I'm posting this one out of order (usually I wouldn't be posting this for another month or so), because it's got stuff in it that people might be looking for, ie details of the Finn Brother's concert at the Sydney Opera House on the 15th July.

I woke up, noticed that both the satellite boxes were saying "INF", great, either the signal went crap again, or they've reset for some reason.

I figured I'd get up (since I left the remote on the floor), fix the box attached to the tivo, and go back to bed, it was about 9am.

I got up, tried fixing up the signal, but it wouldn't. The box attached to the tivo wouldn't lock on to the signal, but the other one would. Strange. I wondered if it had something to do with the satellite signal cable (from the other box/LNB) being split.

I tried swapping the cables on the splitter around, but that didn't make any difference either, it must be something else. I tried taking the splitter out all together, and that didn't even fix it.

It must be something dumb with the other box, or the signal feed, like when I found it hanging out of the wall.

I found a shirt, put it on, and went in to see what was going on. I got asked if my satellite tv was working, no. I had a look, suspected the card, because all the channels were coming up as scrambled.

I then checked the signal leads, they looked to be plugged in. I checked the signal quality on the box inside, and it wouldn't lock on either. Weird. I wondered if the cables had somehow got swapped around, so I tried that, but that didn't fix it either, the signal level would spike from nothing to 80% and back again constantly.

I decided to check what frequencies the box was trying to use. I compared what was in the settings, with what was on the box I had that would lock on.

They were different, so I changed it to match, rescanned the channels, it still didn't work though.

Now however, I found that my production decoder (attached to the tivo) would work, so I got the settings from it, and went and entered those into the box inside, and reset it.

It sort of came up, but the channels were all scrambled. The little serial interface I made for the box is a bit more involved than the other ones I use, the one in this box is powered (because the run to the server is so long), and has a couple of LEDs on it.

I could see the power was there (red LED), but no green LED flashes to show card access. I checked the info screen, and saw the details of the gold card that was in there. Hmm, it's been put in the right way, with the contacts in the right place, instead of being put in upside down or back to front, just to push the switch in the socket.

I pulled it out, turned it around the wrong way, put it back in, I still didn't see any flashing from the green LED.

I came out, exited the client software on the card server, and restarted it. I went back in, pulled the card and reinserted it again, saw the green LED flashing away, and the correct card details come up, ie the red card sitting in the card programmer attached to the server.

I rescanned the channels again, and it was working. There was a different channel layout to before, but they were all there, and could watch all of them.

I came back out, it's my brother's 9th birthday, and there was going to be a bunch of kids turning up at some point, I didn't want to know about that.

I fixed up both my boxes, and went back to watching tivo recorded stuff from a couple of weeks ago.

I noticed the boxes went back on "INF" again, since they never get the "NIT", and the scan had to be exited manually. crap.

I kept doing it, putting it on a channel that should work, and then it would just having the flashing dashes on the display, to signify it was searching for a signal, and then go back to the "INF" thing again.

I wondered if they were going through the channels inside, and if some of the extra channels we've got are on vertical polarization. If this is the case, then when they go to watch them, I'm going to get a vertical signal only, instead of a horizontal, and I'l only be able to watch a few channels.

I tried that, going to one of the channels I suspected was vertical, but I couldn't get that either.

I gave up, and want back to watching recordings, exiting the "INF" scan every now and then, only to see the dashes, and have the boxes go back on "INF" again.

I wondered if the pcmcia WLAN card that was in the other access point I've got (an SMC "2652W", that doesn't seem to work) could be used in a laptop.

I tried it before, putting it in to the crappy old laptop I used to use, but it's only got a 16bit card slot, and I think the card is cardbus.

I grabbed the old access point, and took the card out of it. I guessed which way it would fit, and slipped it in to my laptop.

I checked the output from dmesg, I couldn't beleive it.. it had been detected, it was a 2632W SMC card, and the hostap driver, which I'd tried to get working with the ipw2200 had detected it, and loaded, setting up a couple of extra interfaces in my laptop.

I mucked around for a little while with that, configuring it. I managed to get the hostap driver/daemon running, to act as an access point, which I could see when I ran kismet on the other interface.

I then grabbed fakeap, which was the reason I tried to get hostap running, looked that, and mucked around with that for a while, configuring it, making sure to get the pcmcia card interface set correctly, and kicked it off.

The first time, it didn't work as it was supposed to.. in kismet, I saw a ton of clients to "probe networks" showing up, ie while fakeap was changing the essid on the card, it wasn't in master mode, so it made the card try to connect to a bunch of different WlANs.

I then fiddled around a bit, got the card in master mode, ran it again, and saw stacks of WLANs appearing in kismet, oh, this is groovy.

I then sat and wrote a shell script, to set the card in the right mode, and kick of fakeap, with the manufacturers file from ethereal, to change the MAC of the card, and with the system dictionary, to use to generate essids for the fake WLANs.

I ran that, and it was groovy, millions of odd named APs appearing.

After that, I sat and configured the laptop properly, so I could use it as a legitimate access point. I configured dhcpd on the laptop, and then I connected the ipw2200 card to the SMC card, and used dhcp to get an IP from myself, which all worked, so I wireless connection to myself, heh.

I sat and watched some tv after this, a while later, Mum came in, and asked if I would go in, because my brother was having his cake.

Nope. I'm not going in there, I can't handle kids, and other people, I'm happy here on my own, watching tv.

I continued watching tv, and playing the guitar, for another couple of hours, until my brother came out, and asked me to go and look at his presents, I said I'd come in a little bit later.

I finished watching the show I was watching, and then I went inside. My brother was lying on the floor, playing with a lego truck.

I sat down, and Mum asked me if my satellite tv was working, I said that it was not. She didn't ask to fix it though, and was watching a dvd, so I couldn't even look at it.

A little while later, my brother came over, and showed me a remote control hovering ufo thing he had, it needed to be recharged apparently, and it kept just flying away, and crashing into things.

I wonder how long that will last, before the fan blades under it snap.

Dad brought out a few more presents for my brother, and he opened them. The show mum was watching finished, (I'd thought it was a video, but it's a cheesy quality dvd). I expected to get a chance to look at fixing the satellite tv, but she just put another show on.

It was now about 5pm, and I had to come back inside, to get ready, because I'm leaving in an hour, to go to Sydney, to the Finn Brother's concert.

I came back in, had a shower, got dressed (I wore the Pink Floyd shirt I bought the other day), and grabbed the tickets out of my laptop bag, and put them in my jacket.

At about 5.40pm, I went back inside, to look at fixing the sat box.

Dad commented that I had a nice jacket (the red one I bought the other week), and they asked if I was going out. I said I was, they asked if I needed a lift, and I said that I didn't.

I just reset the sat box again, and hoped that would fix it. I came back out, and immediately both my boxes would lock on to the signal.

I checked the extra channels though, and they were all saying they were scrambled. So much for this free channels for 8 days, more like 8 hours, since they're all scrambled again.

I went back to watching something I had recorded, while I waited for my mates to turn up, to pick me up.

I waited, and waited. I checked my phone, there was a missed call, from my mate, his home number. I called it back, and his dad answered. He told me that my mate had already left, (good), I told I expected so much, and hung up.

I waited around a bit more, it was now after 6pm. I called my mate on his mobile, and he told me that they were at Ourimbah, and they'd be at my place soon.

I waited a bit more, and they (my drummer mate, and my other mate, who I went to school with, who used to work at Target, and now works in Maitland) turned up, at about 6.30pm. I don't know how we're going to get to the Opera House in the next 75 minutes.

They told me there had been a huge prang at Chittaway, and it had taken them 20 minutes to get through it, which is why they were late.

We left my place, and headed for the freeway, we stopped off on the way, at the service station. My drummer mate and I went in, he went to the ATM or something, I grabbed a packet of chips, and a drink, since I was starving.

I got back in the car, and we went from there, drove down the freeway. We got off the freeway, and headed down the north shore. The traffic was pretty rough, our mate knew a different route, so we took that, and it got us to North Sydney (Milson's Point) a bit quicker.

We parked under the railway bridge, in a 4 hour paid parking spot.

We went to the meter, and we just pumped money in, my mate who drove put a few dollars in, and then I put about $3 something in, until it came up and said we had 4 hours, the maximum.

It was 7.45pm (Mercury Rev, the supporting act, had just started), so we had until 11.45pm to be back at the car.

We walked up the street a bit, there was a taxi, but it's light was off. I was going to cross the road, and ask him to get on the radio, and get another taxi, but he took off before I got a chance to cross.

Luckily another taxi came up the street, so I flagged it down, and we jumped in.

I told the guy we wanted to go to the Opera House, and we took off. We drove some of the way, and then the driver asked what we were going to see.

I chatted to him for a minute, telling him about getting the tickets etc.

We got to the Opera House, and the fare was $10.20. The guy said it was $15, with a tip.

That's a bit more than I'd usually tip, but the guy was quick, and it had taken us less than 10 minutes, and he had to go through the toll to get across the harbour bridge.

I paid, and each of my mates gave me $5.

We went in, up the stairs, and because Mercury Rev had already started, we went straight in, and found our row.

We sat down, and I worked out which seats we were in, and then we moved to them, a bit further in the row.

They were really good seats, we were a little bit left of the centre seats of the row, and only about 20 metres away from the stage.

We sat and watched Mercury Rev, I hoped I hadn't missed "Opus 40", (and that they would do it), so I thought about ducking out to get a drink, but didn't want to, in case I missed it.

They did a couple more songs, very groovy, orchestral backing track, with video clips projected behind them, and famous quotes being displayed.

They did Opus 40, it was slightly different to the other version I've heard, which I expected, since it's live, obviously, and I couldn't say it was either better or worse live, it was just different, really enjoyable.

They ran it on into another song, and did about 4 more songs after that. They finished, and went off.

We left the theatre, back to the foyer. We went straight to the bar, there were stacks of people out here. I was only going to get one drink, but then my mate suggested getting 2, which wasn't a bad idea.

I'd already ordered one, so I checked how much money I had, just enough for another one (with a bit less than a dollar in change left), and asked for another one.

I took my drinks, and looked for an area with a bit of space, since it was so crowded out here (heh, a Crowded House :-)

I waited for my other mates. There was a woman with programmes, assumeduly for sale, and I had no money left, so I couldn't get one. The others came from the bar, and we had a quick look at the merchandise table.

I wanted to get some cash, so I could get a programme, and a shirt, so I finished both my drinks, and asked a woman watching the door to go outside, where an ATM was.

She told me where it was, and I headed off towards where she'd told me. I wasn't exactly sure, so I went and spoke to the chick running the cloak room, and I asked her.

I then continued, down to the car park, down an escalator, past some shops. I still didn't see the ATM. There was a bar here, which I thought I was going in to, with a bouncer on the door, and I'd have to show ID or something.

I asked the bouncer where the ATM was, he told me it was past the bar (you could go through it, without being in it apparently), so I kept going, past the bar, and got to the ATM.

Apparently, while I was down here at the ATM, Peter Garrett turned up, with his daughter, into the foyer (my mates told me when I got back).

I went to the ATM, I couldn't remember my PIN, I had a total mental block. I put in what I thought it was my pin, and it was right. (phew, lucky).

I went back, went to the loo on the way, and then went to head back into the foyer, and some guy asked to see my ticket, so I showed him the tickets, and went back in.

I found my mates, my mate only had one beer (after he'd suggested getting 2), since he didn't have enough money to get 2, so I asked if he wanted another one. He said he did, gave me the $5 he had left.

I took it, went over, and bought him and myself another drink, and then I went back and had another look at the merchandise. I should have got a programme.

Our mate who'd driven us, said that he should have given me the money for the ticket, to save me going to the ATM, and he gave me the cash. Bugger, that would have saved me going all that way.

I got a form to join the fan club. We'd been out for maybe 20 minutes, and they made an announcement that the main act would start in 10 minutes.

My mate who'd driven us wanted to go to the loo, so I gave him the tickets, so he could get back in, and held his beer, he went, and came back a minute later, and gave me the tickets back.

We chatted for another minute, and then they made another announcement, that the main act could be starting in 5 minutes.

We waited a couple of minutes, while they finished their drinks, and then we went back in.

We only had to wait a couple of minutes, and then some weird music came on, and a fake donkey came out on to the stage.

I suspected it was Neil and Tim. It went across the stage, and off again, and then Tim and Neil came on, Neil tossing the donkey head on the stage, and Tim pulling off a shoe thing, and throwing it off to the side of the stage.

They didn't say much, just hello etc, and started playing.

Before I continue, I'll mention that the setlist was compiled by "timothius", over on the "frenzforum" (frenz of the enz), the post should be here. I've pinched it, I hope he doesn't mind :-)

Anyway, the first song they did was "Part Of Me, Part Of You". Some of the way through the song, Tim realised his acoustic guitar wasn't working properly (the cable, or the battery or something).

He called in a roady to fix it, and while that was going on, Tim and Neil had a bit of banter (Neil was playing the piano), and they joked that Neil could just fill in with the piano.

This went on for nearly a minute, they just continued playing the song, until the guitar (or the amp or whatever) was fixed, and then they finished the song.

When Neil stood up from the piano, he knocked the piano stool over backwards, and didn't notice.

He walked across, and was given a guitar to play, he picked up a bottle of water from in front of him, and complained that it didn't have his, or any, name on it.

Tim picked up the bottle near him, said it wasn't labelled either, then they both joked about the roadies not being up to scratch, and spreading typhoid.

They joked a bit more, and Tim asked Neil if his shoes were still slippery, and he explained to us that the soles of his shoes were really slippery, and dangerous.

He then gave us a demonstration, going over to the side of the stage, getting a little run up, and then sliding halfway across the stage, and nearly falling over.

He then said that he picked a bad part to start sliding, where there was a roll of gaffa tape, and nearly killing himself.

They then played "Bold As Brass" and then "Distant Sun", a really good live version.

I think they did "What's The Matter With You?", and "Angel's Heap" at this point.

After that, Tim went over to the play the piano, and he noticed that the seat had fallen over, and called for a roady to come and pick it up, in a joking way.

A roady came out, and Tim starting picking the seat up, and the found that the seat had come off the stand. Neil joked that some handy person in the front row could come and fix it.

Some bogan with a flannel shirt tied around his waist jumped up on the stage, and then just stood near Tim, obviously using all his mental capacity to maintain being a bogan, and didn't actually do anything useful.

Neil started bagging him out, while Tim was going through the stuff that had been in the seat. This went on for a couple of minutes, with the bogan not getting the hint to leave, until Neil said "ok, you can fuck off now", and he got off the stage.

They finished picking up the seat, and then Neil commented on what a really long preamble it had been, that it was a good time for it, because they were going to dedicate a song, and that someone who always like a long preamble, was Paul Hester.

Neil then grabbed an acoustic guitar, and told the guy on the soundboard to turn the PA right down.

I think the only amplification was a bit on Neil's voice. He came over, and said that we all had to sing along, like we'd do at home, for Paul.

He then started playing, and it was "Four Seasons In One Day". The audience, along with only Neil, and the acoustic guitar, sang at least half the song, and then the band kicked in to do small part of the song.

After that, we went back to acoustic, and finished off the song, with the last lines repeated a few times.

After the song, the woman sitting next to me commented that the song was lovely, and that my singing was too.

After that, they did "Won't Give In", and "Nothing Wrong With You".

There was then a bit more joking, and some conversation. Neil started talking about the induction (Split Enz being inducted into the hall of fame), and then they started going on about different inductions, and ended when Tim said "anal induction".

Neil continued his anecdote, and played a little bit of "Wild Thing", to set the scene.

After that, they got back to playing, and did "Only Talking Sense", "All The Colours", "Edible Flowers", "It's Only Natural" (which I really enjoyed), "Six Months In A Leaky Boat", (with a few people in the front row clapping enthusiatically during it), and "Anything Can Happen".

The guys all went off stage, and the audience just continued clapping, and stamping their feet for a couple of minutes, until they call came back on to the stage, Neil sliding back on.

They did "Weather With You", with Neil having a bit of fun, because he missed starting to play it on the 12 string, and said that he hated that, so that had to start again, but before that, he said that we could have "sung" the guitar bit, so we had a go of doing that.

They restarted "Weather With You", and played it really well.

(The guy I got the setlist off had "-> True Colours (Let's Rock!) Snippet" here, but I don't recall that).

They then did "How Will You Go?", saying they'd stay on Woodface for a bit.

After that they did "History Never Repeats", and went off stage again.

As before, there was clapping and stamping, until they came back on.

Neil slid on again, and they did "Shark Attack", which I'd thought was going to be "I See Red".

After that, Neil sat down at the piano, and this time found his bottle of water was labelled, and said he felt safe again.

He did "Message To My Girl", which I was really happy to hear, because it's one of my all time favourite songs.

After that, they said they only had time for one more song, which was "Don't Dream It's Over".

This was a bit like Four Seasons, with it being extended, and having the audience sing a fair bit of it, and finish it off.

After that, the guys all went off stage, the house lights came on, and we all wandered out.

I went to the merchandise table, and I bought a couple of tshirts, a Finn Brothers tour one, and a Split Enz one.

The woman selling the programmes was gone, so I didn't get a chance to get one of those.

We wandered down, along with everyone else, and back to the carpark. We walked across the carpark, towards the train station (at Circular Quay), my mate wanted to go to the loo, so we went down some stairs, back to near the bar again.

I wandered over to the edge of the harbour, to look at the view, of the harbour bridge etc, while my mates went to the loo.

They came out, and we continued wandering. We got a little bit further, and stopped to wait while my drummer mate used the ATM.

After that, we kept wandering, there was no point trying to get a taxi, because there'd be at least a thousand people waiting for taxis, we'd just get the train.

We had about 35 minutes to get back to the car, before the meter ran out.

We got over to the Quay, and our mate, who'd driven us down, suggested getting a ferry to Milson's Point. I looked, but the next one wasn't until 11.40pm, and that only left us 5 minutes to get back to the car.

We walked over to the station, our mate bought a ticket, and then I bought a ticket, and my drummer mate complained that he had no money (only a $50 note, and he would only get $20 change), so I bought him a ticket (it was only $2.20).

We went up to the platform, waited for a couple of minutes, and the train turned up. We got on, didn't bother to sit down, since we were only going one station, to Wynyard.

We got off the train at Wynyard, changed platforms, and waited for the next train, only a couple of minutes later.

As before, we didn't bother to sit down, to go one station.

We got off the train at Milson's Point, and wandered out. The gates were all open, so I didn't even need a ticket after all that, but it would have been my luck, if I'd not bought one, then I would have got busted.

We walked back to the car, and I checked the meter, we had 2:56 left on the spot, heh, less than 3 minutes, that's getting your money's worth.

We got in the car, and we left, drove back towards the north shore. We headed up the Pacific Highway, and we stopped off a little bit before getting on the freeway, at a service station.

Our mate parked, next to a car full of chicks. I tried to look a bit suave as I got out of the car, and wandered in to the service station.

I didn't really need anything, because I hadn't finished the chips and drink I got at the service station on the way, I just got a couple of chocolate bars, because they were on special.

I came back out, and the car with the chicks was gone, D'oh, I'd been hoping to sit in the car next to them for a couple of minutes, while I waited for my mates to come out.

I did that anyway, only without the chance to perhaps start chatting to the chicks, and then we left, and continued driving towards home, getting on the freeway.

We drove up the freeway, I noticed a couple of highway patrol cars parked in the old entrance to the lookout, after the Mooney Creek bridge, the cops out of the cars, standing behind them.

My mate had been doing 120km/h as he went past, and was worried about getting done, but there's no way, because there was no flash, and they have to chase you, and pull you over (at least they have every time I got busted).

We got off the freeway, came down the hill, and I got dropped off at home, I grabbed all my junk out of the back of the car, chocolate bar, chips, drink, t shirts, and I came inside.

It was about 1am, I sat and watched some tv, and then it was so cold, I went to bed.

And now.. for anyone googling, here's some keywords, like I'd search for:

The Finn Brothers tour Sydney Opera House July 15th Setlist

And here's the setlist again, again thanks to "timothius" from the "frenzforum", his post here.

Part Of Me, Part Of You
Bold As Brass
Distant Sun
Whats The Matter With You?
Angels Heap
Four Seasons In One Day
Won't Give In
Nothing Wrong With You
(A few bars of Wild Thing)
Only Talking Sense
All The Colours
Edible Flowers
It's Only Natural
Six Months In A Leaky Boat
Anything Can Happen
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Weather With You -> True Colours (Let's Rock!) Snippet
How Will You Go?
History Never Repeats
------------------------------------
Shark Attack
Message To My Girl
Don't Dream It's Over