If you, like me, arrange a lot of things via SMS, then you know how much of a pain in the butt it is to send a message to a group of people and you also know the hit in the hip pocket of spewing out 15 - 20 messages to your mates saying "Party! At Davo's place 6 til late!" and then having to send out a retraction message five minutes later saying "Davo's dad doesn't think so - party's moved to my flat, BYO booze and shoehorn." It sucks.
NoodleInvite is a step up from all that. Sign up at the website (use my mobile number 0409249807 if you want to do me a favour) and get an email, then an SMS code, to validate your phone and email address.
And from then on, say goodbye to messin' around with messages. Noodle Networks' site will deliver the SMS messages to the people concerned, tally up their responses, and present you with a nice clean list of who said what.
You can SMS people who aren't members, of course, making this a good backup facility for that time you're out and your battery dies, if you can get to a web browser you can let everyone know...
I had trouble logging in to start with but their support is so good I got email support within a few hours and even a phonecall - problem solved, thank you Noodle Networks!
All in all a very useful service and one I'll no doubt be doing a fair bit with.
Monday, 30 April 2007
Sunday, 29 April 2007
John "Rebel" Cares For Mothers.
John Howard just claimed that Mr Rudd's promise to seek better maternity leave conditions might leave young mothers open to worse prospects in the job market as businesses avoid employing people whom they'd have to actually give reasonable conditions to.
I just want to know how that's worse than pantsing the entire workforce and bending them over then waving an expansive hand at the employers and yelling "help yourselves boys!" as his IR laws have done?
I just want to know how that's worse than pantsing the entire workforce and bending them over then waving an expansive hand at the employers and yelling "help yourselves boys!" as his IR laws have done?
MAP MY NAME
You can now put yourself in for a good old stalking by filling out your details at Map My Name and sticking a pin in the map. It's easy, fun, and probably not safe...
One thing annoys me - I can't change the position of my pin, apparently. So if I'm going caravanning I'll either be abandononing MMN or else creating a new user each time I overnight somewhere...
Other than that, a good way to track where your online friends are. If only it would tie in with a mobile phone with GPS or some other GPS device, then it would be the perfect application. I'd have a pin for each of my GPS-enabled devices and you could watch my caravan, vehicle, and mobile phone as we travel around Australia.
One thing annoys me - I can't change the position of my pin, apparently. So if I'm going caravanning I'll either be abandononing MMN or else creating a new user each time I overnight somewhere...
Other than that, a good way to track where your online friends are. If only it would tie in with a mobile phone with GPS or some other GPS device, then it would be the perfect application. I'd have a pin for each of my GPS-enabled devices and you could watch my caravan, vehicle, and mobile phone as we travel around Australia.
QOTD: In Re: Terrorist Watch List
My QOTD has to be "They have a secret list, compiled in secret, by secret people, using secret information, and applying that secret information with a secret criteria," he said. "There's a certain lack of transparency here."
Sources: Princeton professor says anti-Bush speech landed him on no-fly list and Terrorist Watch List and Secrets
Sources: Princeton professor says anti-Bush speech landed him on no-fly list and Terrorist Watch List and Secrets
Movie The Number 23 (no spoilers)
T and I sat and tried to watch Primeval tonight, but it's sort of like watching old Dr Who series after watching Star Trek: TNG or something similarly widely spaced apart in technique. And Dr Who had good plot lines, too, whereas Primedrivel has no such saving grace. Last year they opened time gates to bring dinosaurs to the present, this year the dinosaurs have their own force field. On the Geological Timeline it scores below Cambrian, probably closer to Imbrian. Enough said...
Anyhow - to take the bad taste out of our brains, we luckily had booked seats to The Number 23 which is showing at Hoyts Carousel, and we booked La Premiere seats. Because we can. We appear to have sold the house, well, it's contingent upon the buyer selling her old house first but this is likely to happen quite soon.
TN23 is, by the way, a reasonable movie right up to the end, when things (to me at any rate) seemed to get a bit out of hand and out of character. But anyway. Jim Carrey always seems to me to be able to milk some humour, even in a quite serious and drama filled movie such as this. I kept half expecting Ace Ventura to show through, and maybe for a few seconds in some of the scenes, he did...
You've seen the premise, the number 23 crops up everywhere, and it picks on a person and hounds them. I figure that's silly when the number could haunt 23 people at a time and thus be more efficient while still remaining in character. But I digress.
I think there were a lot of clever "23" references in the movie background, but there could have been several more touches which would have taken the movie from enjoyable to the status of edge of your seat stuff.
So as we left La Prem we were wondering if, now that we'd seen the movie, we would start seeing the number 23 around a lot more ourselves. Didn't have long to wait. As we left the upstairs carpark at Carousel, the max headroom sign. It read "Clearance 23 00."
"Oh gawd" says T, "now you're going to find that number everywhere just to freak me out aren't you?" I said nothing and pointed to the bus coming towards us, the 878. Hmmm...
We spotted two signs for things priced $32.something (32 is 23 reversed) and two prices at $1.23. As we approached the roundabouts, I pointed out that on the approach to each roundabout you see 2 signs and the ideogram of the roundabout on those signs consists of 3 curved arrows.
That was when the dog ran towards us along the road. Once you've seen the movie you'll get this Ned reference.
And I spotted a school speed limit sign that features 2:3 0 as the afternoon start time.
Then Trish had the best example. We'd been allocated seats 11 and 12. Add up to a 2 and a 3.
Hmmm... As we rolled down the driveway it occurrred to me that our number is 25b. B is the 2nd letter of the alphabet, and 25 minus 2 is? Yep, 23. Again.
So all in all quite a good evening once we gave TV a miss. And I recommend TN23 anyway because it's a somewhat different movie.
Anyhow - to take the bad taste out of our brains, we luckily had booked seats to The Number 23 which is showing at Hoyts Carousel, and we booked La Premiere seats. Because we can. We appear to have sold the house, well, it's contingent upon the buyer selling her old house first but this is likely to happen quite soon.
TN23 is, by the way, a reasonable movie right up to the end, when things (to me at any rate) seemed to get a bit out of hand and out of character. But anyway. Jim Carrey always seems to me to be able to milk some humour, even in a quite serious and drama filled movie such as this. I kept half expecting Ace Ventura to show through, and maybe for a few seconds in some of the scenes, he did...
You've seen the premise, the number 23 crops up everywhere, and it picks on a person and hounds them. I figure that's silly when the number could haunt 23 people at a time and thus be more efficient while still remaining in character. But I digress.
I think there were a lot of clever "23" references in the movie background, but there could have been several more touches which would have taken the movie from enjoyable to the status of edge of your seat stuff.
So as we left La Prem we were wondering if, now that we'd seen the movie, we would start seeing the number 23 around a lot more ourselves. Didn't have long to wait. As we left the upstairs carpark at Carousel, the max headroom sign. It read "Clearance 23 00."
"Oh gawd" says T, "now you're going to find that number everywhere just to freak me out aren't you?" I said nothing and pointed to the bus coming towards us, the 878. Hmmm...
We spotted two signs for things priced $32.something (32 is 23 reversed) and two prices at $1.23. As we approached the roundabouts, I pointed out that on the approach to each roundabout you see 2 signs and the ideogram of the roundabout on those signs consists of 3 curved arrows.
That was when the dog ran towards us along the road. Once you've seen the movie you'll get this Ned reference.
And I spotted a school speed limit sign that features 2:3 0 as the afternoon start time.
Then Trish had the best example. We'd been allocated seats 11 and 12. Add up to a 2 and a 3.
Hmmm... As we rolled down the driveway it occurrred to me that our number is 25b. B is the 2nd letter of the alphabet, and 25 minus 2 is? Yep, 23. Again.
So all in all quite a good evening once we gave TV a miss. And I recommend TN23 anyway because it's a somewhat different movie.
Wednesday, 25 April 2007
More Irony - His Name Fits!
I reported on this guy before, now see what the overseas news make of our dickhead politicians:
Clueless Nuisance
April 21, 2007 - Canberra, Australia - Ananova
An Australian MP's anti-graffiti crusade backfired when he spent five hours scrubbing off a specially commissioned piece of street art. Steve Pratt invited the media to witness his removal of an"obnoxious piece of vivid graffiti vandalism" on the side of a concrete bridge in Canberra, reports the Daily Telegraph.
It was only after he had reduced it to a discoloured smear with the aid of stiff brushes and industrial-strength detergent that it emerged it had been commissioned by a local sports club. John Stanhope, the chief minister of the Australian Capital Territory, said the opposition MP's artistic vigilantism had been referred to police for investigation and possible prosecution.
"In his eagerness to thump the law and order tub, it seems that Mr Pratt may have joined the ranks of those he so consistently reviles - the vandals of our community," he said.
A spokesman for the ACT Community Art program, run by TAMS, said Mr Pratt was told last week that the mural was a commissioned artwork. Asked if Mr Pratt's office had contacted the program, the spokesman said: "Yes, that's correct."
Asked if the program had told Mr Pratt the mural was a commissioned artwork, the spokesman said:"Yes, that is also correct."
The ACT Government has called for a police investigation, saying Mr Pratt should make a public apology and pay $3000 compensation to the artist. Mr Pratt has refused to apologise.
The club that had paid for the mural has no plans to replace the original mural painted by a local graffiti artist affectionately known as "Dan the man" and featuring a man playing disc golf.
Clueless Nuisance
April 21, 2007 - Canberra, Australia - Ananova
An Australian MP's anti-graffiti crusade backfired when he spent five hours scrubbing off a specially commissioned piece of street art. Steve Pratt invited the media to witness his removal of an"obnoxious piece of vivid graffiti vandalism" on the side of a concrete bridge in Canberra, reports the Daily Telegraph.
It was only after he had reduced it to a discoloured smear with the aid of stiff brushes and industrial-strength detergent that it emerged it had been commissioned by a local sports club. John Stanhope, the chief minister of the Australian Capital Territory, said the opposition MP's artistic vigilantism had been referred to police for investigation and possible prosecution.
"In his eagerness to thump the law and order tub, it seems that Mr Pratt may have joined the ranks of those he so consistently reviles - the vandals of our community," he said.
A spokesman for the ACT Community Art program, run by TAMS, said Mr Pratt was told last week that the mural was a commissioned artwork. Asked if Mr Pratt's office had contacted the program, the spokesman said: "Yes, that's correct."
Asked if the program had told Mr Pratt the mural was a commissioned artwork, the spokesman said:"Yes, that is also correct."
The ACT Government has called for a police investigation, saying Mr Pratt should make a public apology and pay $3000 compensation to the artist. Mr Pratt has refused to apologise.
The club that had paid for the mural has no plans to replace the original mural painted by a local graffiti artist affectionately known as "Dan the man" and featuring a man playing disc golf.
Military History Up In Smoke
In yet another irony in this that has so far been a millenium of ironic circumstances, the Midland Military Markets have burned to the ground during the ANZAC Dawn Service.
As someone who has no relative who can ever be called an ANZAC, I have nevertheless gone to MMM countless times, in all weathers and all states of health, and I am already missing that big building that was so cool in summer and a shelter in winter.
So Lest We Forget, there is now another Aussie legend we need to honour on April 25th...
As someone who has no relative who can ever be called an ANZAC, I have nevertheless gone to MMM countless times, in all weathers and all states of health, and I am already missing that big building that was so cool in summer and a shelter in winter.
So Lest We Forget, there is now another Aussie legend we need to honour on April 25th...
Tuesday, 24 April 2007
JOTD (ecade)
At one time in my life, I thought I had a handle on the meaning of the word "service".
"The act of doing things for other people."
Then I heard the terms such as "Internal Revenue Service,""Postal Service," "Civil Service," "Service Stations."
And I became confused about the word "service."
This is not what I thought "service" meant.
One day, I overheard two farmers talking and one of them mentioned that he was having a bull "service" a few of his cows.
Suddenly it all came into perspective.
"The act of doing things for other people."
Then I heard the terms such as "Internal Revenue Service,""Postal Service," "Civil Service," "Service Stations."
And I became confused about the word "service."
This is not what I thought "service" meant.
One day, I overheard two farmers talking and one of them mentioned that he was having a bull "service" a few of his cows.
Suddenly it all came into perspective.
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