ANZAC Day 2010 in Brisbane.

I went to the dawn service this morning to check out my first Anzac service in over 15 years. There was a specific question I wanted to ask people: "what can we do in our daily lives to ensure that ALL the people who lost their lives in armed conflict are honoured?" Unfortunately I forgot to switch on a certain switch and as a result the audio is terrible, but I thought it was worth posting anyway.

iJackass 2.0

I've always wanted to ride down a hill in a (relatively clean) wheelie bin but now I'm having second thoughts after reading this story.

I want more of these

In the margins

Please have a look at my good friend David LaMotte's recent essay entitled In the Margins.

I attended my first Brisbane City Council meeting yesterday. It was, ahem, enlightening. Some parking tickets were given to cars parked in a certain area at 2:00 am. The opposition used this to attack the Lord Mayor. It's well worth watching for conscious citizens. 157 Ann Street on the 6th floor from 2:00pm. Don't tell them that I sent you. And, don't take any banners- they'll take them off you.

Ask me a question at formspring

A new web service I've just discovered today where you can ask me anonymous questions. Please click here to ask me some interesting questions.

How to report the news.

I really wish I had seen this earlier. It's important for everybody who watches news to see this video. You'll never look at the news in the same way!

Australia Day 2010.

People never used to wrap themselves in the Australian flag. The first person I remember doing this was Pauline Hanson. I've been pretty concerned about this sudden upsurge of so-called patriotism on Australia day that spirals quickly into drunken shenanigans. So I spent the day trudging around Brisbane city with my large video camera and tripod.

Australia Day in Brisbane 2010 from DDS MEDIA on Vimeo.

Smuggling.

As a kid I would have loved to have access to the Australian Customs' media room. You'd see exactly all these plans that were, ahem, hatched. Take for example the interesting T shirt below. The product of an ambitious TAFE design student? Unfortunately not. This individual who was wearing this wild garment is alleged to have stuffed these pockets with bird eggs. The customs writers had a little bit of fun with this media release noting how they cracked the egg smuggling attempt.

Which came first, the pigeon or the egg? What disappoints me about this episode is that no photo was taken when the pigeons were concealed. I can't imagine even the most junior customs officer failing to notice the bloke with funny looking calf muscles. Pigeons must have enjoyed an elevated status- if you are worth smuggling, it has to count for something right?

The male passenger below took a less conspicuous approach to (allegedly) attempting to smuggle some "roids" into the country. He seems to have outranked the pigeon smuggler in common sense. But in the end, he too was caught. Don't smuggle stuff! Customs will make bad puns about you if you do.

All pictures courtesy Australian Customs and Border Protection Service.

PNG

Do a search for PNG on the web and you are just as likely to get results related to a type of image file as you are information about the nation. I've been fascinated by PNG for a long time and actively devour any writings that outline life in the country. On Thursday my wife and I started talking to a man at the shopping centre. Turns out he was from PNG and only in Australia for a couple of weeks to see his cousin graduate from the University of Queensland. We asked him to come around for a gathering we were having and he said he would. Unfortunately he could only stay for about ten minutes, but he made the journey just to bring a present- a skull cap and bag that his mum had knitted. Very touching. Thanks Timmy- looking forward to visiting you in the Highlands!

Roos and drunks.

The kangaroo is normally depicted as in picture 1 above. I prefer the aesthetics of picture 2- it seems to show the venerability of the roo. These pictures were taken on Sunday at a cricket ground near Ipswich. And the roo is not happy to see me- that's a Joey in her pouch.

And now onto the drunk section. About a month ago I filmed some shenanigans outside the Eagle Farm racecourse on Melbourne Cup Day. I had two police officers ask me separately about my actions, and one security officer.

Melbourne Cup in Brisbane 2009 from DDS MEDIA on Vimeo.

John Pilger- winner of the 2009 Sydney Peace Prize.

Watch his speech below↓

Came across a really cool project today called Skateistan that built a skatepark in Kabul and provides skateboards for local kids to ride on.

Started reading Leigh Sales book about David Hicks. So far it's really good. I also recommend her blog.

Hair Changing 101.

Here's the completed David LaMotte video. I had difficulties uploading to YouTube, so I started a Vimeo account. And be sure to read this web interview with Dave.

David LaMotte: Hair Changing 101 from David Stuart on Vimeo.

Trampolines

As a kid my favourite item in my back yard was my trampoline. Then we got another trampoline. At one stage we had three trampolines (granted one was a jogging trampoline) and a shed. We would jump or somersault from the shed to the trampoline and then to another one to another one and then to a mattress. It was great fun. But never did we get anywhere near the level of the guy in the video below↓

delaying retirement

I never want to retire. I want to love my work and do it until I die. But I like how this designer approaches retirement.