Dipping into the Blogpond

Hi there! Thank you if you’ve dropped in after reading Helen Westerman’s article in the SMH entitled Our Best Business Bloggers.

This is a blog - if you’re not quite sure what a blog is, this might explain it for you. These days I’m not a particularly active blogger, as my business keeps me very busy, but I try to make the time to update my list of Top 100 Aussie Bloggers (usually) monthly. There you’ll find a wealth of active and interesting blogs on a variety of topics. I also have an articles page which contains what I consider to be my most useful (well, useful to some!) posts.

If you’re an Australian blogger (or thinking about starting a blog), you’ll find a very helpful community forum at Aussie Bloggers.

And if you’re looking for a comprehensive course on internet marketing via the social web, a friend of mine, Alister Cameron, has recently released a programme called “Internet Marketing Masterminds“. I haven’t seen the course materials, but having known and worked with Alister over the last 3 years, he wouldn’t release anything less than excellent.

Thanks again for stopping by.

I’m so happy for my daughter who found out her School Certificate results today.

She got between 91% and 98% for all 6 subjects.

I’m so happy that her diligence has been rewarded!

Well done baby - you always make me proud

Welcome to the five new blogs debuting on my Top 100 Aussie Blogs list this month:

Polka Dot Bride
Business Blogging | BlogWell
TechNation Australia
Meet Me at Mikes
babbleBABY Australia

Life continues to be super busy here, which was the source of the delay for October’s update - apologies to those who noticed…

Got offered a Freebie the other day, in exchange for a review - which was kinda cool. I was tempted until I had to provide my home address for delivery (it was a large object) at which point I graciously declined. Am I too cynical? What would you do?

O…M….G

I thought upgrading to a 22″ monitor was pretty indulgent, but hey - a girl puts in so many hours in front of the damn monitor, may as well make it a biggish one, right?

Well, I splurged on a second one. Yes, I now have twins - two ViewSonic VA2226w’s scored for less than $300 each. Maybe I’m a bit behind and and all the cool kids have dual monitors, but I’ve got to tell you it is simply Awesome!

My six year old surmised that I could now do twice the work. I said that I hoped I could do the same about of work twice as quickly. Well, not quite, but it has made such a huge difference! Think of every time you minimise an application or flick between tabs/applications. Need to reference something, while writing something else. Copying and pasting. It makes it so simple.

I think everyone is sick of hearing me rave about it. It’s not at all confusing. Just. Simply. Awesome.

If you can justify the indulgence, convince your boss…. whatever - just do it! I doubt you’d ever go back.

Sitting here on less than five hours sleep, one 16 17 hour day following an 18 hour day. Being reminded that I hadn’t posted this month, which has to be close to a record for me.

So hey, there’s a financial crisis happening - go figure! I’m so not in touch. With anything. But the world keeps turning, even if you’re not watching.

Like when I happened to (flukishly) drive to the shops one Saturday a few weeks ago because I was out of sugar (a girl’s gotta have her coffee right?), and happened to notice a shite load of cars out the front of the local school, along with those A frame banner thingys. I thought, “hmmm, this reminds me of election day”. So I pulled up & moseyed over with my 6 year old and sure enough it was an election. For something. Local council maybe? I dutifully took every “how to vote for this person you’ve never heard of” flyer, got my name crossed off & walked to a booth.

I showed the flyers to my daughter (more interested in the process that I was) and asked her who she thought I should vote for. She looked at me somewhat perplexed and said “I don’t think it should be up to me to decide”. Damn, kid’s right. I said to her “I’m just kidding” (as I closed my eyes and picked one). Yeah, apathy personified. Do you think “I seriously had no idea there was an election” would be a valid excuse for not voting?

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My parents visited the other day (or maybe week, I lose track) and my mum commented on all the cards hanging over the slats of my Venetian blinds. “Are you getting Christmas cards already?” she asked. “No mum, I replied those are from the last 2 years”. Guess I should think about taking them down, sometime.

It’s a bit like taking stuff out of your pantry that has expired more than 2 years ago recently. And hey! Did you know some body lotion has an expiry date? Yeah, I learned that one the hard way. Noticed I had a few dry spots on my leg so I applied some stuff on my legs & hopped into bed. A few minutes later my legs were stinging, so I went back into the bathroom and checked out the pump pack. Damn stuff expired in 2004. Holy cow! I’ve moved house since then & carted it with me. I guess you gather I’m not much for beauty products either.

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Ah, don’t you love technology? Sometimes I lose my printer connection. It usually rights itself after I reboot, but who has time to reboot during the day, and shut down the 64 multiple tabs and applications that accumulate? So for about 3 days running my printer wouldn’t print. I got around it, but eventually I needed to print. So I figure I have to reinstall my printer - spent 10 minutes looking for the driver disk, figured I’d just download the driver, realised I’d already done that some months ago, and just before I was about to reinstall I do a cursory check of all the connections. [quote Gordon Ramsay]! The printer was turned off! Feeling rather sheepish and admitting to my “blonde moment” I told a colleague. Who also sheepishly confessed that they had in fact turned the printer off (because all the lights were flashing). D’oh.

Have you had a “blonde moment” lately?