Warhead’s Neighborhood

National Lampoon's Vacation was on TV, and Youngest and I were sitting on the couch watching it, when I said, "The 80's had some good music." He nodded noncommittally, staring at the TV, where a young Anthony Michael Hall was paging through a nudie mag. Then he asked, "You know what would be *so* cool?"
"What?"
"If I could somehow travel back to the time of the 80's."
"Ah. Yeah."
"And if I had like, 80's clothes and all the 80's stuff, and knew how to talk like they did in the 80's."
"Mmhm."
"Because then, maybe I would know what it's like to like 80's music."

annoying jack

Thanks for the flat :p

Josie cannot be bothered.

What's the first exhibit you visit at the zoo?

Elephants.

So it's that time of year again. I suspect I may be a little earlier than usual, but if I am I lay it at the feet of the Royal Mail who have me in all of a tizz trying to work out how late I can send Christmas presents to Australia without strike action meaning they won't arrive till March or something.

So the usual applies - this is intended to guide those who want to give me a present but have no clue where to start - it's not intended to beg for gifts from anyone who didn't intend that thought when they came here! It's a long list for the simple reason that I like Christmas to be full of surprises and a long list gives more scope for surprise. I've also tried to include a variety of budget- and long-distance-post-friendly options so you should find something appropriate here - if not, feel free to deviate and invent - hopefully this should give you a few ideas.

If you do decide to send me something from this list, please email djelibeybi what you've chosen, to avoid possible doubling-up. If you don't have his email, let me know :-)

(Sorry it's a little half-baked - one of the problems of blogging a list like this on your iPod on the tube is you can't look anything up and I'm past my bedtime now)

So without further ado, here we go!

Vefa's Kitchen - Phaidon's big Greek cookbook Thank you, Buffygirl!

Hummingbird Bakery cookbook

Le Creuset Poterie lasagne dish in red or red-orange
Le Creuset Poterie ramekins or mini casserole dishes w lids - 6 for pref in red or red-orange but 2 would make a perfectly acceptable start

Amazon vouchers *again* - I think this is the third year in a row that these have been in here and still no takers *sigh*

Book of David Hockney UK paintings from Tate shop (when I get a chance, I'll hunt out the actual name of it. Big book. It's got all his Yorkshire paintings in it, including the ones he's started doing which are a combination of photos and painting)

CD: Nico Muhly  - Mothertongue

Camera - Canon G11 or Panasonic Lumix TZ-7 (I think - need to double-check the Lumix number. Will do that this weekend. I doubt there'll be a rush for this one in the next couple of days though...)

An original artwork by Simone O'Callaghan - I've always wanted one of her prints and her prices are ridiculously reasonable. Ask djeli if you need her email address.

Wooden knitting needles - interchangeable ends circular set (link will come when there's time...)

Row counter

Shoulder massage device - something designed to remove tension knots, not just feel nice. I would love you forever if you can really find something that will take out knots. Doubly so if it will fit tidily into a handbag.

Colinette chunky yarn - yah. yummy stuff. can't remember the name (see earlier note re: weekend)

Sock knitting books! There's a couple of them, but (again), I'll need to look them up

2 skeins Koigu sock yarn - so can actually make socks with it this time (one skein per foot, in case you're not a knitter and you're wondering - can't get a whole pair out of one skein!)

Artists' sketchbooks book

iTunes voucher (must be in ££s though - AuD can't be used in the UK store) - lots of little digital helpers I'd like to get - the full version of Karajan ear training for a start!

... and if all that's not enough, there was a lot left over from last year's list too - anything not formatted with strikeout is fair game :-)

If you joined the circus, what act would you most want to perform?

Setting free the elephants. The lions and bears, too. Pretty much all of the animals. Only not just setting them free - somehow magically restoring their lost habitats and returning them home, so they can heal up from the bullhook scars and other injuries that are all just part of being "trained" to entertain people.

After that? Maybe the trapeze.

Today is "Evaluate Your Life Day." So, tell us: how do you think you're life's going so far?

Clearly my li'fe does not ha've enough random apostrophes. Im telling' you, I think every'one needs more of them.

i've suspected awhile that i'm a very picky individual. today i think i have confirmed it. i've been looking at online accounting packages. my issue is that i have myob accounting plus for windows. i've had it for years, and it's been pretty good. i went for accounting plus because i wanted the ability to track stock of scores (which i've never had a need for) and for time tracking, but that came with a bunch of payroll rubbish, and i haven't upgraded since about 2003 because they've never implemented multi-currency support (or hadn't when i checked a couple of years back. i've stopped bothering to look) and i didn't need all the super-dooper payroll calculations that seemed to be the only true upgrades in the rather pricey package. the real issues with what i have are that:

1. it's windows-based, so i have to get at it via parallels, which is simple, but slow, so i avoid it
   
2. it offers way more features than i need and then i get confused
3. because i don't use it often, i go through a steep learning curve every time trying to remember where to put stuff, and - most heinous of all -
   
4. it draws its currency based on the system currency, so i can't even have one account for australian dollars and one account for pounds - it's all of one or all of the other. and it drives me nuts working with my uk finances with $$$ everywhere

so yes, i'm picky, but because it has so many issues and i'm avoiding using it, i'm really not in control of my finances (slim as they are, but that's all the more reason to understand them) and am always horrendously behind with working out stuff like, y'know, tax and invoices and things.

so today i went a-hunting for an online app that would help me out. something to manage my personal finances, at least in the uk, preferably in australia too (hey, i'm not unreasonable - i don't expect it to do everything!), although with the acknowledgement that separate accounts might be best for maintaining separation between the two (because i lodge tax returns there and here - must look into what i can do to stop that). ideally i'd like to be able to shift my own australian business finances into the australian part and generate invoices, pay bills and whatnot and produce the reports that my accountant needs. and i need it to preferably be free or at least cost seriously minor ducats - i don't earn that much in a year and the aim here is to at least get a grip over my finances, not work my way to a vast fiscal empire. so i've been ahunting and i've found it particularly interesting noting what is disqualifying all these services, none of which seems to be quite right. it's a learning experience - and especially from a web design perspective - that i think will be valuable for djeli's and my super-secret project which we're working on right now. so i thought i'd inflict what i found on you, dear reader. sorry about that. you can stop reading, you know.

• free agent central: fantastic support for UK finances, import and easy categorisation of bank statements, at-a-glance charts, money owed/owing, etc., subscribable calendar of tax due dates (nice touch!) and on-the-fly calculation of tax due. even a nice little page for working out one's self-assessment tax return which looked like it would help do away with the accountant a little. but: minimum £15 a month - ouch! £150 a year gives a nice little discount, but is way, way way out of my budget. free 30-day trial is nice, but pointless if the monthly fee is beyond me. sad about that
  
• freshbooks: i've heard quite a bit about this one, but it looks very US-centric, couldn't find any indication that it supported UK requirements at all
• curdbee: great-looking service, nice site, seems easy to use, multi-currency support - set your base currency then you can set each customer's currency individually (nice!). free account does almost everything except estimates, pro account only $5 a month, so eminently affordable. but it doesn't do banking, only invoicing, so doesn't help with tracking the overall state of my finances.
• mint.com: i had high hopes of this one - all about budgeting and so on, but seems to be US-only. i guess you might be able to use it if you entered everything manually, but that would just be stupidly painful. shame. they have an iphone app and everything :-(
  
• workingpoint: looked quite good... until i found that it auto-generates a public profile for you (why??) which put me off a bit... and then i discovered that it's US-only which wiped it entirely
• openair.com: i was interested in my initial reaction to this which went: 'eugh! ugly site. omg they've used the word "solutions"! this ain't for me'. so i gave it a moment and analysed. the ugliness of the site destroyed any hope i might have had that the user interface would be clean and easy to use - it was cluttered with banner ads and hard to read. 'solutions' is a word i associate with high-end corporate business - definitely not for me. even when i made myself stop and look closely at the site to try to find information about the product i wanted, i actually had trouble. the solutions page did list their various levels, but the pricing page just said to contact them. poa? no thanks!
• saasu.com (formerly netaccounts): another messy site. hard-to-read navigation is never a good way to start. i got excited when i saw the 'use it free' button, but alas it was a red herring - the free account only allows 15 transactions a month - who thought that one up? the next level up is $AU25 per month - about £12, which is still a bit steep. multi-currency is supported but you have to pay an extra $10 a month for that... no chance. shame. i like supporting the australian option in software, but not for that kind of outlay.
• easybill: well, that was kind of expected: invoicing only.
• blinksale: likewise
• iggsoftware.com: at first i was put off by this. it's not a web service, which was what i was hoping for - they do mac apps, plus the layout of the site has the app iBiz (invoicing and time-tracking) larger than iBank (finance management) so i didn't even register that the latter was there for a moment. then i didn't like the idea of separate apps, but on revisiting the site, iBank could well be an option for me. for $59.99 it's a modest-ish outlay, no ongoing fees. nice that it has an iphone app; annoying that you need mobileme to run it. it does multiple currencies, but doesn't seem to do invoicing at all... i guess that's why they do iBiz, but why not integrate them? feels messy... and from what i can see from their forums, some users are feeling this too. intrigued, but hesitant. i like the idea of being able to track my banking both here and in aus from the one place...
• lessaccounting: this one looks pretty good, but the pricing and signup page is vague at best about what you get with the free account ("limited use of invoices & expenses, accounting reports") but it's made clear that bank accounts aren't available until you pay $20 a month. so cheaper than the others, but still more than i'm willing to pay for something that doesn't do everything (it can't support bank accounts in more than one currency, although it supports multi-currency invoicing) but it's probably on the consideration list.
  
• liquidaccounts: another ugly, hard-to-read website. far too much information in all-caps, making it hard to read. oh, except for the bit about £15 a month plus vat. after that what it did was pretty much irrelevant.

so that's twelve options, no sale. but i've narrowed it down to a shortlist at least, consisting of free agent, ibiz/ibank and lessaccounting. if anyone knows any alternatives, i'm raring to keep testing!

update: an addition to the list, but not, i fear, the shortlist: jumsoft money for mac. it has all the functionality, but unfortunately lacks finesse, so you can't link transactions together (withdrawal from one acct to a deposit in another, or a withdrawal from a bank account to pay off a loan account) plus it doesn't export proper accountant reports, but it's a nice start on an accounting app - give it a few more years and it could be a real contender. so heigh ho. back to the drawing board.

another update: found another 4 options. quicken online is actually free(!) and while information about things like multiple currencies was limited, i figure i might as well sign up and see what they had... but their registration will only accept a US postcode and wouldn't let me leave the field blank, so that one's out of the running. geezeo hides all but the most high-level info about their service inside videos. i couldn't be bothered sifting through them and frankly it all sounded a little mickey mouse. perhaps this is lame and i should be pursuing these sorts of things further, but really - there are so many products out there, if they can't be bothered to differentiate themselves, then i can't be bothered to waste time on them. sorry. next! buxfer has the benefit of providing, nice and upfront, a demo version of the site - don't read about it, have a wander! it looks pretty nice, but there are no tooltips that i can see on the buttons (in firefox) which means the interface would take me too long to learn. and finally wesabe, which looks like it could be quite good but they seem focused on the community aspect of their service, which is something that doesn't interest me in the slightest. i'm testing ibank at the moment, and so far am pretty impressed with it! pretty straightforward, easy to import data, categorise it and do things like pay off loans that aren't using regular payments (e.g. family loans), and it seems their iphone offering has been updated so that mobileme is no longer a requirement for syncing. we could have a winner?