Author: bonwag

A Pox on our House

August 1: Yep, we’re infected. Allanah has just recovered from her bout of Chicken Pox, and sure enough, Caleb and Charlotte have to join in, just to be cool. Allanah was a little frustrated at having to be away from friends, but Caleb’s immediate reaction was “Cool; now I get to play with the PlayStation!”. Charli’s a little less impressed – and this is only early days. We’ve done some research to help us through; see BONWAG for a list of sites we’ve visited to learn more about the disease.

Lt Us Pra

July 28: Technology continues to challenge the church. Some unnamed ‘religious group’ has – according to the London Times – managed to translate the Lord’s Prayer into SMS – the abbreviated language for mobile phone text messages. Seeing as you’re limited to 160 letters and numbers in this format, some cutbacks had to be made. Here’s the ‘new version‘, which tends to lose something in the translation….

Dave's back, but Ainslie's gone!

July 26: Sorry aboutt the delay in updating. I seem to have spent all my online time writing emails to the love of my life, instead of updating the page, so I’ll do that now.
Good news is; the trip was a success. The session I ran had a good number of people show up and show interest, which is what I’d hoped. The software I was talking about – Web CM is a good idea ahead of its time, so I’m glad to have been able to tell a few more people about it.
Also got some chances to visit Universal Studios, SeaWorld, and attend (from a distance) the launch of the Space Shuttle Atlantis. That was great timing, eh what?
Got back to Australia to find Ainslie had left! No, don’t worry; I knew it was coming. :-) Ainslie was off to attend a conference in London before continuing her art history research in Rome and Florence.
It sounds like we’re such jetsetters, eh? Nah; it’s just that we managed to compress the whole thing into a single month. It’s not that exciting. Actually, I’m missing her a lot (snif), so I’m looking forward to posting an update on her return.
In the meantime, we’ve had school holidays in Perth, marred slightly by Allanah getting Chicken Pox for the last few days (and missing the first week of school). We’ve also had Nanna visiting on her way through to (and back from) Bali, so our little dance cards have been full!

David in Florida

July 7: Reporting live from Orlando, Florida:
After 40 hours in transit, I’ve finally arrived at CAWorld; a big conference for my company. Aparrently there’ll be a few thousand people here over the next week, but I’m just setting up some computers today.
Weather today is awful; hot and sticky… good thing I’m inside. I’ve never been to the U.S. before, so I still need to get used to a few things: a toilet is actually a ‘restroom’, a car park is actually a car ‘lot’, and people refuse to drive on the correct side of the road.
Over the next week, I’ll be telling people what I know about my pet product in CA: Web CM, as well as presenting a session to explain it in more detail. I saw the room today; you could fit a few hundred people in there, so I hope we can fill it :-)
Hopefully we can also fit in some of the sights: part of the conference is a visit to Universal Studios and Sea World.
If you need to reach me while I’m away, try sending email to this address.
More news as it comes to hand.

Caleb gets Crabby

June 14: The family’s first pets have taken up residence in Caleb’s new bedroom; after a bit of campaigning, and a little inspiration from Pokemon, Caleb took a couple of ‘Crazy Crabs’ home from the pet shop today. They’ve been named after their Pokemon counterparts – ‘Krabby’ and ‘Kingler’ (Krabby is the smaller one, and has already told Caleb what he thinks of being mis-handled. Caleb has learned what those ‘big hands’ are for….). They’re enjoying their time up on the third shelf, and the girls have overcome their initial misgivings to somehow find a way to dump half the crab’s food supply in with them.

Stuff I've Learned From My Family This Week

June 8: Following an Eastern States tour this week, I have discovered that

  • If you ask a Grandmother to bring some photos of her grandkids to show around; the fact that they’re in an A3 sized picture frame will not be an issue
  • Just because a rugby side is sponsored by a dutch beer company, it doesn’t mean that the team can necessarily stomach the stuff.
  • If you happen to have a drug bust being performed your street, it’s poor form to grab a beer and stand outside pointing and laughing.
  • The size of a dessert is not proportional to how much it will ‘fill you up’.
  • Someone will probably NOT get fired at the Beverley Hills cinema for misspelling ‘Pearl Harbo(u)r’.
  • Stephen Wright is probably best left do do his own jokes.

Mum! Dad's blowing things up again!

May 3: Well, there goes my life again. The video game which ate up all my spare time a while ago – Tribes – has a new version out. Tribes 2 is a cool game; mainly because you’re competing against real people through the net. It’s not about running around and shooting people, either (well, not entirely), it’s got a heap of strategy and teamwork built in: you can’t win without co-operating which a bunch of other people, most of whom aren’t even in the same country as you. It’s got a good sense of humour about it, too (The phrase ‘Shazbot’ shows up more than once :-) A chocolate frog for the first person to tell me the original reference…). For more information, there’s a special section in Bonwag here (of course).

A.I. : Seriously good marketing in action

May 3: In the last day or so, I’ve discovered an amazing ‘game’ which has popped up on the net to promote Steven Speilberg’s new movie, A.I. It’s actually a movie he took over from Stanley Kubrik, who died in 99, and who also knew a thing or two about clever marketing. Anyway, there’s a whole series of websites which have sprung up around the web, all set a few hundred years in the future. It’s all woven around a mystery about the death of a scientist, but the way it’s all unfolding is amazingly intricate. It’s take too long to explain it all here, so have a look at http://www.aintitcool.com, which is tracking all sorts of movie news (look it up), and the ‘game’ itself starts at http://JeanineSalla.com. It’s all really weird, but a great example of the ‘new media’ and how it can be used differently from paper.
UPDATE: May 3: Here’s an excellent beginner’s guide, and an investigation by the faithful