Its not that easy is it?.

Ive been using Threadsy a bit, its quite handy, but very busy.

To be fair, I am probably what they call a heavy user, however, there are people who make me look part-time.

So, I watch 5 Gmail accounts, 4 twitter accounts, 1 Facebook, 1 Basecamp project, 6 WordPress Blogs, and now I have a Google Wave account to try and figure out how to work with.

Then there are the background sites you sometimes use, Flickr, Digg, Delicio.us, online banking, the list goes on.

Fun, but only for a while, then you might well go mad with overloading.

So whats all this Google Wave about then ?

Google Wave Fiction… funny stuff… but will it be helpful ?

I am genuinely hoping that Wave is a lot more than some over-hyped geek-babble..  but im being realistic… even if it is, my life will stay pretty complicated.

Ok, its not like doing the London Marathon, or a parachute jump, but it is an easy and accessible way for people to take part in a charity event, raise some cash and have some fun doing it. The charity the money goes to is The Prostate Cancer Charity.

The Movember promo video;

There really is no-more to explain, its about raising money for a good cause, and growing some facial hair. Shave clean on 31st October and choose a stlye to grow into… (see below for style guide…)

Do one of two things now;

1) commit to growing a Mo, and get some people to sponsor you, or,

2) put your hand in your pocket and hand over some cash for the cause.

Im going to be taking part along with a number of other friends, and im going to document it with daily mug-shots on the web.

Click here to join my team – http://uk.movember.com/register/17780

Click here to send some cash to the cause by sponsoring me. – https://www.movember.com/uk/donate/your-details/member_id/62974

Dig-deep people !!!

Movember Style-guide…

Movember Styles

Working with Ben Southall on his new site has forced me to source answers to issues that I have left un-addressed on my own site.

With Ben leaving to Hamilton Island in 4 days, we had to get his whole new media platform up and running in advance allowing him to fly away, happy and content that he could post text blogs, audio blogs, video blogs and images all to his site and have them all aggregated and drawn together.

BestJobBen.com

So far we’ve been pretty successful, and have only a couple of small outstanding issues, but the run-down looks like this.

WordPress for publishing and standard blogging – you just cant beat it.

Twitter for micro-blogging – not really another alternative with the widespread usage and app development for all platforms.

Flickr for anything image based, utilising some handy hacks and plug-ins to get what we need.

Seesmic – for video-blogging and publishing via some more handy hacks and plug-ins.

Youtube for edited video content.

AudioBoo for audio-blogging and pod-casting.

With all this going on, we’ve had a lot to consider and its no surprise that Google and web searches are pretty intrinsic to the way things panned out. Also, of worthy mention are the rougish fellas I follow online who keep us all in the picture regarding Social Media and digital publishing, and they are (in no particular order…) Christian Payne (@Documentally) , Phil Campbell (@philcampbell) and Dan Thornton (@badgergravling).

The guy used to hit the North Shore with a vengeance whenever the swell was pumping.

His story is coming…

And I cant wait… 

Last night I stayed up late to watch the WCT fellas finish off the contest in Tahiti. There’s nothing like a surf contest in a perfect location, streamed live over the web to get you pining for a wave. Sadly there ain’t nothing doing here for a week at least.

Taj was beaten by an on-form Bobby Martinez to take the title, with Parko, Slater and Bede all going out early.

Aritz had another good event taking out Kelly en-route to a semi’s spot.

And then after watching that last night, whilst eating breakfast I watched the second in the awesome South Pacific series on BBC2.

Awesome footage and insight into the world of the ocean and islands.

Then stupidly I link-out from a tweet and start reading about the North-east guys who are getting set for a Mentawai trip… which in turn reminds me that 5 good friends have only just returned from the damn place – where they scored (as you do in Indo…)

Some snaps from their trip are below…

Indo dream

Randall getting set-up to be slotted...

Mentawai Perfection

More Mentawai Perfection

Yet More Mentawai Perfection

Now, normally all this would be fine, I can handle a fair bit of land-locked torture – its good for the mind every once in a while. Except I have to drive to London tomorrow. And that just makes things worse.

In fairness, im going to see a good friend who has the Best Job in the World… so there are gonna be some good bits. But im also going to a funeral and that wont be so good.

Anyway, to come full-circle, envy is terrible, but Im not letting it get to me. Im using it to motivate and search for that trip of my own. I’ll ge my piece of Indo gold… im just waiting in the meatime. Making it work for me…

Ben Southall wins

Being appointed to holder of the ‘Best Job in the World’ has drawn a fair bit of attention. And rightly so.

Yesterday, his Afritrex site recived 16,000 pageviews…  the day before it was in single figures.

A Twitter search on his name reveals a torrent of tweets..

http://twitter.com/#search?q=ben%20southall

A Google search on his name reveals almost every news agency running a story and his name.

http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=ben+southall&btnG=Google+Search&meta=&aq=f&oq= (Good to see Afritrex.com at #2)

The news sites include;

New York Daily News

The Times

The Telegraph

The Daily Mail

U.tv

news.com.au

CNN

Professional Fundraising

TVNZ

Canada.com

Tradingmarkets.com

PR-inside.com

Yahoo

The Huffington Post

and many many more…. infact there are now 174,000 results on Google for “Ben Southal”…

I hope the servers hold-up…. 

Only a week ago I was sat with my new baby God-daughter Yasmine, holding her in my arms wondering where the instruction manual was, and if there was a helping hand to be found by searching Google.

Yasmine

Now a month old life is rushing-by for this newest of life’s, and her proud parents Pete and Laura are strapped-in for the rollercoaster that is a child.

They’ll do a fabulous job.

You have to remember that I dont ‘do’ babies, but as you get older, you tend to soften and mellow, as I am finding. The prospect of interaction with children no-longer fills me with fear and i admit that it is a new set of experiences and emotions that flow from it.

And then yesterday everything changed again.

Nobody likes funerals.

For some reason I seem to have had my fair share of interaction with death, but it still never makes it any easier.
I received a call from a good friend telling me of that our mutual good-friend Rob had died a few days earlier. Even now it still stings. But addressing it is all part of the process.

Rob was a good friend since the days of University in Exeter. We had partied hard in some amazing places. He had been with me when we broke into Glastonbury ten years ago. We had drunk all manner of intoxicating liquid over a vast number of occasions and years.

He will be sorely missed.

Robert 'Beardog' McGee

Thoughts and prayers go to all family and friends.

Its now May, and the summer is rushing up to us.

Apart from other things, ive been pulling together a few pictures to print and show. The working set is here.

The last few weeks have been spent chasing goals around to varying degrees of success. My foot and ankle is still in a bad way, and my fitness is waning. Work with Mad Dog saw the end of the season, and a company meeting that was a very interesting experience.

I did manage to get an edit out for the NuArt and C6 peeps, which you can see on this page here.

Just gone this weekend, the Cans Festival, ran for three days showing some amazing work in a disused tunnle under Waterloo station.

Some photos here via Flickr and here, and a nice video here

So that sorted friday night out when i got into the private artists show, had a good look around then ran about in south london with Leon and Toby for most of the night.

Saturday was all about surfing, and, more difficulty, getting there.
After wrestling with the north circular for 2 hours i hit the M4 and was finally on the way. I arrived at Jamie’s place in Braunton and went to check the surf, of which there was none.

So with a heavy heart, and having been driving for 5 hours already, i got in the car and headed off to Dartmoor for the free-party where i was meeting Alan and Lucy… it would only get messier from here on.

So after spending most of the night dancing in a barn, or in a field or helping push some cars out of the field.. or trying to sleep in the drivers seat of my car… i got my head together at 10am and headed back to the beach for a surf with the boys.

It was shoulder-to-waist high, onshore and grey..  i was done after ab hour, a shadow of my former self. I must start surfing more..

So, now it was on again, more eating more drinking and a night on the tiles with Dan, Jamie, Al and Lucy… and the dangers of Timepiece.. decently pissed, i remember getting into a taxi at a kebab shop on Sidwell street, and then i woke up on the floor of a kitchen hugging a radiator. The lovely girl who awoke me made me tea, whilst the Dan and Jamie appeared from various bedrooms…

One fry-up later and i was back on the M4, feeling the heat and wishing i was already back in london.

Gotta love Bank Holiday weekends.

We’re finishing off QIA NTLCP Maths delivery (http://ntlcp.qia.org.uk/ / Maths ) , along with that, im still adding to Afritrex
and im also trying to edit Pete’s wedding video..

However, if ive been looking here, which i have, thenit means i might be getting some fun-sliding-time in soon…  fingers crossed.

And if you have nothing else to do, go watch the webcast from Capbreton.

b

Loving the fact the iPhone has been jacked. http://www.iphonesimfree.com/
But not the fact that they are being gagged. via Engadget.

The C6 mob have had a decent end-of-summer festival run.
The Bank of Subversion was a winner at the Big Chill, and were even robbed, twice.
I went down to Bloom Festival to stand in, and had a great little time. Good to see Nick and Phil again too. They have just released the album, go buy it, it rocks.

With NuArt soon upon us, ive been admiring the work of Above.  (Also, Lunar75, Boonika, Klutch, Stencil Project)

I see Digital have opened a Brighton version of the Newcastle club.  The opening party is 13th September, with Grace Jones no-less.

Now, im going to drop Adbusters as a link, since its entertained my negative view on life since i got back london. Yay.

The photos from the Europe trip last week. I should really sort out that image rotation thingy. damn.
And the map showing the route.

Phew !, more later..