Randy Pausch, the creator behind the now famous Last Lecture passed away last Friday 25 July 2008 after a lengthy battle with pancreatic cancer. After reading more about Randy when Belinda first mentioned it a few months ago – I’ve come to realise that he was a very unique individual who was respected across many different disiplines.
I’ve included the video of his Last Lecture, about achieving your childhood dreams. It goes for a little over an hour, however I would recommend that it is time well spent. Throughout the video, Randy offers some excellent advice that all of us could apply to our lives to improve it and those around us.
I’ve been reading the blog of John Chow since the beginning. Over that time, John has written in depth about making money online and he has the proof; taking his blog from $350/month to over $31,000/month 15 months later.
While all of the information that John has presented has been amazing, especially watching him diversify his income stream and the different advertising/marketing gimmicks – he recently posted a video which I think sums up what it is all about, better than anything he has written since his blog started:
John says it isn’t about the money and I absolutely agree. If I manage to become a dot com mogal, it wouldn’t be about the money really – it would be about the lifestyle that it affords myself and my family.
I can think of nothing better than not having to worry about going to work, being able to take a holiday at my leisure and not at my employers, spending more time with my family/friends; our own home and the Ferrari in the garage would just be an added bonus.
Spiderman 3 hit the big screens in Australia on Thursday May 3rd and it seemed like as good a reason as any to try out the new Birch Carroll & Coyle Gold Class cinemas at Australia Fair on the Gold Coast.
For the third installment of Spiderman, the big screen is graced with no less than three super villains:
Green Goblin
Sandman
Venom
It was good to see the Goblin return to the screen in Spiderman 3. You couldn’t call him a super villain if he didn’t come packing improvements to take the do-gooders down and he didn’t disappoint. The most significant change was the new flying wing which is similar to a hoverboard from Back To The Future. It was good to see that not only did it look different but it allowed the Goblin to move with far more agility than the first version. The Sandman was a cool inclusion after having his body blended with sand in some sort of a particle accelerator. My personal favourite though, had to go to Venom. The black organism really brings out the worst in people and he was portrayed very accurately compared to the animated cartoon I thought. Given the raging war between Spiderman and Venom, I would have preferred to see a little more one on one fighting between them but I guess there is a story to be built in between the fight scenes!
Overall, I really enjoyed the third Spiderman movie and it was made all the better by the brand new Gold Class cinema we were in.
Since you are all familiar with Princess now, I’m going to reveal a new talent that she has developed in the last fortnight – retrieving! Yes, you are thinking of the right thing – just like the Labrador Golden Retriever.
We first noticed it when she found a pink peg in our laundry basket and was having a merry old time playing with it on the tiles. When she finished batting it around on the tiles, we’d pick it up and throw it again; at which point she would chase and subsequently play with it again. Soon enough, we’d throw it and she’d play with it and started bring it back to our general vicinity.
The video below was taken not long after we found out about this new skill, so the second retrieval is a little sketchy. We now play fetch with Princess regularly and she loves it. She is now taking to initiating the game herself by finding her toy and bringing it to us so that we’ll throw it!
The weekend of the 4th & 5th of February saw the Brisbane International Speedway host the Australian Sprintcar Championships. Approximately 50 drivers turned up for the event, which was an excellent turnout.
At the start of the evening on Saturday, the track conditions where poor and far too wet. The first heat held for the sprintcars was actually re-run, as the drivers and event organisers felt they were at an unfair disadvantage running first. It was so wet in fact, that there was nearly a 30 second difference in a 12 lap race between the start and end of the night. As the evening progressed, the sprintcars wore the raceline in and they soon started to grip up as expected.
The large turnout of cars ended up causing some problems. Each heat was running about 12-14 cars and it was a little too tight; the by product of course was a seemingly never ending string of accidents. The additional accidents consumed more time than expected and as the clock kept clicking towards the curfew, events were dropped from the program in an attempt for us to finish on time.
Once the track dried out and the sprintcars started to get good grip, there was plenty of great racing taking place. On the whole, I don’t think they weren’t quite as fast as the World Sprintcar Series event held there towards the end of 2005. The single biggest downside to the event this time was parking, what a nightmare. Expecting that we’d be able to get out of the car park in reasonable time, we parked inside the venue. We received a rude surprise when we sat at a stand still for nearly 25 minutes waiting to get out of the car park. Next time, I think we’ll park outside and toward the main road – it’ll make for a much more convenient getaway.
Next on the motor racing calendar will be the Winter Nationals at Willowbank Raceway in June!
Videos
Opening 3 laps, looking primarily at turn 3, 4 and main straight. If you’re having trouble watching the embedded video below, you can view the first three laps of the Australian Sprintcar Championships directly on YouTube.
Opening 3 laps, looking at turn 1 and 2. If you’re having problems viewing the embedded video below, you can watch the Australian Sprincar Championship directly on YouTube.
