Pete does stuff… no really, he does!
So, in that last post I said I wanted to start doing stuff… and well, it’s been fairly busy since making that decision.
So a few weekends ago my mate Cameron had a Guitar Hero World Tour party… and it rocked… as I did, like the bastard love-child of Van Halen, Freddie Mercury and Hendrix… yea that’s what Hendrix meant when he said “excuse me while I kiss this guy” (most people miss-hear that lyric and think he’s actually saying “scuse me while I kiss the sky”… but now you know better).
It turned-out to be a much bigger night than anticipated… lots of drinking… 4 incredibly geeky guys rocking-out with plastic instruments thinking for one night we genuinely were rock gods.. well, until we ran out of alcohol and then noticed the sun was coming-up.
The next weekend was filled with ferry-floss and rides. Well, I’m not a huge fan of either, but that didn’t detract from the weekend. One of my clients is responsible for organising an annual community festival (Centenary Rocks Festival) which featured lots of market stalls, live bands, international foods, rides etc. etc. So we spent the day on Saturday supporting that and then on Sunday it was Caleb’s school fete.
The weekend just gone, Kristy and I went to a Tirty-Tree and a Tird (aka thirty-three and a third) Irish-themed birthday party for one of Kristy’s old school friends. We donned our green gear and Guinness’ and partied like a Leprechaun who just discovered how to turn potatoes into gold. Highlight of the evening was an incredibly drunk, but amazingly entertaining engineer who helped get us into the mind-set of processed meat/chicken… before being processed. Not so-much the gruesome parts, but more-so the potential confusion and how that confusion would be communicated to the other animals (who were affectionately given Aussie slang nicknames). Spose you had to be there.
Then, slot-in the odd BBQ here and there and that sums-up the last few weekends… in between the weekends, I’ve also been doing a bit of work-related socialising / networking. Recently there was an event on the topic of Twitter, and since I like to consider myself a social media aficionado (actually, I’m not really, but I do like using the word aficionado), I was quite comfortable with the subject-matter making it a really enjoyable networking experience. They also had a projection screen behind the speakers with a live Twitter feed monitoring all the tweets pertaining to the event (which provided the perfect opportunity for me to make a few humorous, yet relevant one-liners about things being discussed… and got a few chuckles from the audience in the process).
Yesterday afternoon I caught-up with my good mate Gerard who’s back in town for a few weeks and as a means of promoting his new business venture (and also just to meet some of the local talent) we organised a SEO meetup. I’ve arranged and been to a handful of these in the past and they’ve never been huge, but always entertaining. This one was no different and I think all the guys enjoyed it.. well, all but one lady that had no idea about SEO and was trying to peddle some self-help multi-level online money making marketing product that she couldn’t share too much info about.
Strangely enough, she seemed horrified when we mentioned that SEO does have a technical aspect to it and it requires knowledge/time/effort/money etc. etc. I think she was hoping we’d tell her if you simply do XYZ you’ll rank #1… sorry love, it just doesn’t work like that 
Tomorrow night there’s a Brisbane Twitter User Brigade (BTUB) pub crawl that I’m planning on going along to as well. Yea, I know… this along with the last few events sounds pretty geeky, but hey – it’s all about getting out there, meeting new people and doing something a bit different. If that means using a social networking tool such as Twitter as an icebreaker, then so-be-it. Besides, some geeks DO know how to party… ok, ok, yea maybe we don’t… but any group of people become a lot more interesting when copious amounts of alcohol are involved.
Read MoreWeekend at Bunya Mountains, Michael Jackson homage, music, some strange photo sites, coffee making robots and The Maxx…
Wow, I just re-read that title and it sounds jam-packed with goodness, so I thought I should add this disclaimer before you read the rest of my post: I do not guarantee, or even make any claim that the following text will be as interesting or informative as the title… there is however a good few paragraphs of waffle with a few vids inbetween to break-up the monotony… so that being said… enjoy (or don’t – it’s entirely up to you).
So it’s been a week of surprises – my weekend in the mountains (without mobile phone or internet coverage) was really good. My sister, Karen introduced us to a game where you take a random object and pretend it’s something else. For instance, you take a shoe, hold it up to your ear and everyone has to guess that you’re pretending it’s a phone. Although simple, the game actually gets rather interesting once all the obvious scenarios are done.
Karen explained to us that the game was introduced as a study to identify how lateral a child’s mind is and to some extent, gain an indication of their overall quick-wittedness and intelligence. Sort-of like a word association game, but instead with objects. All I can say is that my family (and myself included) are rather inventive, quite funny but I’m not so sure about intellectual
Then on Monday night I did my first-ever public speaking gig which also, surprisingly, went really really well. I’d go as far as to say that it went so well that I’d happily do it again. If you’re interested in reading some of the geeky SEO things discussed, you can check it out at my work blog.
Then in other news this-morning I hear that Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett are both dead… not related and their deaths don’t really have any impact at all on me personally – sure I liked some of Jacko’s music and think his title of ‘King of Pop’ is justified considering his career… although he also is the King of Crazy amongst other things, but I won’t go into that and I’ll avoid making any jokes [for now] as I think that anyone who passes deserves at least a little respect for them and their loved ones (yes, even the crazy ones).
So in honour of his death, here’s a homage to MJ via Darth Vader:
While we’re on the topic of music (how was that for a segway?) PlayStation have just launched a new, free, music video service VidZone which looks pretty cool. Now if you’re as geeky as I am, you’re probably thinking that since PS3 has a web browser and supports media servers, why would you need a dedicated music service when there’s YouTube and other streaming options via your PC? Well, I agree, it isn’t necessary, but from a quick play lastnight the quality seems good and it’s easy to use, so it ticks all the right boxes… and I imagine that it’s targeted to people who probably don’t use their PS3s to stream YouTube so with that in mind, it looks like a good little service.
Last thing related to music… the following clip was sent to me via a Twitter buddy and I have to say I really like the song and the filmclip is awesome:
Moving away from music and onto photos… This is photo bomb – a website devoted to the delicate art of inserting ones self (or finding someone or something distracting) into other’s seemingly legitimate photos. Or if you’ve got family snaps like those found on this next site, you don’t even need photobombing: Awkward Family Photos.
And finally, last photo-related thing, I stumbled across a project started by Ze Frank called Youngme / Nowme. The site is dedicated to replicating old photos, so you get a photo of you riding your first bike, or sitting on the potty or something typical of kids, and then you try and replicate that photo by wearing a similar outfit and get a snap of you trying to ride a kids bike… it sounds a bit silly, but I love the concept and some of the photos are pretty funny.
Do you like coffee and robots? I certainly do, so if you’re like me, then check-out this super terrific Japanese coffee making robot thing (I think that’s the correct term for it if my translation skills are accurate):
And last, but certainly not least – I like obscure comics / cartoons and years and years ago I was a big fan of the short-lived series The Maxx. Much to my delight, I just found you can watch full episodes of the show at MTV’s Maxx website.
That’s it from me peoples – have a good weekend if I don’t post anything beforehand!
Read MoreHoly crap it’s cold
I can’t believe another week has just disappeared and I barely noticed it. Ok, that’s a small lie – I had a small freak-out earlier in the week over some work stuff (nothing amazingly critical, but I like to keep a calm and level head about most things and due to a few challenges I was struggling to do this) but all is good again now and ticking along again nicely.
Last weekend I spent a lot of time playing PS3 with Caleb and one of the demo’s we downloaded was for a game called inFamous and it was awesome. So I was quite pleased when one of my fav game reviewers gave it a thumbs-up (or at least what could be best described as a thumbs-up since this guy would struggle to say something nice about his own mother)… here’s his review:
We’ve also had the coldest day this year and it hit zero degrees at my place. There was ice on my windscreen this-morning when I left for work. ICE! Now I’ve seen ice before, I’ve seen snow… I’ve even been snowboarding (or more correctly I had a snowboard strapped to my feet as I rolled down a ever so slight hill in the ‘childrens practice slopes’ a few years ago in Switzerland)… but here and now I’m in Queensland – a place affectionately referred to as the sunny state of Australia. The place where it’s beautiful one day and perfect the next… and I had ICE on my windscreen. This certainly isn’t perfect, it’s not even good… ICE!
Even now as I look out the window it looks like a beautiful warm day, yet it’s not… sure the sun is out, but it’s not hot, it’s not even warm. My fingers are like little frozen sausages as I try and type. Normally I bitch about the heat and how hot, humid and sweaty it gets in summer time and I’ve said more than once how much I like the colder weather, but ICE… in June… in Queensland? C’mon people… where’s the global warming now? I should start burning tyres using an lighter and as many aerosol cans as I can strap together (and as a side-note kiddies, I’m not condoning the raping of our environment just because I’m cold and I’m certainly not suggesting that anyone tries to create a mega flame-thrower by strapping a dozen aerosol’s together… but if you do, can you please upload the results to YouTube as I’m sure it’d be funny and definitely put you in the runnings for the next Darwin Awards).
Anyways, despite being cold and bored and not wanting to do work, I don’t really have anyone to delegate my daily tasks to and if I don’t get them done, I’ll have twice as much to do on Monday, so I better get off my ice-cold butt-cheeks and do something productive.
I’ll leave you with this one final thing I read about a few days ago which sounded pretty cool: The MP3 Experiment.
Read MoreIt’s been party-time lately
Over the last few weekends, it has been time to P.A.R.T… why? Because we gotta!
It all started a few weeks ago with Scotty’s 25th which was a themed James Bond Casino Royale party.
There were Russian Spy’s, suits, tuxes, bow ties, cocktail dresses and one very large golden gun (no pun intended – Scotty’s best mate Tucker turned-up with a Hellboy sized golden toy gun). Was an awesome night with cocktails freely flowing, poker playing, guitar heroing and as the night was drawing to a close, we thought it might be fun to continue partying-on with some uni students who were having a gathering a few houses down the road. Unfortunately our stealth efforts and smooth talking failed miserably and mission ‘uni student party crash’ was aborted very quickly.
The following weekend I had a (very) belated 30th party. Wanting to bring-out the geek in everyone, I themed my party around Internet Phenomena, which basically translates to anything that has gained mass popularity via the Internet.
I wasn’t sure how it would go, but it turned-out a lot better than I could have ever imagined. We had friends turn-up dressed as myspace, the “net”, lol cats, ask a ninja (me), home star runner (Kristy), hotmail, twitter, google, red tube, there were demotivational and other internet-related T-shirts. I was honestly surprised we didn’t get a ‘trent from punchy‘ or a ‘star wars kid‘ and very thankful we didn’t get anyone thinking they were Beyonce.
As the night got-on and after drinking a lot of beer (including a rather potent Quadrupel beer from the Netherlands which was given to me as a gift from the Kintek crew) we thought it’d be fun to have a go at this:
Kristy’s MacGyver skills quickly turned some fence paling’s, a piece of elastic, some string and a bag of marshmallow’s into our own back-yard version of the gameshow above. And these were the results:
A few days after the party, I headed down to Sydney for the Annual Search Marketing Expo / Conference – SMX Sydney. As far as search marketing conferences go, this is one of (if not THE) best and attracts some of the most knowledgeable guest speakers from all around the world.
I won’t bore you with all the search geekiness (if you want that sort-of stuff, you should read my work blog) but the minute that the last speaker finishes, all search marketers (regardless of where in the world you’re from) share another common interest – DRINKING!
Needless to say, it was a very big three days of learning and business networking, followed by three very big nights of partying. If you’re a friend of mine on Facebook, you can see the photos from the event on there or follow the many Twitter references to SMX.
This coming weekend is Easter and other than catching-up with my family for a BBQ, it should be a quiet one and I’m really looking forward to doing nothing!
Read MoreBusy but not that interesting
The last couple of weeks have been busy, but nothing overly interesting has been happening.
I’ve been getting back into business networking and blogging (all for work purposes) and half work, half social – I’ve had some beers with some other local search marketers. Also met one of the guys responsible for the Best Job In The World campaign run by Tourism QLD and met a few other people who have done some notable stuff in the search space… so I’ve found it really interesting, but that’s because I really like what I do.
On the topic of work blogging, I moved my search marketing blog to a slightly new location (previously it was http://blog.sitemost.com.au but now you can find it at http://www.sitemost.com.au/blog )… I’ve also started guest-blogging – a post of mine should be going live next week on Search Engine People, and I’m trying to get back into commenting (and doing the odd guest post) on SEOmoz.
So while a bunch of stuff has been happening, it’s all pretty boring unless you’re me…
Read MoreGo, trig boy! It’s your birthday!
Yes, today is my birthday. Nothing particularly incredible about it, other than the fact that I’ve just turned 30 which is somewhat of a milestone… I recall when I was a little kid, I used to think that middle-aged was about 30-35… it’s funny how opinions change as you get older
Although not technically for my birthday, I had a really great weekend – we went to the Game On Exhibition – An action-packed celebration of videogames culture tracking the development from the earliest computer games to arcade-era hits and the very latest from today’s billion-dollar industry. With more than 100 playable games, as well as rarely seen consoles, controllers and collectables, it was a showcase of games history like no other. I was in heaven!
On Sunday I caught-up with a couple of search marketing guys who I met at a conference last year. It was good to share a few beers and have someone to talk to about geeky search stuff (the stuff that would put most people to sleep)… and on the topic of search marketing, I owe a HUGE thank you to everyone who got behind me and voted on my T-Shirt design for the Search Engine College competition. If you have no idea on what I’m talking about, check-out the build-up to it here.
I have to say I was honestly amazed at how far word spread and the number of people that voted. I had family, friends, the families and friends of friends, it was promoted via Facebook, on Twitter… emails were flying around from people I haven’t seen in years saying ‘nice design’… it was quite literally incredible and I honestly had trouble believing how many people voted.
What’s better yet – I won!!! So that was a nice little birthday present. The prize is some search training material, a ticket to an expensive search conference in Sydney later this year and the proud honour of knowing I’m responsible for the T-Shirt used to promote the Search Engine College for 2009.
Due to my general lack of organisation, the fact that there has been a lot happening this month I didn’t quite get around to arranging a birthday party for me… but all is not lost – in the next few weeks I’m going to have a geeky celebration like no other. The theme of the party will be Internet phenomena – those people and events that have gained famed and notoriety as a direct result of the Internet. Some are tragic, some are incredibly funny and most are just plain wrong. It should be a fun night – I might even advertise it on MySpace
So that’s it for me… I’m off to the movies to see The Wrestler.
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