Well the Boxing Day test is over for another year - within 3 days! Australia have beaten England, the traditional rival, by an innings and are now ahead 4-0 in a 5 test series. Warne and McGrath's last test in Melbourne was very memorable. Feel pretty sorry for BB and NickP 'tho - they'll miss out on the big fourth day they'd planned in the Long Room.
Thursday, December 28, 2006
Cricket + Firefox/Blogger issue?
Have had a great couple of days at the Boxing Day test. Yesterday morning England's 159 first innings score was starting to look pretty good, until Hayden and Symonds destroyed the bowling. The English team are really going to need some counselling when they get home; their confidence must be totally shot by now. Every time things start to look up, fate (or Australia) kicks them in the face.
Have been using the new(ish) IE for a while now - have been having trouble getting the latest version of Firefox to start up on my computer. It's now starting up (although every time it asks whether I want to restore the old session - which it claims crashed - or to start a new session), but when I look at my blog on Firefox the formatting is F*CKED - whereas it looks totally fine on IE. Is this a common problem?
Tuesday, December 26, 2006
Boxing Day
Good day at the Boxing Day test today... 5 wickets to Warne (including his 700th) in his last home-ground test as England collapsed (again), sat with M and her family in great seats, spent some time with BB in the Long Room and spent some time with S up in the nosebleed seats. And killer left-over xmas turkey sandwiches provided by Sam. The weather was f*cked, 'though. Cold, windy, mid-winter, horrible.
Also, really good article in the NY Times - 'Can Private Equity Build a Public Face'
Friday, December 22, 2006
Compliments of the season
I may not celebrate Christmas, but there is still plenty to like about the Christmas period. Traffic and shopping are not among them. But there is plenty to like.
Such as ...
Christmas pudding with brandy cream.
Turkey.
People starting to wind down for the year.
Christmas carols.
Watching people try to work out the politically correct thing to say to a jewish person instead of merry christmas. [handy hint: happy chanukah, while the obvious answer, is sort of silly]
Big lunches
The Boxing Day test
The smell of christmas trees
The angels on top of christmas trees
And so much more
Tuesday, December 19, 2006
Emmalina is back
Emmalina's back. But not dancing.
Becoming an overnight sensation, then an overnight pariah for doing nothing other than being a normal teenage chick wouldn't be that much fun. Good on her for getting back up on the horse.
In 2006/7 popularity cycles are faster than ever; it's like a human version of Moore's Law. But for time instead of miniaturisation.
Monday, December 18, 2006
Etopian
Was at a party yesterday when someone asked me what happened to etopian... the Bubble 1.0 Internet venture founded by Ben, Dan and myself. I hadn't even thought about it in a while, but for the record things turned out ok. Not spectacular but ok.
Sold part of the business (the investor community 'concept') to Blaze International (ASX):BLZ. Blaze was then coming off the reflected glow of its spectacular flame-out Freekick and failed to commercialise the opportunity. Probably for the best.
The other part (generally known as 'the good bit') ended up, effectively, in a joint venture between AMP and DirectAdvice (a pioneer in online financial planning). AMP launched (if you can call putting the service up with no marketing and making it really hard to find and register on their website launching) the DirectAdvice online financial planning tool (which I maintain was really, really good) to underwhelming demand. Ultimately DirectAdvice was sold and the Australian version of the service shut. Etopian did ok out of it though.
Founding / running a (very junior) dot.com was a weird trip. First I felt like a rock star (in the heady days of 98/99) then it was hard work and no money and not getting anywhere, then the industry crashed and burned, then belatedly it sort of turned out ok but in the meantime I had no idea where my career was going. Very weird.
In any case, etopian was a very cool name for a company. Not that I can take any credit for the name.
Monday, December 11, 2006
Random
It was a big weekend. Hot (more than 42 degrees celcius), Busy (wedding planning and lots lots more) and Acquisitive (I somehow ended up with new shoes, pants and assorted other stuff among the confusion). And Weird - the haze in the sky from the fires burning across Victoria gave the weekend a very strange aspect.
Great minds think alike. Check out bb's recent post on suck. Compare and contrast with my recent post on suck. It's a no contest; ben's post is much better. In fact, go read his blog.
Tuesday, December 05, 2006
Fiji coup
I'm not the only one curious about the coup in Fiji - looking at my blog stats, I've had a few visitors this afternoon searching for news about the coup. Which tells me that my blog is being indexed very promptly intdee
So...
Latest ABC article - Bainimarama has now declared that he's taken over the country as of 6pm today local Fiji time (ie. one hour ago at the time I write this).
Meanwhile, fijilive is also reporting that Bainimarama has taken over the government, that Commander Voreqe is the new head of state, that Dr Jona Senilagakaliis the caretaker prime minister and that Bainimarama did not intend to arrest anyone.
Also on fijilive, Qarase insists he will not resign and that he's still prime minister.
Check out gnoos for the blogosphere's take on it all.
A transitional era + coup in Fiji
Growing up, we often holidayed in Fiji. I have a real affection for the place and like to keep an eye on developments. As [yet another] coup unfolds today - so far without violence (so far as I know) - I am simultaneously relying on and cursing the Internet.
News of previous coups - eg the 80s and 90s versions - came primarily from the newspaper, with a smattering of radio + tv coverage. As a 2000's coup, this one is unfolding via The Age and the ABC. For example, see here and here. All very sad.
A few minutes ago I realised the extent to which I take the the constant availability of new news for granted (I guess we all do nowadays); I was frustrated because I hadn't been able to find a coup update less than 20 minutes old.... given the current state of play the ability to follow political events in a small pacific nation with a 20 minute lag is probably as good as it gets.
But I have a pretty firm belief that generation next [to use a hideous buzzword as a shortcut to mean the generation who don't really remember / identify with the world pre-popular-internet] won't find a 20 minute lag acceptable. When shit's going down, they'll want live streamed video, they'll want the latest blogs and vblogs and they'll want it wherever they happen to be at the time. A service like gnoos, which is all about recency, therefore has to be on the right track - accuracy is important [and is a given] but i want to know what's happening right now.
Friday, December 01, 2006
albums of the year
an early call, but so far my albums of 2006 are:
- Random - Lady Sovereign
- Black Magic - Swollen Members
Thinking back, 2005 would probably be M.I.A and 2004 would be Dizzee Rascal
Thursday, November 30, 2006
nook
The new Feedcorp project - nook - is now online under the umbrella of Leader Newspapers (News Corp's local newspaper division). Check it out.
It's structured local blogging. Translated into English, that means its a place to find information about your local area, review local businesses, exchange tips with other locals and etc. It's very cool. While it was in alpha, I moved suburbs and got some great tips from other alpha-ites on the best place for a coffee near my new home.
The only sub-optimal aspect is that posts and comments are moderated so you don't get to post something up and see it instantly appear on the site. An example of old-media thinking banging up against new-media reality. Times they are a'changing ...
Monday, November 27, 2006
Black Magic
Just got the new Swollen Members album - Black Magic - it's awesome. They are building up a really really solid body of work [I'm sure you'll excuse all the multiple entendres]. When you have high expectations it is so easy to be disappointed even when they're pretty good (eg numerous Tricky albums) but this one satisfies all expectations...
Thursday, November 23, 2006
Happy birthday
It's my birthday!! happy birthday to me.
Was just looking at my blog stats. Amazing and a little scary how much info is collected about visitors [i KNOW who you are. No actually I don't, but I do know which browser you use]. And I guess nice to know my words and images are travelling so far.
My last 20 visitors include:
- 7 Melbourne, Australia (including suburbs)
- 2 Western Australia
- 1 North Carolina
- 1 Chino Hills, California (isn't that where Ryan on the OC is from? I didn't know they had computers there)
- 1 somewhere else in the USA
- 4 Canada (Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, 2 x Ontario)
- 2 unkown
- 1 UK
- 1 Japan
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
New Wong Kar-Wei
Chungking Express, In the Mood for Love, 2046, Ashes of Time (seriously, it's really good ) ... Wong Kar-Wei is awesome. Not sure whether to be excited or scared by reports of My Blueberry Nights. And note no Christopher Doyle!
See below from NYT
The Master of Time: Wong Kar-wai in America
By DENNIS LIM
Published: November 19, 2006
ON a SoHo film set last August, Jude Law and Norah Jones were getting intimate. Repeatedly intimate. To be precise, they had kissed upwards of 150 times in the past three days.
The occasion for this outbreak of passion was “My Blueberry Nights,” the first English-language film by Wong Kar-wai, the maverick Hong Kong director turned avatar of cosmopolitan cool. This particular night was stifling as the crew spilled out of Palacinka, a small cafe on Grand Street that was the principal New York location, preparing for yet another take of the scene
known as “the Kiss.”
It’s closing time, and Ms. Jones, the only remaining customer, is slumped on the counter, her eyes shut. A smudge of cream rests on her upper lip, the telltale sign of a dessert binge. Mr. Law, cleaning up behind the bar, gazes at her, slowly leans in and steals a lingering kiss. When he surfaces, the cream on her lip is gone.
The shot lasted less than a minute, but the number of permutations that Mr. Wong and his cinematographer, Darius Khondji, devised — 15 set-ups, by the count of the script supervisor — suggested it would play a central role in the finished film. The Kiss was being shot at different film speeds and from a multitude of angles: a wide shot, his point of view, hers, through windows, with objects in the foreground.
“I’ve never worked with someone who’s put so much emphasis on a single moment,” Mr. Law said between takes one night. “It’s extraordinary how he’ll take a moment and replay it and slice it up.”
The consecration of a fleeting, fugitive moment is one of Mr. Wong’s specialties. Perhaps more than any filmmaker since Alain Resnais, his great subject is time — or more specifically lost time. His rhapsodic movies, haunted by voice-over ruminations and swathed in lush regret, seem to transpire in the realm of memory. People and places are mourned even as they are captured on camera.
Mr. Wong, 48, is keen to describe “My Blueberry Nights,” a road movie shot in New York, Memphis, Las Vegas and Ely, Nev., with a cast that also includes Natalie Portman, Rachel Weisz and David Strathairn, as a new beginning. His last film, “2046,” was planned as science fiction but demonstrated the gravitational pull of the past as well, succumbing to the hothouse delirium of 1960s Hong Kong. A kaleidoscopic head rush, “2046” quoted so extensively from Mr. Wong’s earlier work that it felt like a midcareer retrospective unto itself.
To a notorious degree Mr. Wong finds his way as he goes, often plunging into production with little more than an outline. His exploratory method gives his films a unique shape and intensity; the result is inseparable from the process.
In the mid-1990s, with Hong Kong’s reversion to Chinese sovereignty looming, Mr. Wong directed three films — “Chungking Express,” “Fallen Angels” and “Happy Together” — in quick succession. Made as if on deadline, they have a brash Polaroid-like immediacy. The films that followed, “In the Mood for Love” and “2046,” are period reveries rooted in the melancholy of transience. It’s only fitting that he had a hard time letting go; each took a seeming eternity to complete. “In five years you can make five films, but I spent five years making one,” he said in his Manhattan hotel room soon after the shoot, referring to “2046.”
“My Blueberry Nights” — repeat kisses notwithstanding — is a conscious attempt to pick up the pace. For one thing, Mr. Wong shot it in just seven weeks. “We thought of this as a vacation film, spontaneous and contemporary,” he said. “Making a film under the best conditions, it’s like a rock band on tour,” he added, ever the rock-star director: his trademark sunglasses stayed on through the New York night shoots.
For another, Mr. Wong said that the project “happened overnight.” He was in New York last year researching another movie, “The Lady From Shanghai,” a period drama (no relation to the Orson Welles film noir) that would star Nicole Kidman and shoot in Russia, Shanghai and New York. When that was postponed, he decided to make a smaller, off-the-cuff film, which he conceived as a vehicle for Ms. Jones, the Grammy-winning singer-songwriter, who had never acted before.
“She’s a natural,” he said, adding that he had instructed her not to take acting lessons.
As he sees it, “My Blueberry Nights” is in a sense about Ms. Jones’s face as it reacts to different environments. “In Memphis there’s something very classic about her presence,” he said. “In New York it’s very contemporary.”
Ms. Jones seemed less confident than her director. “I have no idea what he saw in me or where he saw it,” she said on a coffee break one night. “When I got the call, I thought he wanted some music for his movies. It’s weird because I feel like I’ve looked uncomfortable in every music video I’ve been in.”
William Chang, who has been Mr. Wong’s editor, production designer and costume designer from the start, is with him on “My Blueberry Nights,” but for the first time in 15 years Christopher Doyle, the iconoclastic Australian cinematographer, is not. Together Mr. Wong and Mr. Doyle invented a much copied visual shorthand for romantic alienation, a mix of neon-smudged kinesis and slow-motion contemplation. But their relationship has been strained of late, with Mr. Doyle’s Hollywood workload and Mr. Wong’s erratic schedules becoming incompatible. In Mr. Doyle’s place is Mr. Khondji, the French cinematographer best known for the dank atmospherics of David Fincher’s “Seven.”
Just as striking as Mr. Doyle’s absence from the project is the presence of Hollywood actors. Over the years Mr. Wong has built up a repertory of Hong Kong luminaries who learned to thrive under his impulsive demands. “My Blueberry Nights” subjects its starry ensemble to an open-ended process that would be inconceivable on a studio movie. (The film was acquired for American distribution by the Weinstein Company earlier this month.)
Mr. Wong was also working for the first time with a screenwriting partner, the crime novelist Lawrence Block, who had written some scenes based on an outline. While shooting, Mr. Wong constantly revised and added new scenes, often at the last minute. He said he was surprised to find that the actors were not only ready for the challenge — his reputation preceded him — but even excited.
“I wish we had endless time and endless money,” Mr. Law said. “It’s not often you get to be part of something like this — a living story that’s still being decided.”
There is a pragmatic side to Mr. Wong’s seemingly reckless method. Entire subplots are planned, cast and even shot, only to evaporate. But he recycles ideas as often as he abandons them. A stray segment from “Chungking Express” became “Fallen Angels,” while “2046” bloomed from a kernel first planted in “Days of Being Wild,” his 1991 breakthrough film.
Similarly “My Blueberry Nights” grew out of a planned omnibus called “Three Stories About Food.” One chapter became “In the Mood for Love” (2000). Another, the basis for “Blueberry,” was filmed as a short with Tony Leung and Maggie Cheung, and has only been screened once, at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival.
That short, called “In the Mood for Love 2001,” contained the blueprint for the Kiss. As Mr. Wong expanded the scenario, it turned into a road movie partly because it would cost too much to shoot entirely in New York. So he contrived a romantic predicament to send Ms. Jones’s character on a trip. “She needs time to think so she takes the longest road across America, from the Atlantic to the Pacific,” he said.
The next step was to map her route and find at least two pit stops. Crew members went on three cross-country location scouting trips, accompanied twice by Mr. Khondji and once by Mr. Wong. Both took copious photos of highways, diners, motels: slices of Americana in the style of Robert Frank and William Eggleston.
Mr. Wong considered post-Katrina New Orleans, but the logistics were daunting. He opted instead for Memphis, where Ms. Jones would encounter Mr. Strathairn and Ms. Weisz’s unhappy couple. (Mr. Wong called the Memphis segment a tribute to Tennessee Williams.) He discovered Ely while driving along Highway 50, often called the loneliest road in America, and decided to place Ms. Portman’s story line there.
Mr. Wong asks for complete trust from his actors, but he’s also willing to customize their roles to suit them. This was especially so with Mr. Law’s character, the cafe proprietor, who started out as a quiet type but grew more boisterous when the actor’s charisma and energy became evident. “I kept telling him to get louder,” Mr. Wong said.
More than a month into the shoot, despite the breakneck pace and permanent uncertainty, the atmosphere on set was relatively serene. “There’s an incredible calmness to him,” Mr. Law said of Mr. Wong.
Even so, there are some basic aspects of production in this country that run counter to his prized spontaneity. Permit applications must be filed well in advance. Union regulations stipulate penalties for long days, precluding the marathon sessions that he has been known to hold.
In Hong Kong “we make films like a family business,” he said. “Here everything has to be quite specific. I have to explain to the crew that even though I respect the rules, there’s certain things I want to keep my way.”
As Ms. Jones put it, “He’s open to everything, but he knows what he wants.”
BETWEEN takes of the Kiss, Mr. Chang, the production designer, was fussing over Ms. Jones. He rearranged her hair, fanning her curls out on the countertop, and reapplied the spot of cream on her lip. Compared with the exertions of “2046,” which called for period re-creations, futuristic sets and a heaving wardrobe of traditional and android couture, this was a breeze.
“I really needed a break from period,” Mr. Chang said, smiling.
The cafe location had only been minimally altered. There were hand-painted inscriptions on the glass windows and a new sign outside with Cyrillic lettering. Mr. Chang had also installed a pair of columns to break up the tiny space and mounted mirrors to maximize the angles.
That night Mr. Khondji was working out a complex shot that required him to pan, track and shoot the Kiss through a vase, a cake dish and some beer bottles on the countertop.
After a few takes Mr. Wong asked if the shot would work better if Mr. Law, before swooping in for the smooch, extended his hand to touch Ms. Jones’s face. Or, as he put it, “Foreplay or no foreplay?” A vote was taken among those present; the former prevailed. Mr. Law incorporated the maneuver into the remaining takes.
Later Mr. Wong jokingly explained: “I had to ask because in America, sometimes they prefer things macho. I wasn’t sure if it should be too tender. In Hong Kong I don’t have to ask. I know what a guy would do.”
Most nights the mood music was “The Greatest,” the latest album of dreamy downer ballads by Cat Power. For Mr. Wong the on-set soundtrack was mostly for the benefit of the cinematographer. “The best way for the camera to pick up the rhythm is music,” he said.
Mr. Khondji said that he and Mr. Wong had intended to adopt a casually alert, near-documentary style, using a small crew and natural light. But once they got under way, perhaps through force of habit, the shots became more stylized. Still, Mr. Khondji added: “It’s not as perfect as his last two movies. There’s no time for perfection.”
Mr. Wong left for Hong Kong in September with almost all of “Blueberry,” his ninth feature, under his belt and — it would not be a Wong Kar-wai film otherwise — questions surrounding the ending. He said he would likely return in the winter to shoot the concluding scenes.
Reached by e-mail recently, he said he was editing with Mr. Chang and would not make any decisions about additional shooting until he had a first cut. The plan had been to balance the completion of “Blueberry” with preproduction on “The Lady From Shanghai,” but Ms. Kidman announced last month that she was pulling out of that film. “None of those reports have been confirmed by anyone involved with the project,” Mr. Wong wrote. Without Ms. Kidman, though, he added, “There is no reason to do it.”
Over tea shortly before he left New York, Mr. Wong said he was exhausted from the grueling shoot. But far from being fazed by the sense of incompletion, he seemed invigorated: the door remained open, no alternatives had been lost, the story was still alive.
And how might “My Blueberry Nights” end? “I think there will be a second kiss,” he said. “But I don’t know where.”
Borat legal dramas
First point - the current media about lawsuits resulting from the Borat film is (very) good publicity.
Second point - the people who thought it was ok to say and do racist / offensive / etc things as long as it was not shown in America are not overly sympathetic litigants.
Third point - see the release (posted at TMZ) - looks fine to me. Written in legalese but nothing worse than you'd expect. And the covering letter does refer to unrestricted rights to use image and voice .....
The only difficulty the producers may have is that a number of 'participants' allege they were told that the film would be shown only on Khazaki TV. Presumably they'll be settled at some point and the issue will recede into the distance.
Sunday, November 19, 2006
the law will change. eventually.
Fascinating post by BB today about Helen Coonan's Andrew Olle lecture and then seguing into a discussion of the legal, technical and practical implications of blogs etc for major media ...
My [edited] comment on his post:
Where I was going at the end of my comment was that to a company like News Corp which has a lot to lose (eg. reputation, money) if it 'publishes' defamatory / criminal / etc material - one option which they must have considered is just to 'opt out' - to not allow unverified / unedited / unread material to be put up on sites they own / endorse. But News Corp, to stick with the example, took an opposite tack by buying MySpace (which has massive quantities of material which would not make it past the corporate censors if they had to approve it before it went up) - and on a local level, News Limited newspapers have been linking to outside blogs on current stories (via gnoos) and are currently trialling new-gen local portals (one in Q'land, the name of which escapes me, and one in Victoria with my friends at Feedcorp - the people behind gnoos). On a cost-benefit analysis... who knows! The business model is unproven, the legal risk is high.
But the risk of not doing anything is higher. The law will catch up. eventually. In the meantime, publishers have to bite the bullet, take the bull by the horns, do lots of other cliched things and wear the risk that they will cop some flak for publishing something inappropriate. The other option leads towards the mid-term graveyard. A newspaper or broadcaster without a viable online strategy is doomed (and yes Fairfax I'm talking to you).
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
Tuesday, November 14, 2006
Denial of service
Our email server is down for the third business day in a row; apparently we're in the midst of a DoS attack. Nothing insightful to say about it, except that it is incredibly frustrating and a reminder of how massively reliant modern life is on email.
Friday, November 10, 2006
a poor choice of dinner conversation
While I generally keep my blog away from political topics, I need to put on the record how happy I am about the US election results. To my mind, insofar as the results can be interpreted to mean anything, this election represent a desire by the American people to move in a new direction and to reject an approach to Government which dismisses all opposition as irrelevant, evil or wrong... For the remainder of his Presidency, Bush will be forced to take opposing views into account in big decisions - his only alternative is to sit on the sidelines and let the country do nothing for 2 years....
Thankyou
Thankyou to all for the good wishes which have flowed this week... they are much appreciated!
Still excited!!
Wednesday, November 08, 2006
Queenstown to Milford
We flew to Milford Sound on a 7-seater single-engine Cessna 207. An awesome experience. We got up to around 6,500 feet and, a fair bit of the time, were not all that far above the mountains. Flights had been cancelled the previous 2 days due to bad weather, so we were very lucky to be flying.
I got some pretty good photos and had an absolutely fantastic time (a better time than M, who was a little airsick). The scenery was spectacular. A very beautiful part of the world.
I got some pretty good photos and had an absolutely fantastic time (a better time than M, who was a little airsick). The scenery was spectacular. A very beautiful part of the world.
M & T
As most of my readers will already know, M and I became engaged this Monday in Milford Sound in New Zealand. Am very excited.
(many) more photos can be found at my flickr account - http://www.flickr.com/photos/samizdat7/
Sunday, November 05, 2006
NZ news
Have taken M away for a surprise 4-day-long-weekend in New Zealand.
Yesterday flew from Melbourne to Dunedin, then drove to Queenstown. A long day (left home 7:30am, arrived 8pm local time - 6pm melb time) but worth it. We are staying at The Dairy , an awesome boutique hotel in Queenstown. Incredible view from our room and balcony over The Remarkables - a range of snow-capped mountains.
Last night had dinner at The Cow - a pizza joint in a 140 year old milking shed full of atmosphere and good pizza.
Today we drove to The Remarkables, including a 13.5km each way drive along a VERY steep and VERY rough gravel road and hiked up the mountains for a while. Hiking in snow after being in Melbourne just yesterday was a little surreal (and also given that it is about 20 degrees celcius in queenstown toay). Very beautiful, very cold and windy, very slippery on the ice and snow. Amazing experience. Crossing my fingers some great photos. Then some more hiking, including a great 1 1/2 hour walk up and down Queenstown hill along a very pretty path, again with great views. Finally, jetboating through canyons. In theory it's terrifying but in practice i was exhilarated rather than scared. The operators were clearly pros and i didn't feel in any danger. A lot of fun, though, as you are hurtled around the water in tight canyons in a boat 5m x 2m with 2 V6 engines pumping out a total of 520hp. Got very wet. Then afternoon tea included at the hotel and a nap. A pretty good day so far. More to come.
Wednesday, November 01, 2006
Further thoughts on ie7: it sucks
I posted my initial thoughts on ie7 a few weeks ago. I've been using it as my primary browser for the past week or so, so am now in a position to give a slightly more informed opinion.
Basically, I heavily over-rated it last time around due to my excitement at the (eventual) introduction of tabbed browsing. Having used it some more the main problems I see with ie7 are:
- it's slow
- tabbed browsing is not well-integrated into browser functionality (eg. right-clicking on a link does not give an option for the link to open in a new tab)
- the toolbar is awkward to use
Basically, it's just not as good as Firefox 1 and I couldn't wait to get back to Firefox.
Thursday, October 19, 2006
James McNair video
Awesome video of James McNair, a 3-time prison escapee in the USA, bamboozling a policeman who has stopped him running along railroad tracks shortly after escaping from a maximum-security prison. Fantastic article about this guy in the New Yorker... I sense a biopic in the making.
Tuesday, October 17, 2006
PayPal
Great article reprinted below from today's New York Times about PayPal and its network of former employees who have spawned (inter alia) YouTube, LinkedIn and various others ... I remember when Ben and Tony met with x.com in Palo Alto during the boom, back before it morphed into PayPal. So many companies bombed, I'm always fascinated by the stories of the ones that made it.
It Pays to Have Pals in Silicon Valley
SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 16 — Every now and then, a group of former PayPal employees get together to catch up on life and work. It might be at a backyard barbecue, a birthday celebration at a classy San Francisco restaurant or a simple late-night reunion at someone’s house.
Almost inevitably, the conversation turns to business, and soon enough, a new start-up is born or has found a financial backer. This is what happened last year with YouTube, the Web video company that Google has agreed to acquire for $1.65 billion. It also happened the year before with Yelp, whose Web site lets users review doctors, dry cleaners and other local services.
Since 2002, when dozens of employees left PayPal after it was bought by eBay for $1.5 billion, those workers have gone on to start or join a new generation of Internet companies and other ventures. They have remained a tight-knit group, attending each other’s parties, helping to shape each other’s business plans, backing each other’s companies and recruiting each other for new projects.
Silicon Valley was largely built by networks of people and companies whose interlocking relationships help to spawn new start-ups. But the PayPal alumni have been unusually prolific, especially given the company’s modest size compared to Internet giants like Netscape, eBay and Yahoo.
“PayPal may have the highest ratio of individuals going off to start or finance new start-ups in the Valley,” said Scott Dettmer, a founding partner of Gunderson Dettmer, who has been providing legal advice to venture capitalists, start-ups and entrepreneurs since the 1980’s.
None of the PayPal network’s other offspring is anywhere near to matching the success of YouTube. But the PayPal alumni have started a number of promising ventures, mostly revolving around the Internet.
Among them is LinkedIn, the largest business-oriented social networking site, which was started by Reid Hoffman, a former PayPal executive vice president. It received funding from, among others, Peter Thiel, PayPal’s co-founder and former chief executive. Mr. Thiel himself started a hedge fund, Clarium Capital, which he said has grown from $11 million in assets to more than $2.3 billion in four years. He also runs a small venture firm with other PayPal alumni.
Another new Internet venture is Slide, a company started by Max Levchin, a PayPal co-founder, that makes it easy to publish, find and view slide shows on the Web. A handful of other start-ups are in earlier stages of development.
David O. Sacks, the former chief operating officer of PayPal, started a movie production company called Room 9 Entertainment. Its first film, “Thank You for Smoking,” a satire about the tobacco industry, has grossed more than $24 million at the box office. Mr. Thiel, Mr. Levchin and Elon Musk, another PayPal founder, all helped finance Room 9. Mr. Sacks said he had other film projects in the works, but he is also in the process of starting a new Internet company, for which Mr. Thiel provided some funding.
Mr. Musk started a company called Space Explorations Technology, or SpaceX, that is developing relatively low-cost rockets and is backed with $100 million of his own money.
YouTube was hatched by Chad Hurley, Steven Chen and Jawed Karim, all PayPal alumni, early last year. At a backyard barbecue last summer, Mr. Karim showed the site to a friend, Keith Rabois, a former PayPal executive who now works at LinkedIn. Mr. Rabois later told PayPal’s former chief financial officer, Roelof Botha, who is a partner at Sequoia Capital, the venture firm that has backed Apple, Google and Yahoo, among other big names. After meeting with YouTube’s founders, Mr. Botha got Sequoia to invest in it.
“What happened at PayPal is pretty unusual in that the PayPal alumni have ended up founding some pretty impressive teams and companies,” said Ron Conway, an “angel” or early-stage investor who has backed more than 400 start-ups.
Mr. Thiel added: “We had an incredible team at PayPal. Four years after the fact, I think it is far more incredible than we realized at the time.” He said only 200 of PayPal’s 900 employees at the time of the sale were engineers or managers.
The story of engineers and executives leaving a company to start new ones is as old as Silicon Valley itself. AnnaLee Saxenian, dean of the School of Information at the University of California, Berkeley, and an expert on the region’s professional networks, traces the phenomenon back to the late 1950’s, when eight engineers left Shockley Semiconductor to start a competitor, Fairchild Semiconductor. A decade later, two of those engineers, Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore, left Fairchild to start Intel, one of Silicon Valley’s earliest companies.
But the network of PayPal alumni is unusual in that it operates a bit like a microcosm of Silicon Valley itself, and its achievements help to explain one of the enduring paradoxes of the Internet age. Even as the global network, in theory, makes it easier for innovation to happen anywhere, most blockbuster Internet successes continue to be born and bred in Silicon Valley.
The effectiveness of the PayPal network stems, in part, from the fact that it includes all the elements needed to put together a start-up: Talented engineers and entrepreneurs with innovative ideas and a love of the start-up life; experienced managers who can turn ideas into businesses; and financiers, most notably Mr. Thiel and Mr. Botha, but also Mr. Hoffman, Mr. Levchin and others, who have used their PayPal money to become angel investors. The fact that most key PayPal employees were in their 20’s and 30’s, and not ready for retirement, helped too.
The long hours, sleepless nights and intense pressure of life inside a start-up often create strong bonds among its employees. In its early years, PayPal was all about pressure and the struggle for survival. The company was losing millions each month. It was besieged by hackers who used technological trickery to siphon off huge sums from the company’s coffers. And it faced blistering competition from, among others, eBay, which eventually admitted defeat when it shut down its own online payment service and bought PayPal.
Mr. Levchin said the pace at PayPal was so intense that employees had little time for much else. “We all became each other’s social life,” he said. “Because of that, we formed really deep connections.”
Many of those bonds were already in place, and life at PayPal merely strengthened them. From the beginning, PayPal hired people whom its founders or other early employees already knew.
Mr. Thiel tapped his network of friends from Stanford, many of whom had worked at the Stanford Review, a libertarian magazine that Mr. Thiel co-founded in 1987. They populated PayPal’s business ranks. Mr. Levchin, for his part, hired engineers in large part from his alma mater, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, which had earlier been home to the team that developed the software that would be the basis for Netscape’s Web browser.
One of the first engineers Mr. Levchin hired at PayPal, for example, was Russel Simmons, who went on to become a co-founder of Yelp. Mr. Simmons, in turn, helped convince another engineer, Yu Pan, to join PayPal. Mr. Pan went on to become one of the first people hired at YouTube. Other University of Illinois recruits included Mr. Chen and Mr. Karim, two-thirds of YouTube’s founding troika. “YouTube is like a PayPal reunion,” Mr. Levchin said. A YouTube spokeswoman declined to make Mr. Hurley and Mr. Chen available for this story.
The long-standing bonds created an atmosphere of openness and trust, which not only helped PayPal succeed, but also made it easier for members of the network to embrace each other’s post-PayPal projects.
The founding of Yelp in the summer of 2004 is a prime example. It happened after a lunch celebrating Mr. Levchin’s 29th birthday at the Slanted Door, an upscale Vietnamese restaurant in San Francisco’s Ferry Building. There were about 16 people at the lunch, a majority of them ex-PayPal employees, Mr. Levchin said. At one point, the conversation turned to how hard it was to find, say, a good dentist. That got Mr. Simmons and Jeremy Stoppelman, PayPal’s former vice president of engineering, talking about a Web site where people could review local services.
On the walk back from the restaurant to their offices — an incubator for start-up companies run by Mr. Levchin — Mr. Stoppelman and Mr. Simmons discussed the idea further. “We were bubbling with excitement,” Mr. Stoppelman said. “As soon as we got back to the office, we pulled Max aside and pitched him the idea.” Mr. Levchin liked it, and the next day he agreed to back the project with $1 million.
When Mr. Stoppelman and Mr. Simmons were ready to look for venture capital, Mr. Rabois helped them put together a presentation. Mr. Hoffman has frequently offered guidance to the company. And Mr. Thiel also gives Mr. Stoppelman business advice, sometimes when the two jog together along the San Francisco waterfront.
The support that members of the network give each other can happen in more informal ways. Mr. Hurley, the chief executive of YouTube who was once a Web designer at PayPal, for instance, sketched the logo for Room 9 Entertainment, according to Mr. Sacks. And when YouTube was starting out, Mr. Rabois and Mr. Hoffman made space for their former colleagues at the Palo Alto offices of LinkedIn. Those offices were once home to PayPal.
Of course, not everything that members of the PayPal network touch is guaranteed to be a hit. The financial success of Yelp, Slide and even LinkedIn remains far from assured. And although it is not strictly a product of the PayPal network, Epoch Innovations, a company that offered a product designed to improve the reading skills of those who suffer from dyslexia, has already folded. Mr. Rabois worked at Epoch and Mr. Thiel invested millions in it.
Still, former PayPal employees say the intense struggles that defined PayPal’s short life as an independent company proved to be good preparation for a new generation of serial entrepreneurs. “Nothing focuses your attention quite like losing money and the sense that you are going to die soon.” Mr. Hoffman said.
Mr. Thiel added: “It was a successful company, but the success didn’t come too easily. People learned not to be too pessimistic and they learned that you have to do a lot of things right.”
Thursday, October 12, 2006
Sniffle + youtube/google
A busy - and hayfever-intensive - in Melbourne... in the Magistrates Court Mon, Tue, Wed and Fri (for little things) and otherwise busy on (overdue) paperwork and on preparing for Court next week.
Fascinated by the google/youtube deal. Can we call the top of the market, or is this simply a temporary high-water mark for the wave? The easy answer is "great deal for google - it bought youtube for $1.6b and its shares immediately popped $4b+". But this is not the right answer - the merit of the purchase will become clear over months and years and a short-term increase in GOOG's share price is simply noise.
It is simply impossible to say at this stage whether youtube is a commercially viable model, based on a $1.6b purchase price. And also impossible to say whether youtube's legal problems are real (and if so, how serious?).
For my money, youtube would appear to have plenty of legal issues to consider. Yes we've all watched emmalina do yoga, some guy play his guitar and some fat kid imitate star wars. But we've also all watched music videos, funny ads and that cool scene from the OC when Summer dressed up like Wonder Woman. - presumably all uploaded in breach of copyright.
Sunday, October 08, 2006
Thursday, October 05, 2006
ie7
Am trying out Internet Explorer 7...
It's certainly a huge improvement from the previous version - not that this is such an achievement, as I think I heard that the Beatles played the launch party for ie6. Obviously the tabbed browsing (ripped off from Firefox) is good, and the user interface seems better (though IMHO it is likely to date badly). Oh - and there's the (Firefox-ripoff) search window in the top-right corner.
There is absolutely no doubt it remains slower than Firefox, however - and this is a biggie. For me to use a slower browser I would need to see some compelling new features - and I don't see any. At best, it seems to catch up with the current Firefox. But slower.
Monday, October 02, 2006
A few films I'm really really looking forward to
The Science of Sleep
Little Miss Sunshine
I'm A Cyborg but That's OK - the new Park Chan-Wook (thanks for the tip lucas)
The Boss of It All - the new Lars Von Trier (but taking a trip back to his old, funny days)
Wednesday, September 27, 2006
Too good to last
After my post yesterday, our TV is being picked up today to be fixed. Do people get their TVs fixed anymore? I'd thought that when the broke you threw them out and bought a new one (based on the economic viability of fixing them v buying them) .... we'll see.
Tuesday, September 26, 2006
Life without a television
Our TV broke last Friday. At the (very high) risk of sounding like one of those weirdos you should avoid, I am quite enjoying not having a television. No need to go sit in the study/spare room and read while M watches Australian Idol. No need to get angry at TV current affairs. I recommend it.
Thursday, September 14, 2006
Northern Territory
Have now returned from holidays and back at work...
The Northern Territory was great.
We didn't spend much time in Darwin but enjoyed the time we spent there. We had a great dinner at Hanuman and the Museum / Gallery is smallish but really good.
Then we hired a car and explored Litchfield and Kakadu.
Our day in Litchfield National Park was really good. Swimming in water holes (and not getting eaten by crocodiles!), hiking through extremely varied bush, driving (fast) past all sorts of scenery. We then had a couple of great days in Kakadu National Park. The Yellow Water Cruise was fantastic (crocodiles, lots of birdlife, fascinating scenery), M&I won the trivia competition at the Cooinda lodge and made Dutch and Swedish friends, we did a few exhausting hikes through spectacular scenery and just generally had fun.
Then the joy of a 2.20am flight back home.
Saturday, September 09, 2006
Cherating
According to the Guide Books, a chilled-out party town on MAlaysia's East Coast. According to M & Tyson, a dead zone better avoided. I thought the many goats wandering in packs [is that the correct term? i presume not...] in the main street of town were sort of cute though.
Our chalet was cute - and right near the beach, located next to a stagnant pond with plenty of life growing inside. Actually it was pretty good. Lots of weird night noises though. And some big lizards nearby. Scotch and warm water was the perfect solution. Well, if not the perfect solution, the best solution available.
Some good Malaysian food at street stalls. And possibly the worst meal I've ever eaten at a faux-Italian restaurant. The town has lots and lots of accomodation and many, many restaurants but appeared to have a total of approx 15 Western visitors and some Malaysian visitors (but they largely stayed away from the beach in a very crappy 'luxury resort' [very loose description] in a separate section of town).
A tourist town with no tourists has a very weird energy.
Darwin
After a reasonably tortorous day in which we left our Chalet in Cherating at 9am and arrived at our hotel in Darwin at 4.15am I am now back in Australia. We felt like we were on the Amazing Race - a 45 min taxi then a 7+ hour bus trip (including a border crossing from Malaysia into Singapore) then a longish walk then a taxi then the most uncomfortable flight I've ever taken (4 1/2 hours Tiger Air Singapore-Darwin - it brings a new meaning to the words 'Economy Carrier') then a shuttlebus. All while carrying this ****** unbelievably heavy stone sculpture I bought in Siem Reap and have now lugged around for about 2 weeks.
In any event, looking forward to a NT adventure before arriving home later this week.
Thursday, September 07, 2006
Jungle trekking!
Those few who recall my jungle trekking exploits in Thailand last year (i have tried unsuccessfully to block them out) will enjoy the following trauma. On Perhentian Besar, we found out about a track that would apparently take us across the island to another beach in about 20 minutes. Jungle covered about 95% of the island's land mass, so I guess that meant we had to go through some jungle. But surely lots of people use these paths - they must be pretty well-beaten.
We set out (M in shoes, me in sandals) and after finding the beginning of the path hidden at the back of a set of chalets, started on an indistinct path that quickly became a full-on jungle path through a moist rainforest. Lots of noises in the undergrowth and ants 3 inches long. Vines everywhere that looked like snakes. Clearly the path was not much used and, at times, it disappeared almost totally and was marked only by the occasional stake in the ground.
M bravely led the way, fending off the cobwebs, whilst I brought up the rear and kept a vigilant eye out for any snakes that she had missed and which lay in wait for me. Luckily it was only after we were safely back at Tuna Bay I read in Lonely Planet about the Malaysian flying snakes [they glide].
After we made it to the other beach - drenched in sweat - we discovered that the other beach (Flora Bay) was really nice and possibly the best place on the Perhentians to base yourself if your focus was on diving.
Reflections on Perhentian
An awesomely relaxing experience.
Fantastic weather every day, easy lifestyle, white-sand beaches with beautiful blue/green water.
There are two main islands - Kecil and Besar. We stayed on Besar, which although a bigger island, is the less-developed of the two - presumably becaused there is less flat land. 'our beach' - the strip where our hotel was located - had a couple of hotels, a couple of restaurants, a few general shops and a couple of diving shops - all pretty low-key. Alcohol was available if you asked for it, but not on menus or advertised. A walk over an old stone path led to another beach with another hotel and what seemed to be a site for school or youth camps.
Walking along the stone path our first night, we saw a monster lizard almost 2 metres long - apparently it was a monitor lizard (they look like a komodo dragon if that helps - i don't really know what komodo dragons look like except that they apparently look like the monitor lizard i saw). It looked roughly like a little dinosaur with longish legs. Not dangerous.
Little to report about life at Tuna Bay (our hotel). We ate mainly at a nearby restaurant which had fantastic fish sambal and a really sweet waiter with the hairdo of a gangster flunky in a Hong Kong police flick - a mullet at the back and a fringe at the front with various sections in orange - and the service style of an unworthy acolyte serving his cult leader.
The snorkelling trip made me realise I miss diving, although the reef wasn't so good. Loved following schools of fish, playing with anenomes and clown fish and inspecting some huge clams. also loving zipping around in tiny speedboats.
Went over to Long Beach at Kecil (the other island). Definitely the party place. More like a Thai beach, with crappy chalets and lots of people in their mid-20s lazing around and preparing to party at night. A beautiful beach, however - possibly the nicest white-sand beach I've ever seen with the warmest water.
We heard an Aussie voice only once on Perhentian - I'd guess that the biggest ethic group among guests on the Islands were Italian, followed by Germans / Dutch / Austrians / similar. And quite a few Maaysians staying on the islands.
On the bus from Kuala Besut to Cherating
A five hour plus trip on the public bus from Kuala Besut, the town nearest the Perhentian Islands, to Cherating where we'll be spending the next couple of nights. Marni is sleeping on my shoulder and is the only woman on the bus not wearing a muslim headscarf. The bus is cheap and comfortable (except that the enthusiastic airconditioning has been set to 'arctic') but not particularly easy for travellers / non-Malaysians to use - all info in Malay etc.
Away from the tourist areas, the Muslim conservatism of the East Coast is very apparent. We got speaking to a Chinese Malaysian guy, who mentioned that they don't get a lot of tourists travelling along the East Coast. There certainly aren't any others on our bus or to be seen along the route.
We're planning to spend our last couple of nights in Malaysia in Cherating, a town on the coast about 5 hours by bus from Singapore. According to the (usually reliable) Lonely Planet it's a relaxed travellers village - but it's unlikely to be as nice as Perhentian... we'll see.
Wednesday, September 06, 2006
coffee
Having now sampled local coffee across Thailand, Malaysia, Cambodia and Laos I can now safely say they all suck. As a born-and-bred Melbournian I have high coffee standards and wasn't expecting Asian coffee to meet them, but it is uniformly woeful. In fact my uncle Jack, a coffee drinker if ever I've met one, resorted to tea when travelling in Cambodia and Laos a few years ago.
But i am of tougher stuff - I have kept drinking the coffee - and kept complaining - through muddy, thick, foul-tasting cup after cup. Actually I limit myself pretty much to one cup a day - any more and I would expect internal corrosion.
In order from best to worst, I rank South-East Asian coffee as follows:
1. Thailand
2. Laos
3. Cambodia
4. Malaysia
Tuesday, September 05, 2006
Perhentian
M and I are presently at the Tuna Bay resort at the Perhentian Islands in Malaysia. Very beautiful - we are sleeping a lot and relaxing and snorkelling and reading and just hanging out and having a great time. A very muslim area - on our snorkelling trip the other day there was an Italian girl in a tiny bikini and a muslim girl who stayed dressed head to toe whilst snorkelling. Not so much to report other than the weather is perfect, there are lots of fish in the sea and life is pretty good here!
Saturday, September 02, 2006
Phnom Penh
Thursday we took a $6 bus to Phnom Penh. A very inexpensive way to take a 5 hour journey. The bus was mostly locals, and about 1/3 foreigners. Not a particularly comfortable way to travel, but a chance to see the countryside and to catch up on the latest Cambodian and Thai pop videos and music blasted through the bus. See my previous posts about the standard of driving. I note also that the bus' horn would have sounded at least 3-5 times per minute throughout the 5 hour journey - a nice combination with the Cambodian pop. The driver sounded the horn each time we dodged a truck, another bus, a car, a motorbike, a bicycle, pedestrians or livestock.
My experience of PP began with being horribly harassed while getting off the bus and trying to collect our bags. The tuk-tuk drivers were very insistent (and even physical) but ultimately we picked a driver and headed off to our hotel (Boddhi Tree - ok, but not special). After we'd settled in we went out to explore the city. Wat Phon, the temple-mountain (a popular attraction) is a horrible waste of time. An extremely unimpressive temple on a little hill, riddled with beggars.
We then walked along an ugly highway and other roads through extremely dangerous traffic until we found the Royal Palace about a half-hour later. You can't actually go into the Royal Palace, but the grounds and pavilion around it, which you can visit, totally suck except for a nice emerald buddha in a pagoda with a floor of silver tiles.
Fortunately, the National Museum was really good and our first positive PP experience. It was not particularly informative, but the pieces of ancient sculpture and other antiquities (dating back as far as the sixth century) were very impressive. A number of pieces from the Angkor temples, removed here for safe-keeping, along with sculptures from other earlier eras. Some fantastic huge stone heads from Angkor Thom and some of the most beautiful pieces of sculpture I've seen.
After that, drinks at the Foreign Correspondents Club (a very atmospheric colonial-feel bar upstairs and overlooking the harbour). We felt very much like we were in a bubble away from the outside PP (for western tourists) of constant harassment - and it felt like a timewarp back to the pre-revolutionary days of the 1960s. Followed up by dinner at Friends, a restaurant run by an NGO as part of a project to train street kids in the hospitality industry (thanks for the recommendation Jon) - a great experience and great food.
Today before we left PP we managed to get to the Killing Fields, the Tluong Sleng museum (S21) and the Russian Markets. The Killing Fields and S21 were just unbelievably depressing - sites of unimaginable killing and torture during the Pol Pot regime. The S21 photos of torture victims (before and after) are horribly affecting, as were the paintings of the torture scenes displayed next to the actual instruments of torture. The place had a very strong feeling of evil and sadness and was absolutely horrible. The Killing Fields don't actually have that much to see - other than the monument with glass walls and filled with thousands of skulls which left me feeling empty and sick and almost numb and a whole series of holes which used to be mass graves.
On a totally different note, the Russian Markets were actually good - they are used both by tourists and locals and gave a taste of life of the Cambodians living in PP.
Overall, we weren't that sorry to be leaving PP this afternoon to begin the next leg of our holiday in Malaysia.
Angkor update
The other day M and I visited Bantei Srei by tuk-tuk - about an hour from Siem Reap. It is a temple that is raved about by the guidebooks, but which we did not love so much. Not helped by the massive number of tour groups visiting at the same time as us, but it just seemed underwhelming compared to the other temples we visited. Also, it seemed a little too well-restored (how much is original?)... The drive was great, though - highways, paddy fields, villages and a chance to observe life for Cambodians who do not exist for the tourist dollar.
After that we visited Preah Khan - which we both loved. COmparatively deserted, it was vast and awe-inspiring as an ancient achievement. It felt like it had retained its atmosphere as a city / monastery and was very tranquil. An optical effect of the very long and symmetrical main passage blew M & I away and everything about it left a deep impression. I look forward to posting some photos soon.
Our last afternoon in Siem Reap we revisited Angkor Wat and Bayon. A couple more hours at Ankor Wat was great (and I was very proud of myself for making it back up to the top and even more impressed I made it down again). The AW complex is so hue and impressive that it is hard to find the words to adequately describe its power. Though much is left, so much is destroyed or badly damaged - it is fascinating to imagine what it must have looked like at its peak - but you can do no more than imagine.
Bayon just before dusk was fantastic. Rain was falling lightly and we had virtually the whole huge temple to ourselves. All the heads of Jayvarman VII (the greatest Cambodian king) staring down at me without a crowd of tourists to diffuse the energy meant it was a very magnetic experience.
Wednesday night we went to a shadow puppet and Khmer dancing show. There's nothing I can say about the shadow puppet show other than that it was a total waste of time. The dancing was sort-of cute, however. The actual dancing was unimpressive, but watching the teenage dancers flirt with eachother and the band members was fun.
7 on a motorbike!
today in phnom penh I saw 5 adults and 2 babies on a motorbike - the record so far. a family of 4 is commonplace (as is a man laden with a full load of building materials) but nevertheless 7 remains noteworthy...
Also today, I experienced the worst road of my life on the way to the Killing Fields. Our tuk-tuk shook, rattled and almost rolled and I hit my head on the roof while screaming "brace!" through gritted teeth to M before each particularly bad bump I could see coming up on the dirt road. Given that it appeared to be a road relatively frequently used by locals and is the road to a major tourist attraction, it was unbelievably bad. My first real taste of why Cambodia is described as having one of the world's worst road systems.
From Cambodia to KL
Am now in Kuala Lumpur overnight, en route to the Perhentian islands on Malaysia's East Coast. KL is a very modern city and a breath of very different air after Cambodia. We're staying at Eight Hotel in the Golden Triangle area - it's a really cool hotel / hostel - the guidebooks love it and I can see why. Very cool.
Neither M nor I are sorry to be leaving Cambodia - it's an interesting place, but after 6 jam-packed days we were ready to move on. Our last few days have been incredibly busy - from massages (great, but i am always left feeling like an indelicate lump of physical imperfection by the beautiful, delicate masseurs) to being caught in a thunderstorm coming back from the temples of Angkor to today visiting the Killing Fields and more in Phnom Penh.
Reflections on Cambodia to follow ...
Thursday, August 31, 2006
transport update
M and i caught a 5 hour bus from Siem Riep to Phnom Penh today and my key learning was that there is one crucial exception to the "biggest vehicle on the road wins" rule - livestock trumps a bus. our bus, which would not deviate or slow for any lesser vehicle, repeatedly applied the emergency brakes while cattle wandered across the highway. Also, we saw the aftermath of our first serious traffic accident. An ugly scene.
The bus, although hot and uncomfortable, was good in many ways. The passenger mix was about 2/3 local, 1/3 tourist and it gave us a good chance to observe and interact with locals in a way that did not involve requests for payment. A good change and sharing fruit with the people sitting around us was nice.
Wednesday, August 30, 2006
heart-stopping moments
I am not in a position to speak authoritatively on the subject, but for what it's worth, Lonely Planet consider Cambodia to have the worst road system in Asia and one of the worst in the world. I have never seen driving like this - in Siem Reap I have seen only 1 intersection with any signalling. Generally there are no signs and traffic proceeds in all 4 directions all the time. The general rule is that everyone drives slowly or at mid-speed and maintains their line and they all just sort of avoid eachother. The overriding rule, however, is that the biggest vehicle on the road outranks all comers. Pedestrians, bicycles, motorbikes and tuk-tuks all scatter for a car - which will proceed happily down the centre of the road without deviating no matter what else is on the road.
Another point of interest is that although traffic (officially at least) proceeds on the right hand side of the road, most cars (75%+ by my reckoning) are right hand drive.....
Tuesday, August 29, 2006
Angkor - Cambodia 2006
M and I are well into our Cambodian adventure - today we went to Preah Kanh (my favourite temple so far) and another one the name of which escapes me. I'll keep this entry about events up to COB yesterday and will fill in the gap shortly.
Yesterday we visited the Angkor temples - starting with Angkor Wat then Bayon, Baphuon and Ta Prohm, with lunch at Chez Sophia (in the Angkor carpark) inbetween. Angkor Wat lives up to its billing; it is a truly amazing and awe-inspiring experience. I was very proud of myself for clambering up a set of thousand-year-old, steep, crumbling, narrow steps to the top level of the Wat - and even more proud of myself for making it back down (although admittedly on the way back down I had a rail to cling onto). The amazingly-detailed reliefs carved into the walls were very beautiful (although the battle scenes dragged on a little) and overall my time there were a few of the more interesting hours in my life to date.
Then to Bayon - approaching it, it looks almost like it has been reduced to rubble; then when you arrive it is in fact very much more. More than a hundred faces of the buddha carved of stone, so that everywhere in the temple felt like you were being watched by the buddha [apparently carved in the likeness of the King who built the temple]. Lots of little corridors, steep stairs and towers. A huge, intricate - and decrepit - temple, and quite an experience.
Although AW and Bayon were very busy, the sites were big enough that private moments could be found - at times, no-one was within sight and huge expanses of temple and surrounds felt totally private - allowing the illusion that we were alone amonst the beauty, history and heat.
Lunch at Chez Sophia [thanks Jack for the recommendation] in the AW carpark was excellent. Run by an eccentric Frenchman and his Cambodian wife, we ate high-quality and well-priced French / Khmer food and gained some respite from the constant harassment.
Within the temples you are mostly 'safe', but the rest of the time in Cambodia we are pretty much constantly harassed by people wanting to sell something (usually a postcard or a ride in a tuk-tuk] or begging. The people selling stuff is basically everyone, but the beggars are primarily small children, pregnant women holding babies or people missing limbs [presumably as a result of land mines]. These people are clearly needy, but nevertheless it is not a lot of fun being harassed every 30 seconds or so walking down the street.
We visited the temples in a tuk-tuk with Wisar, a friendly young driver [he drove us again today as well]. M somehow offended him by offerng him a bottle of water, but otherwise all was good. Except for the time his attention wandered and he almost drove off the road into a ditch. It made me a little nervous when he put his helmet on (we had no helmets, were not buckled in and the motorbike was connected to the carriage by an unbolted padlock).
We're staying at the Golden Banana, a guesthouse 'over the bridge' - just out of the main part of town. Having a little distance is proving a good thing. The place is pretty cute and the staff ok (although we seem to have conversations that don't go anywhere and where i'm not sure exactly what just happened). They certainly all speak way more English (and are far commercially savvier) than the people we dealt with in Laos last year. The experience is only marred by the construyction work going on long hours just outside our door. Watching the workman working bare-foot on the roof in heavy rain is a cross between entertaining and terrifying. Also, our bungalow is brand new and in fact not totally finished. But nevertheless it's pretty good - a good colour scheme, comfortable bed and bathroom downstairs, then up some VERY (bizarrely) steep (and uneven) stairs is a sitting room and balcony. Great tiled floors in contrasting colours and lots of personality.
Last night M was heat-stroked after a long day at the temples, so we crashed early and read. Very peaceful listening to the rain that comes in at night and just hanging out. The previous day we had some great food and drinks at the Foreign Correspondents Club - happy hour there was very happy and is highly recommended.
Our night in Singapore was fun - stayed at Hotel 1929 - a cool little boutique hotel in Chinatown. Our room was ultra-tiny but fine for a one-night stay. We arrived in Singapore about 830pm (after travelling approx 12 hours) and left on a 6am flight to Siem REap, so just enough time to go for a wander around Chinatown, find a street of food stalls, eat some pretty good food and wander back to sleep for 4-5 hours. We both slept really badly, then up at 345 for our flight. The flight to Siem Reap was uneventful, except for some great scenery as we approached the town and the most enthusiastic safety intructions I've ever seen - we were almost hoping for the plane to put a problem so that we could put our new training to good use.
So this is the extended version ... I will try and keep it shorter from here on in. Finally a little rave about Preah Kanh - it is straight out of Raiders of the Lost Ark, is huge and very symmetric and totally awe-inspiring. Standing under the 900 year old arches while wondering how they are still standing and at the ingenuity of the contruction and detail of the design - and trying to picture the lives of teh people who lived there - is pretty good. A vast temple complex, partly lost to jungle and with massive trees growing out of / inside walls and rooms, many chambers and passages and monuments and just totally amazing.
Friday, August 25, 2006
Brick
Saw Brick last night with Lucas - it's a new (to Australia) film that's attracted a lot of hype. I liked it more than Lucas did - and Nora Zehetner and Meagan Good were pretty hot...
Some very amateurish aspects to it - and some horrible acting by some of the minor cast members - but great production design, a quirky attitude and good performances by the leads - including Lukas Haas as a creepy-living-with-his-parents drug kingpin.
Far from a perfect film, but worth seeing - and I am looking forward to the (first-time) director's next film - presumably made with more resources.
Thursday, August 24, 2006
HOLIDAY
2 more sleeps then off to Cambodia, Malaysia and the Northern Territory. Looking forward to a great holiday - hopefully a mix of sightseeing old temples at Angkor Wat, relaxing at Malaysian beaches and touring Kakadu - with brief stays in Singapore, KL and Darwin thrown in.
nook
Have played some more with the new Feedcorp project and congrats are due to BB and the team for delivering a site with a great design and interface and a genuine local community feel. Still reluctant to say too much, except that even as an alpha-stage project it has already delivered real value to me as a user - I have a hot tip to follow up on where to find a good coffee in South Yarra.
Sunday, August 20, 2006
new Feedcorp site
Have been alpha-testing the new Feedcorp site (a partnership with a major media organisation) - at this stage I won't mention its name. In fact I won't mention anything specific about it except to say that it's cool, it's user-friendly (apart from a few unsurprising alpha-stage bugs) and it marks the debut of the Feedcorp structured blogging platform. Congrats guys.
A genuine achievement and one that is gonna get a lot of attention in the weeks / months to come.
Thursday, August 17, 2006
It's happening again
and one more from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twin_peaks
I'm proud to say I own both The Autobiography of F.B.I. Special Agent Dale Cooper: My Life, My Tapes and The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer.
Also, very excited about the new David Lynch film - Inland Empire - though I've no idea about a release date.
just checking in
I have a horrible head-cold - it feels like my head is just about to explode - and would LOVE to be in bed right now, but I'm very busy with work so am attempting to power through it. Off to Cambodia, Malaysia and the Northern Territory on holiday on Saturday week - very excited about it.
For anyone with time on their hands, a couple of noteworthy Wikipedia pages:
Park Chan Wook
Mandy Smith
David Foster Wallace
Monday, August 14, 2006
My final MIFF instalment for 2006
After missing a few films on Thursday night due to a work trip to Sydney, I finished up MIFF 2006 with Tzameti, The Descent, Em 4 Jay, Frank Gehry and Rats and Cats... I only saw around 20 films this year - the fewest I've seen at a Melbourne Film Fest for many years ... a very disappointing effort by me.
Tzameti - I think this was the only French film I saw at MIFF this year. Although missing many French film cliches - for example, the beautiful teenager madly attracted to the ugly bald guy - it managed to uphold the fine French tradition of lifeless films that feel like they've already been made before (and better) many times over. A very uninteresting young man stumbles into an underground gambling / russian roulette ring. The plot ensues. Given that he is the main character, clearly he does not die in any of the 5 'spins' of russian roulette throughout the course of the film, although he does sweat a lot.
The Descent - hands down THE scariest film I've ever seen. An English/American horror film where a group of women go caving in an uncharted cave and (very) bad things happen. The film traumatised me and left me with chest pains - I was terrified even before the mysterious creatures turn up about half-way through the film. It very effectively evokes claustrophobia and a sensation of being trapped with no way out. My only real criticism was that it was a genuinely scary film and its frequent resort to cheap shocks (eg. people/things popping up out of nowhere accompanied by jarring music) was unecessary in building the suspense.
Em 4 Jay - A new Aussie film set in my 'hood - St Kilda. The assorted high-jinks and low-life of a junkie couple. I actually liked it, but the people I went with didn't. I thought the dialogue ran true, and it kept me entertained. The weak link was the plot, which was sortof stupid. The leads were sitting next to us during the screening - it is a funny meta-film-watching-experience to watch a person watching themself shoot-up and writhe around the floor on screen.
Sketches of Frank Gehry - great visuals, but overall not a great documentary. The commentary and overall tone was sycophantic, with the screentime given to half-explained criticisms of Gehry feeling like a way to justify the remaining screentime being devoted to unadulterated praise. I really enjoyed watching his buildings in different lights etc, but a disappointing piece of filmmaking by Sydney Pollack.
Rats and Cats - an ok new Australian film which, in effect re-imagines Russell Crowe as an ex-star who just hangs out in a country town and does basically nothing. I wouldn't have thought the film had huge commercial prospects - it just of doesn't go anywhere - but it's ok and sort of fun at times. It just feels really undeveloped - like it was filmed before the filmmaker worked out where it was actually going to go as a story.
Wednesday, August 09, 2006
The Host
I know the Melbourne International Film Festival isn't over yet for 2006, but I'm calling it: my favourite film of MIFF06 is The Host (Gwoemul). A Korean horror/comedy featuring a truly disgusting mutant monster which crawls out of a river and terrorises a town (and one foolhardy and stupid family in particular). It is scary, funny, satirises authority, gives insights into the Korean viewpoint on the USA and into the authoritarian tendancies of the Korean government and more importantly is scary and funny.
Unlike many monster films, this one is not scared of actually showing the creature - it is full-frontal on screen for a surprisingly large chunk of the screentime and looks pretty damn good (except for one scene right at the end). The male lead, Kang-ho Song, is very funny - and I have a particular soft spot for him because he was in the first Korean film I ever saw - No. 3 (back in 1997) and was also in Park Chan-Wook's JSA
An awesome film by Joon-ho Bong. Go see it!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)