ACT ONE: Labour Day in Singapore, sexism you’d be shot down for in Australia, Garfield quotes, mouth clicking is not professional, gorgeous pink sunsets.

ACT TWO: Jimbob finds out what’s wrong, my cat versus dog debate: which one do you prefer?

ACT THREE: Max Brenner restaurant review at the Esplanade, absolutely incredible chocolate! Branches in the US, Singapore, Australia, the Philippines, Israel. Drinking out of Hug Mugs, comparing it to the Starbucks Chantico, Aztec style chocolate goodness!

I took the sunset photos in such a hurry none of them really turned out that well, so I posted a camera-phone picture from Max Brenner’s instead. Sorry folks!

Download MP3 to listen ↓ 33:43, 15.5MiB

ACT ONE: On hobgoblins and small minds (courtesy of Cranky Geeks 113!), where we are in Singapore, diamond shaped thingys.

ACT TWO: Pontificating on the reason why McDonald’s started printing nutritional information on place mats, a McChicken burger surprise!

ACT THREE: Discussing the question: would you prefer to study in a Starbucks or in McDonalds? Reading comments by Neil from IntoYourHead, GeekMommy and Sharon in Singapore!

ACT FOUR: Singapore housing boom, ridiculously tall buildings, weird designs that just don’t look stable!

Download MP3 to listen ↓ 33:10, 15.2MiB

ACT ONE: Twitter is back, and so is the spam! Frustration with my Nokia e61i’s speed, awesome Canadians in Singapore, university and high school have much in common, Elke’s polytechnic adventures, The Levels becomes Mawson Lakes (WTF?).

ACT TWO: Silly university entrance requirements and an Elke and Ruben combined teachers and students rant!

ACT THREE: Even more dang Twitter spam messages, the lead singer from the Crash Test Dummies rocks!

Download MP3 to listen ↓ 37:20, 17.1MiB

A bit more serious: discussing the reasons why I became an atheist from experiences in my early childhood to the present, including most recently my beautiful mummy’s struggle with cancer and passing on.

Also briefly refuting some of the misconceptions about atheists including intolerance, arrogance, spirituality, materialism, wishful thinking, heaven, the celestial dictatorship, and why statements like this are completely untrue.

BONUS: A very quick, foolproof test you can use to see if someone who trashes evolution has actually studied it.

DISCLAIMER: This episode was not recorded to insult people, it’s just an explanation for why personally I’m atheist. If you are religious you may be offended, but please know that in my heart that it was not my intention.

Download MP3 to listen ↓ 1:08:56, 31.6MiB

ACT ONE: Elke in Malaysia, different sized pond thingys, scared of copyright law, making more money from concerts than recordings!

ACT TWO: Answers to my philosophical Twitter question, why I’m confusing even myself!

ACT THREE: Reviewing songs from The Renovators album Rhythm & Blueprints including Rip Up the House, It’s Been Done, Blue Reggae, I Don’t Ski.

ACT FOUR: Audio from a Whole Wheat Radio Audio Magazine including an American NBC anchor in the 1970s, the I Could Be Wrong song, and why I also can’t stand Dr. Phil!

STRONG LANGUAGE WARNING!

Download MP3 to listen ↓ 39:45, 18.2MiB

ACT ONE: Roel247’s comments on electronic voting, compulsory voting in Australia, Senator Bob Brown of the Greens meeting the Dalai Lama.

ACT TWO: My label printing obsession! The Brother PT-80, labeling CDs, boxes, magazine holders and everything in my father’s home office, there’s no need to write anything anymore!

ACT THREE: The growing complexity of CMSs and why I’m moving over to home brew again using Ruby and SQlite, WordPress 2.5, loudly dropping aerosol cans, Elke’s gigantic honey sandwich.

ACT FOUR: Converting metric to imperial in Google, Russian mail order brides, Ruben’s idea for a standardised New World Order (patent pending), seeding torrent files, too many tabs in web browsers!

ACT FIVE: Why South Park is actually a great show to watch, being able to laugh at yourself, not taking life too seriously!

Download MP3 to listen ↓ 48:01, 22.0MiB

ACT ONE: The Simpsons Bombardment, Elke’s first live morning Whole Wheat Radio show, Elke on The Sims 2.

ACT TWO: Slow Singapore internet today, Microsoft gets new open source chief, Ruben rants about "shared source" nonsense, CalgaryGuru on Flickr’s new video uploading service, is Yahoo’s brand failing?

ACT THREE: Elke on different social networks across the world, suss people on Bebo, verbose MySpace video profiles.

ACT FOUR: Rant on people intentionally misspelling names, Ruben versus Reuben, Miss Cook adventures in primary school in Melbourne, Web 2.0 buyout baiting, Jerry Yang’s haircut, Wikipedia as a drug, Yahoo Mash.

ACT FIVE: Facebook discussion including remembering 30 passwords, Elise Hopkins, The Schade Clan group, rant on how useless nationalities and patriotism are becoming, origin of the word expat, Mr Slave.

ACT SIX: Ridiculously long lists of Facebook requests, fun in my own introversion, testy-pops, 2005 was a very good year, "Liberal" meaning different things in the US and Australia, Lotus SmartSuite, Microsoft Plus 95, my OBSESSION with screeshots!

ACT SEVEN: Ruben’s dad Rainer debunks mind-controlling chemtrails, huge ships near the Port of Singapore, illuminati controlling my mind as a sheeple, why it’s hard to find words that rhyme with sheeple.

Download MP3 to listen ↓ 1:07:00, 30.7MiB

Episode show notes coming soon, sorry guys!

Download MP3 to listen ↓ 1:02:12, 28.5MiB

ACT ONE: Recounting childhood memories and obsessions from Melbourne, Ikea furniture, Lego.

ACT TWO: Is Starbucks having a positive effect? My favourite coffee house closing, improved coffee quality.

ACT THREE: Rant about public transport: are we better building new damned giant roads or new train lines?

ACT FOUR: General public’s perception of security is wrong: YOU are the biggest security threat! Getting fascinating Bruce Schneier books for my birthday, security companies screwing consumers, using a non-administrative account on Mac OS X.

ACT FIVE: Comparing building your own computer and open source software to hot rod builders, being a 1990’s kid, running Windows software on Linux and FreeBSD with Wine, why it’s a great time to be alive!

ACT SIX: Comparing open source software developers to independent musicians, thanks to Jim Kloss and Esther Golton for the inspiration, sorry for the sacrilegious comparison! Are people worth what they’re being paid? Who’s deriving more happiness from what they’re doing?

Download MP3 to listen ↓ 1:23:03, 39.0MiB

So therefore vis a vis ergo wysiwyg I’ll be archiving and closing the forum soon :-(. If you’d like to post comments about a show (or absolutely any damned thing you want!) please click the Post Comment link at the bottom of the latest show. If you’ve had an approved comment once before it should automatically be posted without the waiting period.

Thanks everyone for your listenership! Listenership is a word right?

A full show will be done by the end of the week, but I wanted to do a show on my birthday. Cool timezone checking site, blog post about the big two two, camera phones, purchasing music from Whole Wheat Radio, birthday lunch at Brotzeit, UPS shipping, FreeBSD and a convenient apple juice handle.

Featuring Elke Schade as a Kmart announcer.

AFTERWARD: I noticed after uploading that the music is a bit too loud compared to my voice for the first 10 minutes or so. I will remember to check my levels more carefully next time!

Download MP3 to listen ↓ 23:03, 10.6MiB

I would post a description, but it would just be a conspiracy! Warning: heavy ironic and satirical undertones!

Download MP3 to listen ↓ 35:27, 20.3MiB

ACT ONE: Too much stuff and not enough time, evil overcast-ness, shipping eBay goods overseas, Synclair ZX Spectrums and Commodore 64s, five times at the Singapore Post centre, duty is a bum, Asian obsession with cool gadgets, efficiency escaping snail mail, Bureau of Oversight.

ACT TWO: Using the Griffin iMic and the LAME encoder, hope it makes the show sound better :)

ACT THREE: Celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Commodore 64, old video clip from the Computer Chronicles, wanting to meet Jack Tramiel and Woz, boardroom stupidity, Schade family IBM machines, Gary Kildall.

ACT FOUR: Smart Singaporean bus stops, tracking buses with GPS, big brother-ism, live twitter posts from Dave Wares, Dave Winer, Leo Laporte and Robert J. Berger.

Download MP3 to listen ↓ 34:41, 19.1MiB

ACT ONE: Show reminiscing, exponential curves in the morning, This is Why I’m Hot, Wikipedia excesses, getting Snitters, interconnected crap, Compton, Anglosphere rivalry, pavlova and trifle.

ACT TWO: Yuletide and Christmas coming, family shopping always the hardest, the Ducati USB thumb drive, 9-11 conspiracy theorists heckle Bill Maher, YouTube reviews, The Google, locked doors, senility, Nokia e61i, iPhones, Casey Stoner, Elke playing Neopets, great nerdy insult, grand pianos on lanyards, impromptu Starbucks thermos review, Costa Coffee in the UK, Singapore Post.

ACT THREE: Singapore PrimaDeli food poisoning scandal, the Ministry of Health is MOH, unfortunate cake ingredient lists.

ACT FOUR: Cheap bulbs in lava lamps, music review of Ska Cubano, Ay Caramba and Istanbul is Constantinople, Last.fm account, losing music in iTunes.

ACT FIVE: Alien DJs, music is the soundtrack to your life, work sucks time (no, really?), floods in Singapore, storms closest to snow we can get here, Dave Wares on tudor houses, and crazy dead lifts.

Download MP3 to listen ↓ 1:07:00, 32.10MiB

New iPods introduced

What Elke thinks of the new Nano, what I think of the Touch, Apple disabling Linux support, downloading cover art in iTunes.

Local Singapore news

World’s largest water pumps being built in the Marina Barrage, what prevents people from being sucked in?

Facebook news

Microsoft buying a pointless chunk, profile gluttony, voting for the Aussie Greens, Elke’s rant on registration woes, I use Twitter to pretend I update my profile, CSS customisation would mean death.

Ruben tries to make Mr Kloss proud

Why doesn’t everyone use metric, what they teach you in school is pointless, why the whole Product Red scheme is no good, why can’t Microsoft even create a spreadsheet app that multiplies properly, why are all men on television fat and stupid?

And the ratholes…

Lava lamp confusion, Lance Armstrong’s LiveStrong armbands, eating grapes, failing MadPlayers and tossed salad and scrambled eggs.

Download MP3 to listen ↓ 54:46 minutes, 25.10MiB

Testing a new Rode NT3 microphone, flying these days is a bitch, discovering Uranus on the 13th, Adobe Photoshop 7, quotes from Leo Laporte’s 2003 TechTV Technology Almanac, a brief history of TechTV from the outside, Leo Laporte’s evil smile, out of sync background music, needing QWERTY on a phone, academic discounting, Aeroline buses between Singapore and KL, Merdeka 2007 in Malaysia, ridiculous numbers of PCs, South East Asian colonialism, the southernmost tip of the Eurasian mainland, Freecycle, resetting GNU/Linux passwords, Larry Craig Pervert Scandal Is Tip Of The Iceberg, Warp’s Artificial Intelligence series, silly sports, Patrick Norton installing GNU/Linux in 2003, hardware router firmware things, WinPopUp, Schmap Guide photo finalist photos, driving from Inverness to Singapore, airports in the middle of nowhere, way too much time on Mobile Twitter, a Nokia e61i mobile phone review, Frank Nora’s Bagel Report and his head on 3G, fantasy football in America, FreeBSD versus Linux security, people on Twitter (Felix, Frank, Andrew, Dave, Manny, Roel, Dadaist), ticket and medical guinea pigs, cable versus DSL, and meeting people on the stair, posting 666 sites in del.icio.us, moving back from Zooomr to Flickr, secret Windows software, waging on horses and people who walk up the stairs who aren’t actually there.

Download MP3 to listen ↓ 1:10:00 minutes, 32.10MiB

Some overdrive audio errors in parts of this episode. I’ve calibrated this new mic for the next episode.

Rubenerd sister Elke joins us to discuss ridiculous news articles, stalker arguing social networking page was misleading, debating seedy MySpace profiles, gyrating at nightclubs, wasting time on Facebook and Friendster, Ruben’s and Elke’s Twitter pages, giving away personal details, Aussie PM John Howard trying to filter the internet, easy to stumble on sleaze online, Ted Steven’s series of tubes, is there blame-shifting going on, oxymoronic fuel efficient SUVs, combatting efficient Japanese cars, hugging trees, good publicity without substance, Elke’s mass communication studies course thing, actually learning nothing useful, chemistry and economics, high school friend Boyd Anderson’s site is mysteriously down, friggen mouse pointers, Blackle is my new favourite search engine, lesbians in The Sims, dark background on light text, energy efficiency tips, Freddo Frogs, comparing American to British, Aussie and Belgian chocolate, Hershey’s Kisses are icky, New Zealand accents, Russell Crowe on South Park and throwing phones, no breast implants in space, voting Green not Libertarian, Ruben’s heterosexuality, hacker webmasters, reading Twitterrific posts from Felix and Frank Nora live, furnaces in the tropics, Japanese and Aussie expats in Singapore, friggen ang mohs, caucasian guys like being special, Elke’s immaturity and unpleasantness, mysterious Champs-Élysées song discovered by surrealist, faulty Nokia phone batteries, URL redundancies, random women forcing themselves on you, Frank’s QuarkXPress woes, The Sunscreen Song and John Howard’s contorted facial expressions.

Download MP3 to listen ↓ 51:00 minutes, 23.40MiB

Insomnia is a bitch, I’m related to Kevin Rudd, Jamiroquai’s virtual insanity, recording a podcast at 0200, great welcome back forum posts, thanking y’all, viagra, TedPod passes 100 episodes, alphabetical order sucks, jetlag, evil sleeping cycles, shocking people, really disappointing iLife 2008 release, dumbing down iMovie, subtle Final Cut Express persuasion speculation, stealing bread and shirts, British Apple advertisements, MacBreak Weekly ratholes, wiping operating systems, big arse apple juicers, self consciousness and why I can’t do video, age and cynicism, online newspapers, genealogy and family trees, convicts going to Australia, Mary Wade to us, living in Singapore, maddening mysterious Champs-Élysées song, Avril Lavigne tries to sing Japanese, slurred stress importance, sitting in a Singaporean coffee shop and making the ultimate kickarse juice!

Download MP3 to listen ↓ 42:00 minutes, 19.20MiB

Son of a diddley, long times and whatnot, moving back to Singapore, Murphey’s law, unpacking stuff, loving living in the tropics, Yakult, a heart attack inducing Singaporean taxi adventure, my two guility signs of insanity, loud apartment security boom gates, going to Changi Airport at 0630 on a Sunday, the Commodore 64 Family Pack, borderline Twitter addiction, Twitting Felix Tanjono and Frank Nora, shoehorning Symbian, 3G wireless in Singapore, using m.twitter.com on a handphone, Keeping Up Appearances, Hyacinth Bucket, hand painted periwinkles, ratholes, review of Twitterrific and TwitWin, Chocolate Rain, awesome internet memes, time zones, some sort of Apple handphone, listening to podcasts and whatnot, neighbourhood insurance rates, Gold 90.5FM, Paul McCartney versus John Lennon, disowning, Starbucks, Dance Tonight on Memory Almost Full music review, singing for sheets, my Beatles realisation from Larry King Live, fortune telling on YouTube, having a brief booming voice, madams on a phone, voting for podcasts, J.D. Lasica and being a multitasking jaywalker.

There’s a bit of voice distortion in parts of this show. I’m obviously out of practice, the next one will be much better!

Download MP3 to listen ↓ 47:00 minutes, 21.60MiB