Look to the right of your screen. See that nice blue stripe that runs the length of the page now? Doesn't it look great?

I've been trying to get the site design finished for a while now. But without some way of easily tracking changes I make to the backend it's been a bit difficult. It doesn't help when the code is only 20% mine either.

Sure, it would be easy to make one change at a time, but that takes up way too much time:

• Change code.
• Save Code
• Refresh page.
• Wash, rinse, repeat.

It was good fortune then, that I read about Mike's impressions of a handy little add-on (yes, I don't like the name either) called FireBug.
It turns Firefox into a coding sandbox. It's light years ahead of the previous add-on I used: Web Developer, which has a more 'look but don't touch' vibe.

As FireBug just simulates coding changes you do need to retype them for real, but it's a small price to pay to get this site looking just how I imagined it.

1984 is one of the great classic novels. One of the greatest of all time in fact. This is what everyone will tell you. It's something I never truly realised until I sat down and read it for myself. It's a book who's influence far surpasses the confines of the literary world. It's affect can be seen on everything from television, to computers to food and even science fiction itself.

As I read the book, one thing became apparent. What little knowledge of the book I had accumulated over the years, through pop culture and the like, didn't match up with the narrative. Everything I knew about the story was in fact myth!

In a way I'm glad I didn't have any true foreknowledge of the book. Knowledge of concepts and themes like erasure of the past, the war (and it's propaganda), Room 101 and the loss of the self. It would've spoilt something that, unlike many post-war fictions still remains relevant today, 60 years after it was first published.

Sometimes it's just nice to get away from work. Take last week for example. Along with the regulation ANZAC Day holiday we also took the Thursday and Friday off, giving us a five day super-weekend in which to fritter away our hard earned monies. And fritter we did.

On our first day off we wandered out to Healesville to check out the Sanctuary. We powered through the park on our own self-guided tour. Unfortunately we timed it just well enough to miss every hands-on show they had on that day. After a few hours of snapping photos and filling our brains with knowledge of Australiana we were both feeling hungry. We jumped in the car and drove the few hundred metres distance to Giant Steps/Innocent Bystander.

Really. You think we wouldn't head into wine country and not stop off at a winery?

We ordered way too much food. Something that occurred to us after the second pizza was forced into what little space remained on the table. Thats not to say that we ordered ridiculous amounts of food. It was a smallish table.

Now the food. Oh yes, the food. With the well publicised explosion of good food outlets in the outers of Melbourne, we were always going to be in for a treat. Pies, chips and cans of coke are now a thing of the past. Say hello to mushroom pizzas, rice balls, and boutique soft drinks.

While sampling a few wines we mentioned this to the bar chick. She told us that yes, they now have this surplus of good food, backed up by a series of farmer's markets, but they have no real fresh fish for the locals to purchase. It's a luxury. I thought this was odd, given that Healesville sits on a main highway, only 70-odd kilometres from the city.

While the the population isn't rioting in the streets over a lack of sea-bound delights, there's certainly a niche that needs to be filled.