This will hurt me...

Life goes on. Tahune AirWalk. September 2010. Sunday Top Five! An interesting one today that I've extrapolated upon: My Top Five Tracks By Aussie Rock Legends Cold Chisel ! First, some context... I’ll admit that for a very long time Cold Chisel have existed on the periphery of my consciousness. Being from Burnie, Tasmania, you can’t help but recognise all the hits. Undeniably, I’d always quietly liked the tracks, but found the boozing image and yob fan base a little alienating. Thus, I kept my distance and stuck to more exotic (if you can call Gram Parsons and the whole West Coast Country Rock experience ‘exotic’) sounds. Thus, my real discovery of the Chisel is something of a surprise. Originating in Adelaide, Australia, they one of the most acclaimed Australian rock bands of all time, with a string of hits throughout the 1970s and 1980s and huge domestic sales, although for some reason they never could crack that overseas market in the way that contemporaries like Midnight Oil or...

Late afternoon over the Yarra River. Melbourne, April 2010. It's taken me a while to post some of the photos that I took on a quick jaunt to Melbourne back in April. I was fortunate that what was a foggy and overcast morning turned into a sunny day, enabling me to snap off a few shots of the city before heading back to the airport. This of course is an easy segue into today's potentially explosive and controversial Sunday Top Five, My Top Five Reasons Why Melbourne Is Better Than Sydney ! 5: They play proper football there. 4: By and large - Collingwood supporters/Jeff Kennett aside - Melbournians are friendlier than their uppity counterparts in Sydney. 3: Melbourne is easier to get around. The grid layout helps, but Sydney's suburban insularity and shoddy public transport (coupled with supremely unhelpful locals) doesn't help. 2: The lazy reliance on the harbour, an impressive bridge and a dingy opera house that can't actually accommodate large-scale opera and b...

SO the other day I promised a close up of the mountain. Here you go, with bonus cloud! In the the spirit of "running short of time and ideas", I've introduced a new theme for Sundays, the WORLD FAMOUS Sunday Top Five ! This week I start with off the top of my head a meticulously researched list of my Top Five Cover Songs : The Gourds bluegrass interpretation of Snoop Doggy Dogg's Gin and Juice manages to turn a turgid mess into a stoke of genius. A generous helping of banjo sees Marah's version of Streets of Philadelphia liven up Bruce Springsteen's laid back original. Although Marvin Gaye improved on Gladys Knight (and the Pips) I Heard It Through the Grapevine , I think that Creedence Clearwater Revival have to take a bow for taking it in a whole different direction. Love her or hate her, you have to admit that Sinead O'Connor manages to make a pretty decent single out of an ordinary Prince album track with Nothing Compares 2 U . The last spot I'm...

Unfortunately this has been indicative of the kind of morning that I have been setting off into of late. Here is the up the highway towards my bus stop on Monday morning. The fog is okay, because it generally means that I won't get rained on... I thought that in the spirit of inclusiveness, I'd give you a list of Things I Don't Like : Vampires People who like vampires. Fairies. Adults who dress like fairies. Those hats that people buy at Salamanca Market with leopard print trim and fuzz at the top. People who wear those hats that people buy at Salamanca Market with leopard print trim and fuzz at the top. Overly sensitive television personalities. People who say "It shouldn't be a problem, I don't think" when they really mean "I think that it shouldn't be a problem". Men who carry umbrellas. People who are really friendly to you when you're taking photographs, then walk away in disgust when they find out that you're not foreign at all,...

Sometimes it's enough to just have a lay down on the grass and gaze up at the sky through the eucalypts. Australia is a lovely place to be, and everybody knows that Tasmania is the pearl in our oyster! Which got me thinking. The other day I was on Facebook - you can find me here (I know, I know) - and I downloaded that little application that lets you pick top fives. Now, I've always been partial to a list, whether it's the top ten pop songs that last for two minutes and forty two seconds ( There She Goes or Whip it at number one),? or the three best Big M flavours (can't go past banana), I like making lists. So the prospect of expending thirty seven seconds making yet another top five intrigues me. The other day I pondered the all important [read: not at all important] "Five places other than where I live now where I could live". I went with (in no particular order): Germany The Czech Republic Hungary Barbados Estonia It was hard to leave out Finland, bu...

I figure if I am going to bombard you with some experimental text, you can cope with a bit of fiddling with an odd image. Try and work this one out. Think of this as a poem, but it is rally more a list. Henry squeezed my toe until it bruised. Henry threw a ball at my head. Henry bit me on the arm. Henry hit me with a mallet. Henry pulled my hair. Henry rolled a high chair over my foot. Henry pinched my ear. Henry yelled at me. Henry cried. Henry shouted. Henry wailed. Henry told me that he loved me.

As I have banged on about of late, I've been in attendance at a conference for the past three days. Over the course, I've had the privilege of seeing some world class brains on a variety of issues do excellent and engaging presentations, and then there were others who maybe were something less. No different from any conference then! I began jotting a few questions that I would suggest future presenters read and think about before they get around to deliver the talk. In part, this began as a bit of a venting process during poor presentations, but upon reflection, I actually think that each point is actually quite valid. Even (especially) the ones written in frustration. So here they are, my list of things to think about when preparing a presentation: What are you trying to say? Is it worth saying? Have you actually thought about what it is that you will say? Is there anything new or original in what it is that you have to say? Are you attempting to construct an argument? If so...

My wife and I have got another baby on the way (19 weeks on Thursday). Now last time, we both agreed within a reasonable period that Henry was a good name, and that it worked well with the last name, and also with taking my wife's surname as his middle name. Thus, our first born is Henry Fitzgerald McCracken. We're both pretty happy with that name, and everyone agrees he's a pretty good little bloke. Here he is looking slightly worried about the prospect of a challenger on the horizon. Here is the anxious little bloke So, my issue is that we've got to find a name the equal to Henry. I think that the bar is high, so the pressure is on. As with last time, we've gone our separate ways and compiled our own lists, with the intention of pruning them down and then merging them for the final master list. We can then 'test' the names to see how they go. I myself have already started testing names on dear little Henry (male and female), which - to be frank - is beginn...

Alright, here they are, with my favourite left until last: “The Committee found that both players had been drunk in public, behaved anti-socially and inappropriately handled quokkas.” – Rugby WA misconduct committee finds two Western Force players guilty of breaching team protocol on Rottnest Island. "I personally believe that U.S. Americans are unable to do so because, um, some people out there in our nation don't have maps and, uh, I believe that our, uh, education like such as, uh, South Africa and, uh, the Iraq and everywhere like such as, and I believe that they should, uh, our education over here in the U.S. should help the U.S., uh, should help South Africa and should help Iraq and the Asian countries, so we will be able to build up our future." – Miss Teen South Carolina, Lauren Caitlin Upton, after being asked why one-fifth of Americans cannot locate the US on a world map. "It had to do with Cuba and missiles, I'm pretty sure." – White House Pres...