From Melbourne Intl Airport

by | Oct 22, 2006 | Melbourne, Uncategorized

Gate 10. Melbourne International Airport.
Sniffer dogs sniffing at my bag. Maybe it’s the sunnies that give me away.
Number of people who have come up to me and said “Hey aren’t you that guy on the front cover of the Bulletin” = zero. I even spent ten minutes standing next to it at the newsagent here to tip people off… nada.
Couldn’t take my filtered water bottle on the plane. Apparently can’t get into the US with it in my carry-on. There goes my plan to stay hydrated on the flight.

Books I’ve got on in my bag to read on the flight:

Ideas: A History of Thought and Invention, from Fire to Freud by Peter Watson

Naked Lunch by William Burroughs

The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson

Also got The Art of the Start by Guy Kawasaki in the suitcase. No doubt that’s going to come in handy over the next month.

I hate flying. God I wish now I hadn’t bothered to watch the first two seasons of LOST. Here’s a question – if my plane crashes on a pacific island, which member of LOST do you think I’d be?

  • The natural-yet-unwilling leader everyone turns to?
  • The slick guy who collects all of the valuable stuff from the wreckage, sells it for a profit and is popular with the ladies?
  • The fat funny guy?
  • The weird philosophical guy who is good with knives but is keeping secrets?
  • The panicky guy who runs around saying “OH MY GOD WE’RE ALL GOING TO DIE!!!” and then starts figuring out who he is going to eat first?

Okay we’re boarding. Here’s goes 19 hours (Auckland stopover) of hell.

A Kids Guide to (Breast) Cancer

by | Oct 21, 2006 | Melbourne, Uncategorized

In early 2005, the wife of one of my oldest mates was diagnosed with breast cancer at age 40 and spent most of that year undergoing treatment to overcome the disease. It was a harrowing year for them, their two young kids, family and friends. Fortunately, Lisa is now in recovery and doing well. Typically of Lisa, she turned her experience into something positive to help other people:

Lisa and Michael were unable to find a suitable children’s story book to help explain the illness and its treatment to their two young children so Lisa began a journal, and now, with the help of her son Harrison, she has turned this story into a children’s book about cancer as seen through the eyes of a 7 year old boy.

The book aims to assist parents in explaining the breast cancer journey to their children in an informative and entertaining way. It offers explanations of tricky medical terms, cancer treatments, medical personnel, and helpful hints for family and friends, opening up areas of discussion between parents, carers and children.

Three generations contribute to the making of the book. Lisa has written their story assisted by her son Harrison who is now 8. The story is supported with drawings also by Harrison and illustrations by his Nana, Lisa’s mother. It is suitable for children aged 3 to 10 years of age, and priced at $16.95.

The story book is self-published with strong endorsements including Doreen Akkerman from The Cancer Council of Victoria and Kerri Guy a member of Breast Cancer Network Australia. The publication is not for profit and net proceeds will be donated to these two Charities.  

If you’d like to get a copy of the book it’s called "My Mum Has Breast Cancer : A Family’s Cancer Journey" and is available from from Melbourne bookstore Book Street on +613 9598 5111 or  bookstreet@bigpond.com.

What Does Packer Know?

by | Oct 20, 2006 | Uncategorized

Unsurprisingly, most of the media chatter about PBL’s decision to sell off 50% of its media assets says the decision was made "so it can focus on expanding its international gaming business". Now I know James isn’t Kerry. But thing back. Kerry was the king of expert timing. He floated ecorp (aka PBL Online) about 6 months before the dot com crash. He cashed out of the stock market just before the 1987 crash. He famously sold Channel Nine to Alan Bond at the peak of Bond’s hubris and then bought it back a year later when Bond crashed.

So if this was Kerry selling PBL’s media assets I would be asking the following question: What Does Kerry Know That The Rest Of The Market Doesn’t Know?

Now, as I said, James isn’t Kerry. Maybe he has inherited his patriarch’s sixth sense, maybe he hasn’t.

But I suggest to you that "so it can focus on expanding its international gaming business" may be the explanation that Packer, and the rest of the media, what the market to think. What other reasons could there be? That the value of the Television and Magazine businesses have peaked? Is that a rationale even worth considering?

Here is your homework today kids: find a mainstream media analysis of the PBL sell-off which asks deep questions about the future value of the television and magazine business.

Austereo, Australia’s largest radio network, on the other hand, says the media buying frenzy has totally by-passed it.

"In response to media speculation following recent changes to media ownership laws, Austereo advises that it has not had any approaches from third parties," it said.

Wow, now there’s a surprise. No-one is overly-excited about buying a radio business. I wonder why?

Matriculate the walla mung

by | Oct 20, 2006 | Uncategorized

I figure I can’t be more than 2 degrees from Scott Adams. SOMEONE please arrange for me to have coffee with him while I’m in the US. His understanding of the male psyche astounds me:

Yesterday as I was deboarding a flight I peeked inside the cockpit and wondered that the f**k all those buttons and knobs and levers are all about. Seriously. Do they really need all of that?

It seems to me that the steering wheel thingamajig does about half of all the things the pilot needs to do: left, right, up, down. Then there’s the ON/OFF for the engines, some throttling, braking, wheels up/down, a few communications functions, maybe some climate controls and a few other odds and ends. But that’s about the same complexity as any car. And I’ll bet your car doesn’t look like the cockpit of a 747.

My theory is that the manufacturer throws in extra knobs and buttons and levers just to charge more. I’m guessing that the majority of aircraft designers, and most of the buyers, are males. I think I speak for all men when I say I would gladly pay extra for knobs and levers that are not attached to anything. I like knobs and levers. Buttons too. And if you toss in a few extraneous digital readouts and dials, I’ll just stand there and drool and hand you my wallet.

As I stood at the open doorway to the Valhalla of unnecessary controls, I began panting with unbridled, genetically induced technology lust. I wanted to drag the pilot out of his uber-cool seat, put on his headphones and start poking and prodding things just to see what happened. Compounding my jealousy was the fact that the pilot and copilot were going through some sort of shut-down procedure that could not have sounded more technologically attractive. I don’t recall the details, but it sounded roughly like this:

Copilot: “Power down the main thruster modules.”

Pilot: “Check.”

Copilot: “Reset the navigation framajam.”

Pilot: “Check.”

Copilot: “Depressurize the tale fin metaskeleton.”

Pilot: “Check.”

Copilot: “Matriculate the walla mung.”

Pilot: “Did you just make that one up?”

Copilot:  “Sometimes I invent names for the buttons that aren’t attached to anything.”

Pilot: “Roger that.”

Cam’s Geek T-Shirt brought to you by Skylook

by | Oct 19, 2006 | Melbourne, Uncategorized

I’ve been meaning to tell you the story behind the now-infamous "GEEK" t-shirt that I’m wearing on the Bulletin cover. That shirt was actually given to me by my mate Jeremy Hague from Netralia, the Melbourne-based start-up who built the first cool tool to record Skype calls, Skylook. The Netralia boys printed up 500 of these shirts to give out at a conference about six months ago and Jeremy saved one for me. On the back of the shirt it has the Skylook URL. So anyway I’ve been wearing the shirt around town and it usually gets a few laughs (or cringes) from people but I just *knew* it was the perfect shirt for the Bulletin shot.

Speaking of Skylook… there is a new version out which has some serious improvements to the older versions. The monitoring window has more features, including the ability to turn the recording off without killing the actual Skype call, and you can also change the bitrate and format for the recording. Lots of cool features and perfect for podcasters.

GDAY WORLD #159 – Goodbye Australia!

by | Oct 19, 2006 | Podcast

Today’s edition is my last podcast from Australia – at least for a while. My guests are Richard Giles and Tony Goodson.

If you enjoyed this podcast, make sure you don’t miss future episodes by subscribing to our feed.

Don’t forget to check out the TPN Forums and please complete our current survey.

The G’Day World Theme Song is “Save Me” by The Napoleon Blown Aparts. Thanks to our sponsors Wardy IT!

Am I Ever Going To See Your Face Again?

by | Oct 19, 2006 | Melbourne, Uncategorized

So yesterday was an interesting day. I think perhaps the best reaction to the magazine was from Garth Kidd who called me from a train station in Sydney about 5pm on his way home from work. He obviously hasn’t been reading the blog so he knew nothing about it and he walked up to a news stand, saw my picture, and started pissing himself laughing while the people around him gave him strange looks.

I got a few phone calls and emails but it wasn’t too crazy.

In middle of all that… I was driving around Melbourne about 12pm and my car started to splutter and cough and then died. I managed to steer it over to the curb before it came to a complete stop. The reason? Ran out of petrol. The warning light had been on for… a few hours? A day? A few days? I don’t know. Have been too busy to fill it up. Anyway so fortunately, I was about a block away from the BMW dealership where I bought the car two years ago, so I rang BMW Assist and they sent a guy over about ten minutes later to put some petrol in my tank. I also happened to stop just outside a café so I just calmly put my emergency lights on, went inside, got lunch, and sat there reading the Bulletin until BMW Assist arrived. Ah… the highs and the lows in a day. Who said there is a fine line between the sublime and the ridiculous?

Four days until I leave and I still don’t have accommodation for San Fran. There are going to be a few Aussie Web2.0 guys over there though (Chris Saad, Marty Wells, Nik Cubrilovic) so we’re talking about getting a place and throwing a good old fashioned Aussie BBQ.

God I have so much to do before I leave….

"Went down to St Tropez where Renoir paints the walls…"