So, the MegaSquirt is pretty cool, but the MegaSquirt v2.2 PCB with a MegaSquirt-II processor is just plain sweet! I got bored one night and since it’d make dual fuel maps and a bunch of other things that I want to use a lot easier, I decided to order one. That was the twelfth of November, and after not even three weeks, I’ve got it! Hooray!
And now, to add some actual content to this post, here’s some pictures 
Geez, I think last night makes about six times in twelve months I’ve been picked up in the PimpMobile. Driving out of Lauren’s house last night, down the hill towards the t-intersection at the bottom, a police car drives past. I stop at the bottom, making sure to look around because the van runs like crap when it’s cold, and that corner’s a bit hard to see past.
Looking to where the police car went, I notice that it’s stopped across the road and down a bit – funnily enough, half out in the road, and across a laneway – nice and illegal, officers. I move on, making my merry way home. Looking in the rearview mirror, I notice – not surprised at all – that they have done a quick U-turn and are buried up my tail.
Taking note of my previous instruction to make sure I indicate, I do so, slowing from my already-miniscule speed just enough so that I don’t stall it around the corner. It’s at this point – as soon as I hit the brakes – as usual, that they turn on the flashers and I stop.
Passing over my license, as usual, I’m asked where I’m coming from tonight. “I just finished work” was the response. He takes interest in the back of my van, having a look in the back with his torch and looking at me questionably. I point out that I work in a call center, which is true – and he’s satisfied. I get the fact that having an expired registration sticker stuck to a spare window is something a “really bad traffic officer” would pick me up on and give me an $80 fine.
I’m told that this is a random breath test, could I please blow into the tube, and I do. As to be expected, I blow clear – not that he would tell me – but I hear the beep that I know beep that I know all too well is the all clear. He wanders off to speak with his fellow officer, and they do a lap of the car – here I go, canary for me I think – but no, they just look at something on the side, and look around in the passenger side with the torches again.
Off they wander, and as usual, I’m waiting for them to do their bit on the computer – I think that if I was to get rich, I’d pay to upgrade their computers and link technology so they don’t make me wait all the time. Finally, I get my license back and I’m off – no have a good night, no “no worries” or anything like that. How rude! Bored cops shit me, picking me up because they like my van and hope to see something cool. It happens too often, and I’m sure it’ll only get worse when the gemini is on the road *sigh*
Pureprofile’s another one of those marketing companies where they send you something every so often when you fit their profile, and they give you cash or something else as a bonus for doing the survey. I’ve been a member for a while now, and fill out about one or two a month. Recently I was contacted regarding a program they are running for Australia Post to test how the mail system works and so forth. They send me a few things, and on certain days, I put them into the post box at the local post office. Easy!
I wasn’t expecting to actually be part of it, but I got a call today from a nice lady from Research International, confirming the details and seeing what parts of the program she could get me into. Starting January, I’m going to have to post a few things a week for three months, and they’ll give me $12.50/week for it. No worries on that front, about $150 for dropping things off on the way to work – barely even a diversion, I drive past it every day!
So, it’s the end of the school year, and all the little school leavers are going off to party and so forth – my sister being one of them. I needed a weekend away, and my good mate Brian was going with them (as one of my sister’s friends is his girlfriend) so I decided to tag along.
The eleven of them are staying in a house down at South Golden Beach (I think I have the name right) – a little village community on the NSW North Coast that has a total population in the really small range. There’s some really beautiful beach, a couple of hundred houses, and that’s about it. Ocean Shores has a small corner store come post office come bottle shop, and we stocked up there on Saturday afternoon, and that was it.
Driving down was fun, Brian in his car, Kirsty in her little BMW, and me in my car – trying desperately to keep up, since I can’t barrel down the highway at 110+ km/h. As usual, I brought my laptop to pick up what wireless access points I could, and this time I had my GPS hooked up for a little extra fun.
I drove about 430km from Saturday morning until Monday night including going to work and so forth, and the PimpMobile didn’t skip a beat, only needing some more oil half way down on the Saturday because we were going too fast. I spent $65 on petrol for the whole time too, which was great, considering $20 of that was paying 133.8 cents a litre in Byron – and I thought Brisbane prices were bad enough!
The house is beautiful (pictures will be up when Brian gets back) the weather stayed amazing, and for the first time in years I actually swam at the beach – something I have to do more often, as long as it’s in the afternoon/midnight, since I burn too easy, and it’s more fun at night!
Anyway, I’ll probably post more about it later, I’m going to go back to doing other things
Well, there’s a bit of a milestone, I finally restarted my linux desktop machine. There was something going a bit odd with Nautilus and Gnome lately, so I thought I would just kill X for a little while, then go back in and all would be fine. Oh no, after so long it decided that things weren’t all hunky-dory, and that the X server would lock the console display and not let me do anything.
So after all this time, here was the final uptime report:
nitro-4 yaleman # uptime
23:51:24 up 113 days, 10:40, 1 user, load average: 0.00, 0.07, 0.23
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