WON AN IPOD SHUFFLE

I never enter competitions because, frankly, I never win. Walter is a different story altogether. Last Sunday we decided to go to the opening weekend of our local Chemist Warehouse in Fairfield- I get very excited because at last I can buy all my Natio products cheaper.

We did spend a small fortune on a lot of things, including Natio facial products! The staff asked us to enter a competition for the grand opening. Because Walter was with me, and only because of that, did I enter.

Guess what, they rung us today and to me that I'd won an Ipod Shuffle! Not sure what the model is, but I hope it's the new one that speaks!

Going down on the weekend to pick up my prize. The woman said I should dress up because they're taking a photo and will be publishing it in the local paper, which was a clever way to get my permission on the sly to take part in their publicity!

PLAY LIST WITH GROOVESHARK

Grooveshark is groovy

Just found grooveshark, my fav site of the momment... you can search and play just about any songs in the world!

Even found Across 110th Street, by Bobby Womack. You can even embed the tunes!

Dinner of Love

Walter's been frantically finishing off the editing of his Vietnam book, but took some time out to cook tonight.

He knows I love his cooking and tonight is no exception. We had his special cucumber in maggi, as well as bock choi lightly stir fried in soy and chicken and capsicum chilli.

Of course we eat out heaps in Cabra and all around Sydney. But tonight's meal was especially delicious because it was made out of love.

Things of Beauty

A couple of weeks ago, I listened to Mike Walsh, a ‘futurist’, who’s based in Hong Kong but roams the world giving key note speeches. He was talking about the future of media.

In the intro to his talk about the future, he spent a few minutes about the present, and ironically this had the most impact on me – the game is no longer about building the smallest, biggest, highest definition or even easiest to use widgets.

Brands that once were edgy and innovative are missing the mark because they think consumers wanted technology to deliver bigger and more complex products; Sony - the largest and highest definition TVs, Nokia - easy, intuitive interface, Microsoft – more and more complex operating systems, HD-CD which delivers even higher audio quality.

By contrast, Apple’s Ipod delivers mp3 quality that is a fraction of audio CD and HD-CD, 1.2 billion poor definition videos are served each day by YouTube and you couldn’t say the Google user interface was flash.

These new iconic brands have succeeded because they allow you and me to connect with each other and express ourselves. Beauty is no longer higher visual or audio definition, it’s about personal connection.

This message rings true for me as I celebrate my birthday this month. This year, I’ve been pretty mellow, even accepting of growing a year older.

All those years of looking at the pictures of wrinkle free models in magazines, lean fit athletes on TV, beautiful leading ladies in movies, it’s not hard to see why I also fell into the “young is beautiful” camp.

It’s taken me long enough to understand that beauty isn’t necessarily in material things, beautiful things or beautiful people.

I used to look at an old photo of myself and think “gosh, I looked good back then” - it’s a shame I never thought so at the time. It’s chasing your shadow stuff that means you just can’t win.

Last week, I heard Paul Borrud, Vice President of Facebook in Australia talk about why advertising on Facebook works. The ads aren’t intrusive, high visual or audio quality but they work through a personal connection that occurs when your Facebook friends ‘like’ that product or writes a positive comment about it. It works not because of high production quality, but through rich connection.

The people I love and who love me do so, not because I’m a beautiful thing to behold but because of our profound connection, shared experiences and because through knowing each other, we become better people.

It’s only taken 43 years for that realisation.

Will Apple kill off the iPod Classic?

By David Carnoy on 23 July 2009

http://www.cnet.com.au/will-apple-kill-off-the-ipod-classic-339297543.htm

If you've read the stories on Apple's latest earnings, you may have noticed that Apple chief financial officer Peter Oppenheimer took the time to break out the sales of each model in the iPod franchise, which is seeing year-over-year declines for the first time in its history.

In her news piece, our US colleague Erica Ogg wrote: "During the third quarter, Apple sold 10.2 million iPods, compared with 11 million a year ago. It turns out that the shifting appeal of the Shuffle, Nano and Classic model iPods are to blame. But Apple apparently saw this coming." She then goes on to quote Oppenheimer, who says those declining sales are "the reason we developed the iPod Touch. We expect our traditional MP3 players to decline over time as we cannibalise ourselves with iPod Touch and iPhone."

As rumours continue to circulate that Apple will introduce new iPod models in September (as it traditionally has), the big question is whether the iPod Classic becomes the odd iPod out. In a recent MP3 Insider podcast, CNET editor Donald Bell points out that orders for new Samsung hard drives that would go into an updated Classic appear to be non-existent, according to Ars Technica and Apple Insider. And shortly after the earnings were posted, TechCrunch writer MG Seigler asked whether the iPod as we know it is dying.

The prevailing bet among iPod followers is that the Classic may stick around for a little while, but it probably won't be upgraded and will be quietly put out to pasture. The fact is that the iPod Touch offers a lot more functionality and, most importantly, it can run iPhone apps, which people find appealing, and they generate revenue for Apple.

Of course, there's a lot of folks out there who need a high-capacity iPod to store all their tunes and videos. The Classic remains a pretty decent value from the standpoint of a storage player, and we're seeing great deals on refurbished fifth-generation video iPods. If indeed Apple comes out with a 64GB iPod Touch this spring — as we expect it to — it will still cost quite a bit more than a 120GB iPod Classic. And that will keep Classic owners clinging to their antique iPods.

Personally, we hope Apple keeps the Classic around until the prices for flash memory drop enough to make a high-capacity Touch affordable. But we have a feeling the Classic will be gone by then.

VENETIAN MACAU

It's just too over the top, fantasy taken to the very extreme.

This is the inside... I think the shopping area from memory... or was it the entrance... taken on 1st June 2009

LUNCH AT KIRRIBILLI

Seems like we spent Sunday on the north shore this week. Started off with Kirribilli for Thai lunch followed by a stroll down to the harbour.

Then dessert in Neutral Bay at Gelatissimo.

This pic of Walter and I was taken under the Sydney Harbour Bridge, Kirribilli. I think we looked rather happy!

And I'm very jealous that Walter can pull off the scarf look... always looks silly when I try it!

LET ME FINISH... why people commit suicide

It sounds morbid, but I was intrigued in a book Walter was reading called Let me Finish. It's a collection of german suicide letters (45 I think) compiled by Udo Grashoff.

After this initial titilation and curiosity, when reading it, I was struck how lonely some of the people were and the pain they obviously must have been carrying.

But there was also a sense of malice, as a some of the suicide seemed to be a last act of revenge from people who feel helpless to control their fate.

And then I was struck that these people were still worried about still taking care of mundane things, reminding their loved ones to renew insurance etc.

Let Me Finish, Udo Grashoff
Review: Josh Lacey, The Guardian
Saturday 28 January 2006

As Jerry Seinfeld says: "If one's going to kill oneself, the least you could do is leave a note. It's common courtesy." In this slim book, Udo Grashoff, a German academic, has gathered 45 suicide notes, ranging in length from three lines to seven pages. It sounds grotesque, and for some reason the publishers have done their best to make the book look as trivial as possible. The cover is a cheap gag. The notes are topped and tailed with kitsch graphics. Pick it up in a shop and you'd think this is just a loo book for melancholics. In fact, it's something much more interesting: an intriguing investigation of the justifications that people make for their own suicidal behaviour.

Some of the reasons are apparently simple. A pensioner writes a balance sheet, listing income and outgoings, explaining how his life is financially unsustainable. An army officer has been caught drunk driving and, unable to stand the shame, sees shooting himself as the only option. A doctor describes the precise drugs that she has taken, listing names and quantities, begging to be spared the indignity of a post-mortem.

Grashoff's introduction and notes are similarly brisk and straightforward. He describes how, for instance, after a lover's tiff, "the woman left. An hour later she received a text message on her mobile phone, entered the flat with two acquaintances, and discovered that her boyfriend had hanged himself."

Such clear-cut language contrasts with the weird diction and bizarre rationalisations of the notes themselves. Here is the text that the woman received on her phone: "Things for K-U in your car Now I'll manage it Love you but my life is over now. Thanks for your strange love don't get it take care."

Many of the notes rely on mangled logic. Before hurling himself off his boat, a sailor strapped a lifebelt around himself and wrote: "It's 99:1 that I won't make it. If I should happen to be fished out alive by a steamer, I'll be in touch again." This pathetic cry for help went unanswered; four ships criss-crossed the ocean, searching the chilly waters for a man in a lifebelt, but found no trace.

Very occasionally, there is some wit, or a clever thought, or an interesting turn of phrase. But such moments are rare. Mostly, the notes are grim, dreary and sad. More than anything, they remind us what suicides leave behind: a mess for someone else to clear up.

A woman gasses herself in her kitchen. A naked man is lying nearby. In her note, she says: "The man lying next to me is just an unfortunate coincidence." She had picked him up the night before, brought him back to her flat and gassed him too. He had nothing to do with her or her problems.

A man writes to his wife, "if you'd been a bit more affectionate and tender (at any rate recently), it would never have come to this." She never got to read these words. He shot her, then himself.

In the book's saddest (and longest) letter, two teenage friends address their parents, explaining why they have chosen suicide. "We have decided to die because there's nowhere on earth that you can enjoy the peace we both long for, and because we're firmly convinced that there will never be total peace on this earth." They make requests for their funeral, quote the Bible and beg their parents to respect their decision: "This isn't some naive act, but the result of a year's deliberation." Finally, they say goodbye. "Don't cry for us, because we're taking a permanent holiday from life, and we're happy about it!" I don't know which is more tragic: imagining a couple of teenagers writing this note or the thought of their four parents having to read it.

Buddhism makes you do amazing things

I was cleaning my room and found a box of old publicity cuttings and clips. This clip, from Channel 7 news in 1999, was my first ever TV interview.

I was a volunteer with the Buddhist Council of NSW when we got involved in a campaign to save Huyen Quang Buddhist Temple from closure by order of Bankstown Council... not the Council's proudest moment I'd suggest.

Watching this clip, I'm amazed how an issue, a cause, Buddhism empowered a simple, quiet person like me to do extraordinary things... oh we won (you can't beat meditating Buddhists!).

This was the issue that got me fired up and prompted my successful run for Fairfield Council, later that year.

Astro Boy

OMG, Astro Boy movie coming out soon.

I used to love the comic and the theme song... let's hope the new movie lives up to the hype.

Bruno the movie

Ironic that the promotional poster said "Borat was so 2006" because Bruno was pretty much the Borat 2009, even the going overseas, the assistant/helper device, the inevitable pushing the envelope over the top.

There were genuinely funny scenes; with the shooters, and verging on jaw clenching horror, final scene in the heterosexual arena.

All the PR stunts and iphone apps still can't paste over a recycled concept.

Sacha Baron Cohen should have stopped at Borat.

Let me finish...

Walter had been raving about this book, which is a collection of suicide notes. While so morbid, I find it fascinating too. Walter's comments on the books.

He says apparently people committ suicide for the most (seemingly) insignificant things.

It was on loan to his mum, but we've just got it back. I'm looking forward to reading it.

Birthday Cake at work

Normally I hate birthday cake stuff, but really did enjoy it this year with the team.

Even the cake was cute!

Thanks to John for taking the pic and Kat for organising the cake.

My own GPS & quilted boots!

So excited, Walter's parents gave me a GPS for my birthday, so completely extravangant, but very appreciated! My own little Tom Tom!

Wal's sister and her husband gave me gorgeous nutrimetics skin care (again for ageing skin)and the cutest thing, boots that are lined with quilt feathers.. they would be sooo warm!

My Birthday

Took this self pic before we went out to dinner for my birthday yesterday.

I can't believe how different I look from what I imagine myself to look like.

And I seem so thoughtful.

My birthday

Had one of those special birthdays when nothing special happens but it goes well and you feel good.

Got such cute pressies from Walter from Crabtree and Evelyn, perfect for the ageing skin!

And parents took me to Iron Chef a local chinese restaurant specialising in Peking Duck... uterly delicious, although because it was on special my step sister also ordered crab (appropriate given my Crabtree pressie), delicious too, but a little hard to eat!

We took this pic of me in my special purple Esprit shirt (made me look fat though), Dad was hilariously clutching the free bottle of champaign, which apparently was another part of the special at Iron Chef that night!

Dad's birthday

Was going through the pics on my computer and stumbled on this little beauty taken from Dad's birthday dinner at Hai Au in Canley Vale.

It's one of our favourite local Viet restaurants. Have loved it from when it was just a small establishment further up the street; fell in love with the Chicken Pho, I swear the best in the business.

This is at their current location and upstairs, obviously catering for functions. The idea of a water feature might have been good at the time, but it's obvious they need alot of regular attention.