This is fairly amazing. Next step has to be a meteor or comet you’d think

The news tonight quoted economists saying that the RBA will lift rates 4x this year, and soon Australian’s will be paying double digital interest rates.

The Recession We Had To Have Mk 2 is around the corner.

Consider that when interest rates last peaked, housing was that much more affordable. The place I spent my teen years in Sydney in cost my folks $120,000 in 1987, the sold it for something like $250,000 in 1994. The same house today would be worth something like $1-1.2million

Even if we look at more humble property, average house prices vary from $300k-$600k in the capital cities, most people with mortgages will owe on average 70-80% on that. Recent figures I read suggested that the average mortgage in Australia was now $305,000 or similar. 1 or 2% on top of what they’re now paying is hundreds a month, even 3 figures a week. People will bleed, people will lose.

The solution: not entrenching RBA independence as Rudd has done, the RBA are to blame here. Take it off them. So what if inflation is slightly above 3%, we can sustain 4-5% fairly reasonably. The RBA is going to destroy middle Australia, and as much as the economic conditions are mostly the Howard Governments fault, Rudd is the guy who can fix this, and he’s not going to.

I’ve got till October to earn 510 more status points to qualify for Qantas FF Gold, which means free Qantas Club. I’ll probably (well definitely) miss that target, but I need 110 to retain Silver before October (business class check in, and preference on seats), and that means one return trip to the States.

Here’s a rough travel plan for the next month.?Ǭ†

Move to Melbourne (1 way): 21 February (TBC)
Sydney for Adobe function: 26/27 February
Las Vegas for Microsoft Mix: leave 3 March, return 8 March (landing the 10th).?Ǭ†

I’ve never been to Las Vegas before, and the Venetian as well. I’m looking forward to it, and thanks to Nick for making the trip happen, it’s just sad that he won’t be there as well.

iMovie 08 was widely derided as a downgrade from iMovie 06, but given my previous video editing experience had consisted of once using Sony Vegas, I didn’t have a lot of preconcieved ideas.

There’s a lot to like about iMovie 08. Editing is insanely simple, and it supports direct uploading to YouTube, a feature I’ve found myself using already. It lacks some features, like inline text shots, and not having a timeline and marking is a little annoying, but for most of the video I’m going to cut that’s not a big issue.

My big issue is HD. My new Canon HG10 records in 1080p (or i…but 1080 something) so it’s “Full HD.” Importing isn’t particularly fast because the biggest flaw in the Camera is a USB2 connection instead of Firewire…I should have checked that pre-purchase, but it’s minor, it still takes amazing pictures. iMovie 08 imports the AVCHD file format (apparently earlier editions didn’t) and its just like editing any other video. The problem is then exporting to HD. iMovie doesn’t, at least it doesn’t for me. I can export it to a Quicktime .mov or mp4/ mv4 in HD, but I cant simply export it to a DVD, either directly or even via iDVD. I tried the mp4 export in HD and the quality was shite, .mov export sat for 30 minutes and hadn’t moved past 10%, so I gave up, which left me to export the file in SD to iDVD. It shouldn’t be this hard, and with HD camcorders soon to become the default in the market over the next few years (mine was the amazing cheap $850 US, with 40gb HD built in), you’d think Appple, which prides itself on ease of use for consumers, would cater to that.

On a bright note though, once I got the now SD file into iDVD, the rest was plain sailing. God iDVD is a good program. The DVD intro I made in seconds was kick ass, and the burning wasn’t super quick on the MacPro superdrive, but it was reasonable enough. End result was great, SD instead of HD aside.

Apple, please fix!

This video was released a couple of days back, but in case you missed it

My politics, if I were American, is probably soft Republican with a strong Libertarian bent, and yet every time I see Obama speak I’m overawed. I heard a Republican today on News Radio’s stream of NPR’s Super Tuesday coverage and he said that although he was Republican, he’d vote for Obama because the guy is just awe inspiring. I agree. America needs a change, if not for its own sake, but for that of the world. Although the many American readers of this blog my rightfully suggest that I have no place providing punditry on US politics, I’d remind you that when America sneezes, the whole world gets a cold. America needs new, fiscally responsible leadership so that the whole world can prosper, because when America is prosperous itself, we all benefit, no matter where we live. Pulling US troops out of Iraq and plowing the savings back into the US budget would be a great first step, and Obama promises this. It also helps that Obama is the most tech friendly of the presidential candidates as well. Make a change, and consider making history, you could do far worse, and indeed you have already done so in the last 7 years.

I nearly bought tickets for Spamalot when I was in New York in late 2006, but I never did, and I’d regretted it ever since. Today I had the opportunity to see the local production in Melbourne.

First, like all shows these days tickets weren’t cheap at $117.50 for A Reserve tickets, which actually ended up being Row Q at Her Majesty’s in Melbourne. I’d never been to Her Majesty’s before and it’s probably half the size of the Princess Theatre where most big shows end up in Melbourne. We were under the overhang, but only to the point where we could just see everything…one row back and we would have been screwed.

The show itself was everything I expected. The absurdness of the original Monty Python genius is captured in a stage play that combines some classic Monty Phython movies, skits and songs with new material. The Australian cast are relatively unknowns (well B list in terms of leads anyway), but together they were first rate. The imagery combined with some clever visual gags had the audience in stitches. There were a few parts that may have pushed the boundaries a little bit; a whole number related to needing Jews in a Broadway play, complete with ethnic dancing and a huge Star of David may have been a witty take on a truth, or borderline anti-Semitic. The humor relating to gay coupling also pushed the edge, and although done in light spirit, could possibly offend the gay community at times, but certainly a lot less than any hard core God loving homophobes who hate any representation of gay coupling. All up it is perhaps PG rated, we took our 5 year old and he had a great time, but the language may make it unsuitable for some parents who don’t want their kids exposed to that…god botherers mostly.

All up it was a splendid two and a half hours of laughter, music, visual serendipity and Monty Python stupidity. If you like Monty Python, or love a good comedy musical, you’ll enjoy Spamalot.

Some people think I only write negative stories on this blog, and that’s not true, although I do like pointing out the wrongs in this world. Here’s a positive shout out to the great folks at the Australian Customs Service.

Qantas, in its infinite wisdom, was running very late out of SFO Friday night, and I originally had about 2 1/2 hours between landing in Sydney and the connecting flight to Perth at the domestic terminal (in Sydney they are opposite sides of the airport itself, and not connected in any way).

I land with about 40 minutes to spare. Get to the first check point and the customs officer is very pleasant and polite. I mention to her that I’m pushing it for the connecting flight, she asked whether I had an express pass, I said no (and that I had no idea what that was), she said Qantas should have given me one but as long as she could see my next ticket she could sort me out. And she did.

Next was the luggage. At this stage I was probably 30 minutes off the plane and still no bag….Qantas again. Eventually get the bag and I’m down to 20 minutes. I go looking for the express lane (Sydney customs is insanely big…bigger infact than SFO…although there is one point at SYD, but two at SFO, so combined SFO would be bigger). Out of no where a customs office approaches me and pleasently asks whether she can offer asistance. I quickly explain that I have the express ticket and that I’m down to 20 minutes. She asked me what was in the Duty Free bag, I showed her, she said something like “that’s fine” then stamped my express ticket and told me to go straight to the end of the room. This apparently was the uber-express door, because the guy on the door looked at the stamp and waved me right through, no queuing, no screening, no nothing, straight out into the terminal so I can go to the domestic transfer lounge. Made it to the domestic terminal as the plane was boarding, but made it.

This story is not to say that Customs officers in the US are bad…well they aren’t great in New York but the SFO ones are fine…but they’re officious and humorless, where as I was greeted by smiling faces and people who were more than happy to help me in Sydney. They say that impressions count for everything when people visit somewhere, and I’m proud to say that those visiting Australia via Sydney for the first time will get a great first impression. Kudos to the fine officers of the Australian Customs Service for a job well done and helping me out.

I made this short video of the San Francisco BART for my son who still loves his trains. If you’ve got kiddies they might find it interesting, other than that paint drying may provide a more interesting alternative 🙂

Note this is a stream of conscious post, hence the dot points and perhaps not completely joining concepts. I’ve done this previously, and I enjoy the format, but it’s been a while hence the preamble.

• The more I write, the more I love doing it. It’s like a drug that you can’t give up.
• It’s no secret that I’ve wanted to go back to doing a startup. I’d hoped to have the business plan finished, but it’s still not quite there..well, at least it needs at least 3 proof reads and the last couple of pages finished. The thing that’s held me back is writing.
• And yet, I love what I do.
• Having spent that better part of the last decade in Country WA, I’ve been isolated. For a long time I thought that perhaps I was the only one that loved writing and UGC. When I started the Blog Herald I soon discovered that I was wrong. The first startup came and went, and I met more people. But in the last nearly 18 months the Web 2.0/ UGC movement has taken off in Australia, and I’ve discovered I’m not alone
• I know that not every thing I write will be agreed with, but I love nothing more than seeding a decent conversation, even when that means sometimes I’m in the minority. I’ve learnt a lot this way, and I’ve even changed my opinion based on the discussions and arguments I’ve participated in, or listened to
• I’m somewhat tempted to continue creating content, and I think the next natural stage is video. I’m not sure how attractive my noggin is in HD, but I need to explore the possibilities.
• The question then becomes later in the year, do I keep doing what I’m doing now, but expanded into video, or do something different, or ultimately can I do both, in some way or another.
• Either way, I’ve been blessed this last 12 months. I’ve made great new friends, folks like Nick Hodge come to mind, but there are others as well (so apologies for not trying to name everyone). One part of me says it cant last, but ultimately we have some control over our own destiny, karma perhaps aside, so I hope it does. If you’d asked me two years ago that I’d have traveled to the US on multiple occasions, sat through a Steve Jobs keynote, met amazing people, driven a car on more than one trip on the wrong side of the road and not hit anything, bought at AT&T sim card, knew where to find things in Fry’s Palo Alto by memory….well I would have laughed.
• My thanks to those who have supported me along the way. Those who have been patient, who have tolerated my failings, who have none the less returned, and on the most part been supportive going forward. I can only hope to meet more of you in person in th ecoming years. Being on the East Coast (Melbourne) should help with that I’d hope.