January 2011 Archives   29 January 2011 BRILLIANT Lady Gaga Parody - Bad Project This is just brilliant - its a Lady Gaga Parody called Bad Project. I just couldn't stop laughing. Excellent work     28 January 2011 Concerns About Facebook And Your Private Information It seems every other week Facebook is causing some angst to someone. The fire goes out for a while before another issue crops up. The "Online Generation" who use this medium to detail very private information will find, in time, this will come back and bite them. I suspect the following issue may be down this road. I usually advise people NOT to post private information on Facebook or elsewhere for that matter online because once you post it, there is no getting it back. Someone, somewhere will archive it.  Mesh brought this to my attention this morning. Facebook is letting people see your private information regardless of your privacy settings. I already got an email from someone I don't know just because I "LIKE"d something. On the email that is set as "ONLY ME" and all my posts are locked from non-friends, all my info has the highest privacy rating. On top of them allowing people/partners the information you LIKE get access to your data, they also let them SHARE your thoughts as a promotional line. PRIVACY?! I'm also pretty sure it's a copyright violation, sharing what YOU say somewhere else without your knowledge. All this information can be found here: Facebook To Let Advertisers Republish User Posts     22 January 2011 Gods of the Arena Episode 1 Review by MaryD Spartacus: Gods of the Arena Episode 1: Past Transgressions Review by MaryD A younger Batiatus finds himself newly in control of his father’s gladiator school. He uses his most skilled fighter to win favor with a cunning nobleman behind the building of the new arena. Well that was a welcome return of an old friend and I'm not referring to Gaia. Seeing our favourite gladiators and their owners was so wonderful. I'm sure others will review the episode and what it all means but I think I should go into how each old characters and new character affected me as I watched. Firstly I have to say I LOVED this episode. It's a more gritty look at Capua and it's inhabitants. The blood on the sand is still there in abundance and the writing is SUPERB. Beautiful job Steven DeKnight. Let's start with our beloved characters who are young again. Read Review     20 January 2011 The State of My Beloved Country Australia You know there is something absolutely something wrong when I don't wake up in January and smell burning eucalyptus leaves. Not that I want the bush to light up but it's the quintessential Aussie summer smell (along with flies, mosquitoes, fish and chips on the beach, BBQ's and cricket (let's not talk about the cricket). Hot, muggy and in brilliant sunshine. Watching the devestation of people's lives is just heartbreaking. Absolutely heart breaking. My beloved country is being battered and bruised. Not this year. Not unless I'm on the other side of the country in Perth where they are having some fires (poor buggers) or in Alice Springs which is hot as hell. This year the theme is WATER. Too much of it. Way way way too much of it. Last year we had crippling droughts and this year we have the entire country being flooded. It's one huge country... Whoever says that our weather patterns are not being affected by climate change is an idiot. THIS IS NOT NORMAL!!! On the other side of the planet Brazil is also under water...not normal, people, not normal. This pic was sent to me which pretty much covers what is happening in this great big Southern Land. Not sure who created it but it's accurate.     13 January 2011 The Floods of Queensland Australia It's been absolutely catastrophic in the North of the country which I'm sure everyone has been watching. It's now spreading south into New South Wales. Thank you to everyone who emailed to ask if I were safe; I truly appreciate the support. I'm safe and sound. I live in Sydney which hasn't been affected by the rains. We have had unseasonal weather patterns with more rain than we know how to deal with. Australia is such a land of contrasts: we have severe droughts and now the flooding rains. Most of you are familiar with the usual pattern for Australia in January as I tend to write about it every January. We get bushfires. Huge monsters which devastate the land. This year it's been different. We have rains. What's even worse is that it's not even the monsoon season in Queensland yet. The flood affected areas even had an inland tsunami. I've never heard of that happening before! Yesterday on the news I heard there was a shark swimming down a main street! Here are some pictures that are just heartbreaking. More can be found on the Sydney Morning Herald site   Flood Emergency Information Disaster Recovery Hotline: 1800 173 349 State Emergency Service: 132 500 Queensland Government Flood Information ABC emergency website Donate to Queensland Flood Appeal     Read More Archives