Am in court in just over an hour so I'll keep this short. Having a busy M-free week (she is in China). Had a difficult case yesterday - I had 5 witnesses in person and a witness by affidavit + some complex legal issues. It went ok but the preparation almost killed me! Today is just a directions hearing - an easy day.
Awesome episode of Surivor last night. Shane is possibly the best character since Johnny Fairplay.

A pitiful obsession with attention, even if it's of the most marginal kind

Was out with my friend Lucas last night having a drink in North Melbourne.

You may have noticed the link, above, from his name.

It's a link to his blog.

The blog he started last night after:

1. finding out I have a blog.
2. finding out that people sometimes read samizdat7 (for reasons best known to them).
3. he (presumably jogged) back to his special friend Lisa's house and immediately read it.
4. he realised that samizdat7 didn't, to date, mention him.
5. he and Lisa SMS'd a snarky message to M about my blog.
6. he posted a snarky comment on a recent post.

Lucas, welcome to the wonderful world of blogging. I hope it brings you much happiness and keeps you warm at night.

for no particular reason

Countries I've visited: Fiji, Tahiti, Singapore, Malaysia, United States of America, United Kingdom, Italy, Spain, New Zealand, Laos, Thailand. And (very much) looking forward to Cambodia and Malaysia in a few months.

An interesting week

Having a great weekend so far; spent the morning at the gym, which was a great way of unwinding - have been doing way too little exercise lately. Last night went to see This is How it Goes, a Neil LaBute play on at Red Stitch. The play is sold out - so there's no point recommending it - but it is awesome. Another blast of LaBute misanthropy and/or misogyny. I think his more recent works (or at least those I've seen more recently) have been anti-everyone, whereas I feel his earlier work displayed a pretty heavily misogynistic worldview. Or a parody of one. It's sort of hard to tell.

In other news, this week I've been helping Mike and Ben from gnoos deal with the investment offers coming their way, was in Court a couple of times and I completed my Masters essay on whether there is any difference, in a moral sense, between killing and letting die. I think they are morally identical (for reasons it takes 5,000+ words to explain).

M is off to China for about 10 days, starting late next week, so have been spending time with her and am presently trying to think up something fun for us to do tonight. Um. Am feeling slightly uninspired, but presumably I'll come up with something.

ebay

Something I was totally wrong about is ebay. I vividly remember, back in 99-2000 (before the dotcom crash, but when it seemed pretty likely that the market couldn't keep booming forever) talking about who would survive the fallout, and I used to say that of the big players of the time ebay was one that wouldn't make it. Anyway, I was wrong. It has exploited network effects incredibly well and turned itself into a massive business. Although not one without challenges.

To date I've had a pretty-much perfect customer experience with ebay, but it's always interesting to see the other side of a person-to-person interchange. I was an underbidder on a reasonably expensive item the other day (I actually ended up bidding a couple of hundred dollars less than the winning bidder), but after it closed I was emailed by someone (presumably the seller) asking me to take up a second chance offer by emailing him back [ie. to buy directly from him, not via the ebay site]. The email was signed 'ebay inc' and purported to be an official ebay communication, but was so obviously dodgy it was sort of funny. I played along and emailed back, and got a further 'official' email assuring me this was indeed an ebay-sanctioned second chance offer.

Then today I get this from a totally different email address (identifying info deleted):

Hello,
Can you please tell me if you are still interested in my item ? ( ####) > Item number: ####.

I need to sell it asap and the winning bider said that he is not interested anymore. I've just received an e-mail from eBay, with the full support of the SquareTrade Center team telling me that I could sell my item to the other bidders according to eBay's rules and policy regarding to the second chance offer . So I am willing to sell it to you for your last bid price: AU $####.
Let me know if you are interested.
Thanks

Some dodgy shit going down.

No complaints with ebay customer support 'tho - they've been v responsive (even over the weekend).

all the gnoos that's fit to print

Have been playing some more with gnoos - www.gnoos.com.au - in beta as of this week (email beta@feedcorp.com.au if you want access). It's really addictive (and so far really robust). I reckon a few more words are needed 'around' the service - it's not necessarily immediately obvious what some of the options/features actually do - but (1) i'm a lawyer and i like words, (2) it is in early-stage beta and (3) i claim NO expertise in user interface design.

Anyway, another week is finished. I have a 5,000 word essay due next week on whether there is a moral difference between killing a person and deliberately letting them die. Fascinating stuff, but hard to get your head around when you're busy with work and life. This week I was only in Court for one day - Wednesday. Apart from that I had a few long conferences and then was almost totally unproductive today and yesterday. Actually - they are the days I was playing with gnoos!?!

gnoos - believe the hype

In the last day I've been playing with the beta of gnoos and I can tell you - believe the (amazingly extensive) advance hype. It is the real deal if you want a direct line into what Australians think about something immediately it happens.

Yes, ben and mike are friends of mine, but with my hand on my heart (figuratively speaking - I am typing with both hands), I really believe that gnoos offers something new and useful [keep in mind that doing one of the two is not so hard - both at the same time is substantially more difficult]. The guys deserve to succeed and, I am confident, will succeed.

End of a long long week

It's been a long, long week... a 3 day trial, plus working on another big case and trying to write an essay for uni. I think I've earned some sleep this weekend.
Off to the football tonight - Essendon v Richmond - which should hopefully be a really good match (it had better be, 'cos I know it'll be VERY cold at the MCG tonight).
meanwhile, gnoos.com.au is getting close to launch.