I somehow managed to forget in my previous posts to provide an update on the publishing phenomenon that is H.M. Brown.
I attended the book launch at a quaint bookshop in Warragul a week or so ago. A "quaint" bookshop - for those lacking specific industry knowledge - is like any other bookshop, only smaller.
Anyway, I've never been to a book launch before, so I felt terribly important to be invited.
Yesterday I went to a signing at the Collins bookstore in Traralgon. If I was a real friend and supporter, I would have provided some forewarning to drum up a little business. I thought about that afterwards.
Anyway, it's starting to pop up in newspapers and magazines. I think the verdict in yesterday's Herald Sun was "chilling" - so perhaps there's a learning in that for the publicist to send out review copies in warmer weather!
Sunday, September 13, 2009
FOOTBALL RECORD
Have you noticed that football commentators are able to turn any once inconsequential achievement into a bona fide record using only their mouths, a misplaced sense of achievement, and that bastion of and deceit and misdirection - statistics?
Once upon a time, when the world was far simpler and our goal umpires wore boaters and lab coats, we heard of records for the most goals in a season, the most consecutive wins and the largest winning margin.
Today we hear of the most goals kicked ... against an interstate team ... at the MCG ... in the third quarter ... by a number 5 draft pick ... in his 4th AFL game ... wearing yellow boots ... with a heavily strapped scrotum ... and an aunt name Vera.
I'm sorry Messrs Cometti, Hutchison, Lane, McAvany, Brayshaw and co - these are no longer notable achievements, and whilst I commend what is undoubtedly a stirling level of dedication and committment from your statisticians and researchers, perhaps it's all gone just a little too far.
Once upon a time, when the world was far simpler and our goal umpires wore boaters and lab coats, we heard of records for the most goals in a season, the most consecutive wins and the largest winning margin.
Today we hear of the most goals kicked ... against an interstate team ... at the MCG ... in the third quarter ... by a number 5 draft pick ... in his 4th AFL game ... wearing yellow boots ... with a heavily strapped scrotum ... and an aunt name Vera.
I'm sorry Messrs Cometti, Hutchison, Lane, McAvany, Brayshaw and co - these are no longer notable achievements, and whilst I commend what is undoubtedly a stirling level of dedication and committment from your statisticians and researchers, perhaps it's all gone just a little too far.
Friday, September 4, 2009
GETTING ACTIVE IN THE BLOG SPACE
"Getting active is the blog space" is corporate-speak for "updating my blog".
That's right, I've been to a conference today (or should I say- I've been active in the conference space) and I can't help but walk away feeling a little concerned for the future of humanity. We continue to bind ourselves in allusions and illusions of civilisation and progress, and it all feels so wrong.
Seminars, workshops, conferences - it's a world of genericised language, breakout groups and butchers' paper.
With everyone so active in their chosen "spaces", and I can't help but picture a NASA conference - "We've been very active in the space space this year"
And while I'm venting on corporate speak, and its unceasing strive to take language always to the next level of abstraction (what does human resources convey that personnel didn't?), let me ask - what ever happened to rain? As one active in the water space, I've noticed over the last few years that we can no longer refer to rain, or rainfall, or rainstorms. We now have precipitation, rain events, and significant rain events. Presumably rainfall was far too ambiguous, or didn't leave sufficient wiggle room for political manoeuvring if it turns out that the rainfall didn't really occur.
I'm not sure is you caught the news this week, but our State Parliamentarian with primary accountability in the Water space was temporarily mis-located during an ambulatory endeavour upon some of the State's more significantly elevated and botanically plethoric terrain. Whilst amply provisioned for such an eventuality, his co-habitant paramour expressed some concern following evidence of a significant rainfall event across the geographic locality.
Now isn't that much clearer than saying Minister Holding went missing whilst walking up a mountain and got caught in a storm?
But onto much chirpier matters. Long time readers of my blog ... okay, let's be honest, I have google analytics installed, so I know full well that no-one ever reads this bloody thing ... but anyway, I have previously written about the one I refer to as "The Mysterious H M Brown", and my excitement at knowing a real-life soon-to-be-published author.
Well, walking through KMart last Friday night - what to my wondering eyes did appear upon the shelves ....
I was ever so excited!!!! So I bought a copy. And, turning to the acknowledgments, who's simply adorable little name is there? Why if it isn't my own!
I've long had aspirations of novelling (which is brave new verb for a brave new world), and after many false starts I'm quite convinced that it's bloody difficult. But have no fear, I'm now in print, so bollocks to my own writing, I'll continue to live vicariously through the superior talents of those around me.
And just to make sure this blog post gets ample hits from search engines, thus giving Honey's book the publicity it deserves (did I mention it's a crackingly corkeresque read), let me finish with ...
underpants, backside, front-bottom, rumpy-pumpy, chestnuts, films about men buggering men, dangly bits, free pictures of attractive ladies pretending to get jiggy with other attractive ladies, oily turnips, free pictures of less-attractive ladies genuinely getting jiggy with ladies with boy haircuts and dungarees, free XXX footage of Angela Lansbury in unscreened episodes of Murder She Wrote,
free subscription for nasal delivery technology to make your slow cooker cook even slower, free pictures of some hot tennis player from Western Europe wearing tennis clothing and playing tennis with a tennis racket and tennis BALLS
That's right, I've been to a conference today (or should I say- I've been active in the conference space) and I can't help but walk away feeling a little concerned for the future of humanity. We continue to bind ourselves in allusions and illusions of civilisation and progress, and it all feels so wrong.
Seminars, workshops, conferences - it's a world of genericised language, breakout groups and butchers' paper.
With everyone so active in their chosen "spaces", and I can't help but picture a NASA conference - "We've been very active in the space space this year"
And while I'm venting on corporate speak, and its unceasing strive to take language always to the next level of abstraction (what does human resources convey that personnel didn't?), let me ask - what ever happened to rain? As one active in the water space, I've noticed over the last few years that we can no longer refer to rain, or rainfall, or rainstorms. We now have precipitation, rain events, and significant rain events. Presumably rainfall was far too ambiguous, or didn't leave sufficient wiggle room for political manoeuvring if it turns out that the rainfall didn't really occur.
I'm not sure is you caught the news this week, but our State Parliamentarian with primary accountability in the Water space was temporarily mis-located during an ambulatory endeavour upon some of the State's more significantly elevated and botanically plethoric terrain. Whilst amply provisioned for such an eventuality, his co-habitant paramour expressed some concern following evidence of a significant rainfall event across the geographic locality.
Now isn't that much clearer than saying Minister Holding went missing whilst walking up a mountain and got caught in a storm?
But onto much chirpier matters. Long time readers of my blog ... okay, let's be honest, I have google analytics installed, so I know full well that no-one ever reads this bloody thing ... but anyway, I have previously written about the one I refer to as "The Mysterious H M Brown", and my excitement at knowing a real-life soon-to-be-published author.
Well, walking through KMart last Friday night - what to my wondering eyes did appear upon the shelves ....
I was ever so excited!!!! So I bought a copy. And, turning to the acknowledgments, who's simply adorable little name is there? Why if it isn't my own!
I've long had aspirations of novelling (which is brave new verb for a brave new world), and after many false starts I'm quite convinced that it's bloody difficult. But have no fear, I'm now in print, so bollocks to my own writing, I'll continue to live vicariously through the superior talents of those around me.
And just to make sure this blog post gets ample hits from search engines, thus giving Honey's book the publicity it deserves (did I mention it's a crackingly corkeresque read), let me finish with ...
underpants, backside, front-bottom, rumpy-pumpy, chestnuts, films about men buggering men, dangly bits, free pictures of attractive ladies pretending to get jiggy with other attractive ladies, oily turnips, free pictures of less-attractive ladies genuinely getting jiggy with ladies with boy haircuts and dungarees, free XXX footage of Angela Lansbury in unscreened episodes of Murder She Wrote,
free subscription for nasal delivery technology to make your slow cooker cook even slower, free pictures of some hot tennis player from Western Europe wearing tennis clothing and playing tennis with a tennis racket and tennis BALLS
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