Thoughts of a Psych/Code Monkey/Guitarist

They say a picture's worth a thousand words. So, here's a blog entry that's 5219 words long: It's on! The TopCoder Collegiate Challenge has been announced :D It's TopCoder's big Uni-only tournament - soon the Design contest will start, I'm hoping to make the top 8 to get a trip to the US (not too many uni students design). The algorithm contest starts part way through next month too. Wondering why I've gone crazy? Squint your eyes...it's part of the ASCII world cup feed. I'm glad to be back on the scoreboard at soccer, and for those in either one of the two teams, click the pic above. During holidays, I played a bit of poker online, managed to come 16th out of 1000+ in an Omaha tournament, the second time I'd ever played it ;) and up to over $100,000 in play money, after starting at $1k...if only it were real :p Uni's back! Enjoy the learning. This has a double meaning too, as last night was the first ever TCHS SRM (school-age programmi...

First, we found out Andrew Symonds was now playing with band Gorillaz - this time, compare the pear: ...oh, wait, I mean, pair: vs. No wonder Queer-Eye Australia didn't work - they didn't have Tim Cahill as the 'lifestyle' (a.k.a what-the-heck-does-he-actually-do) guy! Oh, and speaking of Australian versions of US shows...it's terrible!! Oh, how terrible - they're soon going to have Australian Celebrity Survivor!! After the complete failure of the normal Australian version of Survivor - their first challenge NEVER FINISHED because it got windy ;) - someone has decided to now have it starring B-grade celebrities. And what is more, they have chosen Dicko as the host! The greatest parts of the US (= true) version are (a) The scheming and back-stabbing, which I seriously doubt celebrities will do much of infront of a camera, and (b) Jeff has the host! I for one will not be watching this version :p

Winter often seems to be accompanied by the cold-weather blues. It's inevitabre ( I'm sorry, it's what? ... Inevit, inevitabre! ) due to colds, lack of sun, football fixtures, + miscellaneous other. Anyway, I promised more pictures, so here's a start. During these wintery weeks, remember; Make the ball happy! Oh, and for all those who noticed the post time and thought: "But...you never wake up before 10am!" - you are correct ;) Waking up implies sleeping, which I have yet to partake in due to aforementioned football fixture (unfortunate way for Zidane to go) - it is now 9am, I wonder when that sleep wall is going to headbutt me in the chest...

Before I start - Seems like Czech AND Argentina are out - probably Germany or winner of Brazil v France will have the best shot. And while that's happening, Federer is continuing his title defense at Wimbledon :) In addition, two new Lemonade sites: the wiki , and the OneWay portal - the former is great for quick generation of information, the latter looks much nicer but is a bit less userfriendly - for now, use both, but later I think the wiki stuff should be moved over to the portal. However, what I actually thought I may as well blog about was the weird stuff happening to the Education Systems in each of the states. Unfortunately, at the same time, people have introduced Outcomes-based Education (OBE) in Western Australia as well as protesting against a mandatory A-E grading system throughout primary schools. Sure, maybe A-E is a bit blunt, especially when not accompanied by any explanation. But, why 'unfortunately'? Well, it all stems with what people are recommendin...