29 Days Later

Its been 1 day short of a month since I last posted on my blog. No real reason why, I just haven't - haven't felt like it, haven't had the motivation, haven't had the time. And as we're moving into summer and the silly season, I think I'm not likely to post all that often over the next few months. Still, it's nice too see a number of regular visitors still dropping by to check in on me.

So what's happened over the past month?

• Little Johnny has set a date with Kevin 07, giving all us Aussies an opportunity to pick between the lesser of 2 evils. This would have to be one of the most interesting elections I can recall. There is such a wide range of issues being addressed and opinion being thrown around, and people actually seem interested this time. I think this public interest is being helped along by the internet and tv shows such as Difference Of Opinion, Insight and The Chaser's War On Everything. According to an online ABC poll, new media is now a strong source of knoweldge in elections:

Where will you get most of your election news from?
TV - 39%
Radio - 22%
Online - 27%
Newspapers - 12%
2656 votes counted

• Usually, Australian tv moves to off-season at this time of the year. However, due to the increased usage of P2P, tv stations here have been forced to bring forward the screening times of popular US shows. This has lead to them advertising with catch phrases such as "Streamed direct from the US", which, in most cases, is blatant false advertising. Take for example Californication, which premiered in the USA on Aug 13 and premiered in Australia on Aug 27 - a 2 week lag. And yet, channel 10 continues to promote it as "Streamed direct from the USA". One day the main-stream media will wake up to the fact the we're not all gullible idiots.... one day.
  


• I went to an advanced screening of 30 Days Of Night on Halloween. While it was a decent vampire movie, I was a bit disappointed. Yeah, there was plenty of blood, the ending was a bit unexpected and the setting in Alaska put a good spin on the vampire story, but it just wasn't scary enough - 3 wooden stakes out of 5.
  
  
  
  


• I've been pleasantly surprised by the support provided by Beyonwiz, the manufacturers of the PVR mentioned in my last post. The company runs an online support forum and takes on board the feedback provided by their customers. I had a couple of issues with networking and play-back performance which I raised on the forum and these were quickly rectified. It is nice to see a company that actually uses internet technologies to their benefit.
  


• The USA has gone into debt crisis largely due to over mortgaging. Strangely enough, the Aussie Dollar has remained strong - for now. Hopefully, this will encourage people to rethink their spending and budgeting. I have been really surprised by the amount of debt people are in, especially on credit cards. I only have one credit card with a relatively small credit limit, so am surprised when I hear stories of friends who have over $10k worth of debt rung up on their credit cards. Society has become so focused on the 'quick fix' that people expect to have everything they want, now. Unfortunately, those who know how to save and budget are punished for the greed of others' through interest rate increases. It's good to see some bloggers out there taking steps to change their behaviour, and I can only hope their message spreads.

Ok, so plenty of other stuff has happened in the past 30 days, but that'll do me for now. I will return, maybe sooner, maybe later.

Songs played while writing this entry:
"Black Girls" Violent Femmes
"My Michelle" Guns N Roses
"Valley Of The Dolls" Mylo
"Scary Dog" Sixth Sense Approach
"As The Rush Comes" Motorcycle
"Dual" Memory Tree
"Lump" Presidents Of The United States Of America
"Ariella" Black Acid
"Emenuis Sleepus" Green Day
"Funky Sound" AK1200