If you're not all completely bored by now, you might want to see my next pics of Alissa with her Mum and Dad and Grandma (very sensibly I have taken none of myself), and a pic of Marcus who very kindly had coffee with me today! Happy New Year everyone!!!
December 2006 Archives
For those of you that have been asking, here are pics of my new niece, Alissa, her Mum (Eloise), Dad (Andrew/Andy) and her Grandma (Alison - Alissa's namesake), ranging from a few minutes old right up to the ripe old age of 47 hours old. More pics when we can!
I'm an Aunty!!!!!
I'm very proud to announce the birth of my niece, Alissa Eloise Grace, at Sydney's North Shore Private Hospital at 5:00pm today, by caesarian section. Alissa apparently screamed but was extremely well behaved soon after birth and probably rather pleased to be able to stretch a bit after being lodged in her Mum's pelvis for the last several weeks! Her birth weight was 3.6 kilos (7 pounds 14 ounces in the old scale), her length was about 57cm.
My brother, Andrew, and his lovely wife, Eloise, are both incredibly happy and relieved as well as awfully tired after several nights of no sleep in the lead up to today, so I'm hoping that they both will get some sleep early tonight and will enjoy their day with their beautiful little girl tomorrow - their first full day as parents!
I'm flying down to Sydney to meet my niece on Friday (and meeting up with Alissa's Grandma and namesake, my very happy mother, Alison), so I will be sure to have pics up online on Friday night of the entire family! In the meantime, please enjoy the Baby Girl theme for my website!
*proud glow from Aunty Jo!*
PS: If you would like to send a message to my brother and sister-in-law, you can do so through the hospital site at http://www.ramsayhealth.com.au/nsp/, or I can pass a message on.
Well done Warney. You're a freak of cricketing magic, and you've done Australia proud.
*stands and applauds*
Jingle Bells, McGrath farewells, Warney's one away*
Oh what fun it is to thrash the Poms on Boxing Day!
* from his 700 wicket haul record
My very best wishes for a very happy, healthy and peaceful Christmas to all my readers. This is a special time for families and for celebrating what makes us great: the capacity to give and to love.
Please take the time this Christmas to think about the many privileges we have in our lives, take time out to just look around yourself and be happy with what you have achieved, what you have built and what you can do for people around you.
For those of you who have lost someone this year in one way or another, please remember what they wanted for you at this time of year in Christmases past, and respect that now through observance of what they'd have wanted. And for those who have families and loved ones far away (as I do this year, though I will be joining them all soon) remember them in the little touches on Christmas day - a recipe, a ritual, a smile - and contact them all in whatever way you can to let them know you care.
But most importantly to you all, be safe, be happy and be healthy. There's no better Christmas gift.
Merry Christmas everyone. xoxoxoxo
Time Magazine's person of the year is occasionally controversial (ie: when Hitler, Joseph Stalin and the Ayatullah Khomeini were named), and the article is generally well-read. But never will it be more read than this year, when the Time Person of the Year is You.
I've said it in fun and seriously during the course of the year (and not just because I had a book on blogging coming out!), but it's certainly true that 2006 has been the year of the blogger, the flickr user, the YouTube contributer, the MySpace artist and so on. As a result, I think the selection of a very differentiated mass of internet users, all collectively creating content using a range of applications collectively known as 'Web 2.0', is probably an incisive selection for Person of the Year. These users have shown great influence over their peers, over the shape of media as it transforms into a multichannel universe, over politicians and policy decision makers, and over the future of business.
It may be a ploy by Time to grow its readership - and the irony of this action under the circumstances cannot be underestimated - but as a choice of Person of the Year, it's probably true that no single individual has had the influence of the collective mass of content creators online this year. I've reported previously this year on the growth in the number of blogs, the visits to You Tube and other sources - indeed I called 2006 the Year of Web 2.0 way back in July - but it's also true that the value and invention of participants in this Web 2.0 realm has spread far beyond the technologically connected community. Barriers to communication and participation in others' lives have been smashed this year, and an active citizenry is beginning to emerge as a context for communication. Organisations that fail to recognise the importance of developing a Web 2.0 strategy risk being relegated to the ranks of obscurity in the next year. Thus I feel such recognition of the active participants of Web 2.0 as Person(s) of the Year is deserved.
So congratulations to you all.
Well may we say God Save the Queen.
Because nothing will save the English cricket team.
(with apologies to former Prime Minister, Gough Whitlam.)
Yes it's nearly Christmas and I admit I'm probably getting as silly as the season, but I have decided to mount a challenge for my readers to write their own verses for the Song O' The Season: All I Want For Christmas: YouTube!
Here's my suggestion for the first verse:
I don't want a lot for Christmas
Just one Web 2.0 app I need
I don't care about PlayStation
Or the new Nintendo Wii
I just want my YouTube show
More than you will ever know
Make my wish come true
All I want for Christmas: YouTube!
Now you can contribute in a range of ways and means. You can simply submit a new verse, you can record yourself or others singing a verse (or indeed an entirely new song), or you can develop a music video of the song and actually upload to YouTube. I figure, why not? It's been our plaything of 2006, so why not make a song and dance of it?
Go to it and enjoy!
Yes it's getting to be that time of year again, so I felt it was time to bring out the Christmas tree at home and online. Enjoy the colour change on the home page for a few weeks!
This is why I love cricket. Some might say that the English team snatched defeat from the claws of victory, but all dues to the Australian cricket team for a remarkable performance in the last two days of this Test. Warne's 4/49 in the second innings was freakishly good, and our batsmen demonstrated their versatility in chasing down the 168 run target in the 36 overs available, effectively turning the last day of a five day test into one day cricket. It's been dramatic and it's been fun.
Let me make this perfectly clear: I truly love this game.
