General

Headed over to Freshwater this afternoon with two of my friends for an afternoon at the beach. Nice sunny Sydney summer weather that wasn't too hot made for a great day. And my first trip to the beach this summer - I didn't count swimming in Asia as that's not quite the same as a Sydney summer.

There's something about Sydney I reckon... everytime I come back from holidays I'm glad to be home. I'm not really sure why that is exactly. I love the climate - not too hot/cold (except maybe those crazy 40 degree days!), water is pretty much within easy reach - makes for a nice sunset view coming over the bridges on the way home, parks to cycle through and enjoy and the lifestyle.

I haven't really live in another country for an extended period of time, but I reckon Sydney is somewhere I'll always enjoy returning too.

So it feels like its been raining for like 2 weeks straight. Which isn't really that bad if it were not for the humidity. Humidity which makes me feel like I'm in SE Asia except for the fact there's no market round the corner selling awesome food.

Other than that not too much happening. Been working pretty intensely so weekends have usually been rest. Looks like I'm playing soccer again this year so got to get back into shape... and on the bike! Maybe more Wii playing will do the trick?

On that it's bed time... if I can rid myself of these hiccups!

Flicked through the TV Guide this evening and was somewhat surprised that ABC3 was re-airing Heartbreak High, one of the better Aussie TV shows of all times. Ironically (or coincidentally?) most of the better Aussie shows seem to have the same cast/crew combo working on them.. Wildside in the mid/late 90's... to today where you've probably got the Underbelly series on Nine.

So in a break from my usual Monday night workings, I flicked my TV to ABC3 and was even more surprised when they were showing Season 1... (which Ten originally had the rights too)... Looks like I may be having a 30 min slot with my TV each night seeing I haven't actually watched much of the earlier seasons...

Got home yesterday and have been sleeping/resting most of it as didn't feel very well after all the flying... Other than that catching up on internet and all...

Some highlights from my internet surfing...

United States of Pop 2009, an awesome mashup of the top 25 billboard hits for 2009

I Love Lunch! The Musical, another awesome mission by Improv Everywhere

Developer Del from Deline Neo on Vimeo.

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!).

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...

From the blogosphere. Been keeping very busy with work, sport, planning next adventures and more!

Check back here in 8 weeks - 12 weeks and hopefully I'll start posting entries of my travel plans!