We own a wii fit and we have for quite a while. I used it a lot when we first got it and then as the story typically goes, got too busy and started to ignore it.  Now as I’m waiting on some ‘next year information’ any joining of a gym has not happened – which one day we might at least try especially if we can do it with friends (Beth and Bri). I don’t play sport. I sit at the computer for a good portion of every day for both work and play. During uni, I walk to the station multiple times at both ends – low level stuff, but it is at least exercise.

Naturally, lying dormant and waiting in my lounge-room is an answer:

I just discovered (on my computer travels) this rather handly little website: Wii Fit Routine. Basically you can select a time/difficulty/area of desired affect and it’ll spit out a routine – or you can view the list for several alternate options. This is one of the primary weaknesses of the wii fit: no built in routines. I would love to just hit a: ‘hard/30minute’ button and have the wii fit take me through all that I have to do so I don’t shirk the difficult stuff or only do the stuff I enjoy. So this morning I kicked it off. And wow. I actually felt like I did some work. How terribly sad.

I am not overweight, but I am quite unfit and wouldn’t mind getting more fit and losing a few kilos wouldn’t hurt. So lets see how this goes then.

(And really if you own one you should try the Boxing, it’s really rather good!)

Geoff and I made the early trek to the opening of the Apple store in Doncaster. Geoff also made it to the Chadstone one, which probably classifies us both as nerds – be we knew that anyway. Was quite a pleasant wait with free wifi (from Apple) which I made use of on my new phone and a fair-trade latte which was surprisingly good despite it coming from Jamaica Blue. So we were in about the first 60 or so people to get in and got our free tshirts – they are rather huge. I had to laugh at the 4 very nerdy looking guys who had camped out overnight to be the first customers… they were very wizard of oz when they walked in (Think linked arms, hi-ho hi-ho lets do this together etc…). Sadly my friend Jess (who has a job there) was sick this morning so we didn’t get to see her run around like crazy screaming – that was disappointing indeed, did however see Ryan whom we know from YVV. So yes, *taps nose* I have friends in high places.

Well after being on a phone plan through work… and previously pre-paid I have finally jumped on the post-paid bandwagon with my shiny new Nokia. Didn’t pay anything for the phone, otherwise would’ve kept my old one. But checking how a mini qwerty keyboard goes, as the provider (3) have some pretty good internet deals atm, with unlimited email/facebook etc. just waiting until twitter is included *hint hint* until then for the twitting, it’s through the website… or perhaps I can find an app. Perhaps I’ll find it’s too much using the internet on the phone but hey, might as well try it out (can opt out monthly if I want to) or just run it off the various wireless networks my life links to. It’s red. It’s nice. It’s a Nokia (Always the best phones). It’s a distraction. I don’t need distractions. I have a homework list as long as my arm and a house to clean before our rental inspection on Friday.

I’ll keep it brief as I’m slightly exhausted as they really do pack in one keynote after the next and my brain is kinda fried. We started at 9:30 (very respectable) and ran over the 5:30 finish, I left the building around 6:30 a bit before the last guy finished.

Highlights are many, but I particularly enjoyed:

Stefan Sagmeister (and hey the guy is famous at my uni and okay, pretty much everywhere in the world of design) – he spoke on Design and Happiness which is interesting in relation to some of my own ideas, much of it was about how design factored into his experiences of happiness but not in a freaky commercial way.

Shannon Bennett a young innovative restaurateur based in Melbourne (see Vue De Monde), completely delightfully creative in his field

Alexia Sinclaire mostly for her work, digital art, it was pretty inspiring

Detective Sergent Adrian Patterson (Retired) who was the criminal identification bureau and has helped revolutionise the use of computer graphics in a very practical cop-sense. Great presenter, and bought a good perspective personally about thinking about design outside the usual sphere of ‘where you do design’

Etiene Mineur can’t help but love the French, but facinating stuff with graphic design and the web and some pretty amazing interactive stuff

John Marsden scares me that the writer was probably my favourite presenter, he talked about finding your voice and the value of status (also not in a freaky commerical way) but in the sense of adapting language to fit situations and characters. Loved it.

Also worth a note here is Chris Bosse who designed the Bejing Olympics swimming arena (that square thing that looks like it’s made of bubbles), Bart Willoughby who is an Aboriginal Aussie musician and Michael Pearson who talked about Swedish design.

I am very impressed… except for one who was pretty much a write off in any sense of the word useful (He was also remarkably boring).

And…

We get a sweet book to keep about all the presenters and various design stuff etc. Free lunch on two days (and yes it was good!) And hey I could win an Iphone.

Smashing Magazine

What I love about Smashing articles is the wealth of information that comes with each post. They, (Un-surprisingly really) use the web as it was intended to be used – to network information. This is certainly something I could do better on this blog. However as it’s purpose waxes and wanes so must it’s content. After all, All Said & Done began as a personal blog and needs in many ways to remain the same.

On that note, my new blog theme is almost operational, although I’m still in the process of dreaming up all the extra fun things I can implement before I go live. That and I am also intending to write up a second theme for www.becmatheson.com to match – despite serving very different purposes, and I as yet haven’t decided if they should come independent of eachother… that and I’ve just read an article that’s gotten me thinking.

image source

I can deal with Flash mostly, but action script = programming = bad tutorials (on the whole). Geoff knows php etc. which is remotely similar but not actionscript(2.0) – so my best source of help in the programing field doesn’t quite expand to meet the ‘help Bec’ criteria.

If you know of any simple clear tutorials on action scripting I would be extremely obliged if you could share.

I have to:

• Make a volume dial work with sound and user interaction (I have semi-worked this out without sound so far)
• Have a pull string to turn a lamp on and off – user interaction
• Have an image of a head flip directions depending on where the mouse is in the screen
• Have a fly move on a random path when the mouse rolls over/near it
• and a bonus (if I get that far) a set area of the screen for the user to ‘draw’ on some paper

Unfortunately it’s the whole ‘user interaction’ (Action Script driven) that is the bugger to do, but the most fun result and kind of necessary for me to fulfil the brief.

I promise to share when it is complete.

It’s made by Mozi, who also make very nice wrapping paper. I can’t vouch for the other things they make as I haven’t really bought them before, but hey it all looks rather lovely.

(For some reason I cannot upload images into my blog at the moment, this is driving me slightly insane, I hate link stealing but this post really wouldn’t work without it)

“Writing is but thinking on paper; and if you have any thoughts at all, you may commit them to writing” (Harvey Newcomb)

This is about the state of life, Terry Pratchett, music, WordPress and a theory.

I do not think I have experienced being this settled for a very long time. Life feels really good on a whole number of levels and on okay levels. Settled isn’t always good but this kind I think it is.

There has got to be something distinctly wrong with the levels of stress that happen in preparation for a wedding/marriage. Infact the whole boyfriend-girlfriend, near-fiance, fiance thing isn’t really the greatest. Despite sitting on a high for good parts of it and it being really, really fun – a spot of massive learning. There’s all this unspoken emphasis and pressure on self, sexuality, time, friendships and more.

Farewell oh carefree days of being too-young-a-teenager to care. Suddenly, I may have a marriage and a husband to think about and that’s not no work, but pffffffffh all this planning, stress, unrecognised pressure is gone. I have my head back, my brain back, and a good lot of self freedom along with someone who makes me incredibly happy by just existing.

I’ve always thought I was a pragmatic person. Our friends Beth and Brian have this theory where when two people become married the one-ness contributes in a few amusing ways. Things even out. Such as, Bec is more funny now she’s married to Geoff. Which of course is the compliment to Geoff, and not to me. The sideswipe compliment. We use it on just about anything regardless. Geoff is more attractive, I am taller. On the pragmatic thing though. I really like how Geoff has a way of looking at things especially regarding people, his observations and understandings of situations go far beyond where I would ever even arrive. It’s shocked into me this realisation that I miss an awful lot. I hope it wears off onto me.

The other things I’m really enjoying at the moment are simple;

Terry Pratchet books - which I always avoided in the past because his fans are fanatical and I wasn’t sure. Sure the volume of characters means that you cannot go near the books when you’ve got much else on, but my they’re funny. My delight was only extended while sitting on the train reading, a girl sat down next me and pulled one out. Spread the amusement. It’s somewhat global.

Lately I’ve been discovering a whole lot more about coding through the need to butcher and expand WordPress templates. Sure it means you’re up to your elbows in a mash of CSS, HTML and the dreaded PHP, but it’s beautifully satisfying when you get something to work. I like to expand my repertoire where it’s useful. It’s fun, it spits out something visual and when that visual matches what you’re after it is fantastic.

On Thursday night Jess and I went to a Justin Grounds gig. I bought the tickets for Geoff who loves his stuff, however work was a moron and kept him there. It was really good to spend time with Jess. We got to Northcote (across the city) on time. The supporting act started a bit later than we realised and Grounds later still. We found a chocolate/coffee/restaurant place. Cocoinc. Ordered tentatively. Enjoyed ourselves and were ready to be hit by the cost when it rounded out to a $2.50 coffee and a $4.00 gourmet hot-chocolate. I enjoyed that coffee oh-so much more, and it was good coffee. Perhaps I should move to Northcote? It’s too a strange part of Melbourne really.

At about 8:40pm we walked back to the venue and caught the tail end of the supporting act Osh-10. I’m kind of glad we weren’t there earlier as conversation seemed more important. They were okay. Jazz and ethereal based, just vocals and bass but their songs sounded fairly uniform. Perhaps it’s just not my thing. The girl’s face looked strikingly like my cousin-in-law.

Justin Grounds was fantastic as ever. His recordings do work for his music – but he is still better live. I have seen him play at informal gigs before, it’s still somewhat magical when you have a whole room of people sitting silent because it’s just so beautiful. I confess at one I nearly cried. There is something when music brings to the surface the gut of who Jesus is without even mentioning him by name.

These are things that over the past month have inspired me, made the think, laugh, made me go ‘Ah ha!’ and all other whatevers that have given a somewhat slightly stronger response than the other posts I’ve been reading. ie. They wound up in Google Starred section.

By some fluke it seems the girls have won this time, with some nice familiar regular ‘starred’ faces showing up, along with some new ones.

Working from late Jan through to Feb:

• Handling Offenses – Lori Boucher, Confessions of a Pastors Wife
• The Abbey – Christina Aitken, Sojourn
• My Search for the Perfect Cafe [And what it taught me about blogging] – Darren Rowse, ProBlogger
• Chip Kidd on Graphic Design – Poppy, Poppy Talk
• Anti-foundationism – Joe Thorn, Pastor Joe Thorn
• An Open Letter to Fred Phelps and Westbro Church – Katherine Coble, Just Another Pretty Farce
• Friendship: The other side – Makeesha Fisher, Swinging From the Vine
• Kuler Color Tool - Jessica, No Accounting for Taste
• Purify your WordPress Experience – Heather, Oh My Stinkin Heck
• Mettes Pottery {Home} – Holly Becker, Decor8
• Prophetic Voices – Makeesha Fisher, Swinging From the Vine
• Are we unbalanced? – Jessica Hagy, Indexed
• Field Notes Set – Poppy, Poppy Talk
• On Love & Risk – Joshua Longbrake, Love in the Key of Longbrake
• Happiness – Samantha, Blonde Musings
• Little Zoo – Jordan Ferney, Oh Happy Day
• Television Q & A – Heather, Oh My Stinkin Heck
• West Elm Newbies – Jordan Ferney, Oh Happy Day
• The Bible – Katherine Coble, Just Another Pretty Farce
• The Work of God’s Kingdom – Fred, Of First Importance
• Kill Plastic Bags with Taxes, Look to Ireland – Emily, Inhabitat
• Yes we can – Makeesha Fisher, Swinging From the Vine