computer monitor had one straight out of the box & it's a lovely shade of red & on this photo frame it's bright blue, so they tend to standout. It's also rather coincidental they never reside on the outer edge of the screen, but somewhere near the middle!

So, after waiting for the New Year heat wave to subside, I ventured back to the Target store where it was bought. I wasn't really expecting to join a queue of people doing the same with all sorts of items. It was actually longer than those at the checkouts & as such, more staff manning the returns than the sale counters!

The return was simple. The girl didn't care what was wrong with the product. She simply grabbed the docket & started processing the refund before she said "you don't want a replacement, do you?". I'm still not sure if that was a question or more of an advisory statement.

What caught my eye during the process was what other people were bringing back to the store. There was the standard kiddie toys which probably didn't survive Christmas morning, someone with shopping bags full of clothing & a lady with a box labeled as a table lamp. If the condition of the box matched what was in it, the lamp definitely wouldn't have been working!

In each occasion, the Target staff just processed the returns without batting an eyelid. They would just pickup the goods, literally drop them in a trolley (I'm assuming that's to guarantee they're buggered!) which would then be collected & wheeled to a bargain bin (with a small discount) at the back of the store. This happened at least three times while I was in line & I suspect that was one guy's job for the day.

Now, over this twenty or so minute exercise, more money was given back to customers than was received by Target through sales. I'm assuming this isn't a standard occurrence all year around, but I was surprised that there were no questions & checks involved in getting a refund. Target's recent catalogue had the photo frame I purchased a whole $50 cheaper for their post-Christmas sales, so in effect, by taking the frame back I was able to walk back into the store & buy the identical item & save 50 bucks!!

If the frame didn't have the fault, I probably wouldn't have been bothered to scam them, but I know my sister has done something similar when a sale has been announced & saved money in the process. Which begs the question, how many people do this regularly? All of a sudden the Christmas profit margin for Target is erased & it could probably be avoided if the staff checked the goods were faulty & asked a few questions to the scamming customer.

Of course, it might also help if they sold quality products. Maybe they expect a decent percentage of their goods to be returned, so it's not worth the effort checking for scammers.

In the end, the parents received a higher quality frame from a different store with a bigger discount, so it worked out pretty well!! Lesson learned.

 

I spent the night indoors, avoiding the heat which I think put a dampener on a few NYE celebrations.

Standing at the end of the driveway at midnight with the knowledge that every year there will be dozens of illegal pyrotechnics launched throughout the suburb, it was all rather quiet. The odd large bang from miles away & some closer party poppers were the only festivities on show!

A week before NYE, my sister had some commercial fireworks launched in a park at the end of her street. From all accounts, it's rather scary having big time fireworks going off right above your house. Later in the evening a glass replacement vehicle went up the road to fix the windows blown out of the home closest to the launch site. After all the action, she was expecting something just as scary to herald in the new year... but the only thing audible was silence!

In the city, the computer controlling the fireworks on the bridge over the Torrens River failed & needed a reboot. Ten minutes after midnight, the festivities began. Could you imagine the fuss if the same thing occurred in Sydney or Times Square!? Adelaidians are so used to failures by the Adelaide City Council, that no one really cares anymore!

So, anyway, it's here. Another year & a few resolutions which will most likely be shot before the end of January. Heck, it's good to have goals, even if only for a little while!