Today kicks off Movember, a month where men are encouraged to grow their "mo" in support of two of the most significant male health issues facing Australian men: Prostate cancer; every year in Australia 2700 men die of prostate cancer. And male depression; one in six men is affected by depression. Most don't seek help.
It goes without saying I support this cause, having lost my Father and Godfather to prostate cancer.
Well. Day One:
No mo, but 5 chins!
Movember 6th:
Booooooonie!!
14th Movember:
Coming along just nicely...
20th Movember
22nd Movember:
30th Movember
If you wanna donate to my mo' my rego is 41008. So goto Movember Website and cash me up
I'm quite determined to drop a few kilos this summer- after all, with a wedding coming in the New Year, there is no better time.
So, I'm going back to basics- cycling, sailing and eating well.
As part of the sailing side of it, I'm going to blog each and every windsurfing day/moment.
Today: Where? Elwood Beach Weather? 12-18 knots south- swinging SE Using? 5.8 sq m sail, Torquay 272 board With? Duncan For? 1 hr Rating? 2 out of 5 Why? Marginal. Sail too flat. Hard to plane and hard to stay on the plane. Did not fall in once though.
"Damir Dokic claims his daughter Jelena Dokic has been kidnapped in Croatia by her former tennis coach and an ex-boyfriend."
Immediately I am reaching for a well sized pinch of salt to have that comment with. Maybe two- one for luck.
Mr Dokic said he and his daughter had reconciled their differences and he had been in regular contact with his daughter once a month, adding that he was a changed man.
This week we went tech-ish. I handed out a few GPS and DVD products to be tested. I also asked my mate Matt Clark along to talk about installations and customising. Links:
Strathfield kindly lent us the items. Tom Tom GPS unit, a Navman and a Shinco. Thanks to Con and Fred from Strathfield for organising the items for us.
Matt Clark installs these for a living. Call him on 0413 606 906.
Andrew McCredie tested the dual screen DVD player and owns RPS- The Board Store.
Loris Capirossi is the wise old owl of MotoGP, although his comments about Casey Stoner could have come from my Mother who, though limited in MotoGP knowledge, refers to Casey as "that boy who always seems to fall off..." Damn right mum, damn right.
Anyhoo, Casey is really fast and really talented, but he just does not quite have the mature head required to win, rather than just be fast.
"I think he must be careful in the beginning to understand the bike and its potential, and then we can see exactly the real potential of him. "
Right on Loris, right on. Critical, IMHO opinion, to Casey's long term success will be to find a fluent English speaking mentor. Steve Biddulph wrote that the ideal mentor is someone 10 years your senior, and I fully concur. I have two such men.
Now here's an idea. Grab a 350 cubic inch Chevrolet engine, producing a lazy 300 or so horses, and stick it into a motorcycle frame. What could possibly go wrong? Guy Allen dropped in to sunny Queensland to find out..."
About now my old man would be not spinning in his grave, but rather cursing his luck for being there and not getting to chew my EAR off about my honeymoon plans:
We've chartered a yacht for seven glorious days in the Whitsundays. Dad would be three kinds of green to know that we have a 32" Catalina with the following features:
"Whisper" 32 Catalina This yacht is very spacious with excellent sailing capabilities. Ideal for groups up to 4 with 2 double cabins, one bathroom, dodger & bimini. Well suited to extended charters with well appointed interior design & efficient refrigeration.
Were he alive, he would be "dropping by as I was in the area" with charts and GPS plot points. He would tell Rachel everything about sailing and look to trick her into doing a course ("The hiring people require it") just as he tricked (read: insisted) Mum do a course in 1980-odd so we could hire a yacht in the Gippsland Lakes Mum's still not ready to forgive Dad for sending her on this course, and he's 8 years in the grave.
My Rachel has no sailing legs to speak of, so it may in fact turn out to be the worst honeymoon ever if she has sea sickness the whole time. I'm going to place a bet with "yes" Or at least "a lot of the time". Not to worry, I'll dose her up on sea sickness tablets, just like I'll dose her up on valium to actually go through with the madness that is marrying me.
I'll also be taking up some windsurfing kit and a whale harpoon set for fun and profit.
As an added bonus, we've invited my brother Stephen and his new-ish bride Sarah to join us for the last few days of the charter. It'll be a great chance to catch up in a relaxing environment and then of course revive the spirit of my old man by going out in a stiff gale with every piece of rag possible up and sail close hauled, heeling over to all buggery, with women screaming at us to cut it out.
Well, that was a bit of fun. For those of you who missed it- I took Neil Mitchell's fill in host, the affable Nick McCallum for a lap around the Albert Park circuit (well within the speed limit...!) in the new Holden Commodore VE- all on air using the VE's blue tooth receiver.
Anyhoo: They've announced the support classes (no V8 supercars this year- no bogans wanted). While it was down to a timing issue, it's pretty clear that the GP corp are looking for a "Spring Racing Carnival" feel- half price tickets for women, pushing the single bar area and no V8s. Good luck to them- as I said to one of the motorsport guys at the launch- it's a social event with car racing. The motorsport guys get a little wound up about the racing not being front and centre. I say- well, that's F1's for ya!
Hamish & Andy with Jules Lund
Mark Webber justifying his existence explaining :
Why this year will be awesome despite being in a satellite team, with second string engines, and being but a sneeze from returning to Le Mans cars or taxi driving.
About having the weight of Australia on him. Yet again.
Something else. I wandered off.
Steven Richards and Greg Murphy. I had a laugh at Murph- he's doing Movember and said he copped it from the other drivers in Tassie on the weekend- I informed him he went off track when he chose "porn-star", not "Aussie cricketer" as I did.
Hamish & Andy wrapped in the ING flags. Corporate gigs. Yaz gots ta luv em. Or, you don't.
Jon Faine's morning program dropped 2.2 to 11.1 points, slipping from second to fourth in the slot. 3AW's Neil Mitchell remains on top, lifting 0.5 points to 18.2, with the gap between the pair blowing out from 4.4 points last survey to 7.1.
Anyhoo, all that numbers guff aside, I had a ball and I think the listeners will get into what we've got planned for the rest of 2006 and beyond.
There's been a bunch of talk about Telstra's new "Next G" network since the launch*, and frankly I am about as impressed as a kid who got a bell instead of a bike for Xmas.
Here we are, November 4th 2006 and on Telstra's website they have: wait for it... six phones from five manufacturers. Any colour as long as it's black? In my time at Telstra, there was a lot of "training" on Next G (none of which I attended). There was even an NDA. One co-worker (read: wanker) said he couldn't tell me what was said as he had signed the NDA and that I would have to attend a training session myself. I tried to put it simply to him: what speeds and would there be video on demand. These are the only two things worth talking about. That's how I would have run training: "ok peeps: 3 Mbits a second down, 1 up. Foxtel for $12 a month- go sell it". Trust me when I say that my idea would have got more traction than the corporate speak hyperbole jingle fest that I am sure was run at the big T. Though, yes, I wasn't there.
Well, I'll be buggered. The Next G website is the absolute, down to the wire, spot on, bang up, like-they-were-reading-my-mind example of "a fancy jingo and a series of cool new ads" type website. It would have to rate as the most nothing website in the history of nothing websites. Oh sure it talks about "outcomes" for Next G users, but at its core, this site is as shallow as a baby's wading pool in a drought.
What will the speed be like?At launch, customers with HSDPA (High Speed Downlink Packet Access) capable data cards and modems, will be able to access faster data download speeds (expected user average of 550kbps to 1.5Mbps), on NEXT GÂ, bursting up to 3Mbps, with a peak network speed of 3.6Mbps (downlink). HSDPA will provide data speeds three to five times faster than the current 3G2100 network. In the uplink customers will experience speeds bursting up to 384kbps.
Planned improvements during 2007 will increase the peak network speed of NEXT GÂ to 14.4Mbps (downlink) and 5.8Mbps (uplink) further improving the expected average speeds experienced by customers.
As with EVDO today, actual user speeds, both downlink and uplink, will vary depending on user location, network capacity, mobile device used, transmission direction and external constraints (such as the application in use).
This last paragraph will be the one that customer relations, marketing, media relations etc will hang their hat on when the network turns out to be as fast as a tortoise on heroin. In fact, I just wrote the press release in my head. It starts "While telstra endeavours to deliver the best possible outcomes for its customers..."
There is a follow up comment on Whirlpool, with a response from the Telstra Phantom:
May i suggest putting this info on the site?!?
All in good time grasshopper, all in good time.
It is all part of a structured marketing approach to launch. It's just that most Whirlpool users are an inquisitive lot .... + slightly cynical ;-) and generally ahead of the market norm.
"High-Speed Downlink Packet Access, or HSDPA, and it has started appearing on wireless networks operated by companies such as Vodaphone in Europe and Cingular Wireless in the U.S. Meanwhile, South Korea's Samsung has even started building HSDPA-ready phones. The technology promises wireless speeds as high as 3.6 Mbps but in practice will be much slower than that  fast enough, though, to make wirelessly surfing the Web and downloading music and video well worth the effort.'"
Worth the effort? Perhaps- unless you are going to market HSDPA as an alternative to broadband in remote areas. Unless you are going to promote HSDPA as an alternative to FTTN. Then you have a problem, because with ADSL II ruling the roost, speeds under 10mbits are going to look like dial up.
Ahhh Next G. Next Grab for your money.
*I'd like to straight up apologise for setting off the fire spriklers. It was Cam Reilley's idea to fly up and do it, and while it seemed funny and ironic, it seems it was only funny.**
**none of this is true. Apoart from it being funny. Very funny.
Well, its almost here. Tomorrow, Wednesday November 8th, I will begin my regular segment guest and producer role on radio 3AW 693 on The Neil Mitchell show. The Countdown clock:
"If you've been reading here for a while you know that Chris Coulter doesn't exactly see eye to eye with me. He's been the longest-running commenter on my blog, dating back to my days when I worked at NEC — most of those comments have disagreed with a position I've taken. That's why when he stayed at my house a few weeks back it raised eyebrows. So, why hire someone like that?"
You'll have to read the post to find out...
Scoble- you fuggin' DEMON of the blogoshpere. Everytime you are written off- or write yourself off, you go and do something like this.
As I've visited Norfolk Island once before, and having followed the recent awful murder of Janelle Patton, I felt compelled to email Xeni Jardin to give some background info on the former penal colony:
I just tried to email a marketing person at a major manufacturer and received the following reply:
The following email message was blocked by MailMarshal: From: xxxxx@thomasr.org To: XXXXXXX@!XXXX.com.au Subject: RE:XXXXXXX Message: B34jd759140000.000000000234.00034.mml
Because it contains an image file.
The email will be deleted from MailMarshal 5 days from when it was received.If you believe the message is business related, please forward this message to XXX@XXX.com.au to discuss it's release. If no contact is made within 5 days the message will be automatically deleted.
There's security and then there's stupidity. How the hell are people in the marketing department going to do their job when the freakin' net nanny won't allow a simple .jpg through?
"The Northern Territory Government will introduce speed limits on its open roads and major highways from January next year. The Chief Minister, Clare Martin, announced sweeping changes to the Northern Territory's road safety regime this morning. 'We will be introducing demerit points from the second-half of next year and the open speed limit for the Territory will end,' she said. From January, the Stuart Highway and other major highways will be restricted to 130 kilometres an hour, with a default speed limit of 110 kilometres an hour on other roads. "
I'll comment on this tomorrow. Too tired. Time for bed.
"A daredevil Good Samaritan saved the life of a truck driver and averted a potentially serious accident today with his bravery and quick thinking, Hunter Valley ambulance officers say. The Good Samaritan was driving near Cessnock when he encountered a swerving semi-trailer on Wollombi Road at Bellbird around 6.50am. Noticing the truck driver was slumped over the wheel, the motorist immediately did a u-turn and accelerated past the truck before stopping ahead of it. The man somehow managed to climb aboard the cab while it was moving and pull the handbrake before calling an ambulance for the stricken driver, an ambulance spokeswoman said."
Stunt drivers on their days off. Four kinds of radical!!
: "VISTA, Calif. — The largest skateboard ramp in the world can be found on a 12-acre farm north of San Diego among the green foothills of the San Marcos Mountains."
