Month: September 2006

This is a time lapse movie of dawn over Sydney Harbour with a thick fog. Made by me. There are more in the series. Better than watching paint dry. Grass grow – now that’s a great idea for a time lapse movie.

View it here. It’s only a couple of minutes.

The first thing I learnt when I started working in a office was to always answer the phone with the business name, my name, ‘how can I help you?’

Today, like many other times, the next thing I heard was click – obviously the caller had dialed a wrong number. But when I call a wrong number I always apologise for inconveniencing the receiving caller.

However today, with the caller’s number on the display of my phone, I decided to teach this rude prick a lesson.

So I called back and got the voice mail of Adam Cassisdy from Pitney Bowes Australia. I told Mr Cassidy from Pitney Bowes Australia that I was the person he had just called earlier and hung up on. I also told him I was going to blog about how rude he was. What I didn’t tell him is that we are currently in the market for a product that Pitney Bowes sells. We shan’t be purchasing from Mr Cassidy or Pitney Bowes.

But my question to you is this; is Mr Cassidy A) Rude, B) Stupid, C) Both?

Oh dear. Carlton’s Big Ad was always going to be a tough one to make a sequel to. Flash Beer (www.flashbeer.com.au) was viewed over 37,000 times in the first two hours since it went up. I was one who saw it yesterday when it was launched but I’ve waited 24 hours to post a comment.

It’s based on the final scene of the movie Flash Dance ehich I haven’t seen. And I don’t think too many other blokes would have seen that movie either. It is a funny ad but it’s no where near as good The Big Ad. In fact, Toohey’s trebuchet ad (yes, they were trebuchets, not catpults) is far better than this one.

What were they thinking? Are they trying to get chicks to drink the beer now? Woeful.

The national lotto game of Powerball has the odds of winning div 1 of about 10 with 40 zeros after it.

The base prize is A$3 mil. Typically it jackpots week on week, which with odds like that is easy to understand. For the past the jackpot has grown like this: $3mil, $6mil, $9mil, $15mil, $20mil, $27mil and $30mil. It has never reached more than $30mil so who knows what would come next. Like tennis scores; 15, 30, 40, Game. Is game 50, 60, 55? Who knows? Or cares.

For the first time in recent years, the jackpot this week is not $9mil, but only $8mil. When I say only $8,000,000 I still mean I would love to win, but it’s not the $9mil it should be.

With the recent 25 basis point increase in interest rates (plus another being touted before Xmas) and the oil company/goverment profiteering at the petrol bowser could it be that people are spending less on gambling, so much so that the prize pool has dried up that much?

There is also a state Lotto draw this week that is $22mil. Historically, a promotional campign would focus on a draw of $25mil or even $30mil.

The Powerball Economy Meter – more accurate that any economist.

Blah blah blah blah blah. Perhaps the big boys are getting more and more worried about an individual can achieve.

Link: INSIDE PCIJ » Podcasting threatened by proposed UN broadcast treaty.

This is what happens when big company chiefs ignore the new media; they get slammed, and rightly so.

Smarthouse News is an excellent daily enewsletter for consumer electronics retailers and geeks in general.

Link: Smarthouse News – IPTV.