Optimus Prime

Well Bubba's it is hot down here in Melbourne. I mean a week of 40C+ temperatures is hot in anyone's language. Right now I'm drinking a beer and sweating my arse off listening to John Mayer.
So I saw this at VideoGum and I love the voice over, hope you do too...

The Bart, The

I fracking hate Microsoft applications (as a user).
This article (LINK) is old news already, but it does have some links to ghastly/good mash ups of the Beastie Boys 'Intergalatic'.

I also enjoyed the quote from VideoGum 'It’s like Microsoft found some kind of home-schooling Christian commune in the woods and hired them to make their commercial'.

A sad day for Art Fans

Tony Hart has passed away and I am poorer for the loss (LINK).

Colours, painting, drawing, fun with shapes. As a young lad I loved Vision On (the little bouncy creature in the opening animation) it was wonderful and vivid and alive.
It was part of TV that had an innocence of focus groups and marketing departments. My brother and I would watch it in the afternoons before 'After School' came on. Its reminds me of the same simple and glorious eccentricity of 'Sesame Street' from the same period (the late '70's).

My artistic ability is not great, but I never felt crap watching Tony Hart. I appreciated what he could do and it made me enjoy my efforts.
Vale Tony Hart.

Straya Day

The latest message from Sam regarding bbq's this weekend is up (HERE) not as much fun as the 07 message, but still pretty good!!
2008 Here
2007 Here
2006 Here
2005 Here

Vote for your favourite!!
Should also point out Evie is a vego.

This is a fun tool

Every now and again the internets gives us something actually useful. By that I mean something useful for me. Wordle (LINK) will take text, quickly count the recurrence of words then display them in a 'Word Cloud'.
Why is this useful? For what I do it means I can write a series of documents around a theme, plug the text into wordle and see how prominently those words appear. It is a useful indication of how numerous the dog whistles are.
Have a play for yourself. Perhaps you are an unhinged teacher and wanted to see themes from a compare and contrast essay? perhaps you bored enough to plug in the Gospel of St John or Othello or that crappy script you've been working on?

Here's one I did earlier LINK

First one for the year

Thought I'd start off the 09 season of occasional music goodies early. This song is by a French outfit called Phoenix. You have probably heard this track before (I hope).
What catches my ear with this one is the rhythm and timing of the lyrics. When you listen to the introduction there is this lovely disco-esq guitar and high hat (which is actually the bridge for the chorus). As soon as the first verse starts the guitar drops back for the vocals. So the rhythm in essence remains the same but the phrasing of the lyrics is what to listen out for, its just after the beat (with the chorus the phrasing is on the beat as usual). It gives the song a wonderful manic quality, as if the singer is trying to keep up with the song.
Anyway, Phoenix is a one hit wonder to enjoy in years to come at retro nights...

Not a Positive Experience

This is actually happened (LINK) and the possibility of it has been in my mind ever since I first got on a chair lift. But from my perspective, hopping off a chair lift was for the purposes of bombing in on a run.
How the hell did this guy manage it...?!?

2008 Clip Show

And now onto the wondrous new year that will be 2009.
Are there any highlights for you? any goals to meet or exceed? will you be happy to have just taken part?
Upon review of my goals from last year;

1. Travel to Europe
2. Appear in Community Theatre

I can say without hesitation that I made some progress toward goal one (I began studying French) but in the end, it is fair to say, that I did not go to Europe. In fact it is fair to say that there will be no trips in that direction for a least a year or two.
With regards to the second goal, it did not happen at all. In all honesty by the time I had gotten to grips with the year and all the activities I undertook, number 2 was not going to happen. Just not enough hours in the day.

So despite missing both my stated goals by a wide margin, in my opinion 2008 was a great year!! Worthy of a review of some of the highlights;

• Started the year with a new life and with a lot of optimism.
• Had some major car troubles but they were sorted out by February
• Met a wonderful person
• Had a lot of travel which is always good for a Gemini
• Played a lot of soccer (and scored some awesome goals)
  
• Made some new friends
• Did a lot of Radio with Artsound (on some weeks I was on air Mon, Tues, Fri)
• Went Skiing for the first time in 5 years. This is a huge personal achievement, I love skiing, I love the snow and mountains. For 5 years I was in a situation were all of this joy and happiness was shut off from me and it is just simply wonderful to be able to connect with this passion once more.
• Learnt French. Its been fantastic to have challenged the brain in this way. Its like going to a brain gym and getting super buff super quick. I thoroughly recommend it as a course of action for anyone.
• Discovered the pretty little country world of Bright in Northern Victoria.
• Helped to win a State Election (in my own small way)
• Went 12 months without a television
• Read a lot of wonderful books
• Listened to a lot of fantastic music
• Moved interstate
  
• And finally I can say that I had a whole lot of fun.

Well I am highly confident that this year ahead is going to special in an amazing way. I won't go into detail just yet, suffice to say 2009 is going to be a hard one to top!!
All the best everybody, lets make 2009 the best we can for us all!!