That great big dog house in the sky.

Today our puppy Merlin passed away.

We say goodbye to our faithful friend and companion.

Those that knew Merlin are invited to leave a comment below.

Harbour Festival '08

We've been in festival mode this week with the Gladstone Harbour Festival week in town here. The Harbour Festival marks the end of the Brisbane to Gladstone Yacht Race and doubles as a better way to spend Easter than being nailed to a tree. We just got back from watching the fireworks display and live entertainment which featured a band that I saw years ago.

I am a Queen fan and have been for years. I have a framed collection of every Queen album on my wall (thanks Mum). The day after I turned eighteen I went to the Transport Department and got my 18+ card so I could see a Queen cover band playing at the Reef Hotel that same night. It was the first live band I had ever seen and while it was just a small pub venue I really enjoyed hearing some of my favourite songs played live and played well. The band called themselves Killer Queen and I watched them for a second time tonight - almost fifteen years later and they are still awesome.



The fireworks were pretty good too.

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Oh yeah, and Queen are releasing a new album!

Cilla's Garden

Inspired by the old hail storm video, I have been making some short (15 second to 1.5 minute) videos of Cilla's garden and uploading them to YouTube to create a channel dedicated to showing off some of the neat things iWife has been growing in her yard.

You can visit it here.

Old Hail Footage

I was going through some old video tapes and found some footage of the hail storm that hit Gladstone on 9th December 2003. Although the content of the video is fairly interesting with the hail and all, what really blew us away is how much different the place looks now from then. Those that visit on occasion will know what I'm talking about.



Read the report from BOM if you are so inclined.

Goodbye Gary Gygax

Ernest Gary Gygax, the man who co-created Dungeons & Dragons has died of natural causes on the 4th of March, 2008.

"I would like the world to remember me as the guy who really enjoyed playing games and sharing his knowledge and his fun pastimes with everybody else."

-Gary Gygax

We say goodbye to one of the greatest nerds the world has ever seen.

No wonder TV is rubbish

As some of you know I produce videos. I have a couple of nice cameras, some powerful computers and some very flash software and it all works very well together for the kind of work that I do - wedding videos, corporate training videos - pretty much anything that gets filmed and produced as a finished product onto a DVD. All my work is in high definition because that's the way everything is going now... or so I thought.

Recently I've been commissioned to create a television ad. Too easy. Two days filming in different locations around the place and one day editing and producing. It was a quick and easy job and the client was happy with the results.

But have you got any idea what is involved in trying to get it to the television station to get on air? What a stuff around!

I've done stuff for the local news. They're easy. Send them the footage and away they go.

But for an advertisement you have to get classification by FreeTV.com.au.
To get the ad to FreeTV you have to send it to someone else - there are a few options, we went with AdStream.com.au.

So we send it to AdStream over the Internet and they have problems with my video. My video in high definition and it's in wide screen - just like every other video I produce. In this world of high-definition digital wide screen television you can't submit an advertisement unless it's standard definition and made for 4:3 ratio (square screen).

Un-be-liev-able.

So after uploading about half-a-dozen copies of my ad with the alterations and adjustments they ask for, they send it to FreeTV to get a CAD (commercial advice) number that the station requires before it can go to air - sort of like a classification or rating to make sure it doesn't offend anyone. We had to fax to FreeTV a full script of everything written and spoken in the commercial as well.

The commercial is supposed to go to air tonight and the station still doesn't have it. With all this double and triple handling of every single little thing it's a wonder that the station has anything at all to broadcast. I am so glad that the vast majority of my work simply gets handed to the customer on a DVD - end of story.

I don't even watch TV anymore...

Different