b r a v e c r e a t u r e s

I have had a serious case of the coverts for the last week or so.

For some reason I am all wet over the Apple 23" Cinema displays and I am really not sure as to why.

I have always had quite the thing for screen real estate, and because my household got a new baby MacBook late last year, I am all aware of the sort of peripherals it might need or want.

And they are so damn beautiful.

The 30" feels like gilding the lily, and I am concerned I might pull a neck muscle turning my head far enough to see all of it. Can you say IMAX screen. Also I feel that at AU$3,200 its not something I will prioritise anytime soon.

Still its nice to dream. 

This Christmas I was given a Wii.  Well actually because there are none to be had for love or money, I was given a gift card FOR a Wii. So ever since Christmas I have been stalking the stores trying to find one. They have been highly Elvis like - constantly rumored to have just left the building. But I keep on hinting them.

Some people are however, apparently MORE determined than I.

Consumerism gone mad(der)? Or maybe radio stations should be banned. At the very least, a top contender for the Darwin Awards this year†.

Apparently a 28-year-old suburban Sacramento woman died of apparent “water intoxication” after participating in a contest — “Hold Your Wee for a Wii” — sponsored by local radio station 107.9 KDND. The rules were simple: Participants simply competed to see how much water they could drink without going to the bathroom. The winner would receive a shiny new Wii video game console, the highly coveted, $250 must-have from Nintendo.

†Actually this is a somewhat unexpected  outcome, and very sad because she left behind a husband and three kids, who presumably she was trying to win the Wii for. You would think the radio station would have checked that there was no likely harmful outcome - but given some of the radio competitions that have been suggested here in Australia - Celebrity Sperm Donor springs to mind - its not all that weird.

Imagine the fall out from that one, the conversations with an 8 year old child explaining that Mommy never met daddy and in fact the genetic material had been won as part of a radio show.

Now there's family values for you.

The question for me though, is who wil the family sue? The radio station, Nintendo or both? 

Things have been a little busy here lately, what with one thing and another, so I (clearly) haven't been writing.

My trusty N80 has a few partial blog entries in it but nothing is complete.

The concern my absence has caused has been palpable here at Brave Creatures where the phone has rung and a letter flooded in.

A concerned neighbour even popped past, although that was to ask me since the Eurovision Song Contest is now sadly past for the year, to stop playing Anna Sahlene. Or at the very least to stop singing along.

So now I am back writing - "fearlessly journaling unchampioned minutiae" is our catch cry‡ here at Brave Creatures and we don't want to disappoint our faithful reader(s?), or at least no more than normal.

So tonight its all about media players in the news. 

In a deal that smacks of about-time-ness and which will have teeth gnashing up at Kiamo Ko Castle, the Seattle lair of the evil empire, the relentless march of the iPod continues for the as the seemingly ubiquitous, byo entertainment device.

The story is that Apple is teaming up with Air France, Continental, Delta, Emirates, KLM and United to provide a hookup  between your iPod and their in-flight entertainment systems. These airlines are going to offer passengers an in-seat connection which will power and charge iPods during flight and allow the videos to be viewed on the seat back displays.

Woohoo!

For me the next step is kiosks that let you purchase video or music at the airport and sync it to you ipod without using your computer as an intermediate.

Now lets jut compare that little piece of marketing genius from Apple to their, well, "competitors" is a strong word in this case, lets just say "alternative".

Poor Microsoft, and the sadly names "Zune " - the self proclaimed iPod killer. They are managing to underwhelm whole continents of people - without even being released. Most of Europe appears to be getting in ahead of the Christmas rush, and  have started ignoring the Zune now before demand gets too high.

If you haven't heard anything about it yet, in short Zune is MS's new music player and online music service. Its big, its boxy, it not backwards compatible with MS's old music services, it comes in ugly brown, it has nearly pointless WiFi in it and the music store wont be available outside the US until late 2007 - which is basically forever in marketing terms.

The WiFi feature is particularly dumb, it smacks of Seattle bound geeks who have no social skills trying to design a sales channel and attempting to disguise it as a social networking tool. Like a giraffe in high heels - its fun about once, and then it wears completely thin.

And probably has PETA chasing you with a cease and desist order.

Another of its features-not-faults is that it doesn't work with Windows Vista or Windows Media Player 11.

Just pause to absorb that for a second.

It doesnt work with Microsofts own latest generation operating system and media player/management tool. But then why would it, they are only from the same company and are intended to be the hub of Microsofts new media strategy. You have to use the specific Zune software to sync with it - because we needed ANOTHER media management tool.

Oh, and the Zune is incompatible with Microsoft's own PlaysForSure digital rights management standard too.

And it doesn't support podcasts. 

Finally lets just talk about how you "purchase" music - if you ever make it that far. Just to prove that nothing can't be made unnecessarily complicated, the Zune "Marketplace†" doesn't use money. Well not directly.

First you need to buy Microsoft points, the very same ones I haven't managed to spend yet on XBox live yet. The Marketplace only accepts these Points, with an individual track typically costing the equivalent of the iTunes-standard 99 cents.

By forcing users to buy blocks of Points (with a $5 minimum), the Marketplace only has to pay one credit-card processing fee. Nice for them, but clouding the cost from us, since a point isnt worth exactly a dollar.

Points will also persumably make it easier for the Zune Marketplace to institute variable pricing. The music industry wants it desperately. The industry has been pressuring Apple to abandon its flat 99 cent pricing and start charging more for "hot" tracks, but apparently Job is standing firm against the high pitched whining of the media execs.

All up the Zune appears to have been exclusively designed by a committee of marketers from the record companies - and so underwhelming a product that even reviewers cant keep focused on it for more than a few seconds. 

‡ that or either - "what is she wearing" or "you can never have too many hats, gloves or shoes. We're still trying to decide.

†perhaps "Bizaar" would be a better term here than "Marketplace".

Tonight I was packing boxes.

Packing for a move to another city, another place, another job. Its time for something new, and I am excited about it. I have been throwing things out for the last few weeks in preparation of this possibility, or another possibility that has been on the horizon. And because I can be a bit of a pack rat.

Clothes, papers, books, bits and pieces of tech crap thats broken or outdated. Lots of junk has gone, mostly to charity - or recycling of some kind. Nice to put things back if I can.

So far I have packed my DVD's, CD's and tonight I was packing books. Amongst them are some that I am not sure what to do with.

It was 2001 James and I were trying to make a move to San Francisco happen. James' move was certain but mine was sill in the air. Plan A was looking shaky and so I was working a Plan B, namely to take an assignment with my then employer in London. How this was going to get me closer to San Francisco is a long story, just trust me that it seemed like a good idea.

I was really excited about going, but really not looking forward to being separated from James. As a way to cheer me up and help me focus on the posative, he bought me a book - Fodors Guide to London.

This is the book I found tonight.

I sat up in bed at night reading it, and reading the best bits out loud to James. I was so excited about going, there were so many things I wanted to see there. The book still has my notes in it and the red tabs on pages of interest. I am always so excited about travel, about the things I will see, the people I will meet, how the air will smell, how the food will taste. James was always much more cautious about travel. Will he be able to get breakfast cereal, will he be able to find away around, what if he gets lots, how do the phones work.

Very different approaches, and it tells you a lot about who we both are as people. One impulsive and daring, a dreamer; the other careful and sensible, a planner. Neither is right, neither is wrong. In truth the approaches are complimentary - if you can make the balance work, trust each other.

This book started something of a tradition for us. Whenever we were going somewhere, I would buy a book for James. A book to help him see, the excitement, the possibilities. They worked, a little. He became more adventurous for a while. For a while tonight I sat on the floor flipping through these travel books, remembering the excitement on his face when we talked about going places together - London, San Francisco, the Caribbean, Vancouver, Orlando. Very happy memories.

Flipping through the London book tonight, something fell out. A twenty dollar bill that had been pressed between the pages.

Another gift from James.

He worried about me, that something might go wrong or I might be in trouble - and so he put $20 into the book as emergency money. He is a very sweet man and he always watched out for me. He couldn't take care of me in London so he did little things like this to try and make sure I would be OK.

I am not a child, I been to more places, walked in more timezones than he has, and I can take care of myself. Rather than be insulted by his gesture, I was flattered. Here was this big, handsome, robust man telling me in his typically non verbal way that I was important to him, that he cared about me.

I am not sure if I should keep the books, or give them back to him. of who they really belong to. I guess thats because they are shared, belong to us. I have carefully packed them away for now, along with a number of other treasured memories, and someday I hope he and I can sit down and share the memories of what they mean.

On Monday night I was lucky enough to go to the dress rehearsal for the Commonwealth Games Open Ceremony thanks to my friend David. Unlike some poor souls who paid over $500 per seat for two tickets*, the tickets were free. David is a really good soul and one of the few friends I made in Sydney that I have been glad to keep.

I decided to take a friend with me as her birthday present, because I knew she would enjoy it and it was REALLY expensive, more money than it was worth. Having seen the ceremony in person, I suspect it will be as good if not better on TV.

It’s a good show, even if it is down the “interpretive dance” end of the spectrum, and I am sure that the crowd on the night will make it really exciting. Personally I am going to watch it from home, snag it on the digital recorder and most likely spend much of the time laughing my ass off with the Angel from Brussels. The bit I am looking forward to is Betty Windsor putting up with J’Ho who, if one is to believe the gossip in the homosphere‡, she loathes. Snaps to Betty for a fine piece of character assessment there.

That the Opening is going to be as good or better on TV is an interesting and culturally significant detail, particularly since Miss Communications, Helen Coonan, recently announced proposed sweeping changes to the media ownership laws. Basically it appears to me that the Liberal government is going to bend over and let Rupert and the Ghost of Kerry Packer have their way with them. And in the end, it’s the Australian people who will get royally screwed, or perhaps raped is a better way to put it, if it results in media concentration and a loss of diversity.

Although is it actually rape if you invited them in? Will the Howard governments’ historical defense for them systematically pushing their own, fairly narrow and personal agenda on the country be that they took us passing out as tacit consent?

Will it be possible for Australia to get some kind of social RH486 to deal with the ramifications of our repeated election night indiscretions?

So what will the new media laws mean for Australia? It looks to me like it’s going to mean fewer and not, as Miss Information would have us believe, more voices in the public arena. If international operators continue the march of “Fair and Balanced” reporting, we are likely to see a massive influx of opinion masquerading as news. Coonan’s answer to this is to say that people are able to access news via the internet from a wide range of sources so there will be no loss of choice.

Really? 

Maybe the blogosphere can fight back against the large commercial concerns. Maybe we can make sure the truth is available, but if in the end we do manage it, I suspect its going to be a long hard battle. The barons are used to telling us what to think and they are not going to give up that power easily.

Meanwhile, back at the Commonwealth Games Mrs. Queen actually said a few things that could be construed as critical of the Australian Government, particularly around the concentration of wealth (ironic from one of the worlds richest women, even if she is now below J.K. Rowling and Oprah on that list), cross cultural tolerance and the Indigenous population. Now a days unfortunately being scolded by the queen is less “off with his head” and more being savaged by a toothless corgi, but even at that level of efficacy any bad press for J’Ho is all right by me.

Thinking through the AU$50 million opening ceremony and its shameless attempt to out do Sydney in spectacle and culture, i.e. obscurity, I can’t help wondering if this is the shape of the media landscape to come. Overblown events that speak to a common denominator that is spread so thin, none of us have much in common with it. Or is there some alternative?

Could there be a new generation of technology savvy storytellers out there who are not motivated by greed and who want to see personally engaging stories told?

Oh. Wait. That would be me. Right then, better get to it.

*Tickets which were then being given away a few weeks later. Ouch
‡ And who am I to disbelieve my sisters when they tell me something I want to hear

It was is shaping up to be the court even of the decade, the Cole Inquiry into the AWB Kickback scandal is going from strength to strength, and I am hanging on every new development. I had been almost certain that J’Ho’s Teflon coated government was going to continue to side step the shit storm is behaviour has created but perhaps this time something might actually get through.

For those of you not following this antipodean drama Australias’ monopoly wheat exporter AWB , formally known as the Australian Wheat Board, has been caught very red faced with its hand in the pocket of the UN. It appears that they were knowingly inflating their wheat prices when selling to Iraq and used that overrun to pay over $300M in kickbacks to Saddam Hussein’s regime. It looks like they were not the only company involved in all of this, but to date no formed stools have clung to any of the other players including BHP , Australias’ landmark oil and gas exploration company.

The most significant thing that has come out to date however is that it appears that a number of senior Ministers in the Howard government had close dealings with AWB at the time this was going on. Those potentially involved include Mark Vale; Deputy PM, Leader of the Nationals and Trade Minister; and J’Ho himself.

Now the Cole enquiry had originally had its terms limited to exclude investigating government involvement, but some clever clogs had engineered things so that its well nigh impossible for J’Ho not to open things up without looking like he is covering something up. The next few weeks should be REALLY interesting.

John Howard is one of the smoothest political operators to emerge on the scene in the last few decades, and I suspect faster than you can say “plausible deniability” he is going to wiggle his way out of this, so I am not jigging for joy just yet. But it is going to take some political capital to do so and it will leave him injured.

Now if the Labor party just had a spine, or even a recognisable policy framework they might be able to capitalise on this and keep up the momentum. But somehow I doubt it. The days of labor “Maintaining the rage” seem, for the nonce, to have passed. I may just have to settle for watching J’Ho squirm.

Fat Naked Fag Goes Down

So its likely you will remember Richard Hatch, aka the fat, naked fag who won ONE MILLION DOLLARS on the first season of Survivor . Well it will appear that Richard, while deeply cunning at manipulating people is not so sharp when it comes to business and in fact was referred to by his lawyer as “the worlds worse book keeper”. It appears that Richard forgot to pay taxes on the money that he won.

Oops.

He has been convicted and now faces up to 13 years in prison and a fine of $US600,000 ($A799,041.15). Perhaps the authorities can be persuaded to send him to Camp Seymour Johnson in the Carolinas to join Bill , it would make for good blogging.

I am actually surprised at this turn. I had always assumed it would be Hatchs criminal fashion sense that would do him in.

Worst case scenario, I can see a Mark Burnett spinning this off into another show. Hell if it can work for Martha , right?

Micheal Jackson branches out to offend another culture

So what did happen to Micheal Jackson after he won his court case but lost his publicity war? Neverland Ranch is shut down, his finances are in ruins and his credibility as a babysitter is, well quiet frankly its shot all to hell.

Well it appears that Mr Jackson, along with his unfortunately named children, were invited to come and stay in Bahrain by the royal family there. Now there’s a good idea, a barely- got- off- by- the- chemically- altered- sin- of- his- teeth child molester goes to stay in a Muslim country. Is this some weird side battle on the war on terror?

Has Bush sent Wacko-Jacko in to show the Gulf States how bizzare Americans are so they fear what might be coming next. I can see them begging now - please, please, don’tMariah or Michael Bolton. Oh Please, anything but that! send

Anyway, Jacko is still clearly taking too much medication because he was recently spotted “wearing an abaya, a traditional women’s veil and gown”. I do so love the word gown, it has such a lovely old world charm.

Three Western-looking children accompanying him drew the attention of other shoppers, who quickly recognised the pop star, a popular figure in the Gulf region.

“Please, no!” Jackson shouted to photographers before making a rapid exit with the children.

Please no indeed.

And yet still no indictment

For my American cousins, WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU PEOPLE WAITING FOR? AN ENGRAVED INVITATION?

How many more things does the Bush Administration have to fuck up before you people will indite him.

The latest piece of news to slip out about Hurricane Katrina is that apparently the government knew about the potential damage and certainly the danger LONG before the storm hit.

At a July 29 briefing with federal and state authorities Transportation Department regional emergency officer Don Day said “If you think soup lines in the Depression were long, wait till you see lines” at collection points in New Orleans. [Yahoo News]

All that moral outrage over Janet Jacksons boob going on display and for this? Nada. What are you people? Crazy?

Meanwhile the Abramoff thing seems to be going precisely nowhere.

It all makes J’Ho appear positively benign.

I have been up in Lismore for New Years Eve. Now Lismore is not a pulsing centre of revolutionary cultural or intellectual advancement, its a sleepy town near the northern New South Wales coast about 90 minutes drive from the Gold Coast.

So why would I, international traveler of renown and bon vivant, be going there for my New Years festivities I hear you ask. Well it was my friend Tony’s idea.

Tony grew up in the area and his mother became ill (cancer) last year (2005). She passed away about 6 months after the diagnosis, and Tony spent most of that time with her after coming home from his long planned trip to the US. He was amazingly selfless, he just went home and stayed there doing everything for her until the end. He is a REALLY good person.His siblings and he have decided to sell the family home, so he has been going up there a lot to settle things and fix up the place for sale.

When my mother got sick in December last year, it become clear that I was going to be spending a lot of time on the Gold Coast. Tony suggested that if she was doing ok, and I could spare the time, I might like to come down to the Tropical Fruits party. This is a smallish party that has become a getaway for the jaded and less frantic of Sydney, to a lesser extent, Melbourne as well as regional New South Wales andBrisbane. Mum has bounced back FANTASTICALLY from what was a pretty harrowing operation, six hours on the table with three guys up to their shoulders rummaging around in her abdomen, so I figured I could sneak away for a little fun. The options of a/ going out in Melbourne and running into the unmentionables, or b/ sitting at home, were really not that appealing.

I flew into the GC, dropped by to see Mum to make sure she was ok and then drove down to Alstonville which is a little village outside Lismore and Byron where Tony’s place was. It was quiet and pretty and absolute delight.

Tony and I napped the afternoon away and then headed off to the party around 10.30, arriving at 11.00 with plenty of time to settle in. On arrival I ran into Leonie Dickinson working the door. Leonie was my exec producer at Open Channel for “One of these things” my sad little attempt at directing a documentary. She is the person who said straight out “you are not a natural director, you will really struggle. You are however a great creative producer. Focus on that!”A little brutal, but you need to be direct with me.

Pussy footing around about what you mean is pointless. She was horrified to be reminded how blunt she had been, but we had a good laugh about it. She is living up at Byron and LOVING IT.

I like to do a lap around any new venue to make sure I don’t get myself too lost later in the night when I am feeling sparkly so Tony and I did promenade of the party compound to get our bearings and to reviewing the troops. All up it looked like a fun space. Two big dance halls side by side, a smaller funk room, a tent lounge, and outdoor cinema showing experimental work (ick) and an art show. We wandered into this last one looking for a bathroom and it appeared that someone had thrown up some pretty average “art” in there.

Most of the alleged art work was vagina related including some model works made of blocks of wood, crazy fur and jam. What wasn’t literally pussy on display was evocative. Lots of pictures of lily’s and orchids done in over bright water colours. Suffice to say Tony and I skipped through there fairly quickly - without putting our hands in the large, dripping holes in the walls.

After grabbing a drink, it was time to explore the dance floor. We went into one of the halls, which wasn’t too busy. I commented on this to Tony who said there was enough space for him to samba, and promptly went on to prove his point. We laughed and continued dancing for a minute or so, until we realized that people seemed to be moving away from us. Quickly! And to such an extent that the hall appeared to be emptying.

Needless to say, in between laughing our arses off Tony was “scolded” for this reckless Sambering which had clearly frightened off the crowd of faux-butch queens we were dancing near. During said humorous scolding, the hall actually completely emptied, which left us kind of worried, so we moved out one of the doors and looked in the other hall - also emptied. Clearly word of Tony’s sassy steps had spread and people were rushing from the place in horror.

We moved out onto the grassy hill side running down from the halls to a large oval outside the party grounds to find all of the party goers standing with their backs to us. “Tony” I said, “If you were hoping to get laid tonight, I think you just blew your chances”.

It was at that point that the fireworks started.It appears that it wasn’t (only) Tony’s suspect samba. There had been some kind of queer flocking behavior that led everyone (bar us) outside to see something shiny.

The fireworks were frankly amazing given where we are, and it was easy to see where a lot of the $80/head ticket price had gone. Sure it wasn’t 3,000 kg of sparklers shooting off the Harbor Bridge or in Melbourne, but it was nice none the less. And given the glorious background of stars, it was all up a pretty wonderful way to usher in the new year.

That will do it for this post. There is more to tell, particularly about the Mcbethian delights of old friends and a fab pool party. But right now I think I need a little nap.