So i've been listening to a lot of podcasts lately (my cd collection is 'in transit'). I was listening to Wil Wheaton's audio blog today, when I came across this entry. I had never heard of number stations before, so I did some research, and found this.

Firstly this is very cool, secondly, it's strange how interesting this is to listen to. It's just something about listening to random numbers thats very relaxing and interesting at the same time. Your brain is always working, and trying to find patterns, but at the same time, your front brain isn't doing anything.

Move over white noise, number stations are gonna be my relaxation music of choice.

Okay, guess it's time for an update. I finally got around to redirecting the domain to this account, so everyone be thankfull for small miracals.

I'm here in Seattle. Been here for about 4 weeks now. Enjoying some aspects of it, and not others.

First off, work is cool. Having a great time, and working with some really interesting / very (very) intellegent people.

I have a new place to live. It's on Mercer Island, which sits in the middle of lake washington (to the east of seattle). The neighbourhood is called Shorewood Heights.It's about 10 minutes to downtown, and about 15 to work, so it gives me choices about where I can go. It is in a planned community though, which is kinda strange, cause everything is 'perfect' and you feel bad doing things like walking across the lawn rather than using the path.

Unfortunatly I cannot move in, as my air freight from Australia has not arrived yet. It seems the moving company 'forgot' to send it. After reminding them last week, they remembered to send it, and it is now in Seattle, and passed customs. However the shipping company at this end is unable to deliver it until next Monday.

I've also bought a new car. Unfortunatly, it is not the Mini Cooper S that I said I would get. There was a very long wait list for them, plus they are really really expensive. So instead I got a Mazda 3s. A 2.3L 4 cylinder engine, on a 5 speed tiptronic box, and 4 wheel disc brakes, make this a really fun car to drive.

Apart from that, living in America is very strange. As Keith puts it 'it's through the lense, darkly', meaning everything is very very similar, it's just the small stuff thats wrong and strange.

Like, your able to buy alcohol at the super-market, and the service station. However EVERYWHERE you go your asked for ID. Unlike australia, where you can only buy alcohol from a liquor store and your very rarely asked for ID. Also, they don't have drive through bottle shops (for a place that has drive through chemists, drive through banks & drive through resturants, you'd think a bottle shop would be a given).

Some other 'wrong things'

• Light switches go the wrong direction (and they prefer standing lamps, to overhead lights).
  
• Toilet flushing is just so wrong its hard to describe.
  
• You don't have stores like Myer, where you can get almost anything for home furnishing. i.e. getting an iron, electric kettle, ironing board and alarm clock required 3 different stores.
  
• Radio is just bad... bad bad bad bad bad....
  
• You don't use cash... to pay for parking, I HAD to use my credit card ($1 parking fee + $4 international txn fee = me not very happy).
  
• Instead of ticket parking, you park in a numbered bay, then stuff cash into a box corresponding to your number (this is high tech stuff).
  
• People on the freeway don't understand 'correct following distance', and seem to get very stressed if you do and prevent them from being a further 2 meters ahead.
  

Thats about all I can think of now, however there is probably more. A day does not seem to go by, where I don't think to myself 'that's just stupid'.