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Lets say Saturday night wasn't all that great. Somewhere along the lines my dad got pick pocketed. He'd placed his wallet into his pocket instead of his waist bag and it got lifted somewhere. We're pretty sure we know where it happened too thinking back on it.When we were walking to dinner, a motorbike cut in and hit my dad pushing him into two ladies. Then the motorbike 'recorrected' itself but instead of going straight, cut back out (which is odd now that we think about it). Reckon the bike hitting him was a decoy to let the women pilfer his pockets.

So we had to rule out the other options so backtracked a bit, then came to the conclusion. Had to do some running around making calls to cancel credit cards and ATM cards though. ANZ was easy to cancel, let's say Westpac was a little more confusing. Trying to find out now where/how hard it is to get a police report for the insurance claim, though I think insurance only covers some of it. We will see.

Oh and along the way backtracking, had the classic taxi metre scam - except that I spotted it and gave it to him - which he basically admitted by turning of the metre and negotiating another fare whch was way to much. It ended with me giving him some money (less than the metre) then giving him a mouthful (which I don't think he understood anyway) and jumping out the taxi.

Other than that it was the Cu Chi tunnels today. That was pretty cool. Didn't fire a gun though, but they were really really loud! And I don't like loud noises...

So tomorrow it's another day here then on the night train to Nha Trang, hopefully some cooler weather too.
Trawled through the markets in the afternoon, and was somewhat amazed at how much things are inflated for the tourists - at least 50%!

So we've made it to Saigon and it's totally hot/humid that we're currently hanging in s coffee shop because it' got air conditioning and free wifi.

Flight over was good. Was on a 777-300ER and it was pretty awesome. Screens the size of an upmarket netbook (at least 10") in-seat power and powered USB ports in economy!

So today we've kind of been walking about - went to Ben Thanh market and the War Remnants Museum. We somehow didn't pick up a map from the airport, so have been aimlessly navigating for part of the day - we know we're heading in the correct direction but have no idea where until we hit one of the roads listed in the LP. Oh and bought our train tickets for the first to legs. Wasn't too bad bought it from the train station store in the backpacker-ish area so it was $70USD for both of us which was less than I expected.

Tomorrow it's out to the Chu Chi tunnels... I think'll I'll sleep well tonight.

I think this one is a little blurry?

According to WolframAlpha that is approximately 1 day 18 hours 54 minutes and 26 seconds from now...

Have just the day of work tomorrow then I have Fri off in lieu of last weekend, which is good since I was originally going to have to lug my stuff to work then head from there to the airport.

Will try and blog on the trip, actually it would be rather odd if I didn't right?

Anyways time for sleep, another day awaits and then it's holiday time!

Got myself the WD TV Live HD Media Player on the weekend after hunting through many a JB Hi-Fi and Dick Smith store with no luck. From my quick play around with it I'm quite impressed. Haven't set it up in my room yet though as I need to rearrange my power cables.

I got the device primarily to connect my Mac to my TV, as since I've had the Mac I haven't been able to output to my TV as I don't own the correct cables. Whilst the WD TV Live probably does cost a bit more than just getting cables it is a pretty nifty device as it supports lots of audio and video formats and has a network port so you can access network shares as well.

Might do a more detailed review of the setup once I have it all configured properly... which quite possibly could be next year seeing I'm leaving on a jet plane in 11 days...

So a bit after lunch today one of the guys I work with walked back in with a Magic Mouse in his hand. I heard some of the others oohing and ahhing at it so I joined the convo as I had known they still hadn't arrived as of earlier in the week. And giving or taking 5 mins, quite a few of us crossed over the intersection to the Apple Store (work is directly opposite it) and bought ourselves some nice new shiny Magic Mice.

I have to say I am impressed. It's sleek and the multi touch surface works brilliantly. Though it doesn't have middle click functionality which is a bit of a downer. Still, one can hope Apple releases a software upgrade in the near future that supports it. I'm thinking a two finger click could be a suitable gesture for middle click. Thoughts? Pairing it was a breeze as well, no pushing buttons here, there and everywhere...

Had to update OS X though to 10.6.1 and install the Wireless Mouse Software Update 1.0 for Snow Leopard.

Developer Del from Deline Neo on Vimeo.

So I've gotten around to writing a plugin to contribute. Real simple plugin, which is only intended for simple usages.

Check it out at http://plugins.jquery.com/project/SimpleLabel
Demo site is at http://delineneo.com/dev/jquery/simpleLabel/simpleLabel.htm

I've been on quite a hiatus the last 2 years with rather sporadic blogging episodes but after taking a look back in time I'm somewhat inspired to get back into the game.

It's funny when I look back at how my blog has transformed over time - starting at Blogger, then porting everything to my WordPress driven site to the current incarnation which kind of happened because of a curiosity in Drupal as a CMS.

I have to say though, whilst Drupal is a brilliant CMS, for running a little personal website whose main feature is a blog, WordPress wins hands down easily. Additionally for those who can't or don't have the tech skills to setup their own WordPress install WordPress also provides service similar to Blogger in getting a free blog at .wordpress.com.

Anyways that's my intro post back into the world of blogging... more soon (maybe tomorrow if we're lucky!).

Till I head of on another adventure to South East Asia. Coming along with me for the Vietnam part of the ride will be my dad, and for the later part of the trip I'll be catching up with my friend Emily in Laos.

I haven't travelled overseas with either of my parents since I was like 4 years old so it should be an interesting experience. I'm sure there will be moments along the way where we'll need to escape each other, but at the same time I reckon it's cool that we're able to do this. It's definitely something I will remember.

I don't know what it is about Asia, but I really love it. Crazy traffic, bus and train journeys not to mention the food!

Being the geek within, I'm going to lug the majority of tech gadgets that I did last year (minus item 3 for obvious reasons). I've also added a Fujifilm J10 to the mix which is basically my cheap digital. The camera cost me basically $99 with a waterproof case so I'm not going to be cut if I lose it into a river.

Our general plans (though I've taken the role of travel planner) is to make our way up from Saigon to Hanoi where we'll make a side trip to Halong Bay and up to Sapa.

So in the coming weeks there'll be all sorts of fun things to do, like making playlists for my iPod (bring on the top 250 hits from the 90's!), research accomo so that we at least have a starting point when we arrive in cities, getting my google docs in order so I can have them offline on my eeepc....

Had a really interesting yet random convo about surnames at lunch today. In my late night travels I've done some wikipediaing and found out that my surname is ranked 20th in the top 100 list of Chinese common surnames as at 2006.

Not really sure how the Teochew 'Neo' of Liang came about, but Chinese surnames are an interesting bunch, as basically depending on the language the spelling and/or pronounciation may be different. E.g. Liang, Leung, Neo etc are all one and the same, which is why my Chinese name doesn't have Neo but Liang instead.

And according to Wikipedia, Liang stands for "a beam", "a bridge", or "an elevation"... which then means if I translate my full Chinese name I get something like: An elevation autumn swallow...