Word of Mouth Website

From an email I got today:

We are about to launch a Word Of Mouth Forum blogsite in Brisbane. The venture is jointly owned by Austereo which runs the B105 and MMM stations in Brisbane. The site is all about a community talking to itself, and allows the masses to experience blogging for the first time. It is positioned as the easiest way for people to make a difference in their community.

It is total regionally focused, (in fact has a South and North Brisbane site.) with over 300 categories for people to comment on. You can check it out at www.womf.com.

We are looking for local well connected bloggers to start some viral campaigns and start providing some well written quality blogs. We are hoping you could help. the site is RSS linked and I'm sure once it starts getting heavy promotion on the radio
(January) it will be able to drive readers back to your site.

Why No Travel Books?

Yesterday afternoon I was out at Chermside shopping centre. I went into Borders and whilst perusing their vast array of books, I thought I'd check out the Tourism section. Of course, as you would expect, their were a number of travel books on Australia, and on Queensland and the Barrier Reef. There was even a whole shelf devoted to Sydney. The thing that struck me, however, was that there wasn't one title on Brisbane. Not one.

Now, I'm not sure if that's the case in all of the book stores around town. Hell, even on Amazon I can find a few outdated travel guides, and they even sell the Gregory's Refedex if you want a street directory. The thing that really gets my goat is that no one is really promoting Brisbane. We seem to be an afterthought in the guides which say come to Queensland and go to the Barrier Reef, or head to Surfer's. Or go to Noosa! Surely we're a big enough country town to have titles in our own right?! Aren't we!

There is a hell of a lot of good stuff to offer. If you want to eat, you've now got some of the best restaurants around, in places like West End, Eagle Street and Caxton Street. You've got great shopping in and around the Queen Street Mall, along with retail meccas at Chermside, Carindale and Indooroopilly. You have all the sport you could want with AFL, Rugby and Cricket. You have parklands a plenty, like South Bank and Roma Street. You have a whole cultural precinct at South Bank to satisfy even the most artsy fartsy of people!

Bands and artists which in the past would have shunned Brisbane, now regularly visit. There's a whole new live music scene which is proving a rich vein of talent internationally. We have the Ekka and Riverfire. Our weather is awesome, and the people are some of the most beautiful and laid back that you'd find anywhere on the planet.

Ok, so I'm ranting now, but I still think we should have more of our promotion going on in bookstores. Then again, who reads books anymore when you've got the Net! Lets just make sure we continue to promote what a fantastic place we live in is.

Cheers, Wes.

Out Of Water

Is anyone else getting pissed off by the Sunday Mail (et al) reporting wild climactic conditions like it was unexpected? Reporting on the water crisis like it came completely out of left field?

Does anyone else feel a little smug about idiot Toowoombians who voted against recycling water only to then figure out - duh - they don't have any water anymore and will now have to put up with recycling water anyway once it's brought in?

And does anyone else feel guiltily envious about the flooding in North Queensland? You can't help but think "lucky buggers"? I'd gladly take flood damage if it meant a full dam but this is just me talking.

Thanks for the Invite

Wow, I'm finally on! Thanks Jean for doing the changeover to the new blogger so I could start posting. By way of introduction, I'm another Brisbanite who took up blogging last year. I started off with the experiment of trying to blog on Family Life every day for a whole year. The result was Angry Dad 2006. As a huge Simpson's fan, I wanted to reflect on life as if I was Homer's Angry Dad character, and there were quite a few "Why You Little..." moments with my three boys!

I've also started a blog on all the things that I find interesting around the City. Called I Love Brisbane, the aim again is to do daily posts and photos on things I come across which impress me in this great city we live in. I have to admit that after moving up here seven years ago from Melbourne, I'm pretty well converted.

So thanks for letting me join in the community, and I hope I can add some interesting and thought provoking stuff and comments with the rest of the crew!

Cheers, Wes.

Who said no one cares about Brisbane Bloggers?

So guys, who said no one cared about Brisbane Bloggers?

I don't know if many of you know this by I run Australian Car Advice & News Blog, pretty much a blog about cars, with the difference being that we actually get given cars to drive and review, pretty good for just a blog.

So when the 2007 Brisbane Motorshow started coming closer, I was interested to see if as a blog, we would get invited to go along as VIPs/Journalists. Getting to go the the motorshow is no big deal, tickets are only $16 for adults anyway, but that was besides the point!

It was a test to see if Bloggers were taken as serious journalists and if all the hard work that I and other bloggers had put into the car site had actually got us some proper recognition, and you know what? To my surprise (yes I was still surprised) we got invited to go along to the journalist day on Friday (2nd Feb).

If you take your blog seriously, it doesn't matter if your in New York or if you're in Brisbane, blogging has come a long way since its early days as dribbles of teenage angst. I think more than ever, cooperations are actually listening to bloggers as they know that traditional media is no longer the way of the future.

Anyway for those of you who love cars, I think this years motorshow is going to be one of the best, I will post a review of it tomorrow night!

admin update: switching to the 'new blogger'

Hi everyone,

I've just switched my Blogger account over to the 'new' (i.e. exclusively Google account-powered) Blogger, which means this blog has also switched over to the new authentication system.

In order to post to the blog, existing members will need to either:

1. Switch your account over to the new Blogger (by just clicking the link on the Blogger homepage), OR,

2. Email me at jeanjeangenie at gmail dot com to request a new invite. According to the Blogger help pages, this should work for users who don't wish to switch their accounts over.

I had to make the switch because otherwise it would have been impossible for users with existing new Blogger accounts to join, unfortunately.

Merry Christmas BrisVegas

Merry Christmas all.
Long hot days (cool in the aircon) lots of nice food, ham and turkey with mustard and cranberry sauce, roast chicken and salads - this is Christmas in Brisbane!

Or for the real version of Christmas, remember the reason for the season is the birth of Jesus.

So Merry Christmas from the northside and stay safe on the roads if you have to travel.

The Amazing Body

haha you thought this would be a saucy post, didn't you?! Pervert.

Brisvegians, this weekend is your last chance to see something truly amazing and really, really, really gross. Basically, it's a win-win.

The Amazing Body exhibition shows us what we look on the inside. Not with diagrams or programs or even holograms but with the real thing. Yes, the Amazing Body is a display of real human bodies, deceased within the last two years, who were plasticised at death. Some are cut in half so we can see the insides, some have had their skin removed so we can see muscles. It's a little macarbe, sure, but that's what makes the viewing so riveting.

I'm going on the last day, this Sunday at the RNA Showgrounds. The exhibition runs in sessions from 10am-3pm I believe, they run every hour on the hour.

UQ St.Lucia: March of the Penguins Engineers

A while back, there was a minor international sensation caused by an environmental film titled "The March of the Penguins". It became a minor cause celebre, particularly among faux-Christians, who believed it demonstrated that God always dressed for dinner or something.

Well, penguins aren't the only Southern Hemisphere species that teeters on the edge of extinction, and struggles daily against incredible odds and over incredible distances in a climate that is incredibly hostile to life --inimical, even-- in an incredibly incredible life-affirming community-building long-distance trek incredible.

My Lords, Ladies, and Gentlediscouragement, I present to you:

The March of the Engineers

thanks to jgb!

"This is a story of love.
But not just ANY love.
The love of beer."

"Yet what might seem like a 5 minute walk to some,
To the engineer, the walk will seem to take
months.

Yet
They must find alcohol soon,
Or else,
They will die."

That's my old uni, actually. It looks very small and built-up and claustrophobic on this video, but it's actually much more spacious and green in real life.
dunno when they turned the union common room into a pub tho -- used to be the Rec Club about 50 yards to the right of the door, with the balcony looking over the barbie area and the ovals and swimming pool to the river

oh, and the "Ree!" is a reference to The R.E.: The Royal Exchange pub, first and landmark boozer on your way into town, and the standard starting point for uni Pub Crawls

Rock for Refugees

20th October 2006
A top selection of Brisbane’s finest bands and performing artists will join together at The Globe Theatre on Friday the 20^th of October for a massive night of great music and entertainment – all in aid of a very important cause.

The colossal line up includes local alt-country rock favourites Halfway, Brisbane art-rockers Wipsnade Zoo, urban hip hop artists Indigenous Intruderz, recent NXNE show stoppers The Black Arts and indie-pop maestros The Slides. The night will also feature performances by 'Nerissa' - Australia's number 1 belly dancer, and art/visuals by 'Mindygirl'.This fantastic line up of local talent will be performing to raise much-needed funds and awareness for the Refugee Claimant Support Centre – a Brisbane not-for-profit community organisation that has a vital role in the community by assisting refugee claimants with a number of essential services including emergency accommodation,English language classes, assistance with food, employment and health.

"Rock for Refugees is now in its third year and is shaping up to be a big night on the Brisbane calendar with the Valley punters. Event organiser Eric Robinson says that support from the local live music scene has once again been overwhelming: “Whether you’re interested in issues facing refugee claimants or you just want a top night out in the Valley with your mates, we urge you to come out and support this cause.” Rock for Refugees is officially presented by RAVE magazine.4ZZZ with the support of ACU National, The Big Issue, Brispop.com and Drinksmart*.

Venue – The Globe, (Ann Street, Fortitude Valley)
Doors open – 7.30pm Tickets presale - $10 + BF / $15 on the doorTickets available from Rockinghorse, Skinnys, Butterbeats & www.globetheatre.com.au

For more information on Rock for Refugees please contact Eric Robinson Mob – 0409 566 194 Email – e.robinson@mcauley.acu.edu.au