crazybrave

The old one is pretty much over – a relic after three years.

So what should I replace it with? We’re tossing up whether to get a Mac or a desktop PC, although I’ve just got this shiny new (Billion VOIP) modem and I don’t know whether it loves Macs or not. The absolute max budget for everything is $3000. I wish to read blogs and process the words, and Owy wishes to do tricky things with his music.

Tell me why you love your machine …

Other people’s blogs can be so inspirational, can’t they? I first found out about the bookmagazinebook project through Ladycracker’s post about her contribution, and I signed up straight away.

Then when I read Ampersand Duck’s recent entry about her bookmagazinebook I thought “shit, it’s about time I did mine” – which has been sitting in a little envelope here for a few weeks underneath a pile of other neglected things.

I scored issue 6 – WORK!WORK!WORK! which is one of those tiny little spiral notebooks. Of course I don’t do WORK! at the moment, not in a going to work sense anyway. (Which really means for money, doesn’t it, although the baby bonus did go in the bank t’other day. PS I STILL THINK YOU’RE A CNUT JOHN HOWARD, DO YOU HEAR ME?)

This photo is from the bookmagazinebook site.

So my page is very home-made, and stuck in, from outside that world of WORK! It’s a circle the size of Jethro’s vast head, which unfolds to show a copy of the graph they plot your baby’s growth on for the first three years of its life.

If you’re keen to participate, read this then email johnbonbailey at hotmail dot com. If you’d like to do an entry in this issue, leave a comment or email and I’ll arrange to send it on to you.

I was excited to hear Paul Barry on RN this morning* saying that the Summer Breakfast show would have a blogger on each morning to blather on about their particular thing.

Ooh! Who’ll be first! How interesting! How will the wonderful diversity of excellent Australian bloggers be portrayed?

I WAS WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG.

Their first “blogger” was Jack Waterford, a name some of you may recognise as belonging to the editor at large of The Canberra Times. He has been a journalist since 1972. I don’t care if the man runs some bloody jumped up page he calls a blog. IT’S JUST THE SAME FECKING DAY, PEOPLE.

A man with a web page perhaps; not a blogger.

</rant>

*although not as excited as I always am to hear Fran; I totally ♥ Fran.

I just started to write a post in response to the call at Club Troppo to develop a list of the best of the year’s “essay style post” to be republished via Online Opinion. I agree that there are brilliant essays published in blog form – but I love what’s different about blogging.

So as not to be a whinger putting down people who are going to considerable effort for no reward by criticising them for something they never set out to do in the first place, I shall offer up an old post of mine that I’m fond of, and a few more that give you a flavour of some bloggers that I really admire for their originality:

Mine is from Australia Day (which was a long time ago, wasn’t it?)

ThirdCat – the Lavender Lady. I love her acuteness; there’s almost no other form of writing where an observation or a single sentence can be so powerful – graffiti maybe? But look what happens when she stretches out a little.

Ms Fits – it’s not just teh rude, people, although I do love the rude. The woman exploits the blogging form beautifully – just see this. Although you might want to see it at home unless you have a very open minded IT policy at work.

I would like to bask slightly here, having encouraged the lovely Ampersand Duck to post about printing and bookbinding, which she thought would be boring. She was wrong. And here she is having a weekend away .

I used to live near Meredith, and I love her photos of the Fedeterranea of Marrickville.

Laura – pretty much any post at all at Sorrow at Sills Bend will do you, but this one is a real fave.

Tim Sterne – on citizenship, and the thrust taken by Victorian cops. Tim and Jon’s blog was also host to one of the bestest comments threads all year, the hijack by illiterate slagging schoolboys which I could not find. Please leave link if you can remember where it was! (Yay! Thanks to Tim, it’s here. LOL111!)

The comments thread on Teh LP Feminist Hivemind does chicks with guns may melt dial-up connections, but is worth it.

Also, Scott, to be Certain is the best blogger on Australian Idol bar none, and Ken Parish is right to call Sublimely Gothic Cowgirl a black belt in photoshop.

It’s not just the pictures or the pithy, of course – Cristy from two peas no pod has reminded me of the intricate webs of friendship we weave through our blogging – the way that Kate riffs off Duck’s post about her furry parts is an example.

To really see a community knitting itself together, read the beautiful post and links list at Pavlov’s Cat. Then read Cristy’s, then Georg’s … it keeps growing, you see.

This post was supposed to be about how I am so enormously tired and vastly pregnant I probably won’t be around much for a while. Instead, I shall make this my excuse for stopping here, well before I’ve mentioned all the things I’ve loved reading and looking at this year (why is there no Jellyfish! Or Mel? Or TJ Gah!!).

Help me out and leave some links to your own favourite bloggers/posts of innovation and connectivity in the comments.

Had to update to add – go read Audrey’s continuing campaign to make Caroline Overington see some sense.

Look who’s back – the Canberra blogger formerly known as Nick Crustacean has returned, this time in a much bigger way. Yes, it’s Nick Cetacean, blogging at whale sushi. The fact that Nick didn’t put finger to keyboard from the time his daughter was born until she was old enough to chase her big brother and bite him is a bit ominous for my own prospects, but we’ll see how I go!

And the lovely Dean is furring hisself up for charity:

Go sponsor him like Ducky and I did.

Speaking of Ms Duck, she has been awarded a substantial materials grant to make beautiful art books by the ACT government. I’m lucky enough to know how very beautiful her art is – way to go Ducky!

Hi

I see you’ve become very interested in my site lately. Just so’s you know, I am a mylf, and have no need of milf sites myself. Also, you with the baby peeing pictures – no thanks.

Cheers

Zoe

As Mark mentioned over at Larvatus Prodeo (which is down today, who forgot to pay the hosting fees?), we’ll both be on a panel at the National Young Writer’s Festival, part of the “This is Not Art” Festival in Newcastle this weekend.

The panel will be talking about intersecting personal and political perspectives – it’s a really interesting topic, and I’m keen to hear any comments about it readers might have as then I can say what you said and look clever and charming in front of a hometown audience. Here’s the program blurb:

From weblog to iBlog: Writing to the world

I blog, therefore I am. This panel explores the influence of blogging on individual politics, both in writers and readers.

We will discuss the reasons a diverse range of people are drawn to blogging and how this has served to strengthen and/or alter their perceptions of the world. We will examine how different political environments affect the access and use of this unique form of writing. A central focus of the panel will be how the articulation of individual voices influences other forms of communication, such as print media and mainstream journalism, and the associated pros and cons. If the purpose of a blog is to communicate a person’s view of the world, is it relevant—or even possible—to evaluate them in the same ways that we judge other types of writing? Finally, we will think about the future of blogging and what this may hold for the political writer.

If you’re in town, come and say hello – there are tons and tons of blog-themed, -related and -friendly events, most of which are free. This panel is in the Waratah Room at City Hall (which is 290 King St), from 10:00 – 11:30am on Saturday morning. I’m the really gorgeous hugely pregnant one ; )

Ampersand Duck has posted about the first rush of excitement the Lifeline book fair brings – but I wouldn’t know about that, having not made it until late this afternoon, well and truly the business end.

She was met with a huge queue, which had eased somewhat:

Instead I had to battle the book gutses on their way out:

These were by no means the gutsiest of the gutses – I saw people filling minivans.

And inside was more like this than the literary cornucopia she described:

After I little while, Duck found me – and a little later we ran into Mindy – doing her second bookfair for the weekend (not in the least habit forming).

Still, treasures remained:

Nah, didn’t buy that one. Or these – BOOBS! as Sage would say:

This reminded me of the sad state of literature for young people in the 1980s:

The end of the last day is buy a bag for $2 and fill it for $15. This is my bag with Duck’s last minute special effort, bless her. I am SO good at jamming stuff in that bag.

If you want the full list – and Kamahl pictures – you’ll have to go over the fold.

(more…)