http://noodlez.com.au/index.php/site/index/ noodlez weblog en mnewby@gmail.com Copyright 2008 2008-01-05T07:49:00+08:00 http://noodlez.com.au/index.php/site/southbound_live/ http://noodlez.com.au/index.php/site/southbound_live/#When:07:49:00Z Well its 3:50 in the afternoon and The Waifs are rocking it hard in the back ground, but what an awesome day it has been so far. So far on the seen list are: Lior Angus and Julia Stone The Waifs The Beautiful Girls The Mess Hall Built to Spilt The Silents and the gorgous Pippettes. But so much more to come. But I have to admit, one of the highlights so far was rocking up at the media area last night after setting up my tent in the hot sun and finding out there was one of the best dinners I have eaten all week waiting. Was so not expecting that, but it was oh so fantastic :) Photos will be appearing on Perth Norg tomorrow, so make sure you check it out. Well I better go, Metafix are about to start and I dont want to miss them… Blogging, News, Personal 2008-01-05T07:49:00+08:00 http://noodlez.com.au/index.php/site/home_sweet_home/ http://noodlez.com.au/index.php/site/home_sweet_home/#When:03:07:00Z Its this time of year that really makes me miss Busselton, mainly because it just seems to get so stupidly busy with people everywhere with no escape. Even though it was always really busy in Busso too with all the tourist, I could still escape. There were places that the tourists really didn’t visit, so you could go there and not feel like you were about to be trampled by a horde of crazy shoppers, like the local small corner store. And if there were a few more people than normal, I think they still acted like normal people. They were courteous and wouldn’t just try to barge through you. Maybe I just have an idealized picture of my home of 17 years because Its been almost 4 years since I lived there, but just trying to get to the train station after work is almost like a battle ground. Sometimes I think I should take my ninja swords and run screaming through the crowd. I am sure they would make way for me then, or at the very least, make way for the police escorting me away. But the end is in site. Only another week and it will all be back to normal. Until then, I will continue planning my Christmas escape bunker. If I am lucky, it might be ready for next year. Blogging 2007-12-21T03:07:00+08:00 http://noodlez.com.au/index.php/site/rant_1_part_2/ http://noodlez.com.au/index.php/site/rant_1_part_2/#When:06:13:00Z Well I got a reply from the City of Perth yesterday afternoon re the poster: Dear (Noodlez) Thank you for your email regarding the poster/banner on the hoarding in front of the GPO in Forrest Place. The particular theme of the banner was chosen as it was considered that it would be bright, colourful and attractive to children as well as displaying a multicultural aspect.  This banner is a temporary measure while the GPO is being refurbished. We appreciate your comments and these will be taken on board if the City undertakes any similar projects next year. Regards, I have to admit I wasn’t expecting a response that quick. So I guess that’s it till I find something else to rant about. 2007-11-14T06:13:00+08:00 http://noodlez.com.au/index.php/site/rant/ http://noodlez.com.au/index.php/site/rant/#When:06:16:01Z The subject for today’s rant is Christmas decorations. Mainly the decorations in my fair city of Perth. I was mildly annoyed the other week when I saw Christmas decorations being put up in the city in October. Sure its a little early, and not really needed, but I can get over that. But working to work today, I was assaulted by this: Now you might just think its a nice little poster and I am sure most people do, but can you tell me why a poster that says ‘Seasons Greetings’ and thus celebrating Christmas, has people dressed cold weather gear while its snows, IN AUSTRALIA. I really just don’t get it. Our summers consist of wearing as little as possible, drinking as many cool beverages, lots of BBQs and where there is snow in that picture, there should be flies. So I really don’t get why they keep on insisting putting up this crap. Its like they think we don’t have a mind of our own (or maybe they don’t) and so just grab the American/UK equivalent that we see so often on TV (which is fine seeing as they are made over there). So I have sent an email to the City of Perth to see if I can find out why they chose this particular theme. Will be interesting to see what they say. Blogging, Rant 2007-11-09T06:16:01+08:00 http://noodlez.com.au/index.php/site/podcamp_perth_07/ http://noodlez.com.au/index.php/site/podcamp_perth_07/#When:02:19:00Z Podcamp Perth is only 4 days away now and looking good. It is split over 2 days, with Saturday full of talks and discussions on pretty much anything from Podcasting, blogging and social media to looking at what we can do with Second Life. Yours truly is even doing a presentation with Mr Seng on Flickr and Photographers in Perth. More info on the sessions can be found here. When: This Sat 27th. Doors open at 9 with it kicking off at 9:30 Where: Central TAFE, 140 Royal St, East Perth Cost: Cheap as Free! But the party does not stop there, Sunday is the day of meets with a photo walk , Geeks in the Grass and Perth’s first Twitter meetup already organised. Photo Walk: Meeting at East Perth at 10:30am at the north end of the pedestrian bridge off Brown st. Geeks in the Grass: Lunch at Kings Park, 12:30pm Twitter Meet: 3pm at the Belgium Beer Cafe All up, a great line-up and bound to be a fantastic weekend. Hope to see you there! PodCamp, Social Networking, web 2.0 2007-10-23T02:19:00+08:00 http://noodlez.com.au/index.php/site/i_waste_my_time_so_you_can_save_yours/ http://noodlez.com.au/index.php/site/i_waste_my_time_so_you_can_save_yours/#When:23:04:01Z Well its that time of the year again, when the American TV networks bring out their new shows with much fan fair, until they get the chop. This year Seven is advertising ‘direct streaming from the US’ meaning they are getting the popular shows straight away rather than the 6 months to a year it used to be, but seeing as we only have a population of 18 million or so, they obviously cant get them all at once. So, seeing as I am so community service minded, I am going to let you in on some of the shows that are worth looking out for when they come over here. Reaper: About a 20 odd something guy who is working at Bunnings type shop and finds out when he turns 21 that when he was a child, his parents sold him to the devil, so he now has to deal with collecting escaped souls from hell as well as every day life. To be honest, I think this show is a guilty pleasure for me. Its not that great really. It has a good idea, and it works ok, but the writing just isnt there for me. It currently has a 13 show run, so there is deffinately time for it to improve, and I think it will have to, to go on for longer than that, but I just cant stop watching it. I think its because of the devil, played by Sam Wise. He does such a great job, I just wish he was in the show more. I rate this one 4/10 change of getting axed. Chuck: Chuck is just a normal 20 odd guy doing his thing fixing computers and the Nerd Herd when he gets an email from a rogue CIA operative. The email contains a database of government secrets and intelligence and is ‘downloaded’ into his brain. The information is then triggered by certain stimuli and subliminal triggers. So now he has a CIA and NSA agent watching over him until they can get the information out of his head. The first episode of this show really sucked me in, but since then, as enjoyable as the show is, it has yet to capture me as much as the first ep did. I think Chuck is still finding its feet and will turn out to be a great show. Plus the CIA agent played by Yvonne Strahovski is pretty hot :) I give this one 8/10 chance of getting renewed. Bionic Woman: I really don’t think I need to get into to much detail. As far as I am aware, the premise is very similar to the original, but of course it has been modernised and there are now two bionic women, one just a little crazy, but both pretty hot :) Not really sure what to think about this one. It has its good moments, but at other times can feel a little disjointed at times. Chance of staying afloat: 3/10 Journeyman: This is my current favourite out of the new series. It revolves around a man (Dan) who is happily married and suddenly finds himself travelling in time. The trips are usually quick, and he ‘travels’ back to the present after he has done what he was meant to do. He works out that each trip is following a specific person and that he is there to help them. To add more strain on his marriage that the random disappearances are having, he finds out that his fiancé who was thought to have died on a plane crash about 8 years earlier, is also travelling through time and seems to be following him when he makes the trips. Each ep is based around a specific person in the past, as well as Dan trying to find out what is happening to him. There is also little twists that happen just irregularly enough to keep you wanting to know more. My rating of how awesome: 8.5/10 Life: What happens to a cop when in a prison is not nice, to say the least. Life picks up after Charlie is back on the force after finally been proven innocent of murder, but only after being in jail for 12 years. You might think that it is just another of those cop shows that seem to be the thing for networks to make at the moment, and in many respects, I think you would right. I like this show as Charlie is ‘different’. In some way, the character Charlie is similar to Monk, in that fact that he does not look at things the same way everyone else does. Its a hard show to explain, but one I definitely recommend checking out. Interesting factor: 8/10 Moonlight: Making a show about vampires is pretty hard to do wrong. You have Buffy that rocked, Angel which I loved and now Moonlight. The vampires in the Moonlight universe are a little different to what is normally portrayed. They are not innately evil like they are in the Buffyverse, and they are not killed by sunlight, just made a bit uncomfortable. They are not killed by stakes to the heart, only paralysed and they would like garlic, if they could only taste it. Pretty much the only thing that can kill a vamp is fire or decapitation. So Moonlight revolves around a private investigator who is a vampire and a young woman who he once saved when she was a child, only she doesn’t know what he is or where she remembers his face from. I nice different take on the supernatural, it has a coolness factor of 7/10. TV 2007-10-16T23:04:01+08:00 http://noodlez.com.au/index.php/site/too_much_of_a_good_thing/ http://noodlez.com.au/index.php/site/too_much_of_a_good_thing/#When:03:57:00Z As is always the case, when someone succeeds at something, someone tries to copy it and ‘cash’ in on the hype or interest. I don’t think that has been more evident than with Social Networking. It has been around for quite a while, with very few people not having heard of Myspace. Myspace was classed by many (fair to say younger crew?) to be “the” site to have. If you didn’t have one, it was almost like you were some sort of strange crazy person. But if you were honest, I think that most would agree that Myspace is just plain ugly, and not really that user friendly in many aspects. But it was there, it was the biggest and so everyone used it. Then along came Facebook. A slow start over in America amongst the colleges that quickly picked up momentum that soon turned its eyes towards everyone else, and so it was opened to anyone who wanted to join. Now it is almost like everyone is on Facebook (I dread the day my folks join), but it doesn’t carry the stigma that Myspace did for many. It’s easy to use, a lot easier to network and find other people and a much cleaner look. On the face of it, dare I say, better than Myspace. But it begs the question, is this all just another fad? I am sure that given time, another site will come along and seem bigger and better again, leaving Facebook chewing on its last pages as everyone catches the bug and heads on over to the new cool. Do we really need another Facebook or Myspace though? Under the ‘big two’ there seem to be countless smaller SN sites, all doing pretty much the same thing, with a slight difference. Bebo, Friendster, and Ringo are all trying to get you to invite your friends, chat, share photos and tell others all about yourself. You can do everything you can do on pretty much every other SN site, bar the few ‘special’ things that seem to separate them all from the rest. I guess it just seems that we are continually flooded with requests to join some other group when you are already on 3 or 7 others that doing the exact same thing. It seems hard to imagine at the moment, someone coming along and creating something that can take over what Facebook has done, but I am sure someone is going to try and eventually will. So in the mean time, please excuse me, I need to add some people to my Hi5 account. Social Networking, web 2.0 2007-09-21T03:57:00+08:00 http://noodlez.com.au/index.php/site/i_work_on_the_web/ http://noodlez.com.au/index.php/site/i_work_on_the_web/#When:05:57:00Z There is a meme that has started not too long ago by people who work in some way or another with the web, so I decided to join in. The original can be found here. Don’t forget to check out the others aswell. This is me, I work on the web. I live in the fantastic city of lights, Perth. Second only to Melbourne (IMHO) and work at Westnet, helping to supply the tubes to everyone. Using computers and the internet has been something I have pretty much grown up with, with my first taste being Tetris on the NES and then moving onto Microbees and Commodore 64s. Many people seem to bag Perth, but I think its the case of ‘the grass is always greener’ as you don’t have to look far to see just how good we have it here. This is definitely proven by the web community that has grown over here and how interactive it is. Even winning to bring podcamp over here, beating out the rest of the Oz cities combined. Its this sort of thing which makes hanging out with the web crew that much more enjoyable. I have been a blogger for about 6 years now, but only recently started up my own domain and am now slowly, but finally, learning html and building my own site from scratch. Its a challenge, but something I love doing, and am enjoying it immensely. I am also a photographer and am slowly starting my own business. But I would not be where I am if I hadn’t joined flickr and the fantastic Perth crew. Social networking, is another aspect of the net that I have enjoyed playing around with, and can see it becoming more integrated into our lives. I think most of all, this is what I enjoy about working on web, the continuous growth and new ideas to keep us learning and thinking of new ways to do things. Blogging, Personal 2007-09-04T05:57:00+08:00 http://noodlez.com.au/index.php/site/wawas_nothing_to_cry_about/ http://noodlez.com.au/index.php/site/wawas_nothing_to_cry_about/#When:14:15:00Z This past week has been busy for the Perth web scene, with Webjam, the announcement of Podcamp coming to Perth, all leading up to Friday night for the annual WA Web Awards, but what a fantastic night it was. Held at the illustrious Duxton hotel, you would not have known that all the well dressed people milling in the foyer were some of Perth’s best web developers, bloggers and new media up and comers, except for maybe the occasional person wearing sneakers (as only a geek can). The food served was as good as you would expect with copious amounts of alcohol consumed, also as you would expect. The night seemed to go quickly with the winners being announced after each course, all being MC-ed by Gerry Gannon (who was very funny and fantastic). Congratulations have to be said to all the winners and finalist of the night. They all did a great job, and deserved the recognition. But so do Myles, Kay and Helen for organising it all. For a full list of finalist (and winners no doubt will be up soon too), head over here. WAWA 2007-08-18T14:15:00+08:00 http://noodlez.com.au/index.php/site/podcamp_perth/ http://noodlez.com.au/index.php/site/podcamp_perth/#When:13:14:00Z With shaky start before it had already begun with people not really sure what to think about Podcamp and what it was really all about. There was even some speculation as to how real it was. But the votes have been cast and finally tallied, finding Perth the clear winner with 152 votes and Sydney a distant second with 84. It was also pointed out that Perth had more votes than the rest of the states put together, so well done all. News, PodCamp 2007-08-18T13:14:00+08:00