The Smirkonian Sightseer

Twitbits Monday

To start, a quick follow on from yesterday…

 

@GreenEDGEFans

AussieCyclingFans

It seems we are all in agreement that @chloe_hosking should have used more appropriate words for Pat McQuaid like ...... "KNOB" or "TOOL" :)

 

@MarkCavendish

Mark Cavendish

Mother Nature must've had a big New Years Eve. She just took 1 of those massive long hangover pisses. For the last 90mins of my ride.

 

With the mens HTC-Highroad team now well and truely folded, it was interesting to see this clip appear among my regular browsing sites. It's a day in the life of the HTC-Highroad team Soigneur. Filmed in France & Belgium during the Spring Classics and the 2011 TdF, and in California during the ATOC. If you ever thought being a pro cyclist was tough, take a look at what it takes to care for one! They're a special breed…

 

@clarkeywilbur

Will Clarke

Just been for a ride on my new Fuji sst. really looking forward to this year with with my new team @Champion_System

 

@RMcEwenCycling

RobbieMcEwenCycling

Proud to announce that Robbie McEwen Cycling Anti Friction Cream is official sponsor of @_GreenEDGE_ Cycling. robbiemcewencycling.com

So I guess Dave Zabriskie's DZ Nuts are no longer the saddle sore accessory of champs.

 

Meanwhile, I've been monitoring today's Jayco Bay Classic in Melbourne…

@Wes_Sulzberger

Wesley Sulzberger

Good pic of me and @badger83 First Stage of #JaycoBayCrits facebook.com/photo.php?fbid…

 

@Wes_Sulzberger

Wesley Sulzberger

Solid day today, 45 degrees! Good ride @allandavis27 In the leaders jersey.

 

@_GreenEDGE_

GreenEDGE Cycling

Allan Davis leads #BayCrit series after two stages. Read how he moved into the leader's jersey here: bit.ly/tECIYb

 

@VicCycleEvents

Vic Cycling Events

Sprint Ace classification has Bernie Sulzberger with 12pts, Mitch Docker with 9pts and Nathan Haas with 6pts #baycrits

 

@mattgoss1986

Matt Goss

crit no.2 today, was a little less of a shock to the body compared with yesterday. Heat was a killer. Congrats @allandavis27 in the jersey!

 

@_GreenEDGE_

GreenEDGE Cycling

Double podium for GreenEDGE-AIS. Read how Spratt and Hoskins finished second and third at #BayCrits stage two. bit.ly/rxoG33

 

 

Now for other twitbits…

@CandiceWyatt10

Candice Wyatt

Don't rely on your I-phone alarm this morning!!! Mine failed, so did my colleague's. New Years glitch apparently. #fail

 

@HurricanesBBL

Hobart Hurricanes

Missed the match last night or want to relive it all again? Check out the highlights here hobarthurricanes.com.au/news/video/201…

 

@battlestarwiki

Battlestar Wiki

The Caprica toaster is now $19.99 at the NBC Universal Store. Click here to grab it:... fb.me/17hytUx6X

Minimal carbon coverage here… not burning my toast anytime soon.

 

@joeyldotcom

Joey L.

Did anyone make a "my New Years Resolution is 300 dpi" joke yet? If so, that's lame. If not, I'm awesome.

Been done. Most picked better resolutions though.

 

Now for the life and hard times of metro journos.

@CandiceWyatt10

Candice Wyatt

Why would you be at the beach when you could be flying over it in a hot chopper with no air con? I don't know... pic.twitter.com/8AUHAjK8

 

@AliciaMuling

Alicia Muling

After sweltering in Albury for two months, my housemate just informed me that YES, we do have air conditioning in the apartment. #idiot

Who? You or the housemate?

 

 

Amazing blog hits on yesterday's post thanks to a reweet from colleague and media master Alex...

@swegen31

Alex Johnston

This is very clever. "@SmirksTas: Twitbits Sunday bit.ly/uCy8HU ~ the new year edition"

 

Twitbits Monday - on a diet edition

 

The daily snap of highlights from my twitter feed…

 

@parabola

Cameron Gray

Working on a new splash screen, I'm still one of the few who love splash screens, they'll make a comeback! :) campl.us/g4qp

- I remember the days when they called splashscreens 'the front door'… also refers to a screen put up between the audience and performers at a live sex show.

- Cam's revamped site is now live

 

@mattgoss1986

Matt Goss

6.30 control, my go kart win must have been suspicious!

 

@mcewenrobbie

Robbie McEwen

did an interview today with @TenSportMelb @cozalive the sound man's name - Mike, camerman - Cam #IshitYouNot #LivingForIt

 

@BrianJacobSmith

Brian J. Smith

Calista Gingrich is a cylon.

 

Short one today Tweeps, thanks for dropping by…

@SmirksTas

 

 

The miserable discovery that Prometheus is no more...

Well, folks, this marks the retirement of Prometheus.   I thank you for following his miserable adventures and for your comments through the years.

via prometheuscomic.wordpress.com

As a philhellenist I'd been reading Athen Plus, a downloadable PDF from eKathimerini, for several years until they stopped publishing the download version last December. One of my favourite features was the Prometheus comic strip.

Today I discovered the website and original source of the strip, and subscribed to its RSS feed. Moments later I realised the author had retired the strip on August 15 (my birthday, btw).

Oh shucks. What a disappointment. At least all the back catalogue of strips are still available online.

New URL - www.smirkonian.com

A few weeks back I changed the blog name from Andy's Blog to The Smirkonian Sightseer. The URL used to get here was my account name - a mix of name and some initials. I thought it would look more presentable with a URL that reflects the blog title.

So this week I registered www.smirkonian.com which is now up and running. Just finish a few tidy-ups, like smirkonian.com should work without the www preceding it.

The old URL still works and looks at the same content.

Tweet reads August 30, 2011

 

@kochie_online

david koch

Greek share market up 14%... Biggest one day jump in 20 years. Buoyed by big bank mergers.

@twisst

Twisst ISS alerts

Beautiful photo of a large part of Europe at night, taken from the ISS: http://j.mp/ptCHTw (click to enlarge!) #NASA

 

@BrianJacobSmith

Brian J. Smith

Spending the afternoon at my favorite spot in NY: the sheep's meadow in central park. Amazing!! yfrog.com/h47d5maj

 

@aj_wood

A.J. Wood

VIDEO: Sync changes in Lightroom Develop Module. bit.ly/qSPfbe #ICreateContent #AdobeCP

 

@tinybuddha

Tiny Buddha

"Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does." ~William James

 

@VisitGreecegr

Visit Greece

The summer months might be ending, however Seaside in #Greece remains an excellent choice! #Sea #Travel (Video) youtu.be/5sHcHcbExwQ

 

@BrianJacobSmith

Brian J. Smith

Beautiful fall-like weather today. Hopefully my bathroom gets finished today, sure do miss taking showers. #stank

 

@clarkeywilbur

Will Clarke

Back in Luxembourg after alot of racing and 1 month on the road, next race for me is tour of Britain :)

 

@MarkCavendish

Mark Cavendish

Too much emotion really isn't great for a logical thinker.

 

- Thinking like a Vulcan!

 

@DiscoverTas

Discover Tasmania

RT @murphytravels: 16+Glorious Photos of Tasmania http://ow.ly/6fOBc

 

@500px_choice

500px: Choice

Rolling in by William Church bit.ly/o9SK89 on http://500px.com

 

- Amazing shot of lightning.

 

@nbcnewscrew

Dwaine Scott

Tonight's spectacular sunset of Manhattan, New York taken from Long Island City. twitpic.com/6dcl29

 

@rudepundit

The Rude Pundit

No shit Irene was a message from God, @teambachmann. The message was "Climate change is real, you fucking idiots."

 

@johnleewriter

John Lee

Lost Lagoon in Vancouver's Stanley Park twitpic.com/6d8ml3

 

- Lost Lagoon brings back some memories from my tours across Canada in the late 1980's.

 

@mynikonlife

My Nikon Life

Our first water, shock and freeze proof camera - the #COOLPIX #AW100 - being unloaded at our warehouse right now! pic.twitter.com/RTRctJw

 

 

And two thrown in from me:

 

@SmirksTas

Andrew Shepherd

Picking names...I'm renaming my blog bit.ly/qb7BPe

 

@SmirksTas

Andrew Shepherd

"Bitch, you throw more shade than a cloudy day." youtube.com/watch?v=xtPWoT…

@SmirksTas - Following 149 - Followers 41

 

 

 

Picking names...

I'm working on a new name for the blog.

Andy's Blog, which it has been since inception (August 2003 to be precise) just doesn't cut the mustard. It never did. It's very plain - just like me! I want something that identifies the blog from millions of other Andy's with blogs (and just a boring as mine, no doubt).

While on my walk to the post office this morning (a daily ritual) I thought of a few possible names that play on my nickname. I've been call Smirks, Smirkey, Smirker, and other variations at work for over 28 years. The origin, I think, came from a character in an old animated kids cartoon.

So far I've conjured up Smirkable, Smirkerest, Smirk-it, Smirkapedia, SmirksCentral, Smirks+, The Smirkonian, Smirkelona, and a Greek sounding Smirkapedes.

Then I thought of incorporating some of my interests. As a keen traveler the thesaurus brought me; tourist, vacationer, sightseer, visitor, globe-trotter, backpacker,  pilgrim,  wanderer,  drifter,  nomad,  migrant,  passenger, commuter...

Most of my posts eminate from things I see and read on the net, so I thought 'sightseer' would be a good choice.

So for now I'm calling the blog The Smirkonian Sightseer, but I'll probably be trying out other combos over the next few weeks.

Tweet Reads Monday August 29, 2011

Here's todays picks...

 

@petergallagher_

Peter Gallagher

RT @Chris_Gorham: Check out @petergallagher_ in SF on 10/22! bit.ly/pWwzeC I'll sing you a few songs and tell you some stories! Come!

 

@Wes_Sulzberger

Wesley Sulzberger

yfrog.com/kgqzkp Some people celebrate marriage others celebrate divorce. Out training Ventimiglia Italy.

 

@nbcnewscrew

Dwaine Scott

Behind the Scenes: control room 3A producing special weather coverage with @nbc & @weatherchannel teams in the field http://t.co/TkShepz

 

@nbcnewscrew

Dwaine Scott

Behind the scenes: a panoramic photo of the @msnbctv studios. twitpic.com/6cvt8s

 

- Once again, Dwayne delivers some NBC behind the scenes magic. I'm loving his tweets.

 

@kochie_online

david koch

All Ords up 63pts. Aussie & NZ dollars march higher with stocks; Forestry Tasmania posts $12m loss. AUD up to $US1.06

 

- There's no money in forestry anymore. The market plateaued years ago and has been declining ever since (my opinion only).

 

@Eamon_Sullivan

Eamon Sullivan

Come and have a cocktail and a look my cook book, Eamons Kitchen, tomorrow night at Ariel book store on Oxford street @ 7pm!!

 

- Oh, …Oxford Street? ….?

 

@chrisroww

Chris Rowbottom

I'd rather burn my toast than go and see that new Smurfs movie #evenneilpatrickharriscantsaveit

 

…in replay…

@Barz88

James Barwick

@chrisroww Imagine your balls the whole time your watching that movie. They would just be sitting there, just smacking.

 

@SmirksTas

Andrew Shepherd

How (not) to set up a travel blog ... Step 1 is essential. killingbatteries.com/2011/08/how-to…

 

Not tweets of interest from me today except for a retweet seen above.

 

@SmirksTas - Following 144 - Followers 39

Tweet Reads of Monday August 22, 2011

 

The daily highlights of my Twitter feed - the bulleted comments are mine (here, not on Twitter)

The following caught my attention today:

 

BrianJacobSmith

Brian J. Smith

I was obsessed with the water slide at the pool - this was my fourth ride... yfrog.com/ki3ivpuj

 

@BrianJacobSmith

Brian J. Smith

...and this was the ninth. #waterslideheaven yfrog.com/keaxhuxj

 

@MarkCavendish

Mark Cavendish

Hard finish! We were riding for young Degenkolb for jersey, but we couldn't quite get organised. I could only get him to 700m#shitleadoutman

 

@_GreenEDGE_

GreenEDGE Cycling

A big week of rider announcements ahead

 

@CANSTARCANNEX

CANSTAR CANNEX

A blow for people trying to save as many banks are slash term deposit rates. To find out why this is happening... bit.ly/q9PNez

• I touched on this a few days ago. There's still time to shop around if you're looking to stash cash. Also, consider on-line savings and pooled mortgage accounts.
• At the end of today's reads, see the @GRFinance tweet about one of the highest investment rates available in Australia.

 

@aplusk

ashton kutcher

Dude picks up a girl using his robot. Beyond genius youtube.com/watch?v=cL65rn… Make sure u watch part2 also

 

@SethMacFarlane

Seth MacFarlane

Yes, Captain Sisko commanded the abandoned Kardashian space station Deep Space Nine. Or as it was originally called, Terok Whore. #nerdhumor

 

@MarkCavendish

Mark Cavendish

twitpic.com/69myr2 Look, look! The Germans are joking together again! Yet it still sounds like they're shouting orders at each other

 

@500px_choice

500px: Choice

Dog and a starry sky by Evgeniy Gostuchin bit.ly/oM0mGx on http://500px.com

• As one commentor said: The sky is nice, the dog puts it over the top.

 

@tonygray

tonygray

Today's APOD is a stunner! apod.nasa.gov/apod/

• Mmm. It's huge and rather… long.

 

@NatGeoTraveler

Nat Geo Traveler

Guide to Olympic National Park on.natgeo.com/rnhY1v #Washington

• A new follow for me  on Twitter. I used to get National Geographic Traveler on subscription. One day I'd love to get my hiking boots on and do a National Parks tour of the U.S.

 

@joeyldotcom

Joey L.

Box of old 5x7 glass plates found in New Jersey garbage pile. So cool, who wants to come scan them with me? yfrog.com/hscabjxj

• My great grandfather (who I never met - i was born years after he died) used to have hundreds of stereographic glass plates. I think they were eventually donated to the local museum. More recently my father, a photographer and historian, was given some old glass plates to scan.

 

@MarkCavendish

Mark Cavendish

Not nice to sit on the bus with an empty space opposite. Going to miss @mattgoss1986. Get well soon mate.

• Get well Gossy. Sad he'll miss out on the last ever HTC-Highroad sprint train.

 

@andrewcrawley

Andrew Crawley

I love infographics & cycling so had to share this one: Cycling is worth £3bn a year to UK economy ow.ly/69bhq (via @londoncyclist)

 

@GRFinance

GR Finance Australia

High interest investments are not a thing of the past. Special rate 9.90% for 12 months, interest paid monthly. www.grfinance.com.au

• I stashed some cash here in January at a special rate of 9.95% on the same terms (new investors only). A few months back they were offering 10.05%. Great extra income. This current 9.90% offer ends August 31st.

 

And finally a few tweets from me:

 

@SmirksTas

Andrew Shepherd

Watched #piratesofsiliconvalley last Friday. Like seeing boxing match #douchebag v. #arrogantcumspray. #CEO's bless 'em.

 

@SmirksTas

Andrew Shepherd

I guess cool climate Tasmanian's and 40˚ Spanish heat don't mix. #vuelta @mattgoss1986

@SmirksTas - Following 157 - Followers 36

 

 

Are you planking, or just bored?

Surf Photog ...

Chris Burkard - Photographer from LONELYLEAP on Vimeo.

When everyone takes the same photo...

... this is what it looks like weaved into one.

I've been to some iconic locations on my travels, as have millions of others. We've stood in the same spot and we've all taken the same photo of that landmark or historic place on Earth.

Corinne Vionnet created a visual art project called "Photo Opportunities" that combines hundreds of snapshots of tourist locations found on the Internet.

 

The Bieb gets it...

The YouTube comments on this clip are rather vicious, from "with acting that bad, he had to be killed off" through to "it should have been the ending of his movie".

I'm still laughing at the pics on the Lesbians Who Look Like Justin Bieber site.

How to piss off the normal people...

Up front, let me say that it's well known from previous posts I don't use Facebook or Twitter. I just don't have the time for it.

The thing I find really annoying about them, particularly Facebook, are the sites that adopt their social plugin for logging in and rating (you know, that "Like" button with the caricature thumbs up).

My blog host Typepad uses it, but gives me a choice to use my original log-in or not.

One of my favourite sites Landscapes 2.0 have stupidly adopted it, forgoing the original log-in protocol. This means I can not longer rate those amazing photographs anymore.

Their loss.

Top 10 Signs You Are Obsessed With Photography

I've read/ingored thousands of these top # list posts over the years. This one on photography I read with interest to see how many applied to me. I'm please to say I can only relate to 3. Can you guess which ones?

 

10. You can actually tell what kind of camera someone is using from over 30 feet away.

9. You have tried to claim “Photoshop” as a medical expense because it’s good therapy.

8. When planning a vacation, your main concern is finding a hotel that offers wifi so you’ll be able to upload your photos to the web, daily.

7. You own more than one camera bag even though you only have one camera.

6. You refer to cleaning up after dinner as “post-processing the kitchen.”

5. You can’t remember the date of your best friend’s birthday, but you know all the specs of your camera and lenses by heart.

4. When attending a wedding, you are more interested in what the photographer is doing than what the bride and groom are doing.

3. When you see a photo of a model, you find yourself more interested in what lighting was used and how much processing may have been done.

2. You understand that 22 is actually smaller than 5.6

1. When gazing upon a beautiful landscape you think to yourself, “That’s lovely, but it could use just a bit more saturation!”

 

(courtesy of the PhotographyBB RSS Feed)

To busy to blog...

My life has been in a spin for about a month now, and I haven't blogged a word about it yet. I just haven't had the time.

So just quickly, he's a brief rundown of what's happened....

*Tony and I spent about 10 days in Macau visiting my old friend and mate Michael. 

*I have hundreds of holiday snaps and a few rather lovely, well composed photos from the trip I want to post to my Flickr page.

*On the fourth day of returning to work I received the news I was being made redundant, after 25 years service.

*Tony this evening revealed to me he has his own blog.

Hopefully in the next few days, I'll get around to posting more details about my holiday and my redundancy.

Time wise...

I just created a timeline of my online posts with Dipity. So far I've included recent posts from Typepad, YouTube and Flickr.

It looks something like this...

UPDATE:
I've wasted time on this for two days now. The Dipity site held a lot of promise to begin with but with a lack of instant support or help for troubleshooting situations, even just general 'how-to' (it seems not very Mac friendly) it's left me frustrated and wanting to delete the account... if there was a way to do that!

A big thumbs down to Dipity.

Projects...

It's been a slow start, but I've made some progress on my extended dairy of the Greece trip. I'm adding more detail to what I wrote in my diary, emails, and blog posts. The plan is to create a page on my main website with pictures I've taken and scans of tickets and documents from the journey... similar to my World Tour of Europe in 2000, but better organised. I'm thinking of calling it my World Tour of Greek Islands. Ok, I only went to five islands, but hey, it's another world there. Tony and I also have plans to separately release photo books, the self-publish kind available from Lulu.

I'm being lazy aagain...

I haven't had much of a chance to post anything, but there have been several things I wanted to mention but never got around to it.

There was my day on a boat, the Tassie election and a few other tidbits. Details shortly!

I'm on holiday...

Four weeks off, wow, what should I do?

The first week has flown passed but I do have something to show for it. I have a new garden shed that was erected with the help of a builder friend of my dads. Monday he boxed up the area and later poured the concrete. He'd arranged for a mini-truck to deliver it however this huge bloody cement truck turned up and proceeded to back up over my lawn, leaving deep ruts in it. Never mind, the things I have to sacrifice to get a garden shed. The shed (in kit form) was delivered Tuesday and we spend 4 hours on Wednesday putting it up in high winds. Geoffrey, the builder, decided it would be a lot nicer if he rivited the joints instead of using the self-tappers the shed came with. I'm pleased he did. I looks very neat and tidy. I'll work on the surrounding garden area next week, if it's fine.

The house is less cluttered now with the mountain bike and gardening utensils all safely storage out in the new shed.

Today (Friday) is a bummer. It's raining so I'm stuck indoors doing some tidying up on the Mac.

I decided I'd give MarsEdit a trial. This is my first post using it. The app crashed on me while testing it, and I couldn't get the image insert pane to show my weblog, or any weblog for that matter, in the dropdown box. After figuring out what to do and ironing out the bugs, MarsEdit seems to be working they way it should. I think I'll find it easier to post this way than having to log-in to TypePad using a web browser. With a few more successful posts like this one, I'll be ready to pay the shareware fee.

Other things to keep me occupied are a pile of DVD's I've bought but never watched, and keeping up with all my subscribed podcasts.

Sexual comic book covers

I couldn't browse past this and leave it alone. It's a collection of unintentionally sexual comic book covers. These my two favourites...

TypeLists

The thing I've noticed about these typelists is you can't easily add album cover art. Yes, I'm in the process of updating some of my lists as well as my favourites on the web page.

Dot Blogged

More Bloggers block...

It's only words...

No, I'm not singing, stupid... I'm tossing the dictionary

Competitiveness?

BLOGGER are adding a whack of new free features for their bloggers. Gee, I wonder what brought that on... not TypePad surely???

I've been Googled...

Just checked my referrers page and found that someone had done a search on Google for "weblog gay tasmania" and you guessed it, my blog turned up in the search.

Well as embarrassed as I am, I match all three criteria.

- I have a blog (the one you're reading now)
- I live in Tasmania
- and I mentioned the "gay" word in a previous post!

You gotta love stalkers!

Colourful shite

I struggled with my previous blog, I couldn't find anything to writing about. But lately all manner of shite is flowing and I'm still not sure where it's coming from.

One of my pet hates is writing about myself. I'm just so boring. I'm like a dull greyscale image.

Some people just know how to be chromatic...

Thus, in a real sense, I am constantly writing autobiography, but I have to turn it into fiction in order to give it credibility.

Katherine Paterson, The Spying Heart, 1989

Yayyyyyy!!!!!!!!

Thank Budda for TypePad forums!! I've found out I need to use Mozilla as a browser on my Mac.

Found the info I needed at a TypePad Yahoo group. There's also another user group forum here.

Oh wow, oh joy! Now I can SHOUT and slouch and scratch my butt all I want!

The best sites are free.

Bloggers block?

Doonesbury's Daily Dose take on my current phobia... uummmmm.....

Wil he or won't he

Is Wil Wheaton sexier than Arnie?

Start Me Up

I feel like a grandfather out of his depth, but I'm determined to get a handle on this. (I mentioned grandfather because I was remindered of Mick Jagger doing his stuff the other day... he's way too old for it). Anyway this is just a test post to get me started.