Category: Life

I don’t want to spoil any of the twists and turns in this story, but it’s worth a mention

One of the fun things to do around Christmastime will be to call your local bank or health service or big business and ask them to cough up any information they have on you. There’s a new privacy law which comes into effect in Australia on December 21 which demands businesses – with a turnover of more than 3 million smackers – give you all the information they have on file about you when you ask, or suffer eternal torment. It should be interesting to see who’s actually set up to be able to give it to you (without having to go through the dumpster out the back).
This isn’t a plug for IBC’s Privacy Services Unit, because I don’t work for them any more, but they have all the info you need to put a blowtorch under your bank manager this Christmas. Remember that when they give you gip about your credit card balance :-)

And once again, we’re proud of our performers, Caleb and Allanah, who were part of Mater Christi Primary School‘s Christmas Show for this year. They’ve been practicing long and hard for two terms now, and the show was well worth all the effort. A great, professional production. Caleb was a sailor as part of a ‘Yellow Sumbarine’ number, and Allanah had an ‘Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellw Polka Dot Bikini’ which she wore for the first time today. Suffice to say that she wasn’t afraid to come out of the water; she’s a natural on-stage, so we’ll have to make sure we get the video archived away for her later career in dance or theatre. Granny got to see the Matinee today, and Mum and Dad went tonight. Well done, everyone!

Ainslie and I were honoured to ‘do lunch’ with our local member Francis Logan at Parliament House today. The dinner was part of a prize we won a few weeks back for finishing second in a quiz night at Lakeside Baptist, so we joined with our fellow champions Fay and George to see where our taxes had been spent. Great dinner and great conversation, and a chance to see Parliament in session. Francis is responsible for the local area (Cockburn), as well as for the MidWest (Geraldton – where Ainslie and I met), so we had no shortage of topics to discuss. (Luckliy we’d done some homework beforehand.) Many thanks for Fran and the team in the Dining Room!

TIME has been helping hype ‘Ginger’ for a while now; a cool new consumer gadget that threatens to turn the world on its head. Bigshots were investing and the media was kept guessing for years, but it’s out now. It’s officially called ‘Segway‘ now, and is – as predicted – a kind of motorised scooter. It looks kind of weird, but aparrently it does all it’s magic by strategic weight-shifting, and – best of all – will apparently shuffle you around the city for a day on about 5 cents of electricity.
Is it too late to ask for one for Christmas?

Coudal Partners is the arena for a strange new world of Internet-inspired artistry: PhotoShop Tennis. It’s been partly inspired by the phenomenon of digital photo manipulation which has emerged in the last few years, the most notable being the ‘tourist guy’ and the ensuing one-upmanship (see here). The rules are explained thus:

It’s a pretty simple idea really. One player emails a photoshop document to the other containing a single layer. Each player progressively adds a layer until the match is over, either by time, withdrawal or mutual consent. A guest adds comments in real time and the people watching vote for a winner.

It’s all frightfully arty, and you probably need to know a little about photoshop filters to fully appreciate it, but it’s another example of my favourite net topic; ‘collaborative creativity’. Some of the matches are truly beautiful.

Up to now, we’ve just had the list of Scrobble definitions. Now, we can actually play it online! If you’re interested in joining a foursome, just leave your name here.

After a long hiatus, the Bonwag Tips are back! Only this time, I won’t be busting a gut over every single sporting contest there is: this time, it’ll be more fun. Check out for the deal. You have to sign up, and then track your Bonwag Euros!

We’re pretty proud of Caleb, who’s been practicing for the last few months for a Christmas recital with his violin school. Caleb barely flinched when his music was bowled over (during a song he knew by heart anyway). Who knows where to from here? Carnegie Hall? Royal Albert? Hay Street?

ABC News is reporting that a british restaurateur has successfully held off a challenge from McDonalds, who had problems with him calling his outlets “McChina”.
I mention this not because I think it’s cool that Maccas was told that it doesn’t own the ‘Mc’ name (which it doesn’t; HA!), but the fact that the owner described himself being “as happy as a drunken prawn”. Now *that’s* happy.