I think many people observe that birthdays come around faster as they get older. For me, the last year seems to have flown past, despite the fact it has probably been one of the most eventful of my life so far. It started with an overseas holiday and ended with a new job as a researcher. Along the way, I submitted a Ph.D. thesis, began and ended a job as a software engineer, got engaged, bought a house, moved into said house (thereby leaving "home" for what was the last time), watched Australia finally qualify for the World Cup, and was awarded a Ph.D. (in something like that order). Needless to say, there are many, many people to thank for helping to make that year what it was.
So this year has a lot to live up to. It will start off well enough, for I’ll be marrying Karen in April. What else happens during the year remains to be seen, but I’m looking forward to it! I’m thoroughly enjoying my new job, and my interest in ubiquitous computing has been re-energised. On the one hand, I’m hoping for another eventful year (as long as the events are positive!). On the other hand, it would be nice to have a quiet year in which Karen and I can just enjoy being married.
Karen bought me a Humax set-top box for my birthday/Valentine’s day. It’s standard definition since we only have a standard definition 4:3 television anyway. It’s got an 80GB hard disk drive built into it for recording, and it has some nice features like being able to press pause while watching live television and having the stream buffered to the HDD. Handy for when you’re watching football and you get interrupted by a phone call. We used it last night to record Gilmore Girls, but I think we might have missed the end of it since the stupid Commonwealth Games swimming qualifiers went way overtime. Do television viewers really find it interesting to watch people swimming laps in a pool for so many hours on end? We were at Suncorp Stadium watching a highly entertaining game of football. :-)
