Matt's Newest iPhone App - Pocketball!

Matt has been working on his latest iPhone app, Pocketball, for a little while now, and it's finally out!

It's an awesome physics game where you have to draw ropes that direct balls into their respectively colored pockets while avoiding things like boosters, gravity wells, and nukes that explode your ball up into tiny pieces!

It's a really fun and addictive game, and the app as a whole came together really nicely. The graphics are really shiny, the sounds (which I helped on!) are cool, and I'm so proud of Matt for putting the whole thing together from start to finish :)

It's out now at the AppStore for $1.99US, so check Pocketball out!

Waiter, there's a Bug in my Table

Okay so maybe it's not a bug, but there's something strange going on with our table!

About a year ago we bought a beautiful and massive Shesham table from Classique furniture. After a couple of months we noticed that it was making a funny noise every now and then, maybe once every fortnight for around 5 minutes at a time. We just assumed it was the wood settling, and everyone we told said the same thing.

I managed to get the sound on film a couple of times, and we started getting really worried that it may be something a bit more sinister, like a bug crunching away at our table! We had a few worried reactions from friends and family when we played them the sound, so we finally decided to go back to Classique and play it to them too.

They had absolutely no idea what it could be, and all of them said that they'd never heard anything like it! They assured us it wasn't a bug, since bugs don't make noise, and if they did, there'd be a lot of separate noises instead of just one. They also mentioned there's other signs like small holes in the wood, and sawdust on the floor that usually accompany bugs eating a table. Apparently this particular table is quite popular, and they said they'd never had any complaints about noise in the past! Regardless, they said they'd be happy to exchange it for a new one, so at least we won't have a crazy noisy table anymore.

If anyone happens to know what the noise could possibly be please let me know! Even though we're getting a new table it will still bug me for a while!

A Present from my Parents and Mina

Last Thursday I got a strange phone call from my dad saying that he wanted me to come straight home after work because my mum wanted me to see something. When I asked what it was, he said that it wont take long, and to just come, because "you know how your mum is". Kind of strange, but knowing my family, I didn't think much of it!

I was really exhausted, since I had been out on a field trial at Garden Island for work and was sunburnt, tired, and dirty from the day. So when I pulled in to my parents house and saw that there was an unfamiliar car there, I was a bit annoyed that my parents had company.

My dad met me as I was walking up the driveway, and when I asked who was visiting, he said nobody was, and that he'd picked up a new car! Finally! I was so happy that they finally upgraded the family car, since my dad drives the same car as I do (a 1986 Mercedes 190E) and both of them had given us quite a few problems over the years.

So we all went out to take a look, and my mum and Mina were really excited about it too. It's a beautiful dark blue 1997 C180 Mercedes - my dad certainly has a type!

My dad invited me to sit in the driver's seat to look at all the new fancy controls, but as soon as I sat down Mina handed me a card. I was very confused, but when I pulled it out and saw that it was a Congratulations card, I got a little worried! Before I knew it, I was holding the keys to the biggest present my family had ever bought me!

I honestly couldn't believe it, and my first reaction was to tell them I couldn't accept it. I mean, it's the newest car we've ever had in the family, and I just couldn't accept that it would be me that was driving it! I started crying and trying to figure out how to transfer the ownership to them, but after about an hour they managed to convince me that they really wanted to give me this present, and they were happy to know that I'd be driving a comfortable car that would hopefully not give my dad any trouble for a while. My mum said that crying was the last reaction she expected me to have!

My dad is actually looking into one for himself too, and plans to get rid of our two 190E's to help fund his upgrade. He'd been looking around for 2 months before he bought the one for me, so he got a pretty good idea of what's out there. I really hope he gets a new car, since he really deserves it, and our driveway is starting to look a bit like a car dealership from the 1980's anyway!

So thanks to my family, it's such a beautiful gift *sniff*

The Pinnacles

This long weekend my parents, Mina, Matt and I went up north to Cervantes to see the Pinnacles at Nambung National Park. Matt and I had already been with his family, but I thought my parents and Mina would really enjoy it, and I was right!

The Pinnacles are about 20 minutes drive from the town of Cervantes (where we stayed). It's a really strange sight - in the middle of nowhere, there's a huge area of yellow sand with giant limestone formations jutting out of the ground. The whole area is surrounded by thick scrub so it really is like walking onto another planet (and at sunset, that planet would most definitely be Mars).

We also drove up to Jurian Bay where we spent some time on the beach and had an awesome fish 'n chips lunch. It was the first day this Spring that the temperature rose over 27 degrees (where we were anyway, I'm not sure about Perth!) and the beach was packed with people making the most of it. We managed to find a nice quite spot to spend a lazy Spring afternoon.

To my surprise, everyone actually had a great time! My family is notorious for having arguments over nothing in times of high stress, and going on a road trip counts as an extremely high stress situation. My parents and Mina thought the Pinnacles were really interesting, and apart from them packing the whole house to bring for a 3 day holiday, everything ran quite smoothly. I may even be able to convince them to come down to Albany next long weekend...

I Have Graduated!

Last night was my graduation ceremony from Engineering / Computer and Mathematical Sciences at the University of Western Australia. I now have in my possession two pieces of paper that make my 5 years of study official!

As far as ceremony goes, it wasn't all that bad. Ever since my high school days, where our Speech Night went for 4h, I have not been a fan of ceremonies in general, but the 2h graduation was actually pretty good!

Lara, Ro, Adam and I all deferred our graduation ceremony so we could graduate together, and it was definitely worth it. Because mid year graduation is quite small, R0 me and Lara (M, M, and K) actually got called one after the other consecutively! Adam (N) would have been called before Ro had he not chosen to drop the engineering part of his degree and keep going with Computer Science honours grrrr.

As mid-ceremony entertainment, one of the computer science lecturers sitting up the front of the hall fainted in her seat. She turned a lovely shade of green which matched her sash color beautifully (we can laugh because she was OK folks). It was actually quite ironic since she fainted in the middle of the valedictorian speech during the part where the student was describing how they didn't become an air hostess because of fear of vomit, and was much more interested in disease anyway. How awkward.

After the ceremony we did the obligatory dorky photo shoot all around the UWA pillars, had some drinks and nibblies, and then headed down to Basement on Broadway for a drink. Ro actually surprised us by booking an apartment for after graduation celebrations in the city, his shout, which was really sweet of him!

All in all a great night spent with family and great friends. I'm so happy that we decided to all graduate together - I couldn't imagine a better bunch of people to have graduated with!

My 23rd Bday!

Birthday time is always busy for the Manea family, since mine falls on the 6th of August, and my dad's falls on the 8th. This year has been no exception especially since Hybrid was in town!

6th - My Birthday
On the night of my birthday (Thursday night) I had the family around to Matt's place for coffee and tea. It was really nice to get everyone together, but we had a few missing since Matt's lil sister has caught the dreaded swine flu, my uncle is currently in Romania, and it was a bit too late in the evening for Simona's kids to join us :) None the less it was a nice night of food and drinks, with Mina making way too many cakes as usual.

7th - Dinner with the Family
On Friday night I decided to take my parents and Mina out to Sandrino's, my favourite restaurant in Fremantle, and then out for dessert at San Churros which is a Spanish chocolatier right next door.

It was a typical Manea family ordeal, with Mina complaining about everything from A-Z (my favourite complaint was that the churros tasted like french fries with chocolate), but she decided she liked the Sandrino's pizza so at least there was one positive.

After dinner Matt and I rushed home and had a 2h nap because we were going back out at 12pm to see Hybrid! It was SUCH a long day - I had been working since 7.30am and was so ready to call it a night, but it's Hybrid... I would have really regretted missing them. When we got to Villa (the venue), it took us quite a long time to figure out that the guy dj-ing was actually Chris from Hybrid! We kept saying to each other how great this guy was, but we wanted him to hurry up so Hybrid would come on. Turns out Chris has just shaved his head and been enjoying a little bit more food lately so we just didn't recognise him, especially since we were expecting "Hybrid", which is actually 2 guys (Chris and Mike).

It was a really great set with a lot of variety. A few things of note were a Moby remix, a Radiohead remix, "I Love You" (John Creamer and Stephane K - Hybrid remix), and Finished Symphony which everyone went crazy for. It was a great night, but we ended up leaving at around 3.45am because we just couldn't stay awake any longer!

8th - My Party
We had a nice long sleep in and almost got our 8 hours sleep, but we had to get up and start getting stuff ready for my party that night. But first off we went to visit my dad since it was his birthday, and gave him his present which consisted of "Bucky Balls" (little magnetic ball bearings that are really addictive to play with) and my old digital camera which he had asked to have since he knew I got a new one from Matt for my birthday.

After we got back from my parents house, we spent the rest of the day (until about 8ish) getting everything together. Mina made me a whole bunch of awesome little cakes, but I still decided to make fairybread, weetbix choc slice, and some fruit and veg platters (to ease the sugar pain). I couldn't wait to put on my new shoes and my new Review dress so I did a lot of setting up in style, which of course my feet punished me for the next day.



It was a really fun night! I managed to catch up with uni and work friends, but I was missing a few people, particularly my friend Amy who was really sick that night. Poor thing came over anyway to drop off her famous Granny Crunch (a mixture of cream, crunchies, instant pudding, and other naughty things) so that was really sweet of her.

9th - Cleanup!
We spent the whole of Sunday cleaning up the house, which was long over due even before we had people over. Luckily we had the new espresso machine from my cousin Simona to provide us with much needed coffee for the day! In fact all the gifts I received were really thoughful, so thanks everyone :)

Triple J Hottest 100 of All Time

My votes:

• M83 - Teen Angst
• The Postal Service - Such Great Heights
• Phoenix - Too Young
• Jeff Buckley - Last Goodbye
• Underworld - Rez / Cowgirl (live)
• Radiohead - Paranoid Andriod
• The Chemical Brothers - Setting Sun
• TV on the Radio - Province
• The Future Sound of London - We Have Explosive
• Sasha - Wavey Gravy

Would have loved to fit in:

• Air - All I Need
• Arcade Fire - Intervention
• Bjork - All is Full of Love
• Boards of Canada - Dayvan Cowboy
• Fleet Foxes - White Winter Hymnal
• Hybrid - Finished Symphony
• BT - Never Gonna Come Back Down (Hybrid Remix)
• Iron and Wine - Carousel
• The Knife - Heartbeats
• Looper - Mondo '77
• Royksopp - 49 Percent
• The Shins - New Slang