Tag Archives: BlogHer

10 TV/Movie Techniques I Could Use In Real Life #NaBloPoMo

Ever wondered what it would be like to have special effects, close-ups and other show production techniques at your disposal in real life? Here’s what I’ve thought about:

  1. Fade to Black – definitely useful for when that accidental clanger is dropped or when you need an opportunity to digest some piece of information before responding. The fade to black button would come with two options, one for freezing time so that the fade in would start at the time as the fade out was triggered or one for continuing in real time so that the fade in comes in a time suitable to you. No more awkward moments… ever.
  2. Time Lapse Photography – for all those times when patience has run out and you just want to cut to the chase of the consequences of your decisions. Time never has to wait for no man ever again.
  3. Makeup! – having a professional make up artist on standby for all those shiny moments. Excuse me please, I just need to call for some makeup. After all, confidence is everything,
  4. Mood Lighting – for when your makeup artist is otherwise disposed or you absolutely cannot handle sunlight. background music
  5. Background Music – to warn you of danger up ahead, mirror your mood or just to make sense of the world around you. The Jaws music would definitely come in handy on a trip to the beach or the Close Encounters of a Third Kind theme when meeting someone green.
  6. The Close Up – definitely useful for all those WTF moments when appropriately combined with the Fade to Black technique. Also helps when one of your children ask you something painfully obvious that you have told them multiple times before.
  7. Cut! – for all those times you wished you could do it all again or when you knew you were pushing something uphill.
  8. Preview – a private screening with a select focus group would come in very handy for all those “Does My Bum Look Big In This” moments.
  9. Wardrobe Department – possibly in lieu of number 8, although much higher maintenance than a screening room.
  10. Applause and Canned Laughter – I mean who doesn’t want these, seriously?

With just a little help we could all be the Oscar winners in our own life production.

What would you add to this list?

Relevance Deprivation, Politics and Parenting #NaBloPoMo

Australia is buzzing with the news today that former prime minister (x2), Kevin Rudd has resigned from both the parliament and politics.

Kevin Rudd, who was deposed as Prime Minister in 2010 from within his own party by Julia Gillard, recently lead the Labor party to an election loss. Essentially, Kevin Rudd was reinstalled as Labor leader and Prime Minister six weeks before the election to mitigate the election carnage that was a sure thing if the party was led by Julia Gillard.  Labor came out of the election with the inevitable loss, but surprisingly performed better than most expected in Western Sydney and Queensland. And they attribute this success to Mr Rudd’s campaigning and leadership.

Mr Rudd, had quite the reputation of being a controlling narcissistic perfectionist. Whilst he could turn on the charm when he had to, the Government was often paralysed by Mr Rudd’s inability to make a decision and his cabinet members often surprised by Mr Rudd’s failure to consult them. Certainly, Mr Rudd’s concession speech on election night looked more like a victory speech and contained not an ounce of humility. I will say no more other than I am glad he is going.

There is some great commentary coming out of the Australian press on his leaving. This morning I heard a reporter ask a Labor strategist whether Mr Rudd was going to suffer relevance deprivation now that he was stepping out of the lime light. Relevance deprivation for a reputed narcissist should truly be a fate worse than losing an election. The strategist replied that this was unlikely given that the international stage loved Mr Rudd and no doubt he would find a gig somewhere which put him back on the international stage.

I love this expression “relevance deprivation” and it is the first time I have heard it.

It got me to thinking that relevance deprivation is the perfect expression to also describe what we are going through as parents of keep calm and regain relevanceteenagers. Now that “separation” has begun, our opinions and advice no longer have the same gravitas to our teens. On many days it feels we are fighting for relevance beyond the provision of a roof, internet connection and home cooked meals. We have been voted out and our views automatically discounted simply because of where they are sourced.

In short, I very much feel relevance challenged.

I have absolutely no issue with my children seeking opinions and advice from others. In fact, I think its vital that they have trusted confidants beyond their parents they can turn to discuss things and gain different perspectives. I also don’t believe that as parents and in the absence of a critical situation we are automatically entitled to give our teens unsolicited opinions on their lives.

But it sure would be nice to be asked every now and again.

I sincerely believe that some of what we discuss does get though even though the teens would rather not show or acknowledge this. The situation will right itself eventually, provided that we retain respect for each other during the process. It is up to us parents to lead the way on this and make sure we don’t deprive ourselves of a place of relevance in our teens’ life. We need to let go and not fight it and embrace the future and our teens for all they are worth.

In other words, keep calm and regain relevance.

Walking on Egg Shells Without A Safety Net #NaBloPoMo

There are days when as a parent of two teens, I can’t turn a trick.

Thankfully, today was not one of those days. We had a rather pleasant afternoon over lunch celebrating my mother’s birthday as a family. My mother has the most amazing knack of bringing out the best in my children. Mind you, they also bring out the best in her and today was no exception. I suppose she’s a safe zone for them, a whole lot of love without any need for prodding them to do stuff. Gratitude thy name is mother and I love the fact that my children have grandparents they can and do turn to.

caution teenagersThis last year or so of parenting has left me sitting here feeling very ineffective. Forget the fiscal cliff, what I’m talking about is the parental cliff and I’ve sailed right over. On my way through the free fall, I find myself latching on to any small branch of commonality with others similarly in free fall, swapping stories in an attempt to gain any insight into how to cushion this landing. Then there’s the  desperate clutching onto anything resembling something remotely positive or connective from said teens.

Every parent strives towards producing independent adults who will contribute positively to the human race. And by contribution, I don’t mean splitting the atom, creating the next big Internet phenomenon or brokering world peace. Whilst, all of these are wonderful objectives and worth striving towards, really all I want for my children is to happy and independent in whatever lawful path they choose.

And there’s the rub. To get to that point, our children have to make their own declaration of independence. And the process can be brutal. Deep down inside I applaud this final snip of the umbilical cord. In fact I would be more concerned if it didn’t come. The issue really is that whilst it’s happening, the family still has to function and we all need to still take care of business. Except that now their business is no longer my business except when I should have known it was my business from the subliminal messages that now pass for parent/teen communications.

Which is why I feel like I’m currently walking on egg shells without a safety net.

The approach to a teen requesting them to do the most basic of things involves the strategy of Sun Tzu, the diplomacy skills of Age gridHenry Kissenger and the timing skills of Warren Buffett. The slightest miscalculation can have lingering repercussions and usually someone me ends up losing a finger, or even worse, credibility. And all of this happening at a time which certainly feels like my parental report card is being handed down showing a series of Fs.

I wish I had some witty wisdom to impart on how to get through this. However, it has suddenly left me, no doubt buried under the piles of clothes in my teens’ bedrooms.

Perhaps I really should follow my teens’ advice to “Not take it so personally, mum” and instead go searching for my recently departed sense of humour. I think I’m going to need it for what’s still ahead.

 

 

 

 

Do Clothes Really Maketh The Man? #NaBloPoMo

I stumbled upon this time lapse video today showing the transformation of Jim Wolf, a US war homeless veteran, who struggles with alcoholism. The clip has been doing the Internet rounds and has elicited some strong reaction. It is quite an amazing three minutes of footage showing the effect that appearance can have on our self esteem. I commend it to you.

This is not to say that simply by giving a person a makeover all their problems melt way.  Homelessness is generally a symptom of wider issues other than a lack of financial resources and to tackle it requires not only accommodation but also support to treat the underlying cause.

What the video underscores is that the giving of dignity and respect is a special gift and further that giving comes from the simplest of gestures. No doubt the choice of Jim’s “after” wardrobe was designed to give maximum impact for the purposes of the video. The transformation could easily have been effected with a more casually tailored look and I venture to suggest that it probably would have had the same impact on Jim’s outlook. The magic is in the gesture of introducing a man to his own potential and in the acknowledgement of Jim’s existence as a fellow human being.

The boost to a person’s self esteem and confidence when they feel they look good is immeasurable. This is after all the cornerstone of the beauty and fashion industry and why a visit to a hairdresser can provide a rather effective form of therapy.

The clothes therefore don’t really maketh the man, but they can embody hope and the motivation to strive for a better life. Something we should all remember when we are cleaning out our closets of unwanted clothes.

You can read more from the maker of the video in this Blaze article.

 

Algorithm Angst in Twitterland #NaBloPoMo

Image representing Twitter as depicted in Crun...

Image via CrunchBase

There are days when Twitter seems like the final frontier of social media. There’s a certain lawlessness to shouting out into the Internet ether to see where it lands. By lawlessness I mean disorder and randomness.

I have been on Twitter for about 18 months and now look back on my Twitter evolution. There was no doubt that in the early days of my exposure I just didn’t get it. However, like any virtual community and platform experience teaches us the unwritten rules. Whilst there are many social media gurus out there blogging and writing about Twitterland, these are rules that you can only learn from the inside looking in.

In real life they say you are judged by the company you keep. In Twitterland they say you are judged by what you retweet.

Retweeting is somewhat of a science in itself, with the use of the acronyms RT and MT and the vexing question of when does repeating a Tweet move from the realm of the retweet to the modified tweet? And then there’s the issue of whether you simply retweet as in copy the tweet into your feed or do you quote the Tweet and say “RT @ [insert Twitter ID of the person you are retweeting] [Tweet text]”. Doing it one way or another affects the original Tweeter’s influence ranking, on some virtual index somewhere. But these are things you can’t know before you dive in.

And then there’s the Twitter algorithm. Helpfully or unhelpfully, Twitter has a “similar to” feature. This is a list which is attached to your Twitter profile which contains Twitter’s suggestion of those Twits who are similar to you. I hate my similar to list. There I said it, I feel better now.

This is nothing personal to those on my similar to list. I know nothing about these people, I’m sure they are very nice. But if this is meant to be a mirror to my Tweeting soul, I feel it is a little cracked.

You may have heard of the concept of the filter bubble and the notion that in the virtual world everything is specifically tailored to your tastes and preferences based on the data you pump out. The data includes who is on your friends and followers lists. So there you are unknowingly trapped in your little bubble reading about the things you like and what your friends like and oblivious to what is happening beyond it based on some algorithm that predetermines to what you are exposed. The likes of Google, Facebook and Twitter are at great pains to emphasize that their algorithms are entirely objective, purely based on data. However, at some point the algorithm has to be programmed by a human who inevitably has his or her own biases reflected in the output.

So Twitter tells me that my bubble consists of mommy bloggers. And I am not sure why.

Image courtesy of freedigitalphotos.net

Image courtesy of freedigitalphotos.net

True it is that the first three descriptive words in my Twitter profile are Mother, Wife, Blogger. However, my tweets tend to focus on business, leadership, social media and life on general. Added to this is the occasional parenting post and humour tid bit. I will follow mommy bloggers who follow me first, but I certainly don’t seek them out. I don’t post about recipes, cooking, craft, fashion, coupon shopping, shopping in general, parenting tips or drinking alcohol at the end of the day. And, I am not promoting a business from my kitchen.

So Twitter, I just don’t get it. Why does my bubble not consist of business people, humorists and in fact, the occasional male? Am I therefore being judged by the company I don’t keep?

Apologies to any mommy bloggers who may be offended by this post. You guys form an amazing network and pump out great information for those who are interested. It’s just not for me. Probably because I use social media to destress and to expand my non practical horizons.

Perhaps the programmer of the Twitter algorithm is really a mommy blogger. In which case, I have some great suggestions for who she can follow on Twitter.

Have you had any strange platform algorithm experiences? What are your views on the Twitter algorithm?

Low Hanging Fruit and Horse Race Wrap Up #NaBloPoMo

Thank you for all of your wonderful tips from the Horsing Around With A Race That Stops A Nation post.

The race has now been run and the winners and losers sorted.  Champagne has been drunk and bunions have been formed. Time to put the fascinators away for another year.

After the resounding Tres Blue backing from the blogosphere, I placed a small bet on the horse. You’ll be happy to know he finished 22nd out of a field of 24. So I guess the trainer and owner are now Petit Blue.

But fear not, dear readers for that is not where the story ends.

After a more thorough analysis of the form guide and deciding that the pink stripe on the jockey’s fabric of Fiorente was more purple than pink if you squint hard enough and look at it in a tunnel, I placed a bet on the favourite.

AND SHE WON!!!

In addition to that I drew another horse which came second in the office sweep, so a somewhat profitable day all around.

low hanging fruitWhere things get a bit murky is the somewhat predictable love note I found from the local council placed under my windshield wiper when I returned to my car after my hard day at work. After running a little late for work that morning, I went through my usual routine of parking my car near the bus stop.  The bus stop happens to be near a racecourse. Parking is usually tight, but on Melbourne Cup day it is at a premium. Lucky for me I still scored a spot in the morning. The kicker is that parking in this street is two hours only for non-residents. Normally, I run the gauntlet and park there anyway as the street is seldom monitored. You can see where this is going, can’t you?

Being late it only occurred to me that my parked car was really low hanging fruit for the parking police when I was half way into work. Plump, juicy and ripe for the picking on race day. And plucked it was.

The state of the ledger is therefore:

  • total family winnings on Melbourne Cup  – $152
  • total payment to NSW State Government for the privilege of going to work – $101
  • funds available for the Curtain Raiser retirement fund – $51

My family has kindly donated their winnings to the fund which will be used to increase parking restriction awareness in its members and avoid any more contribution to the low hanging fruit crop.

There was a sad postscript to the race. One of the horses, a mare, was put down immediately after for a broken leg. The decision for the horse to be euthanized was not without controversy. To get the fully story, click here.

RIP Verena.

Of Razor Blades and Memories #NaBloPoMo

It’s funny what banality can trigger memories.

Sometime in the coming weeks, I will undertake a ritual for the very last time. A ritual that has always connected me to my father. A ritual that was ours when my father was alive.

old style rego stickerWhen I was little, I used to be dad’s 2IC when it came to replacing the annual registration sticker on the family car. This used to involve razor blades, hours of concentration, methylated spirits and cut fingers. Back in the day, the Government used to issue each vehicle with a registration sticker which showed the month of registration, the year of validity and the registration number, make and VIN details of the vehicle.  It was up to each owner to apply the sticker to the windshield of the car after removing the pervious year’s version as it was an offence to leave the old sticker visible. So dad and I would set off to laboriously scrape off the old sticker which was made of a thin plastic film and applied to the window with a coat of glue. It was a transparency sort of affair which we could only remove using methylated spirits and razor blades. And the reward for persisting? A formerly whole registration sticker now hacked to a million plastic bits all through the car.

Whatever was involved, I loved this father/daughter time. It was him and me against the world.

As I grew, Dad anointed me in charge of the great registration sticker exchange. Out would come the razor blades and the metho (Aussie vernacularnewer style rego sticker for methylated spirits) and out I’d go to the car and do the deed. By this time, adhesive technology had evolved to the point where the registration sticker was less transparency, more sticker in the traditional sense. No water was required to activate the adhesive. This made old sticker removal somewhat quicker and easier, although the razor blades still came in handy.

Every year I change my registration sticker I use the same tools, the same methodology and I think of my father.

Our Government has finally decided to come into the twenty-first century and will from this year rely on its computer records as proof of registration. There will be no more registration stickers to apply and only this last one to remove.

My kids will never experience this ritual.

I will miss it. As I miss him.

In the coming weeks, my final peel will be for you, dad.

father quote

 

 

 

Costco Capers #NaBloPoMo

This past weekend saw us set out on our biannual Costco run. The Italian Stallion and I do not engage in this sport lightly. The visit is a culmination of weeks of precision planning, pantry reconnaissance and rigorous training. The training consists of pushing dollar bills in and pulling them out of wallets and speedy mathematical value assessment. Apart from this physical and mental preparation, there is always the the issue of what to wear to resolve. I mean who wants to end up on the hypothetical Costco equivalent of People of Walmart.

Walmart e card 1To us non-Americans the Wal-Mart phenomenon is curious indeed. We have no real Australian equivalent that has spurned a whole subculture. In fact, I was so curious that I asked a friend to take me to a Wal-Mart in Tennessee last time I was in the States to pop my Wal-Mart cherry. It must have been a slow day because it was nothing like what I expected to see having regard to the Wal-Mart mythology from the Internet. People shopped whilst fully clothed and there were no sprawling cash register lines. Talk about underwhelming. I didn’t buy anything.

But back to Costco. For us Costco is a pilgrimage and something not undertaken lightly as it is a least a half day event. There are a few reasons for this. Firstly there is only one Costco servicing Sydney. Sydney has a population of about two million, so our Costco sees plenty of action. Secondly, the store is about an hour’s drive away and that’s not counting the time it takes to find a parking spot. Thirdly, given there is only one store social encounters are unavoidable even for a city of this size. You will always meet someone you know at Costco, which of course then ties into the whole fashion thing. This weekend’s excursion didn’t disappoint as we bumped into two of the Italian Stallion’s colleagues and their spouses.

And everything about Costco is BIG.

Big quantities, big deals, big checkout lines, ginormous trolleys and big bucks.  Costco have these great little dinner rolls that I have longingly wanted to try for the past year. I have picked up a pack every time I have been to Costco, but the thought of what to do with 36 of them has always led me to leave them on the shelf. This time though I bit the bullet bread and took the BIG small dinner roll plunge.

And the act of lovingly placing in my trolley the 3 kilos of chicken thighs that will grace our dinner plates for the next little while next to that piece of outdoor furniture that I had to have is worth the trip all on its own. I like an eclectic, variety filled shopping basket.

The fun continued with the post Costco run packathon. Getting the stuff in the car took the patience of the Dalai Lama and the precision of Tetris. Luckily for me the Italian Stallion is really good at Tetris which is positive news indeed because the whole Tetris thing had to be repeated in the pantry at home. As for finding the stuff three months down the track when we need to use it… yeah.. good luck with that.

Which leads me to divulge Fascinating Costco Fact No. 352: After buying cling wrap in bulk at Costco last year, we have figured out we use 300m of the stuff in a year. Costco therefore not only assists with inventory control but also gives good trivia.

So now we are back in training for next year’s biannual Costco run. Should be just in time for Easter.

Dinner roll anyone?Bread Rolls

 Do you ever shop in bulk? Do you have a special shopping experience you could like to share?

November is Here So Let’s #NaBloPoMo

Nano NanoWoke up this morning to social media buzzing with the sounds of NaNo NaNo. This is not be confused with the traditional Orkian greeting of Nanoo Nannoo, although as the month progresses, we will see writers increasingly engage each other in monosyllabic tones.

If you have never heard of NaNoWriMo, it is the chant of writers everywhere as they gear up to participate in National Novel Writing Month. The aim of NaNoWriMo is to write a novel of 50,000 words from start to finish in November. If you are interested you can sign up here. To all of you are attempting NaNoWriMo you have my complete admiration. Please remember to eat, move and breathe whilst you coax your characters to life, they are counting on you.

Whilst writing a novel was briefly on my bucket list when I was ten, that’s way too ambitious for me at this point. The only chapters I am able to write at the moment are called ” How to Survive Parenting in The Teenage Years With Your Hair Intact” and “Existence for Dummies”. Certainly not enough on which to base a whole novel, although there are enough dilemmas and plot twists to keep readers engaged.

My plan to write the next great Aussie novel therefore remains dormant for now. Despite this, I have decided to get in on some of the NaNo action by participating in NaBloPoMo. Despite what it sounds like, it has nothing to with blowing one’s nose. It is in fact the bloggy cousin of NaNoWriMo. National Blog Posting Month means thirty blog posts in 30 days during November. It is run by BlogHer and you can sign up here until 5 November 2013. Whether you run with a theme or post 30 unrelated posts is entirely up to you. The BlogHer site provides daily prompts which you are free to follow or you can write about whatever floats your fancy. At the time of posting, there are about 1200 blog participating. By contrast, there are about 245,000 writers participating in NaNoWriMo. That’s some serious verbage and means that we are in for some fantastic reading in December.

NaBloPoMo_November_small

Please come and join me for my NaBloPoMo ride. This will be the allsorts of blogging challenges with a bit of this and a bit of that. There is nothing like spontaneity to keep a blogger on her toes. Blogging challenges are great for getting into the blogging groove and really test blogging boundaries and for this one I’m leaving my little black dress at home and going themeless.

So lets NaBloPoMo… it’s just a jump to the left and then a step to the ri, ri, ri, ri, right. With your hands on your hips, you bring your knees in tight. Ok, you can even thrust your pelvis if you really want to.