We have already turned off new registrations and the ability to post. The forums will remain in place until the domain name expires.

We have turned off comments on the blog, the blog will remain in place and may be updated when possible. You are still able to submit postcards if you would like us to publish your photograph on the blog.

We would like to thank our blog readers and forum members – we have enjoyed your company.

We hope to see you elsewhere around the interwebs.

If you have any questions or comments please use the contact form on the blog, which can be found here.

Regards,
The Aussie Bloggers Forum Admins.

a

Two shows sold out in record time in Perth, perhaps because of my city’s special tie to former AC/DC lead singer, Bon Scott. Bon moved to Perth from England as a young child and lived much of his life here. After his untimely death in 1980, he was buried in Fremantle Cemetery. His grave site is now a must-visit location for thousands of AC/DC fans each year.

In 2007, a group calling themselves Aussie Rock Concerts put on a benefit concert to raise money to commission a statue of the singer. The Angels Band, Rose Tattoo, The Party Boys (comprised of many highly regarded Australian musicians including former members of AC/DC and Status Quo), The Screaming Jets, Dave Warner and others entertained a crowd numbering in the thousands at Perth’s Claremont Showgrounds on February 25, 2007. The Bon Scott Celebration Concert raised more than enough money for the statue, with the excess going to Support Act Ltd, a charity supporting musicians in need.

The statue was unveiled at another concert at Claremont Showgrounds a year later, in February 2008. The statue was later moved to its permanent home in Fremantle’s Fishing Boat Harbour.

In 2008, an exhibition of Bon Scott’s letters, photographs and paintings inspired by the man were presented at Fremantle Arts Centre for the Bon Scott Project.

Sadly I’m too young to have ever seen Bon Scott perform, but here’s my favourite video:

Did you ever get to see him live? What’s your favourite Bon Scott story?

a

I mean it’s not even a standard SMS length (which I believe is 160 characters, of course I’m happy to be told that I’m wrong.  Actually no I’m not, if you know better you can keep it to yourself), it’s certainly not an email (although being a man if I could find the emoticon for a grunt I could cut my emails in half!) and it is a long way from your average blog post.

So what on earth could you manage to convey in just those 140 characters?

Well thanks to the micro-blogging service Twitter in 140 characters you can say quite a lot!

• You can propose marriage
• Keep people up to date on the film Iron Man 2 from a very unique point of view
• Save people’s lives
• Get arrested
• Find out that the car has died at home and you are going to need a new battery

And that’s just scratching the very surface!

Everyone is talking about Twitter from Rove to Oprah and far be for me to argue with them, even Wolverine himself is getting in on the action!

So what about my examples?

Well it was reported that the potential first proposal on Twitter took place when this tweet (a tweet is a message on Twitter) was sent out:

To @emilychang – After fifteen years of blissful happiness I would like to ask for your hand in marriage? - http://twitter.com/maxkiesler/statuses/774352312

And then was answered with this tweet:

@maxkiesler – yes, i do! - http://twitter.com/emilychang/statuses/774352570

Awwwwww isn’t that sweet!

But didn’t you mention Iron Man 2!?  Well yes I did, because you can follow the Iron Man 2 director Jon Favreau as he makes the film and gives us very tiny insights into the process as he does it!

Saving lives?

During the devastating Victorian bush fires the Country Fire Authority kept people advised of alerts via their Twitter feed which was reTweeted (when you republish someone else’s Tweet) by many Australian Twitterers  (look that term could be made up – I don’t know what we call ourselves but it seems as good a term as any!).

Getting arrested?

In the ‘only in America’ category an Oklahoma City man announced on Twitter that he would turn an April 15 tax protest into a bloodbath?  He was arrested by the FBI.  Sadly I doubt this will be the last and certainly won’t only be in America

Car battery????

OK this is probably a more personal one, my wife dropped me off at the train station, got home and the car died. On my way into work I read about the dead battery and its replacement via Twitter on my iPhone.

Now Twitter is kind of like the Matrix, to fully understand Twitter you first must see it for yourself and I think everyone gets something a little different out of it.

Sign up an account and see how much you can say in only 140 characters!

a

As I wrote in a previous post on Aussie Bloggers, my place of origin is the country town called Mildura. Mildura is located 550 kms north west of Melbourne and is a river city, with an agricultural based economy. Grapes and oranges are the dominant produce, but many farmers grow a wide variety of crops.

We visited Mildura over Easter and again I was impressed with the generosity of the country folk. Every time I visit, I return with a car full of fresh produce. My family doesn’t have a farm in Mildura, but friends of our family who do, and know that we are visiting will drop produce off to my parents for us.

This time we received a fantastic stash. One part of which was a huge bag of almonds. They were in their complete raw state – straight off the tree. It was a great lesson for my kids who had never seen almonds with their husks on them! Pumpkin soup is on the menu at our house for the next couple of weeks, as we also received a large bag of butternut pumpkins.

My sister’s in laws grow grapes and also have a large vegetable patch. When we visited them to show them our new baby, they gave us zucchinis, capsicums, eggplant and spinach.

I am always impressed by the generosity of country people. Whether it be sharing their freshly grown produce or opening their house to visitors, their warmth is over flowing.

This is not to say that Australian city folk are not generous people either, but to me the generosity of country people is a stand out attraction of visiting the country.

Have you experienced some country generosity?

a

a

My favourites – the Sulphur-Crested Cockatoos. They are quite common around Canberra and you often see large flocks of them grazing on the sides of roads, or in parks.

Rainbow Lorikeets are also fairly regular visitors. Its always a treat to spot them, because they’re so colourful.

Now for something we only see occasionally. King parrots.

We also get the usual suspects, the various black coloured birds, and black and white ones – which I lump together as crows and magpies respectively (which amuses my daughter who does know the differences between the various types of black and black and white birds – but then what am I to know …I always thought Golden Retrievers were just hairy Labradors until a couple of years ago, when I learned they are completely different breeds of dog). Galahs hang around fairly regularly, and in the non-bird arena, we get our share of possums, and even once had a kangaroo out in our street (and we’d be at least one kilometre from the nearest bushland).

But for something really unusual, check this out.

No, just kidding!

But seriously, I’d be interested to know what interesting/unusual/pretty visitors you’d had at your house. Let me know in the comments.

a

It’s almost five years ago since I started blogging. I can’t believe that I’ve kept it up for that long and that I still really love doing it.

I’ve kept a written journal of some description or another since I was 18, and I feel quite embarrassed at some of the stuff I wrote. Mind you a lot of things I wrote in a private for-my-eyes-only journal, I wouldn’t even consider writing on a public website.

I’d tampered with typing my journal back in the 1980s, printing it out and sticking it in the written journal but that was fraught with danger. What if someone from work found what I’d printed before I had a chance to collect, or what if someone found my electronic document? I think I did that once or twice before giving up.

So the written journal only tended to really happen when I was travelling or when I felt like it.

Then about six years ago Oprah.com had some sort of online journal setup, kind of like a blog I guess, and I remember thinking that it could be the way to go to get away from longhand.

Then one day I received a webreference.com newsletter which mentioned the Bloggies and I had a cruise around some of the finalists and I thought that this blogging thing could be a really good way to go. I setup a blog on Blogger or something similar and realised that this was something I wanted to do, so I ended up getting an account with Typepad. I blogged using that platform for about three years after which – wanting more control over my blogging platform – I went with self-hosted WordPress.

When I did my first blog post, you can see (if you read it) that not much thought went into its content and when someone actually commented I nearly fell off my chair.

During the last five years my blogging has evolved enormously. Here’s how.

• I’m sure because I write a lot for my blog that my writing has improved. In fact one regular reader has commented on this. I’ve also had feedback that my blog writing style is engaging.
• I’ve met a fabulous online community of people which has enabled me to go join a blog meet in Perth, one formally and one on the side with an individual blogger. I’m sure meeting people in person strengthens online relationships.
• I also get regular comments on my blog and I wonder if I would have continued blogging without this. The validation, sympathy, good wishes – whatever – help make it worthwhile.
• It’s enabled my passion for photography to flourish. While Flickr isn’t blogging, it is social networking which blogging is a part of, and I do use my Flickr photos a lot on my blog. I’ve also met real people through a local Flickr group.
• Meeting people online has brought opportunities like this Aussie Bloggers forum and blog that I would have never otherwise heard about.
• My blog has also come to the attention of PR agencies who are looking to tap into bloggers to help market for the companies they work for. This has brought me things to try out like a mobile phone, Lego, fruit juice and DVDs. It’s therefore caused me to setup a Reviews and Giveaways section on my blog – something I’d never really thought of prior to the opportunity landing in my lap.
• I also entered my blog in the last 9rules membership round and was accepted.
• I run ads on my blog and while I don’t make much money at all it helps out with the hosting costs. It feeds my hobby and if I start earning more that wouldn’t be a problem. It also helps me give back occasionally.

The above list is probably not exhaustive and if I didn’t work nearly full-time and if I wasn’t a full-time mother and could therefore devote more time to my blog goodness knows where it could take me. A different job maybe? A girl can dream can’t she, or does it have to be a dream?

a

Pebbly Beach is located on the South Coast of NSW. The only pebbles you will find there are created by the kangaroos!

a

Of course, all of y’all in Australia have been experiencing digital television for many years now, with the convenient backup of the analogue signals still available for at least another year or so, depending on what KRudd and the crew decide to do. One of the most interesting things, however, is the fact that, over here, they aren’t making the most of digital television.

The main thing that broadcasters aren’t taking advantage of is switching to Widescreen digital programming. A major misconception over here is that if it’s widescreen, it is HDTV. As you have known for at least 7 years (possibly longer – I haven’t read up on the history), you can broadcast multiple channels in widescreen and not have any issues with quality loss.

a

a