Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Just call me Mr Poop-your-pants

A little while ago, on of my friends on YouTube, Cory Williams (AKA Mr Safety of SMP Films) did a video where he wondered if he was doomed to be known as "the Mean Kitty guy". Cory has done a huge amount of work creating online videos and is deservedly one of the top 20 most subscribed people of all time on YouTube.

But by far his most popular video on YouTube is a song he wrote when he acquired an unusually aggressive kitten. Because it was always fighting with him he named it Sparta and wrote a song called "Hey Little Sparta" AKA The Mean Kitty Song.

Prior to this video, Cory's most popular video had been seen well over a million times. The Mean Kitty Song exploded past that and had been viewed around six million times last time I looked. I'm sure Cory was as surprised by this as anyone. Now, whenever he makes a video featuring Sparta it's viewed hundreds of thousands of times within days. All good, but Cory was a little worried that this might ultimately be limiting and he would be forever doomed to be known as "Mean Kitty Guy".

Count your lucky stars.

Judging by the traffic to this blog, I'm likely to be known as "Mr Shit Your Pants". Far and away the most popular thing I've ever written on this blog was my rant about the diet pill "alli" that has the unfortunate effect of making users lose control of their bowels and shit orange oil.

I wrote it almost a year ago and at the time it was a big hit on Reddit and Digg, generating well over 100,000 hits in a matter of days. It appears the appeal of poop humour doesn't fade because somebody re-posted the link to Reddit last week which resulted in another 20,000+ hits. I didn't even know you could re-submit stuff to Reddit (note to self: mark diary for six months from now to submit it again. Muahahahahahah, more readers!)

As much as being known as "Funny Orange Oily Shit Guy" doesn't sound too great, it's better than not being known at all! Plus, it isn't really that bad. Longer term readers of this blog may remember that I almost went to the USA last year to be interviewed for a current affairs show on one of the big 3 broadcast networks. The journalist who found me actually discovered me thanks to the notoriety of that post.

And he didn't want to interview me about people shitting their pants! He was actually researching "anger" and decided because of the popularity of that post I might make a good interview subject. So I am apparently a world-renowned expert on anger.

Hey, Michelle Pfeiffer's first starring role was in "Grease 2" and that didn't hold her back. Poop jokes will always make people laugh but that doesn't mean I'm stuck telling them for the rest of my life!

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=KD4Qi3hro7U

Monday, April 28, 2008

The luckiest people in Australia

There is a "satirical news programme" in Australia known as The Chaser (technically, they have gone through a few names for different series - their latest was called "The Chaser's War on Everything" but let's keep things simple and call them The Chaser.) They specialise in doing public stunts designed to make someone look silly.

The closest approximation I can think of that would make sense for an international audience are the characters of Sascha Baron-Cohen (namely Ali G and Borat). They don't do character based comedy like Baron Cohen, they mostly do something very public and see what reaction they get. So maybe they're closer to Candid Camera than they are to Kazakhstan's finest.

Last year there was a big talk fest in Sydney known as APEC - the Asia Pacific Economic Co-operation forum. This was attended mainly by leaders from the Asia/Pacific area (big surprise) but perhaps the highest profile guest was US President George W Bush. In these nervous times, security was particularly high. Supposedly. Much of Sydney went into total lockdown. Which really pissed off Sydneysiders.

The media were given a briefing that included a warning about how serious the whole affair was. People should not make the mistake of making light of proceedings or causing trouble. Pranks would not be tolerated. The Chaser team were looked at very sternly and pointedly during this lecture. There was an "exclusion zone" into which unauthorised persons were most definitely not allowed. Any protesters or pranksters who broke the exclusion zone would find themselves in a metric shitload of trouble.

And so the inevitable happened. The Chaser team set up a fake motorcade (flying Canadian flags for those who are interested) and drove into the exclusion zone. They got through two of the "security" checkpoints. When they were arrested it looked to me like they were seriously fucked. It didn't seem likely to me that the then in power Federal Government who were responsible for the event would take kindly to being made look like such fools.

Eleven people were arrested, two of them were stars and the others were faceless nobodies who I kind of felt sorry for. I figured the least they were going to get was being totally unable to fly internationally for the rest of their lives. And I suspected they weren't being paid enough to suffer that punishment. I would not have been surprised if some jail terms were handed out.

Anyway, I figure these are the luckiest people in Australia because today the charges were dropped. This link gives a few details and also has a link to a video of the actual prank. They got off on what could be described as a technicality. It wasn't found that breaching the exclusion zone wasn't breaking the law, it's more that it wasn't their fault they got into the exclusion zone.

At the time, I found it very hard to understand why they thought the prank was a good idea. After all, they drove into the middle of some very heavily armed men who were probably very nervous and were unlikely to spend a lot of time figuring out the difference between a prank and a terrorist threat.

Oh yeah, and one of the cast was dressed up in an Osama Bin Laden costume. A really shit Osama costume but there was no doubt who he was meant to be. This action looked like a death wish personified.

As it turns out, they had checked out the first checkpoint the day before and decided there was no way they would get through. And that's why the charges were dropped. Something was different when they actually pulled the prank which is why they got through. But the court decided it was never their intention to breach the exclusion zone and so they got off.

The big joke was to be that when they were refused entry, "Osama" would step out of his limo and say "Why can't I go in?" Hilarity would ensue. But some idiot waved them through. So they drove in. A different idiot waved them through the second checkpoint. They kept driving.

At some point The Chaser team themselves decided "this is a bad fucking situation." Who knows, maybe it was Osama himself who said "Stop driving me toward more guys with machine guns!" They turned their motorcade around and told the security forces something along the lines of "ummmm, fellahs... we really don't want to be here any more. Please don't shoot us."

How do you start a conversation like that?

It's hard to imagine pushing the envelope more than that. A representative has said that just because they got away with this they won't try anything even more outlandish.

Yeah, riiiiiight.

Friday, April 25, 2008

April 25th - ANZAC Day

April 25th is one of the most significant days of the year in Australia. It marks the day that the Australia and New Zealand Army Corp (along with other armed forces of the British Empire) landed on the beaches of Gallipoli on the Turkish peninsula.

A long, bloody, pointless and quite frankly disastrous campaign ensued the ended with a retreat. It was, like all of World War One, an horrific and senseless waste of life. And yet it was certainly a turning point in the establishment of an individual identity for Australia and for modern Turkey. Interestingly, there is quite a bit of closeness between Australia, New Zealand and Turkey over the commemoration of Gallipoli with shared respect for the sacrifices made and bravery shown on both sides. I don't know of any other major conflict where the opposing sides now identify so closely over the conflict.

Here's a video I made to mark this year's ANZAC Day.

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=5hUcgvoC_NM

For anyone who wants to know more, this link leads to the official Australian government site. Also, here's a series of videos I made last year.

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=qqZcZxk-Tws

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=yHRqiF0jyRw

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=4pUtu3DTf7g

Thursday, April 24, 2008

Religion vs. Science

I think I've discovered the secret of the long standing conflict between IT workers and management. Which is to say, one of my commenters (RobMoir) articulated it and I'm totally stealing his concept.

It comes down to the same mentality as religion vs. science.

A true believer in religion doesn't need proof, faith is enough for them. In fact, a lack of faith and a desire to see empirical truth is seen as a severe failing of character by the faithful. Conversely, a follower of science finds it difficult to conceive of how someone could simply not want to undertsand something. The very act of surrendering to a higher power rather continuing the quest for knowledge is incomprehensible to the follower of science.

And that's where the gap in managing IT projects seems to be. Managers all too often seem to operate on principle of religious faith rather than responding to any objective reality. The project plan becomes holy scripture. Or worse still, management exhorts the team to operate on faith alone. "If we all work together, we can meet the delivery date." Reality be damned.

A good IT worker treats a project more like science and asks pertinent questions. What exactly will happen? How will we make it happen? Who specifically has the skills to make it happen? What course of action will we follow when the unexpected inevitably happens?

Mind you, if you want to see an IT worker get religious, start up on their pet operating system / programming language / development methodology / technology platform and/or gaming system. There's nothing quite as fierce as a technology based holy war.

For an illustration I'll provide another slightly dramatised discussion based on a very real experience from my (thankfully distant) past. A bit of context first: I'm a Business Analyst (BA) but there are often two sorts of BAs. One is based with a business unit and represents their interests. This person usually writes a Business Requirements document. The other is an IT based BA who looks at things from a systems basis. This person is often called a Systems Analyst or Technical Analyst and writes a Functional Specification.

In my time, I have been both. Sometimes on the same job. In the following example, I was a Systems Analyst. The BA from the business group was presenting their requirements document and wanted us (the IT group) to sign off. This was the first time we has seen requirements from them. And quite frankly, they were shit. The best bits were ambiguous to the point of being useless and it was full of straight out errors.

The BA's starting point was that me signing off their document was a foregone conclusion. My starting point was that this was a review meeting. If the document didn't pass review it was going back for more work. When we reached the critical point of "No, I'm not signing off on this piece of shit you call a requirements document," the following discussion too place (translations provided for people who don't understand polite business speak).

BA: But this meeting was to get a sign off.
(Translation: It's inconceivable that you could doubt the Holy Scripture.)

ME: This meeting was to review the document, I can't sign it of in its current state.
(Translation: I need proof, not blind faith.)

BA: But the project plan says we have to have this signed off today!
(Translation: The Divine Word from on high tell me it is so - I dare not question.)

ME: Then you should have had review sessions before today so we could have given you the feedback you needed to have it ready for signoff.
(Translation: We sign off requirements when they're right. We don't sign off steaming piles of camel turn simply because an arbitrary date has been reached.)

BA: But to meet the schedule this has to be signed off today. We're delivering it on schedule but you have to sign it off.
(Translation: The schedule said I had to produce a document by today. I produced a document. What could possibly be wrong?)

ME: We can only sign off on the requirements when they're right, not when they schedule says they should be signed off.
(Translation: Was I not clear about the steaming camel turd?)

BA: Well, could you do a "conditional" signoff and we'll make a note of your issues?
(Translation: If you're stupid enough to put your name to this you'll never see me again - it's your problem from then on.)

ME: You've got my feedback, that's all that's coming out of this meeting. There's no way I can sign off on these requirements. Take the feedback to your manager and if he has any issues he can take it up with my manager because I'm under strict instructions to not sign off anything until it's ready to be signed off no matter what the schedule says.
(Translation: We're onto your little games. Now get the fuck out of my face or I'll jam that worthless document down your throat until you choke.)

Surprisingly enough, I did not extend my contract at that place. The job market was very strong at the time and life is far too short to put up with that sort of insanity-inducing dysfunction. Mind you, it did form the basis of my forthcoming thesis "Project Management Failure - an archetypal example of how to fuck things up completely."

Tuesday, April 22, 2008

A message to the crazy bastard on the bus

If I could say one thing to the guy I had to deal with on the bus it would be: "TAKE YOUR FUCKING MEDICATION!"

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=HiWV58cRLZI

Monday, April 21, 2008

Project management disasters

Over more than 10 years of contracting as an IT Business Analyst, I've learned there are two main reasons companies hire contractors. Either they're running some huge sprawling project and want to throw more bodies at it or they don't have the in house expertise for a particular project so they want to bring in an outsider who does.



Although the big, sprawling projects are a major source of employment, I really don't like working on them. The main reason for my dislike is that most of these massive projects are disasters. The company is trying to do too much with too little idea of how to do it. The classic nightmare for IT staff is to be stuck in a project that's date driven.



By "date driven" I mean that the only way the project is measured is by whether or not is it delivered by some totally arbitrary date. It's bad enough when you have to deal with a project manager who wants you to bow down before their Gantt chart as if it's Holy Scripture. But I have actually worked on multi-million dollar projects where all activity is driven by the fact that someone in senior management has said it should be done by a certain date.



There's nothing that fills a development team with horror quite so much as something along the lines of "the new financial system wil be in place before the end of the financial year." And when you ask how that date was arrived at you get little more than "that should be enough time." As an analyst I find that sort of crap particularly galling because people who think this is a good way to run a project usually get pissed off when I start actually doing my job.



They get pissed off because my job is to ask questions and arbitrarily set dates usually don't hold up well to questioning. Here's an approximation of fun conversations that happen on projects like this:



BOSS: The project has to be completed by the end of the year.



ME: What's actually involved?



B: A new CRM system has to be installed. It will replace thee old stand alone systems and make us more efficient.



M: But what's actually involved?



B: I just told you, we're implementing a new CRM system.



M: But what has to happen for that to be installed? You said it's replacing three existing systems, what happens to the data stored in those systems? There's no way we'll be lucky enough that the new system handles data exactly the same way. Can it be configured to handle existing data somehow or will that require programming changes? Or is that not even possible which means we'll have to convert the existing data to a usable format? Can we do that via an automated process or will it have to be done manually? And what about other systems that had interfaces to the systems being replaced? How many interfaces to the new system are required and how long will it take to develop all of them? And what about the users? Have you checked that the new system can actually meet all of their requirements? Are they going to have to change any existing processes in order to use the new system? Have you allowed enough time for training? And how does it affect external suppliers?



(At about this point I can see the boss is making a mental note that I'm a troublemaker. I can see it in his eyes.)



B: We don't know the answers to any of those questions but we've committed to meeting the delivery date. I'm sure if we all get on board and make a commitment as a team we can make it happen.



(At this point I'm making a mental note that the boss is a fucking moron. I hope he can't see it in my eyes.)



M: But you haven't even defined what "it" is. You made a commitment to deliver the project by a set date without even quantifying what work has to be performed. How can you possibly commit to a date when you don't even know what you have to do?



B: If we discover that the volume of work is too much for the existing team to handle then we'll add more people to the team.



M: Have you ever read "The Mythical Man Month"?



B: Never heard of it.



M: That doesn't surprise me.



The book "The Mythical Man Month" was written more than 30 years ago by a manager at IBM. The single most important point in the book can be summarised as "adding people to a project that is already behind schedule will make it later". The main reason for this is that the more people you add, the more convoluted lines of communication become until it gets to the point where communication takes more time than the work itself. There's also the fact that when a project becomes severely behind schedule resourcing usually isn't the main problem. An utter lack of direction from clueless management is usually the bigger issue.

Software development is one of the fastest changing industries in the world. But even after 30 years this book is regarded as one of the fundamental classics in the field. The author jokes that it is referred to as the software development "bible" because of the number of people who say they believe in it but don't follow its teachings in their day to day life.

I have often considered bringing it in to work to show particularly clueless managers. I think that maybe if I brought a really nice hard bound edition in, I might be able to beat them to death with it. And then I realise why I've never moved into management.

I like to be able to face myself in the mirror.

Sunday, April 20, 2008

The meaning of life

Forty Two.

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=-oibb9tMCPA

Douglas Adams knew the score.

Friday, April 18, 2008

Fuck Scientology!

I never got into this whole "Anonymous" is going to take down Scientology thing. I've always thought Scientology sucked - I did their "personality" test about 20 years ago and it was clear that they were evil, manipulative bastards. But I never really spent a lot of effort attacking them.

Until the fuckers decided to start advertising on YouTube. Just after I got partner status. Which means I get fucking Scientology ads next to my videos. Now *I* know the fact that an ad appears next to my video doesn't mean I endorse that product. But I know there are some people stupid enough to make that assumption.

Luckily, I don't give a shit about stupid people.

But I have to admit, seeing an ad for something as evil as Scientology next to my videos creeped me right out. Even I started to suspect I was endorsing Scientology. This would not stand. YouTube doesn't actually give partners the ability to block certain advertising - they just serve up whatever they feel like. I don't like feeling powerless. So I took action!

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=bfbYOAq2XIU

Just in case anyone thought I was gonna wuss out now I'm a partner.

Thursday, April 17, 2008

Hey, I'm Famous!

Well, kind of. YouTube have decided to send out press releases about the launch of the Partner Program in Australia. They asked if I'd be OK with doing some media about the fact that I'm in the partner program and be a total attention whore I said "Sure!"

So I was actually mentioned in a few media outlets, was quoted in the Australian Gizmodo website and I might be doing some radio and TV interviews. Which actually gives me pause for thought. I just started a new job, I'm not sure I want them seeing what freaky things I do online.

Oh well.

This all coincides nicely with a video I did exploring the obsession some people have with being "famous".

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=aMirRkTf68Q

Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Technology worship is stupid

For those who haven't noticed, I'm a bit of a geek. I'm not so obsessed with being the first to have the latest and greatest tech toys as I once was but I do still love gadgets. I have a weakness for shiny things with blinkenlights.

So by most standards I qualify as a technophile. But it never ceases to amaze me how stupid people can get when they start waxing lyrical about what great positive changes better technology could make to all our lives. For instance, an article in Popular Mechanics titled "10 Genius Inventions We're Still Waiting For."

To their credit, this is not another "where's my jetpack and personal robot?" article. But I'm astonished at how shallow their thinking is, particularly when they describe these as "genius" inventions. Admittedly, not all of the ideas are stupid. But some of them are really fucking moronic.

1. Sonic Showers
First up is a pretty reasonable idea. Given access to water is rapidly approaching crisis point, even in developed countries, some way to get clean without using water is a good idea. And the technology required hardly seems impossible.

2. Augmented Reality
OK, now it's getting stupid. AR is described as some sort of headset that would filter the real world and block out "inappropriate" sights and sounds. Oh my fucking god. Who could possibly think this is a good idea? The article sells it as a way to block out billboards and maybe protect delicate young ears from profanity.

Fuck that. Did you hear me kids? FUCK THAT! The potential for abuse is simply mind boggling. From totalitarian governments, to greedy commercial interests, to absurdly over-protective parents to hackers with a warped sense of humour. Any society that implemented a device like this would implode within years.

Even if it was never used maliciously, technical issues could easily have catastrophic consequences. The Blue Screen of Death would become a very literal concept if you were wearing AR goggles while driving.

3. Life Simulator
OK, you know this one is fucked from the sound of its name. The idea is that you should plug every life question into a computer and have it make your decisions for you. This is so horribly fucked I hardly know where to begin. Let's start with the fact that "right and wrong" are relative concepts. One person's right is easily another person's wrong. And in any case, they definitely aren't binary. Life isn't so simple that you can break it down into yes/no moments.

And in any case, have your life's decisions dictated by a fucking computer program???? Again, the possibilities for abuse are almost endless. And even if nobody tried to manipulate you, the software would still be written by a *shudder* computer programmer. I'm sure none of us have ever met a computer programmer who makes poor life/social choices.

4. Acoustic Cloaking Shell
This one is quite seductive and, if done right, would have some good benefits. But it's still riddled with problems. So you live in a noisy area but your domicile is blissfully quiet thanks to your Acoustic Cloaking Shell. How much of a shock would it be when you opened your door to be blasted with 100+ decibels of noise? And I mean you could quite literally go into shock from the trauma. Plus there's the issue of not hearing someone outside yelling "You're house is on fire!"

5. Legged-Robot Everything
Legged robots may well the wave of the future and I definitely want my own Gundam suit (even if it's made by Toyota). But the direction writer takes this in is staggeringly stupid. Live in a 2 room house - 1 to store robot furniture and 1 to actually live in? Apparently all we need is mobile, automatically changing furniture to be happy. First, you'd be totally screwed when (not if) your robot furniture broke down. Second, move the furniture around all you like, I want more than one fucking room to live in.

6. Nontangling Cable
This one is a no-brainer. Definitely a great invention waiting to happen.

7. Insect Force Field
Another good one although I suspect it would take a true genius to overcome the hurdles with this one. Making the barrier non-audible to humans and animals, non-cancer causing, effective against all insects, non-interfering with other devices. It's a big ask. And I worry what would happen to a person who's never been bitten by an insect when they inevitably comes that they're without their force field.

8. Megatracking System
Oh fuck off. Micro-devices that track everything in the world? Does anyone need me to actually explain why this idea is horrendously bad? We have little enough privacy as it is without companies and governments being able to track every item we own.

9. Kid OnStar
Same as above. A tracking device for kids. Give the kids a mobile phone if you need to. Besides all the invasion of privacy issues, kids generally are more technologically savvy than adults. They'd find a way to screw with this system in no time flat.

10. Auto Memory
Excuse the fuck out of me if I'm too busy living my life to record every fucking detail of it. And then there's the insurmountable privacy problems: you've got the same problems of companies, governments and hackers fucking with your "memories". This is stupid techno-weenie fantasy jack-off material.

I've worked in technology long enough to know that many geeks are smarter than the people they have to answer to, sometimes by orders of magnitude. And a lot of people are frustrated by the fact that we seem to be led not by the smartest but the craftiest, most ruthless or best looking. Why don't geeks run the world?

This article is exhibit 1 in the case of why things are the way they are. If geeks ran the world, some pretty stupid shit would happen.

DISCLAIMER: Of course I know stupid shit happens now. Maybe a geek run world would be better. But it astonishes me how much techno-fetishists can be oblivious to the stupidity of their ideas.

Tuesday, April 15, 2008

The Devil's Playground

You know how some fundamentalist religious types think the Harry Potter books are encouraging devil worship? Well, they really wouldn't like the playground i took my kids to on the weekend.

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=xq-A0n_C2gc

For those who don't know, the "Angry Aussie" theme in this video (and others) was done for me by the most awesome muso on YouTube, the one and only NSG!
http://au.youtube.com/nsgmusic
http://www.nsg-music.co.uk

If you like it, you can download the full MP3 from:
http://www.knivesforapro.com/angryaussie/


Saturday, April 12, 2008

Mr Safety says: "Say NO to Crack!"

Crack is a terrible scourge in today's society. You might have thought a nice city from Melbourne wouldn't have a problem with crack but as this video plainly shows, crack is a problem here. This video was shot in the middle of the day in a crowded shopping mall. The crack abuser was oblivious to the crowds. That's how bad crack abuse can be.

Thank god someone as prominent as Mr Safety has stepped forward to speak out against this scourge.

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=qZwtscXjMRs

Where were the police? That's what I want to know! Melbourne is the home of Fashion Week - the fashion police should have been on hand to tell this fool of a girl to pull her jeans the fuck up!

Tuesday, April 08, 2008

Dealing with online bigotry

Here's the final part of my little series on online bigotry. In this video I talk about ways to deal with it when you're on the receiving end of bigotry.

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=rAviVXFBw94

To me, the single most important thing to remember when you're faced with these morons is that it's all about you. Don't waste time worrying about changing the hateful attitude of bigots - you can't change them and it isn't worth the time and effort you'd waste trying. Decide what works for you and go with that.

If you want to launch into them (like, ummmm... me) then go for it. If you want to ignore them, then do that. If you want to delete their comments and block them from making further comments that's your right. Don't listen to any bullshit about "free speech" or how you have to "debate" with them if you disagree with them.

If you take the trouble to create a blog, a website, a forum, a YouTube channel, you have the right to define how that works. If these worthless, hopeless, gutless losers don't like what you do, they can fuck off and do something of their own.

I'm not in favour of developing "codes of conduct" or anything similar. I think they're impossible to enforce in practice and more than a little lame conceptually. If people don't understand how to act like a decent human being then don't waste your time on them.

Sunday, April 06, 2008

Mugabe demands vote recount in Zimbabwe

Did you hear the one about how Robert Mugabe is going to peacefully hand over power after losing an election? No, neither did I...

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=lShd3zeetAw

Some reading for those who are interested:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7332941.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/643737.stm

Saturday, April 05, 2008

US invades Iran!

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=BmAd2wuccqo

Sorry to anyone who thought that headline was real. Actually, it's well known that the Bush Administration *is* actually making plans/excuses to attack Iran. Which would be fucking suicidal by the way.

But this isn't actually about the real situation of Bush, Cheney and the rest of those insane bastards wanting to plunge the world into hell with their completely fucked plans about Iran.

It's just some weird shit that was in my head. And I wanted to wear my new hat in a video.

Friday, April 04, 2008

Bigotry Online (part three)

I rambled so much when I was making my video about online bigotry that I filled up my memory card before I'd said everything I wanted to say. So I shot some more on another day. I even found another nice seaside location to shoot at.

In this part I talk about (among other things) my own first-hand experiences with racism when some stupid people seemed to think I was an Asian female.

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=D3XuLK8R1Ak

There is one more part to this series of videos where I talk about strategies on how to deal with online bigotry. Stay tuned.

Thursday, April 03, 2008

Happy Blog Birthday to me

Well, I've officially been a blogger for more than two years. The fact that I didn't do anything big to mark the actual day (which was about a week ago) is unfortunately a reminder that I have no been particularly focused on this blog of late.

The name of the blog, Angry 365 Days a Year, was a description of a challenge I set myself when I first started: write something angry at least once a day, every day, for a year. I actually achieved this, partly by driving myself crazy a few times in my desperation to maintain my average. Once the first year was over I relaxed a little, promising myself that I wouldn't get to worked up if I missed the occasional day.

Even so, for quite a while I was still averaging 25-30 posts a month. The turning point was when I took time off work to organise the YouTube gathering in Melbourne last year. I never realised how much I relied on the rhythm of a workday - 90% of my blog posts were written in my lunch hour. Without that pattern, I found it very hard to make the time to sit down and type a post.

Also, YouTube has been taking up more and more of my time. For some reason I find it easier to make videos than it is to write blog posts, even though making the videos takes longer. Thinking of the idea, shooting it, editing and rendering the video, then uploading it takes at least 2 or 3 hours. And that's not even factoring in the time I use up answering comments.

It took me almost 18 months to reach 1,000 subscribers on YouTube and in the last 6 months I've gone up to almost 4,000. Along with this, the number of comments on each video has gone up gradually from a handful to at least 100 for each video, often more than 200. So given my obsessive need to answer comments, most days I'm answering well over 100 comments (as I still get a lot of comments on old videos.)

One of the reasons YouTube has become more appealing for me than the blog is there is much more instant gratification on YouTube. It is much easier to find an audience on YouTube than it is on an individual blog as YouTube aggregates the videos in a way blog hosts don't. On the other hand, achieving success with a blog post feels more satisfying as you have to do it yourself.

And while there are more people watching YouTube than there are reading blogs, I shouldn't underestimate the power of a popular blog post. After all the closest I've come to a "big break" has come via this blog. My infamous "alli diet pills make you shit oil" post was noticed by someone from one of the American broadcast networks and I was almost interviewed for one of their feature programs. I'm still kind of bitter that didn't go through but that's the way things go sometimes in this big, tough world.

Well, I'm about to start a new contract. The last one was pretty stressful and I never regained the rhythm of writing in my lunch break - I essentially had to get the fuck out of the building for an hour each day. Maybe this one will be a bit more balanced and I'll get back to writing regularly.


Anyway, to round off, I want to thank everyone for their support (for however long you've been with me). Particular thanks to the die-hards who've been reading almost from the start, like Sandra with whom I pretty much share a blog birthday. It's been quite an adventure and I'm not about to stop now!

Tuesday, April 01, 2008

Angry April Fool's Day Prank

It's April Fool's Day so I figured it might be expected to do a prank. So here goes:

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=C6Jrq4SXTV8

For anyone who has to ask: Yes, this is totally for real and my neighbour is now dead.

The music used in the video is "Badman" by NSG from his debut album "Working Class Superstar". He's a legend, check him out.

And for those who are interested, here's the previous prank involving the same neighbour and Mr Safety. Note that I'm not totally heartless, this prank is more on Mr Safety than on the neighbour.

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=_4k7N38-s1A