Watching: So you think you can dance

I've never entirely understood dance - I mean, obviously with my innate poise and style I'm awesome at it but I guess I've never really seen what all the fuss was.

This is why I was a little surprised to find myself hooked in to So You Think You Can Dance last night when the PC decided to watch it over Inspector Rex.

It's a slickly put together programme that takes that whole art-as-competitive-sport reality show thing and showcases some pretty impressive moves (sadly to some pretty mediocre mainstream music).

Nothing is left to drag on for too long and by mixing up the styles (quite a few of them I couldn't tell the difference between though) they keep the show moving at a brisk trot. Most importantly it manages to avoid that classical reality show filler tactic of telling you what's about to happen, what's happening and what just happened for each event.

None of the personalities (judges or dancers) were overly annoying or prattish - I seem to be praising it here for not being crap, so I guess it's not a ringing endorsement but in short, it wasn't bad. I wouldn't say I'd rush to watch it again but it was ok.

(I'd put a youtube clip up but the producers of the show seem to be pretty quick off the mark in getting them taken down)

Watching: (Shaun Micallef's) Newstopia

I mentioned last week that I was excited about this show coming up and now that I've seen the first episode, I'm still excited.

I'm a believer that you need to give any new show a grace period of a couple of episodes to find its feet - and when you're dealing with a show that is heavily reliant on the news events of the week you could probably even give it a little longer.

The good news is that Newstopia is pretty well up to speed already - there were a few bumps and jitters - Micallef didn't seem 100% at home just yet and some of the pacing was a tiny bit off - but seriously, this is all stuff that comes with practice. When it was good it was very very good and when it was bad it was still ok.

There's nothing up on YouTube just yet but you can watch the full episode (minus the ads, which is nice) here on the SBS website.

A few of the highlights - off the top of my head - were:

• making the connection that Wallabies is a cross between wallies and wannabes


• an interview with an ACTU rep who interrupted the first question with her answer and then proceeded into a spectacular asking yourself the question then answering it then asking yourself another question then answering it etc monologue that is becoming a popular media tactic these days (made famous by Donald Rumsfeld)


• a 3way interview where the Liberal and Labor party reps frantically searched for reasons why they are the underdogs in the upcoming election, most of the points revolving around how good the other side are


• a trick sbs drama promo - first one into the "ad break" that turned out to be Inspector Herring (hopefully they won't over-milk this gag)


• and a good swag of Kevin Andrews Sudan stuff

(Might have to take another look as there was a lot more to it - including the usual Micallef shattering the fourth wall stuff)

Just for a taster, here's the promo

Touring: The Lodge

Once a year the Australiana fund runs tours of the two Canberra homes of our nominal leaders - the Prime Minister (the Lodge) and the Governor General (Government House)

I travel past the Lodge on the way to work every day so the opportunity to take a peek past the normally high walls and guarded gates was too great a temptation to resist.

Like most special events in the Can', there was a big old line of people waiting to get in and after a little to'ing and fro'ing with the PC (I had an assignment to work on), we decided to stick around. After an hour in line (most of which was spent in the grounds, so there was still gardens and whatnot to look at), we made it in.

Unfortunately there was a ban on photos inside but I was still able to snap off some shots around the place. A few highlights for me were:



the oddly shaped cushiony looking hedges outside,



the very ugly and militaristic looking sculpture that John and Janette chose for the garden



the 1960s municipal park looking water bubbler outside the tennis court



the slightly incongruous basketball/netball hoop bolted to a gum tree



and my personal favourite, the sign outside the door banning, among other things - child stollers. Is this a reference to the stollen generation perhaps? Maybe the Howard government is actually opposed to the practice of child stolling after all?

Here's the full slide show of the outside part.


Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

As for the inside, it very much had the look of a 1920's kind of house - high ceilings, wood all over the place - I read somewhere that it's done in American Colonial style (which seems sadly appropriate). There were a lot of Australian historical knicknacks from the last 100 years or so and some nice antiques.

The upstairs part was blocked off and guarded - which was disappointing as who doesn't want to see what John and Janette get up to rumpy-pumpy - so it was pretty much just the entrance hall, dining room and a couple of lounge rooms.

Interestingly, there were photos of John Howard and (actual) world leaders all over the shop - which had a slight sad/desperate air of "look at me" about them. He looked particularly excited in an older one with Margaret Thatcher. (His idol and fellow hater of society). I think I saw the missus tucked away in maybe two out of a couple of dozen and there may have been one or two of the Howard spawn as well. But there really were a LOT of pix of Johnny and world leaders. Makes you wonder what kind of pix are up in the "official" residence at Kirribilli.

If you're in town when this rolls around next year, it's worth a look.

Making: a game about how to play games

My housemate Eric would probably tell you that I'm the least qualified person to tell anyone how to play games - but he's a stinkin, cheating, smug Frenchy bastard :) who I will one day beat at Fifa World Cup 2006.

But anyway, this is a training level that I'm working on for the Exploring the EDC game I've mentioned before.



I'm making it as simple as I can because one of the things I've found with using these kinds of games with some of the uh more senior people at work is that they have never played a 3D game and find the whole experience pretty confusing. When you think about it, there is a degree of coordination needed to navigate 3D space by combining movement with the keyboard and camera control with the mouse.

If you're interested, you can read the full design statement with all the educational theorising and such over here at my edublog.

As ever, it's built using FPS Creator, which inspite some bugginess and dubious advice from people posting on the boards, is a very nifty tool.

Reading: Crazy guy on a bike stories

The PC and I are planning a cycling holiday around France next year (or from France to Spain or France to Belgium - basically France will be involved in some way anyway) so it seemed like a good idea to look at where others have been before us.



This is where Crazyguyonabike.com comes into things. Crazy guy on a bike has been going for around 7 years and contains nearly 2000 journals that people have kept on cycling road trips in a range of places around the world.

I've never been to Europe (or been much of a traveller since I hit 18 for that matter) but I've always felt that to get a good idea of a place you need to do more than just hit the designated tourist hotspots. Ideally it would involve living in a place for a while but obviously that's not always an option so the thought of getting the full panoramic slow-motion perspective of the countryside and small towns seems like a pretty good alternative.

One of the stories I've been really enjoying has been that of an American guy called Stuart Rosner, who took a 5000+ km scenic route from Charles De Gaulle Airport to Paris over 60 days.



Clearly, we're not looking at quite such a degree of madness but are looking at spending a good 3 - 4 weeks roaming around and given that this guy has made it to a fair part of the country, his adventures are informative. Lots of pics as well, which is nice.

I'd really like to figure out a way to video the ride (from the rider's perspective) - I've done a little bike videoing before which has generally involved a fair degree of gaffer tape and a camcorder but think there is probably a better way - possibly a helmet mounted lipstick camera of some description.

Of course, I also have another plan to do a fair part of the ride (or at least take a series of photos) wearing one of those stripey navy blue and white tshirts with a beret and a string of onions around my neck. (and a big baguette in a front basket).
The PC isn't so excited about this plan.

(I should mention that the pictures came from Stuart's journal on the site - the dark road is on the way to Vezelay)