smackfoo.com | I find your lack of faith disturbing.

Christmas this year rocked. New Years will rock even harder.

Partly because there were (and are) no obligatory ‘family’ functions to attend, but partly due to a change in philosophy about what makes a good Christmas.

When one strips away all the pomp and ceremony, avoids the typical Christian rhetoric that is pounded out this time of year and simply decides to spend some quality time with a loved one, perhaps with the exchange of some gifts the whole tone of the festive season is changed.

Now, I’m not suggesting that one should simply drop century’s of tradition, or take a sudden interest in Scrooge’s philosophy, rather that this time of year, has very much become a consumerist driven shop-a-thon with stress, aggravation, frustration and it’s many friends in tow.

You know that feeling I speak of - the dread of attempting to navigate aisles full with people who have no clue what they want, but will happily stop everyone else from gaining access to consumer goods just in case that’s what they do want.

Then there’s the traffic, the endless queues, the confusion over what not-to-get, pressure to buy *stuff* because it’s the only way to get to the fraken checkout due to dodgy product placement and so fourth.

This year I gave my partner a few small gifts - as a small physical symbol of my affection. The biggest gift, however, has been time. Time to help with the food preparation, time to help clean the house and all the other chores most men-folk will run away from at the earliest convenience.

Sure, my partner knows me well and I had a few geeky gifts to be well pleased with, but by far the greatest gift, in return, was the feeling of closeness and renewed strength in the relationship.

At this time of year, it’s easy to be caught up in the festivities and forget to remind the people you love how important they are to you.. and nothing really says that more than actually stopping to make time for them, to make them feel special and loved.

If there is someone special in your life - remember to remind them of that, give the gift of time..

Performancing’s Nick Wilson has recently announced that CPA advertising is now in place to ‘backfill’ advertising where no advertising orders have occurred:

“We’ve just finished inputing the promised first round of CPA (cost per action) ads into the beta “Network Ads” program to backfill unsold ad space across the Partners network.”

“Right now they are very broad in topic, as this is simply a test (but a test with the aim of making you money..), but presuming all goes to plan, we’ll roll out more creatives and more specific targeting in coming days.”

So, as you can see to the right of this entry, now sports some colourful advertising. Of dating services. Great. Did someone say broad? I need to have my hearing tested. Or my eyesight. Perhaps both.

From time to time, I’ve bumped into the odd cash-for-comment blog entry, with many views and thoughts on the topic.

Lets get this out in the open from the get go. I am not a fan of the concept and indeed believe it’s the worst possible option for a blogger ((.. more on that, shortly)).

Enter stage left, karma.

Thus, is is often the way with the universe, I happened upon a Whirlpool ((.. whirlpool is a large Australian broadband related forum)) forum entry today, entitled Pay Per Post.

So after three weeks, things are finally settling down at work and I have a little more time to think.

So what have I been doing over the last three weeks? Why, that’s so kind of you to ask! :)

Firstly, you might want to check out google maps to see where in the world Carmen Sandiego Brendan is.

Take a note of where Whyalla and Mt Gambier are - then take a note of the scale. Better still, here’s a grab from whereis.com.au. I’ve highlighted some of the stop-over locations during deployment work.

Once apon a time, using a 17″ flat panel display (indeed, owning any kind of TFT display) was considered pretty darn geeky and cool. Having received a good year or two out of my no-name 17″ Chinese knock-off it became increasingly clear I needed more desktop real-estate.. enter, stage left the ASUS VW192T, a 19″ DVI widescreen display sporting a maximum of 1440×900dpi with a trifle five millisecond refresh rate.

You know that feeling where you don’t know if you’re awake, or still dreaming?

‘Babylon 5: The Lost Tales’ is a direct-to-DVD project based on the popular series from the mid-1990s. Lost Tales first DVD, titled ‘Voices of the Dark’ has now begun production. As usual, J. Michael Straczynski and Doug Netter will be running the show with Straczynski directing.

I remember the very first episode of series one. I couldn’t shake the feeling that Babylon 5, despite the slightly corny dialogue and initially ‘low budget’ SFX might, just might turn into something special. And it did. Admit it, how many of you, who watched B5, ever got a ‘chill’ as the build up to the exposure of the ’shadows’ progressed?

I came to the conclusion, many years ago, that at any given moment, the universe will purposefully do something unusual, as it appears to truly enjoy a good joke.

Take this morning for example.

I had been listening to ‘Principles of Lust’, by Enigma, from the MCMXC a.d. album, via my slightly battered yet faithful iPod and indeed had spent much of the morning trip listening to a wide selection of Enigma tracks.. having become quite disassociated with my environment as I fell deeper into the music, it was almost as though time itself had slowed down.. as though people were walking more slowly.

The experience one gets during moments of extreme stress when the brain artificially slows down the construct we call ‘time’ in order to get a better grip on a specific experience.

And it was at that moment, the universe spoke — to remind me of a certain truth.

A dark black BMW raced past, obviously in a hurry to make work, on time. Number plate HELL666. A small smile broke across my face.. which vanished briefly when the next vehicle shot past, one of those faceless minivans that all look the same, number plate LORD00. The smile was replaced with a sheepish grin as the irony of Good versus Evil crossed my mind.

The universe, however had one last sleeved card. The third vehicle to race past? A Paramedic.

I’ve noticed over the last month or so the level of site feedback had diminished to zero. Being the ever curious geek, I decided it was time to identify whether I’ve become “teh suck”, or some other gremlin had chosen to press spanner to works.

A quick skim of the feedback form looked ok — the email was sane.. Next step was to log into the (mt) provided webmail ((.. the new (gs) ajax powered webmail rocks, as it happens.)) and.. you’ve got mail!.

After pinking the foo for much of October, via Derek’s pink for October theme it’s time to dress the ‘foo in it’s latest colours ready for 9rules last round of the year.

In a little over 24 hours the doors to round 5 open, to which this author will be applying ((being not the least bit nervous in the process)). For those also looking towards October 25 with the same intent, I can heartily recommend reading tyme’s round 5 q&a for a few useful pointers.

I received a nice present in the email inbox this morning — no, not more Viagra deals, but something that shows an increasing bend towards blogging as prime real-estate for advertisers.
Performancing Partners offers publishers a new, smart way to get paid for blogging.
Given I also use performancing statistics to help round out the ‘metrics’ […]

After reading Tyme’s recent
questions and
adventures it occurred to me that having some kind of easily accessible social identity1 was something worth doing.

Being somewhat of an ‘online community’ virgin I had no idea what to expect given my innate tendency to avoid ’social’ environments2.
I was pleasantly surprised —
facebook blends the creation of a […]