TommyDownUnder.com

Wii Entertainment

Tommy — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 09:36:00 +0000

Howdy People, I know its been a while between posts but I do intend on keeping this updated. Over the weekend while I had a bad cold or flu I started working on a project for the Wii which a mate from work set me on. I managed to pull up the homebrew channel no worries with a bomberman save file, which took all of about 15 mins. The next step was harder because I already had the latest firmware on my Wii so I had to get a few other programs which degraded it so I could install WAD files. Once the WAD manager was up and running and I had the correct IOS installed I formatted a HDD with 2 partitions: The 1st being in WBFS and the 2nd being in FAT. The 1st partition was the main one, this is where all your games get stored. The 2nd partition is where I installed USB Loader GX. This program lets you play games from your HDD. Not only that, you can go hire a game and come back and back it up with out a mod chip !!! It gets even better Nintendo fill out the disc’s with junk files if the game doesn’t take up all the space and this program takes away all the junk files so you are not wasting any HDD space !!! Yep a geek I know, but a happy geek none the less.

Cup Weekend 2009 – Wonnangatta

Tommy — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 09:22:38 +0000

It’s 5 am Friday morning and once again I am woken up by my alarm clock, but this time I’m happy to get up. Yes it is still a work day …. for most, not me! I took the Friday off before cup week end so we could get the camp site that we wanted. Unfortunately that didn’t happen. It looked like someone had also thought ahead and took off 2 days so they could get this awesome spot. Not to worry tho we found a spot that was just as good and had a ball. Firstly I met Dan and Paul at Dan’s house in Lilydale and then we traveled up to Mansfield where we met Gary and Toni. From here it was the no stop ride into Wonnangatta which took us approximately 6 hours. There was a few brief stops with kids throwing ups (That’s you Mitchel) and refill stops (Goes without saying I guess). With all the bouncing around and excitement we arrived in Wonnangatta just as it started to storm. Lighting, thunder and rain for all of 2 hours and then it dried up again and stayed that way for the rest of the weekend. We had a nice river side campsite, which was awesome. Dan got the fire place sorted straight away while the others set up there living arrangements for the next few days. On the second day we all piled into the troopy and took off to have a quick look at the cemetery again, but other than that this trip was all about kicking back and relaxin’. The next day Paul, Gary and Toni left, so Dan and I went on a walk to see if the other campsite was still taken. To our shock and amazement the occupants had left, awesome! So we hurriedly and drunkardly ran back to camp to pack up our stuff and head back to our favourite site. With that all done and campfire already burning again we could get back to drinking and listening to music in the great outdoors. Some other weird things happened here which led to our short stay, which will be talked about in ‘Wonnangatta – Part 2′. With another day up our sleeve we decided to head out the Myrtleford way. I thought this part of the trip was awesome, the scenery just seemed so much more greener and looked like there was some awesome campsites to be claimed. Once on bitchumen it was a longer trip home but the sunny weather made the driving a little more easier. Over all this was a very cool trip and I am hanging for the next.

Finally

Tommy — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 12:09:41 +0000

Only 1 month later !!! Lucky me. Honestly I cannot believe the crap that I went through in replacing the screen that shattered. The people at the Optus shop were nice and friendly, but the people on the other end of the Optus Insurance have no idea. Really it doesn’t take an Einstein to realise they were just blatantly just reading off the screen. The answer you got had no real relevance to the question you ask, and surely if you ask to speak to the supervisor you shouldn’t get ‘They’ll just give you the same answer as me, so there is no need to speak to the supervisor’. For 2 weeks this went on. It’s enough to make your blood boil. Why get mad when you can get even. If this ever happens to you just look up the number for consumer affairs and make that call. I rang them Friday last week and come Monday I had a call from the shop to say that my phone was there waiting for me to pick it up. Thankfully they didn’t erase my photos or contacts.

Xbox 360 – iXtreme Update

Tommy — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 14:40:05 +0000

Wicked. Just applied the latest iXtreme firmware update to my xbox 360. I needed to do this so I could play Fuel. There was a little bit of messing around because Im running Windows 7 64 bit and the program that was used (Jungle Flasher) doesn’t like 64 bit systems, so I installed XP on my second hard disk. Pretty awesome game, and all the new games require this update as well, so it had to be done.

Live Wire Test & Tag – Head Office

Tommy — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 09:03:19 +0000

Back here at head office of Live Wire Test & Tag we have had a few modifications. I managed to get this desk from a mate at work for free. Although its not the best desk and it has a few things wrong with it, it still is much better than what I use to have and is serving me quite well. The latest accessory here is the vertical filing cabinet which I scored on ebay for $41 … what a bargain. At Office Works a 4 drawer system goes for like $200, so it was a great buy. The office is nearly looking like an office so I am quite excited about this. Now all I need is a little more business my way, so if you need your tools & cords tagged look no further than here http://livewiretestandtag.com.

Fathers Day Weekend

Tommy — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 10:07:58 +0000

Last week end Zoe and myself went for a drive into the Yarra Valley to put some miles onto my new motor and run it in. We drove out to Launching place and made a left hand turn into Old Don Road. This in itself was a nice little drive. We followed the road all the way through from bitumen to an old dusty dirt road. There was some nice big houses out that way, making you wish that you too had a property out there. After getting through the windy bit we found ourselves a stones throw from Healesville and on this end of the journey we saw a sign saying Badgers Weir and we thought we would go and have a look. When we got there we were quite surprised with how nice it was. There is bbq grounds and a place where all the Rosella’s come down and feed out of your hand. We headed of down the track that was signposted “to the weir”. Zoe took heaps of pictures and I took heaps of pictures of her taking pictures. Twenty minutes or so later we arrived at the weir. With dark clouds above us we decided that we would make this a quick stop and head back to the car and promised each other that we would come back here again.

Bad Month

Tommy — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 00:28:54 +0000

Well what can I say? I’m really hoping that September is a better month. The first thing to go wrong was my ‘Million Dollar Hilux’; The motor blow up. After a week of cursing and swearing I had it booked in to be rebuilt. On my home from dropping off Hilux I dropped my phone and the screen smashed, so here I still am using a 1940’s mobile phone (monochrome screen). Then to top matters off my PC crashed on me and I lost everything and a lot of it wasn’t backed up. Guess I only have myself to blame there. Now nearing the end of August things are starting to look up again, I have the Hilux back, my PC is up and running again and now just waiting on Optus to give me my phone back. Once I get the phone back and hopefully nothing has been deleted off it, I’ll put up the photo of my wrecked motor.

OHS Cert IV

Tommy — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 05:52:26 +0000

Well I can’t beleive it myself yet, but I’ve actually started to study again. Its been over 15 years since I have to school and now here I am getting back into the swing of study, homework and assignments. Since my days at AAA as a safety representative I’ve had a passion for OHS and have been saving hard to be able to afford a course. Now with my tax return back I am able to get started in my course. My books arrived in the mail today so I guess today is start of school for me again.

Snow Season

Tommy — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 23:40:36 +0000

“Beep, Beep, Beep”. Its 5:30am on a Saturday morning, and the alarm has just gone off. There is only one reason someone would set their alarm that early on Saturday morning and that would be a trip to Mt Buller! It was dark, cold and misty and ideal conditions just to stay in bed after a hard weeks work, but as there is no rest for the wicked I jumped in my mates car and headed off for that fluffy white snow. Half way there somewhere around Yea, there was other people fufilling dreams by taking off in hot air balloon just before dawn, it was an awesome site. Forty minutes later we arrived at Mansfield for a second breaky and then headed off to the montain. We as usual arrived as the first lifts open and once at the top were ready for our first run down Burnt Hut. It was a little icy, more than I expected, and controlling my board was a little hard. There was a few things that I could put it down to;

1) First run for the season (the most obvious),

2) Modified bindings, which after getting use to are way better, and

3) It was alot icier than predicted.

After a couple of quick runs down the track we decided to try a few of the runs down the side of Burnt Hut. This is where it was really icy and the run had no mercy. I came off my board and in mid flight thought “ok just relax, there is a pile of snow there to break your fall”. Well that pile of snow was iced over to so it was like a rock! It hurt I got a headache and at this stage didnt realise my shoulder was bring me pain for a whole week. We thought we would try the other side of the mountain and see if that was any better. It was way better with a little powder even, which brought back a little confidence and alot more pleasure. When we stopped for lunch was when i realised that my shoulder was in a bad way, up until this stage my backpack had kept my shoulder strapped in, but once that came off it started to hurt. After lunch we headed back out to the other side of the mountain where we filled in the rest of the afternoon with some wild boarding. By the end of the day I started to feel really exhausted and was glad to be heading back home for a hot bath.

Point Cook RAAF Museum

Tommy — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 10:33:58 +0000

Sunday just gone myself and Zoe thought it would be a good idea to go visit the Point Cook RAAF Museum. We got up and got ready fairly early (for a Sunday) and headed off to Point Cook. I got out the old GPS and plugged it in and as usual it never works (for me), so I cracked the sads and then realised that I don’t have a Melways in the car and have no idea on how to get to Point Cook. After a minute or so I calmed down thought its 9am lets pull into JB HiFi and grab a new GPS. Zoe was trying to tell me that on Sunday shops dont open until 10am, but I wasn’t happy with that and convinced myself that they are open at 9am. Upon arrival I noticed alot of cars in the car park and told Zoe “See, the shops must be open, look at all the cars”. With further analyis I noticed that all the shops did have a sign on saying open at 10am. I looked at the clock and it was 9:30am and the car park was nearly full and so were most of the cars, I couldn’t believe it, why would people possibly want to sit in their car on a Sunday morning and be waiting 1/2 an hour until the shops open. Maybe they were all after GPS’s and were heading to Point Cook. I personally was looking for a Mio GPS but none of the stores had any, so then I thought I would go a Navman, but they were all sold out. Third on the preference list was a Garmin, but once again they were all sold out, so there I was left with only one choice, the most expensive, the TomTom. Without further delay I purchased the TomTom XL and headed out the store and plugged it into the car, and literally was heading off to Point Cook with a few taps on the screen. About 40 minutes later we arrived at the RAAF base where we had to sign in before entering. The museum was filled with some very interesting war equipement from the past and present with some presentation boards explaining what the items were and how they were used. All this took up two hangers and then you were allowed to look in another two restoration hangers wich was interesting too. The air show for the day consisted of one Sopwith Pup which in the end we didn’t bother hanging around for because both of us have both seen one of them fly before. On the way back we stopped off in the main street and had some fish & chips for lunch. Luckily for us it only started raining 10 minutes from home, otherwise it was a nice enough day. Check out the gallery for more photo’s.