More Great SNL Videos

Tina Fey really is brilliant as Sarah Palin. Here's a couple more:

Saturday Night Live

Found a great little video from Saturday Night Live:



Tina Fey and Amy Poehler (sp?). Tina Fey is BRILLIANT as Sarah Palin!

Menstruation: According to Disney

I found this through Boing Boing:




I would say it's from the 50's. It has some wise advice, even if it does dance around the subject a bit!

TGIF!

Oh Thank God it's Friday!

It's been a crazy busy week. With this new Web 2.0 training programme at work, which I am the technical support for, I am being run off my feet. The phone never stops ringing, and my email inbox is just chockas, all the time. I answer one, three more come in.

It is good, it means people are taking up the training and that I'm getting my teeth into something that gives me lots of challenges, but Cheese Louise, does it leave me buggered! I am so ready to just crawl into a ball tonight and not surface until Monday morning.

But then, that wouldn't leave me with any social life, and I need a social life. As it is I'm opting to have tonight in, spend tomorrow just chilling and leave socialising for Sunday. I plan to see The Mummy with a friend and probably do lunch.

I do have a lot of things coming up though. The Brisbane City Romp is next weekend and I'm part of a team for that one. Hopefully we'll raise some money for the Burnet Foundation and have a lot of fun doing it.

Then I've got a big weekend the week after that. Friday night is the "Girls Night Out" being held at the old QLD Museum, that should be a big night with friends, and then on the Sunday is the Brissie Cysters meet up. Aye caramba, what have I signed myself up for with all this stuff on? Plus I have various lunches, dinners, catch up coffees and even a breakfast scheduled in over the next fortnight. All on top of the massive workload I have at the moment.

Oh by the way, a couple of weeks ago I saw Hell Boy 2. It's brilliant fun! I'm still saying "Ohhhh crap."

Everybody's Got to Eat

So it's no secret that I'm a fan of Mythbusters right? Well I'm always tootling around online looking for interesting articles and stuff about Mythbusters and Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman in particular.

Earlier this week I found this video posted on Boing Boing:



It's part of an appearance by Adam at The Last Hope convention, a convention for hackers. Now hackers don't just mean those awful people who maliciously hack into other people's computers. Hackers are people who like to pull stuff apart and see how it works, modify it to do things that it wasn't intended to do in the first place. You know those people who like to pull appliances apart just to see what's inside? That's a hacker. I'm a bit of a hacker myself.

The question of course was would Mythbusters investigate RFID (radio frequency ID) more.

And Adam tells the story of how Texas Instruments and the big credit card companies intimidated the representative from Discovery Channel and Tory Bellici and the story was shelved, it just won't be done on Mythbusters. Quite understandably, Discovery Channel is reliant on commercial corporations for it's revenue, and if they are being threatened legal action and loss of their revenue... they're going to back down.

And then a couple of days later, Boing Boing posted this article from CNET News. In simple words, it's Adam retracting what he said at the Last Hope convention regarding Texas Instruments and the credit card companies.

Can anyone say "balls in a vice"?

Adam has copped a LOT of flak for this whole saga. From people suggesting he was lying or making up the story he told at the convention, to those saying that if the story is true he was stupid to tell it to a room of about 500 people, to people suggesting he sold out by retracting the statements he made at the convention.

Now I personally believe he was telling the truth as he knew it when he told that story. He doesn't have much of a poker face Adam, and there is no artifice or falseness about his manner when he tells the story. He's relaxed, clearly relating an anecdote.

I also believe that he was pressured into retracting the story that he told. Be it from Discovery Channel, Beyond Productions (the company that produces Mythbusters) or even by legal actions from either Texas Instruments or the major credit card companies. But from what I know of Adam Savage, the statement given in the article is NOTHING at all like him, it's formal and clearly a very carefully prepared statement. Something tells me Adam has made the decision very carefully to back right away.

Now seriously, who can blame him? Ok yes, if he is being pressured he is backing down in the face of big business, but like every other one of us, he has to keep his job, has to put food on the table and pay the roof over his head. He has a name he has to keep clear. I also know that he has a wife and young family.

Not to mention that this could also affect his colleagues at Mythbusters, even Beyond Productions. If Discovery Channel has said "Retract that or else", then not only his job could be on the line, but the whole Mythbusters series, which means not only the on screen folks in himself, Jamie Hyneman, Tory Bellici, Kari Byrom and Grant Imehara, but the countless other people who work behind the scenes.

To me, Adam has done the wise and probably honourable thing to just back right away.

But that said... it was probably a very stupid thing for anyone to put pressure on him to change his story. Because it has meant that it's got a lot more people talking about it than if it had just slid by, and a lot more people asking questions about WHY the Mythbusters shouldn't be exposing just how safe and secure RFID technology is.

And as someone at the convention said... there are 5000+ people there who do not have contractual obligations preventing them from investigating the technology right there... and many more who have seen all this on the internet.

Poor Adam, he's probably feeling very much like this all over again:



That's Jamie slapping him, trying to bust the myth that a slap in the face will sober you up. For more laughs, watch this one of Adam trying to sober up by running on a treadmill:



High speed cameras rock! I love that Jamie (on the right, with hand in pocket and stop watch) doesn't move a muscle through all of that.

Oh and if you want to see the whole series from The Last Hope, I've made it into a YouTube Playlist:

Men Make Me Laugh

I've just been thinking about something I observed on the weekend I was down on the Gold Coast. And it's had me giggling a wee bit.

When we first got there on the Saturday, after Janna and I had popped our stuff away in our hotel room and parked the car, we decided to go for a walk down to Cavill Avenue in the thick of Surfers Paradise. We stopped at Baskin and Robbins, as you do, for a Saturday afternoon ice-cream cone.

While we were in there, a couple of the Gold Coast Meter Maids popped in for their Saturday afternoon ice-cream cone, still in their uniforms. Now if you haven't seen their uniforms, check this out:



They don't wear much, do they? And the back view? Let's just say it's rather... cheeky. Do a Google Image search on "Gold Coast Meter Maids" and you'll get the idea.

Anyhoo, the girls got their ice-creams, which took a few minutes for them to get so they were standing at the counter waiting and stuff, and then they went outside and sat at one of the tables to eat them.

And I have not been entertained so much in a very long time as I was just watching the guys reactions to them. Absolutely hilarious.

Inside the shop, one trio of backpacker lads were good fun. Two tried desperately not to look, the third had a broken neck, it just wouldn't swivel away from those two girls. I think the poor boy hadn't seen a girl in a skimpy bikini before.

Then there was the old bloke with his wife. I think it was a long needed tonic for the old coot, but his missus wasn't real happy with his copping a view. She gave him a tug of the arm and dragged him away, dripping ice-cream all the way.

When we got outside, I was perfectly positioned to watch guys reactions as they walked down the corridor next to the shop, got to the edge of the seating area and spotted the girls. So I saw their expressions pre-vision and post-vision.

They would walk down the corridor, with relaxed expressions, minds far away. When they saw these two girls in their little gold bikinis, a range of things would happen. For example:

One guy walking down the hall with his sunglasses on his head, spotted the girls and then as quick as lightning plopped the sunnies down over his eyes. Ummm... you think we didn't notice you going the ogle mate?

Another one sucked his gut in like he'd had a vacuum pump stuck up his bum. Schloop!

Quite common was the "double take and drool" method. Often the mouth would plop open and the saliva glands go into action. I saw that three or four times in the 20 minutes we were sitting there.

Then there was the coupled up guy who would do the double take, have a good look and the girlfriend or wife would give him a slap or demand his attention some other way, but he was still using his peripherals after that, that's for sure.

I also noticed that the whiter the guy, the more sneaky and furtive the looks. Black, Maori or olive skinned guys all just turned and had a calm, interested look. White guys tended to have the thing where the neck doesn't move but the eyes dart off to where they can see. It's kind of creepy really. White guys, take a leaf out of your darker skinned brothers, just be cool, have a look, don't suck your gut in, don't peer out of the corner of your eyes, keep your mouth closed and for God's sake don't put your hand in your pocket. That's just skin-crawlingly creepy.

But my favourite of all was the guy who spotted the girls, turned and nudged his wife as if to say "Huh? Huh?" and panted like a dog on a hot day, while his wife just rolled her eyes and kept walking.

Guys, you're so funny. You think we don't notice?

At the Movies: Wanted

I decided to take myself off to see a movie today. I really like James McAvoy, so I decided to go and see Wanted, which stars him, Angelina Jolie and Morgan Freeman.

I really enjoyed it, purely for it's shoot-em-up/stunt-extravaganza fun and for the fact that James McAvoy is a brilliant young actor and Morgan Freeman is a brilliant old actor.

However, Angelina Jolie proved to me that she couldn't act with a gun to her head... she actually had a gun to her head repeatedly in this movie and she definitely can't act. Her role was primarily her swanning around pouting those enormous rubber lips and giving monosyllabic comebacks to any lines said in her direction. She's ALARMINGLY thin in this movie, in fact she looks like a praying mantis with rubber lips. I don't see how she can be considered beautiful at all, she's so thin and "enhanced" with those dry looking lips. In fact when she kisses James McAvoy I kept worrying that he would leave a layer of his skin behind on her dry, dry lips.

One question... in these movies, when folks are getting beat up and wounded, both men and women equal, why do the guys get blood all over them, scars, big gory wounds, bruises etc, but the women get a wee smear of blood on their cheekbone but not a hair out of place or their makeup smudged?

Anyway, it was fun, despite La Jolie and her sour pouting, and as I said, James McAvoy is a masterful young actor with a fantastic presence, and the story has plenty of twists and turns to keep you interested. Go see it if you like lots of action and some brilliant stunts. The one where Fox (Jolie) swings her car around with the door open and Wesley (McAvoy) falls in, is absolutely hilarious.

Here's the trailer...

My Gorgeous New Tatts

Ok, I just have to have a brag blog now. On Tuesday I got two new tattoos done. It was 14 years ago I got my first and only one up to this point, which was a FarSide (Gary Larson comic) cow on my back above my left shoulder blade. Now I have two more beauties to add to the collection.

Now, be aware that these two photos were taken right as each tattoo was finished, so they're a little swollen and bloody. But you have to do that, because after swollen and bloody, they go to crusty and scabby for about two weeks. Then they settle down to the beautiful artworks that they are.

This first one is on my left foot:



And this one is on the inside of my right forearm:



I just love my new ink!

Interesting Web2.0 Tools and Links

Well as promised, here are some of the interesting links I have found in my time tinkering with Web2.0 technologies. Please, if you know some other groovy ones, leave them in the comments.

Blogs

www.blogger.com
www.typepad.com
www.wordpress.com
http://technorati.com – technology blogs and articles.
http://measuremap.com/ - collect stats on your blog
www.blogniscient.com
www.tailrank.com


RSS Feed Sites

http://www.feedmarker.com (could also be considered social bookmarking)
http://www.netvibes.com
http://www.newsvine.com
www.digg.com – a blog/news feed tool
www.feedburner.com
www.bloglines.com
www.newsalloy.com
www.rssmad.com
www.newsgator.com

Wikis

www.wikipedia.com
www.wetpaint.com

Review sites

www.yelp.com
www.tripadvisor.com


Mashups

www.mashup.com
www.mapdango.com
www.programmableweb.com
www.suitemaps.com

Social Networking

www.facebook.com
www.myspace.com
www.friendster.com
www.bebo.com
www.meetwithapproval.com/
www.43things.com
www.chatsum.com – chat with people looking at the same website as you!
www.yub.com – social online shopping!
www.ning.com – create your own social networks
www.rbloc.com
www.renkoo.com
http://www.gather.com/
www.frappr.com


Social Bookmarking

http://del.icio.us/
http://ma.gnolia.com
http://www.simpy.com/
www.diigo.com
www.gravee.com
www.furl.net


Podcasts and Vodcasts

www.youtube.com - videos
www.podcast.net
www.abc.net.au – podcasts and vodcasts
www.apple.com/itunes - podcasts and vodcasts
http://www.clipshack.com – videos
www.truveo.com – vodcasts
www.gcast.com – make your own podcasts
www.ourmedia.org
www.castpost.com
www.fruitcast.com
www.vimeo.com – social vodcasting
www.getfireant.com
www.odeo.com – make your own podcasts
www.veoh.com
www.dabble.com


Image Hosting

www.photobucket.com
www.flickr.com
http://pixenate.com
http://www.picturecloud.com/
www.fotolog.com
www.smugmug.com
www.shutterfly.com
www.qoop.com
www.blish.com


Social Cataloguing and Databases

www.shelfari.com - books
www.librarything.com - books
www.playlist.com - music
www.goodreads.com - books
www.mercora.com – music
www.squidoo.com – build a social website on whatever you desire!
www.zazzle.com – social design – design t-shirts, badges, postcards and share them.
www.cafepress.com – social design
www.simplyhired.com – jobsearch socially!
www.last.fm - music


Second Life and Avatar Sites

www.secondlife.com
www.clubpenguin.com

Miscellaneous Sites

www.shozu.com (hook open source sites like YouTube, Flickr, Facebook etc to your mobile phone)
www.lexxe.com – natural language search engine
http://www.goowy.com – widgets and webtops
http://www.clipfire.com – product searches
www.quimble.com – for creating online polls
www.vizu.com – online polls
www.rollyo.com – create your own search engine
www.alexa.com – watch the internet, tailor your site lists to see traffic, get feeds.
http://www.allmydata.com/ - online storage and backup
http://yeli.us/Flash/Fire.html - Billy Joel Flash presentation
www.congoo.com – news portal
www.pageflakes.com – create a homepage of all your services on one.
www.trumba.com – online calendar publishing
www.eskobo.com – homepage service
www.tinfinger.com – search engine for famous people
www.favoor.com – startpage
www.lulu.com – publishing
www.meebo.com – instant messaging widgets
www.yedda.com – info and lots of it! Search engine, networking, blogs…
www.calendarhub.com – online calendars and organisers.
www.suprglu.com – homepage service
www.riya.com – search engine based on colour recognition.
www.writeboard.com – collaborative writing
www.shoutwire.com -

Digital Fun at Mt Ommaney Library

Ok, I know I promised to get this up and on my blog over the weekend, but it's been a little busy and I'm in serious holiday mode, two weeks annual leave will do that to you. Not to mention that I was quite busy on Tuesday being tattooed, but that's a subject for another blog, which I may or may not also pop up tonight.

Anyhoo, on Saturday, I had the priviledge of being part of the Mt Ommaney Library Digital Media event organised by Geoff Shera. And a smashing job Geoff did of organising it too. Geoff asked me to give a presentation on Web2.0 technology, and also to be on hand for the whole event. It's been a long time since I enjoyed a day's work as much as I did on Saturday.

Most of the attendees and other presenters asked for a centralised location for all of the links and info presented at the event, and I figured here was the easiest place to do that. So, without further ado, here are all of the links from the other presenters. I will share mine in a separate blog, as I have a BIG document of them.

Peter Cox

superuse.org - where recycling meets design
http://www.superuse.org/

cheap movie production – cellphone clips nokia are the biggest camera maker in the world….
http://downanddirtydv.blogspot.com/search/label/cell%20phone%20filmmaking


http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/24/technology/24cell.html?ex=1366776000&en=e3e9ef963df6e44b&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

‘Cellph Portraits’ Gallery
don’t bring a camera bring a phone
http://www.sfgate.com/cgibin/object/article?f=/g/a/2004/05/28/rxgallery.DTL&o=4


cctv filmmaking
FACELESS by MANU LUKSH (cctv footage reclaimed by law)
now, you don’t even need a camera to make a movie

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yLzJCeGYgbg

In a society under the reformed 'Real-Time' Calendar, without history
nor future, everybody is faceless. A woman panics when she wakes up
one day with a face. With the help of the Spectral Children she slowly
finds out more about the lost power and history of the human face and
begins the search for its future.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6654971.stm

FLIPBOOK at Benettonplay.com / Animation for free
http://www.benettonplay.com/toys/flipbookdeluxe/popular.php?days=all

SAND ART Ferenc Cako
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HtP4FjvfBFo

the stick figure has a come a long way
xiao xiao
http://www.flash8.net/flash/2459.shtml
http://www.flash8.net/user/701.shtml

and more stick stuff
http://www.stickpage.com/
http://www.stickpage.com/animatorvsanimationplay.shtml

• PERFECT ART
Yugo Nakamura = master of web/interaction
HE BELIEVES IN CRAFT / TOTAL WEB CRAFTSMANSHIP
no resources really / thought and commitment to craft
http://yugop.com/ver3/index.asp?id=3
http://www.yugop.com/
yugop design museum yugo
http://www.designmuseum.org/design/yugo-nakamura

FLASH SITE CLASSIC
http://www.philbrown.bc.ca/

and now …. yourself as the work??
http://www.lookbetteronline.com/dating_photos/beforeafter


Michael Bouwmann

A Brief History of Facebook
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2007/jul/25/media.newmedia

MySpace According to Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myspace

Thomas' MySpace Editor
http://strikefile.com/myspace/

Titanium Beau - artist on MySpace
http://www.myspace.com/titaniumbeau

Spoonbill - MySpace Page
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=43391406

MySpace Profile Support
http://www.myspace.com/profilessupport

Debra Beattie

ABC Online Specials
http://www.abc.net.au/onlinespecials/

The Sketch Book Dot Com
http://www.the-sketch-book.com/

Australian Network for Art and Technology
http://www.anat.org.au/

Capture Wales
http://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/audiovideo/sites/galleries/pages/capturewales.shtml

LiveWirez - Griffith University
http://live-wirez.gu.edu.au/content/digitalvideo.html

Screen Australia Digital Learning
http://www.filmaust.com.au/learning/

The Wrong Crowd - an online documentary
http://www.abc.net.au/wrongcrowd/

Stephen Grace

www.imdb.com.au - Internet Movie Database
www.imcdb.com.au - Internet Movie Cars Database

Now I've just realised I'm missing some of the links, so I'll be back later with an edit after I've annoyed Geoff enough to send them to me!

If you do pop in to read this blog, please leave me a comment so I know I've got an audience!

You May Not Know...

My friend Terri posted a blog recently on MySpace that was a clever little idea. Just to list some things that you may not know about yourself. So I'm picking it up and here's a few things you may not know about me...

1. When I was 21 years old, I started a radio station with my friend Marty, who was also 21. One day he came into the music shop that I owned at the time, and said "If you were really, really rich, what would you do?" and I said "I'd start a radio station." He was stunned because that's the same thing he wanted to do. So we started poking our noses around and getting information, and decided that since we weren't really, really rich, how about we start a community radio station. And that's how BeauFM in Beaudesert was born. It was hard work for two young people in a country town to get anyone to take them seriously, but we plugged away at it and eventually the ball started rolling, folks started helping and it all happened. BeauFM is still running today. (Oh God, I just looked at the website they have now http://beaufmnew.beaufm.org.au/ - it's SCARY!! Maybe I shouldn't tell people I'm connected with them!)

2. My first memory is of shoes. They were mine, they were shiny mary-jane style with the lacy socks, and I had my feet up on the window of my Grandparent's car. And I've never looked back when it comes to shoes, I can't get enough of 'em!

3. I nearly got married when I was very young. The young man and I kept it a very big secret at the time, because we were JUST of age, but it was our plan at the time. I'm so glad I didn't. He was a lovely guy, but messed up. And I'd have missed a lot of experiences I've had since if that had been my life.

4. I am tetrachromatic. I can see more colours than most people. It's the opposite of colour blindness. Things often don't match in colour to my eyes, that do to other people's eyes!

5. I wanted to be a librarian when I was a little girl. Then I wanted to be a lot of other things for many years, but here I am back in libraries. And I have no intention of leaving it.

6. The worst pain I have ever been in was shingles. It was worse than being tattooed, breaking small bones (I've not broken any big ones), chronic ear infections, having my nose pierced, toothache... anything else I have experienced. It was AGONY!

7. If I was really, really rich nowdays, I would buy a BMW motorbike and travel the world on it.

Did you learn something new about me? Leave a comment and tell me, or tell me something I may not know about you!

Am I The Last to Discover These Guys?

Seriously, has the whole world heard of Naturally 7 except me?

Someone sent me this video on Facebook the other day, and I can't stop playing it.




They're amazing and that main singer has got an amazing voice. I just had a look on YouTube and here's a slick video clip for it, which is almost as good as the version on the train, but I like the rawness of the train one.



I have to find me some CD's of these guys. I need this song if nothing else on my iPod!

Not to mention that they're HOT!!

A Trip Down Memory Lane

I found one of my old photo albums in my clean up of the spare room. This is all the stuff from when I was a baby, through Primary School. I was so cute! I can't believe I always thought I was an ugly kid. Mind you, I was always told I was homely. "Lucky you were born with brains girl, cos you ain't much to look at." But I was cute! All shiny dark hair and cheekbones. Oh to look like that again!

These are great old photos, so I thought I'd share 'em with you, my lovely friends!



Aww look, it's me riding a bicycle. Either that or being tormented by my Uncle Greg, who would have been about 16 or 17 at the time. Would be early 1973. Uncle Greg hasn't changed much.



Here I am at 15 months. Would be about January 1974. Don't you love the tint to these photos. Apparently the fuzzy rug I was sitting on was bright blue! For the Aussies reading this, this is a Pixie photo. Yes, they were around then!



I think I was about six. Would explain the missing teeth. But I was SOOOOO cute! I had to play that organ on the right for hours and hours and hours to practice. I hated it and much preferred the piano. Or better still, I wanted to learn to play the violin, saxaphone, cello, anything!! Good to see we lashed out on the EXPENSIVE brand of ironing aid there on the left. (For non Aussies, the blue and white label is for one of the first ever generic brands available in Australia and it was really cheap and nasty.)



I think I would have been about 8 here, or at least that's what I could work out by looking at a photo of me and my brother taken in the same costume. My brother looks about 5 or 6, so that would make me 8. This was for a school costume party. The hibiscus came from a MASSIVE hibiscus tree out the front of our house that we used to play underneath, and later when they built the high school, the kids wagging school would sit under it and smoke. Looks like we had a video player (tapes on top of the telly) and it was a Beta. I still have it, and yes, it still works. To think a DVD player lasts me about a year now before it packs in, and I've got a Beta video player that is at least 27 years old and it still works.

Incidentally, that TV used to go weird in the colour, and we used to thump it to make it go right.



Poor Santa, he just wasn't as stylish as me in my red and white. I loved that outfit at the time. Would be Christmas '83.



If I remember correctly, this was a costume day at school for Book Week. I was Pippi Longstocking. Our faithful poo brown Datsun 180B there behind me.



This is around my 12th birthday. I'd not long convinced a young apprentice hairdresser friend to cut all my hair off, and my mother wasn't happy. That water was FUCKING FREEZING!



Proof that I've been hanging around in libraries all my life. I would have been 12 in this photo, just about to finish Primary School. The girl on the left was named Kelly, and she had webbed toes. And weird parents that were some strange religion. But her father did introduce me to my first curry, and I have much to thank him for that. It was so hot, I nearly died, but he started a love affair with curry that has lasted me all these years. The dog's name was Bear, and he belonged to the teacher-librarian. As you can see, he was very well acquainted with me, as I was ALWAYS in the library.



And here I am on graduation day of Primary School. Look at the legs!! God I wish my legs were still that long and brown and slender. I had a hella figure at 12. Pity from that point on it was all downhill!

Hope you enjoyed my little stroll down memory lane here. I know I have!

Girl Clumsy Rocks the Shoes

A friend and fellow blogger has just posted this video on her blog:



You know why I love this movie. The shoes right? Though the killer ones don't do anything for me. It's the red ones I love.

Enjoy, and if you'd like to read more of Girl Clumsy's blog, click here.

Today I was asked why I'm so fascinated by the American Civil War. I'm not entirely sure of why it fascinates me so much. Perhaps it's because it was the first war that was documented so thoroughly, particularly as photography was really coming into use by that time. Maybe it's because I feel a deep connection with the USA, always have, and it's an event in American history that really shaped the country and it's people. And also I think it's a war that wasn't fought by two very different peoples, it's a war that was fought by the same people against each other. Brothers, fathers, sons, cousins, friends, colleagues... all fought each other on opposing sides because they made the choice to follow what they believed in.

I have another friend who suggested that perhaps I have been reincarnated from that time. She thinks that perhaps I was a Southerner, as I'm so sympathetic to the South (while also understanding that they had some major injustices going on down there) and have a deep admiration of General Robert E Lee.

Mostly I think it's painted heavily as a "good vs bad" scenario, but it's not really that clear cut. Yes, one side had slavery and the other didn't, but there were many on the North who had no issue at all with slavery themselves, and the majority of those that fought for the South were not slaveholders, and were not fighting for the right to hold slaves, but to protect their homes, and the right to secede from the Union. Slavery was an issue of course, but it wasn't the only issue.

Abraham Lincoln himself said:

"If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it; and if I could do it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that."

Ultimately of course the right thing won through, which was the emancipation of slaves, but the reasons behind it are far more complex than are often portrayed. And it's that complexity that fascinates me.

The photography of the time is nothing short of incredible. For the first time in history, photography was readily available (though still cumbersome with huge cameras and glass plate negatives that had to be lugged around everywhere, and long exposure times which meant subjects had to stand still for long periods to get clear photos.) But the photos produced during this time were MAGNIFICENT. Huge glass plate negatives gave resolution so sharp and amazing that the photographs of today pale in comparison, even with all our technology and colour over black and white.

If you want to see some examples of the cream of the crop of Civil War photographs, I can highly recommend the Shorpy photo blog, who has a fantastic collection of Civil War photographs in high resolution. Click here to go directly to the Civil War collection.

Also on Shorpy today, someone posted this video montage photographs of the dead at Petersburg, Virginia in 1865. I will warn you that these photographs are graphic and are of dead bodies, so if you're of a sensitive nature, you may not want to watch them. I personally find nothing offensive about them at all, I find them incredibly poignant. In fact, be warned that a lot of the photographs on Shorpy.com are equally graphic, and of high resolution.

If anyone else is interested in the American Civil War, do drop me a line and let me know. I'd be interested to hear other people's opinions and thoughts on that particular period in American history.

See this Movie. Seriously.

I saw this movie a year ago. It's amazing. It's Australian, beautifully filmed, a fantastic cast, a wonderful story.

And William McInnes is GORGEOUS.

Is "Nice" So Bad?

I had a conversation with a friend about a week ago about "nice people". In particular, how "nice guys don't get the girls." Now this fascinated me, because I consider this friend a nice guy.

The vibe I got from him, was that most people seem to equate "nice" or "good" with predictable, traditional, even boring. That people who weren't nice were more spontaneous and interesting. I'm quite sure that I don't agree with that theory. I'm thinking about the nice people I know in my life, and none of them are boring. None of them are what I would consider predictable.

I think I'm nice, and yet I doubt very much that I am predictable or staid in any way. I think I am very spontaneous. I'm not ashamed of the fact that I am nice. I am proud that I care about other people and how they feel, and that I get joy from making other people feel good. I like BEING good, but that doesn't necessarily mean that I always behave myself!

I'm thinking about the nice guys I know. The friend I had the conversation with... I believe he's a nice guy. He's not boring or predictable. My friend Dave... one of the nicest people on the planet, such a good soul that you just can't believe that any one person can have such a good heart... nope, he's not predictable. Another guy friend I have that strikes me as particularly lovely of heart... nope not in any way boring. In fact, I find all three of these guys fascinating company, funny, challenging of intellect, spontaneous. But also nice, good men. And none of 'em seem to have any problem with the ladies either, for that matter.

When did nice and good become such dirty words? When did the fun go out of being nice or good? When did being a nice person or a good person mean that you can never have any naughtiness in your life? That you become predictable or dull? Was it always perceived to be predictable and dull to be nice?

Now as for women not being attracted to nice men, I personally am HIGHLY attracted to nice men. Nothing sexier than a man who cares. About more than himself. Who cares about his family, his friends, the world, the environment, animals... anything! I personally find the whole bad boy "I don't give a shit about anything but myself." really unattractive, and yes... boring! I think someone who isn't nice, who is self centred is more predictable than someone who is nice. It bores me shitless frankly some guy that goes on and on about himself, and is so arrogant that he swaggers around as if he owns the world.

Am I in the minority? I am not entirely sure about women, but I do notice that there are a LOT of guys out there who will put up with some bitch who treats them like dirt and walks all over them, simply because she's supposed to be "interesting" in her attitude. But do women really prefer bad boys?

A female friend recently suggested that I did really love bad boys, because I have a bit of a thing for Wolverine. And Sawyer from Lost. But I thought about it, and realised that the thing I find attractive about them is that despite the fact they want the whole world to THINK they are bad guys, they're actually quite good men at their core. Wolverine fights on the side of good, not evil, and he loves and protects other people. Sawyer from Lost is a man who has done all kinds of bad things, but his natural instinct when it comes to the crunch is to protect and help people. It is more often than not him that comes to someone's rescue, not Jack, who is supposed to be the good guy.

I just know, give me a man who "gives a shit" about things in life over some self centred, arrogant arse anyday. Nice/good men are sexy. And that doesn't mean they're sloppy and simpering, it just means they can see the difference between what is right and what is wrong and always treat themselves and others with RESPECT. There is nothing sexier than a man who says things like "I thought you might like it if... (Could be anything...) I gave you a call, I washed your car, I made some time for you, I helped the kids school, I rang my mother... anything that shows that they care about people other than themselves, and that they had the thought of what might make me feel good. Mmmm.... now that's SEXY.

And correspondingly, I take great joy in doing something for the people I care about that makes them feel good. Not because it puts me in their good books, but because it gives me satisfaction to know that they walk a little taller or have a smile on their face. Where are the men that find that attractive in a woman?

How do you feel about "nice people". Do you think you are nice? Do you find niceness attractive or do you prefer bad boys/girls? Do you think if someone is nice, that they can't be spontaneous, or they must always "behave themselves"? I'd love to hear other people's thoughts on the nice/good thing.

Unread Books Meme

The 106 books most often marked as “unread” by LibraryThing’s users. Bold the ones you’ve read, italicise the ones you started but didn’t finish and colour the ones read for school.

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Anna Karenina
Crime and Punishment
Catch-22
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Wuthering Heights
The Silmarillion
Life of Pi : a novel T
he Name of the Rose
Don Quixote
Moby Dick
Ulysses
Madame Bovary
The Odyssey
A Tale of Two Cities
Pride and Prejudice
Jane Eyre
The Brothers Karamazov
Guns, Germs, and Steel
War and Peace
Vanity Fair
The Time Traveler’s Wife
The Iliad
Emma
The Blind Assassin
The Kite Runner
Mrs. Dalloway
Great Expectations
American Gods
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
Atlas Shrugged
Reading Lolita in Tehran : a memoir in books
Memoirs of a Geisha
Middlesex
Quicksilver
Wicked : the life and times of the wicked witch of the West
The Historian : a novel
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Love in the Time of Cholera
Brave New World
The Fountainhead
Foucault’s Pendulum
Middlemarch
Frankenstein
The Count of Monte Cristo
Dracula
A Clockwork Orange
Anansi Boys
The Once and Future King
The Grapes of Wrath
The Poisonwood Bible
1984
Angels & Demons
Inferno
The Satanic Verses
Sense and Sensibility
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Mansfield Park
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
To the Lighthouse
A Canterbury Tale
Tess of the D’urbervilles
Oliver Twist
Gulliver’s Travels
Les Misérables
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Dune
The PrinceThe Sound and the Fury
Angela’s Ashes : a memoir
The God of Small Things
A People’s History of the United States : 1492-present
Cryptonomicon
Neverwhere
A Confederacy of Dunces
A Short History of Nearly Everything
Dubliners
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Beloved
Slaughterhouse-five
The Scarlet Letter
Eats, Shoots & Leaves
The Mists of Avalon
Oryx and Crake
Collapse : how societies choose to fail or succeed
Cloud Atlas
The Confusion
Lolita
Persuasion
Northanger Abbey
The Catcher in the Rye
On the Road
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Freakonomics : a rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance : an inquiry into values
The Aeneid
Watership Down
Gravity’s Rainbow
The Hobbit
In Cold Blood : a true account of a multiple murder and its consequences
White Teeth
Treasure Island
David Copperfield

In the Neighbourhood

Had a bit of shocking news today. I got a phone call this afternoon from my tenancy manager letting me know that there was a possibility that the building would be all cordonned off when I got home from work tonight. One of my neighbours was found dead in his flat today. Seems he had been there dead for awhile.

I personally hadn't seen him for a bit over a week. I usually only see him on the weekends anyway, because both of us work long hours. But he was a nice bloke, he'd always call out hello and we'd have a bit of chat on weekends if we were both around at the same time.

I'm told he was only 55. They think it was something wrong with his liver - he'd been on a fishing trip a couple of weeks ago and had been vomiting a bit of blood, but he hadn't thought it was that bad. Particularly as he had had a few drinks, thought he'd over-indulged a bit.

It seems another neighbour mentioned to the tenancy manager today that he hadn't seen him around for quite a few days, and his mail hadn't been collected since last week and his car still had a fishing rod sticking out of it. I'd noticed the mail too, but figured he was away still. I feel kind of bad that I didn't take more notice, that I didn't question things sooner. So the tenancy manager went and got the keys, let himself in, and found Norm. Not a pleasant thing to have to do on your work day hey?

Originally, the police thought it looked suspicious, but they've now ruled it natural causes. I hope he didn't suffer.

They're not sure how long he was there for, at least 3 or 4 days, maybe more. Poor bugger, he was a good neighbour, an honest, hard working bloke who never bothered anyone and was always friendly and polite. I'm sorry he's died at only 55 and that he should go in such a manner. Again, I hope he didn't suffer at all, that it wasn't a painful, lonely death.

Awww... How Cute!

Take a look at what I just found while cleaning up my spare room...



Yes, that's me on the right. Aged two. I actually remember that t-shirt, I really liked it.

The little boy on the left is my cousin (couple of times removed or something, in my family they're all just cousins) Rodney, who is six months younger than me.

I am so glad that his hat is dorkier than mine.