smashingmagazine.com is a great blog to keep an eye on if you’re interested in design.
They’ve just posted a two part series on colour theory. Pt. 1 is awesome. If you ever design flyers, posters or t-shirts or put together powerpoint slides you need to read this.
Pt. 2 is also awesome but a little more technical…
Boxy is back at blogging…latest post is a review of a zom-com I leant him, “fido”.
I have to confess a little zombie flick obsession at the moment! I’m working through all films on this list that i can source…
Just thought I’d say hi to any Moore college first year students who may have stumbled across this blog…It was really exciting for me to see so many of you when I popped across to morning tea today. Hope you’re enjoying getting to know each other and life at college.
Word is that you’ve just started to learn a bit of vocab. eventually you’ll need to learn a lot of vocab…so…
If it’s any help to you, check out the flash cards widget for your computer desktop or flash cards for your mobile if it can play flash stuff (most newer phones but not iPhone – for that get the excellent provoc app).
davemiers.com has a page of links you might find useful too.
εἰρήνης ἔξω
Some of you might find this a handy list, either for yourself or to recommend to others. A few books on marriage and intimacy briefly reviewed by a friend of ours in Adelaide.
Well the sleep is well and truly back to normal after recent adventures to polyphasic land. Judging by the huge hit count on those posts you are all clearly interested in either:
If that sounds about right to you, perhaps you have other ideas which might fulfill such desires… leave a comment on ‘the list’ page if you do. There are still a few spots left!
At day 4 I consider that i’ve “tried” polyphasic sleep for the purposes of the entry on the list. I had a near perfect day in terms of the nap/sleep schedule (finally got the 1.5hours right) but I don’t think it’s really going to work for me! I’ve decided to tap out at this point anyway even though I feel i could have gone further. general reflections, blow by blow and conclusions below:
Reflections:
I don’t think I could say i’ve tried it long enough to decide if it’s bogus for sure… however I spent some of my extra awake hours last night reading blogs of others who have tried this and noticed that many of them “accidentally” overslept every now and then, usually about 1-2 weeks apart. My hunch is that you can get by with this level of sleep dep for a while but eventually your body vetoes and demands a continuous block.
Also I’m less certain about this “straight to REM” thing being the way your body survives…the more i read the less it seems plausible.
Blow-by-blow:
I managed to have the correct number and length of naps today but couldn’t take the 6pm one on time because of a visit to the local taphouse. enjoyable premium beer, but not so enjoyable by the time i got home (at around 8). The tiredness and urge to sleep was extreme! Grabbed a few dumplings which jodie had out for dinner then napped immediately. Felt extremely crusty 20mins later after waking up.
Again the run up to 11pm nap was tough, but the 11:30-3 period was not too bad. I can stay awake without having to do an engaging activity but I notice the tired hazy feeling. If i’m engaged I don’t notice that feeling. I don’t think I could have read calvin during this period 
I got the core sleep right – woke up after 1.5 hours but had to sleep on the couch (downstairs) and place the alarm away from me. This basically was the deal breaker. I realised why I wasn’t getting up at this time for the last two nights. Very much in zombie mode so it seemed clear that if i wanted to keep it up I would not be able to sleep in bed anymore. That didn’t sound great to me…that and when i woke up from 1.5hrs on the couch my knee was painfully locked into place.
Conclusions
It was an interesting experiment, but I can’t see how it could work for my schedule and marriage…that coupled with my suspicion that many of the claims made by advocates of polyphasic are a little bit bogus or self deluding has led me to stop at day 4. I’m happy to have tried it but happier to be drinking coffee right now, not worrying about the next nap and looking forward to a long nights sleep in bed with my wife.
So here is the sleep schedule i’ve been working with:
20 min naps at 10am, 2pm, 6pm, 11pm
“Core sleep” at 3-4:30.
The 6 to 11pm stretch has been the hardest to stay awake. Have been resorting to pacing around the house aimlessly – any sort of sitting activity and my eyelids turn to lead…
It might sound strange but the most frustrating thing is that both nights i’ve been doing this i’ve overslept for my core sleep. Have laid down at 3 then missed my alarm somehow then woken up again at 7. Jodie said that she woke with the alarm, saw me turn it off then roll back over but i have no recollection of it at all! I’m not sure how i’m going to deal with this as I seem to be turning the alarm off without waking properly.
Am only feeling moderately tired at the moment despite getting just under 11hrs in the last 48…
Currently in day 2 of adapting to polyphasic sleep.
I first heard about “polyphasic sleep” via a post at bathgates.net …it sounded fascinating so I added it to the list.
The idea is that you can replace the usual one big period of sleep with multiple shorter naps. During naps you’re getting straight to the essential REM sleep phase and not wasting time on the non-essential stuff.
I haven’t opted for uberman, instead i’m targeting one peg down – 2.8 hours of sleep per 24hrs. Apparently after I’ve adapted to this new (and kinda whacky) sleep routine I won’t feel sleep deprived, achy, have a throbbing head or any of the other side effects i’m feeling right now.
The throbbing head may have something to do with the need to drop caffeine cold turkey since there is only 4 hours between naps in the morning! argh!
I’ll keep you posted on my progress…please forgive any hints of psychosis or delerium over the next little while!!
Jodie got herself an ipod touch yesterday… seems to be enjoying it greatly!
I noticed, however, that reubenland.com is pretty much unusable on it …so i’ve just installed a plugin (WPTouch) which makes it look a whole lot better on your iphone/ipod touch/android/blackberry.
Just in case you want to pay a visit to reubenland.com on the road
If any of my readers have a pet and a desire to get out for lunch with them then the Hughenden hotel’s restaurant “Quaife’s” is quite nice.Both the restaurant and some of their rooms are pet-friendly.
Jodie won a lunch there for us. Good food (think nice cafe food, Italian infulence) at reasonable prices ($22 for the most expensive dish – a perfectly cooked fillet of Salmon). Jodie tried squid tentacles for the first time, included on a generous tapas tasting plate.
Oscar, our dog, enjoyed the afternoon out and the other pets he met…except for the cat who didn’t really feel like playing with a bouncy puppy!
