Yep... Gracie and I are finally engaged. The story is way too long to put in one of these little boxes so you'll all have to read about it in the Output section. Enjoy.

After much of the clicking and the rooting around, I've finally gotten this "Comments" thing to work. From now on, you'll be able to click that "View/Add Comments" link at the bottom of each news post, and you can leave a little comment for me and other visitors. Newspro has an add-on called kTalk which is supposed to make things easy... and it probably does when it works. I've had to scrap most of the code and re-write it by hand in ASP and perl. It also uses a database now. I'll eventually be moving a lot of the content across to the database too, so the groundwork is set for that now.

I'm playing Chrono Cross on the Playstation at the moment, and it is one kick-ass RPG... in fact, I would go as far as to say that it kicks ass! I've clocked up about 35 hours so far, and I'm just on the 2nd CD now. It's even got a few eye-opening theories on evolution, not wholly unlike Xenogears' views on God. Check it out:

"The life forms on this planet developed from single-celled microorganisms to protozoans, then from fish to amphibians, from reptiles to mammals and eventually to humans. Beginning with a cerebal neocortex, which only exists in higher mammals, the anthropod brain enlarged at an accelarated pace until it became the human brain we know. Could the reason for the abnormal development of the human brain be the biological contamination caused by Lavos (an alien meteor, fallen to earth in prehistoric times wiping out dinosaur life)? That would mean that humans are really a heterogeneous life-form, or "foreign matter", as far as the planet is concerned. Humans are a sudden mutation caused by the contact with Lavos -- an alien life form that fell to this planet from space. That is why humans are, biologically speaking, unbalanced and half-finished. Internally inconsistant and disconnected, the human existence is plagued by contradictions. An incomplete species, torn between love and hatred, who's very being is self-contradictory. From the planet's viewpoint,humans are just destroyers and a cursed, yet perhaps pathetic, blight on the world"

... and this is pretty bizzare. This was sent to me by Eliot Jarman, a regular subscriber to McMedia's Newsletter. It makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. I love it! Check out the online store of a mental patient.

Last Tuesday was Planet MadDog's most popular day yet, with a mammoth (well, for me anyway) 71 unique hits for the day! Thanks to everyone who visited me on Tuesday, even if you did just check out the BBQ pics, but I hope you did have a bit of a look around and find at least one reason to come back some time.

On an unrelated note, according to my stats package someone found Planet MadDog typing "fat hairy women" into a search engine. Another guy found it by "Geoff Jantz"... Go figure.

Well, after a year or so of development time, including 147+ hours of programming from Noel, not to mention my time from making templates, designing, planing, and coordinating the project, OzChat 2 has gone live, leaving the original OzChat in it's dust.

OzChat 2 is a completely templated, database driven, super happy, hyper plus extra extra mega EX revolutionary webchat borne from the ideas and concepts of myself and the other OzChatters.

If you're not already registered, click da damn link and sign yourself up. There are still a few bugs, and the speed will improve when we move the server to a 100Meg ether, but until then it still kicks the aardvarks aass, so enjoy.

To view my eagerly awaited OzChat BBQ pictures for this year, go through, as usual, to the Output section. There are also a selection of pics from Camp Runamuck, held at Moira Park after the BBQ. Sorry for the delay. They've actually been online since the day after the BBQ, but I didn't want to link them through until I had put the 5 video clips online. They still aren't there yet, but they should be up in the next couple of days. I'll keep you posted.

Enjoy

Being part of OzChat's Admin Team we get some strange emails from some strange people on some strange topics so I thought I'd share with you my top 3 emails and Hatch's responses. Enjoy.

Now you can find out about exactly what kind of digital camera I ended up getting, and whether or not I am finally happy. Go through the Output section.

Yes, it was my birthday on Saturday. Thanks to all who gave their birthday greetings. I had a great night and got some great pressies, and I've got the pics to prove it. They're not online yet, as I've been having some computer problems at home trying to get my new DVD drive going. As soon as they're up, I'll let you know.

In the meantime, I've made a few other changes. The 'Mailing List' sign-up form that used to be on the side bar is gone. I've come to terms with the reality that a) people dont like signing up for mailing lists, and b) I really can't be stuffed to write a regular mail-out. Also, I've added a link to my News Archives right there under the Webcam link.