Oscar Picks

In years gone past i've had Oscar parties where the attendees predict the Oscar winners for fun and monetary gain. All very nerdy. But this year i couldn't really give a rats. But i put my guesses here anyway.

The Oscars are so predictable these days it's not that much fun. The real joy lies in poking fun at poorly dressed and drunken celebrities. But I'll leave that to the experts at Go Fug Yourself and Defamer.

UPDATED 5:25pm

I told you the Oscars are predictable. All those guesses were right.

Bondi Bowlarama

Went down to Bondi yesterday to check out the new skate park. I took some photos and little videos linked below.

USA itinerary

The schedule for Boudist's USA vacation are firming up. I've prepared an itinerary. Like you care. But note one detail and get very jealous... I'm going to see Kings of Leon! That's right bitches. Deal.

xx

The Great Gonzo in the Sky

Oh crap, Hunter S. Thompson's gone and died. Shot himself with a rifle.

Like Iggy Pop or Keith Richards, he was one of those counter culture excessive types who was supposed to defy the odds and live forever.

I'm off to have my little Las Vegas adventure next month. While i don't think it'll be quite the fear and loathing filled experience of Hunter Thompson's famous book, the mystique of reading it as a younger fella is part of why i'm drawn to Vegas.

I've got a room at the Sahara on the Vegas Strip, a wedding to go to at the Little White Wedding Chapel now all i need is "two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half-full of cocaine and a whole galaxy of multicolored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers, a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of Budweiser, a pint of raw ether, and two dozen amyls".

I'm taking my lawyer with me, Dr Cameron Gonzo. I'm not sure of his qualifications but he looks good with a mo.

RIP Hunter S. Thompson.

PS. For the past four years Hunter S. Thompson's been writing columns for ESPN. Check out the archives.

Also: Take a listen to the first 9 ½ minutes (mp3, 4.3Mb) of this 1996 Audio Book version of Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas. It features Harry Dean Stanton and Jim Jarmusch in the Roaul Duke/Hunter Thompson role. It's kinda confusing, and certainly doesn't beat reading the book but it's a good introduction for lazy types.

Bloggers in print

Hey, you wanna know what's hot? This month's issue of Lucky magazine is what. Not only does a photo taken by yours truly grace its lustrous cover but much of the content inside is written by bloggaz you (might/should) know and love. That would include AusCulture, The Krankmeister, Buck Fudd, Book Book and Clem Bastow (update: and Ms Fits!).

All this made possible by our fearless overlord Sherriff and his partner in crime Gbus. Praise be to thee.

I believe you can find the mag in cool record shops (and maybe other places too) across Australia.

Shooting from the hip

I've updated a few of my photo galleries - here's the new stuff:

• Weekend Gaiety Feb 9-13 05
• Stuff and Things 16 Jan - 9 Feb 05
• A couple of extras to the Gig Gallery

And a few highlights:

Lamento debrief

Your uncle Dan popped out the bat cave last week to catch two of his favourite bands; The Lamento Suite and Acrobat. Quite possibly best shows ever from both groups. The Lamento Suite were particularly impressive considering their year long hiatus. Even people who haven't seen them the billions of times i have were well impressed. Esteemed folks like Ausculture Jess and Ms Niina. Buzzzzzz....

Lamento play again on February 26th at The Hopetoun with The Chronics. You should come. You can meet elmo and if you ply them with drinks these boys will show you their nipples.

Feast your ears on this

I heartily recommend you waste some bandwidth downloading the latest music mix from Pop77. It's made up of songs from or inspired by Spike Lee movies. Some great old school hip-hop and soul numbers. It was inspired by the passing of Ossie Davis. Get it while it lasts.

And a few other links:

• A literary deconstruction of Bon Jovi's 'Bed of Roses'.
• Photographs of snowflakes
• Gayest tattoo ever
• Sinead O'Connor's making a comeback
• An mp3 blog featuring bands playing at SXSW next month
• Whistler's Delight: a mashup of whistles from 22 different songs (mp3)

Media Tart

I think i should now add 'Blogging Pundit' to my resumé. I was just interviewed on ABC Radio in the Northern Territory by Leon Compton about my blog and blogging in general. I was a little nervous but reckon i came across OK. I was being touted as one of Australia's most famous bloggers. Sounds so silly.

Now that i've been interviewed on the radio, written about in the paper, have a photo i took on the cover of a magazine, the TV talk show circuit can only be next. Let's take blogging to the masses. Oprah here i come!

Access Denied!

A friend sent me this screenshot of what he gets when he tries to access my website from work.

So shweeet. Boudist.com is categorized as Pornography. Beware kids, apparently this is porn.

Maybe they got me confused with my tourettes effected site (maybe NSFW).

I Want to be in America

Yesiree bob, i'm taking a trip to the US. In a moment of spontaneity last week i thought, "feck it, stop thinking about it, do it". So i booked a return Sydney-LA flight arriving March 10, leaving April 1.

The main reason i'm going is for the South by Southwest festival. It's the biggest and best festival/conference for the online and music industry, two of my major passions. The lineup of talent for the interactive conference is pretty awesome. And there's going to be hundreds of great bands in town, including some of my Aussie faves like Cut Copy, Wolfmother and Sarah Blasko. Now i just have to work out how i'll get access to the gigs without paying US$500 for the music pass.

As well as the SXSW festival i'm planning to catch up with a friend in Chicago and go to a wedding in Las Vegas.

So excited right now :)

Oh, and that article about the Bloggies was in the paper today.

Hey guess what...

More details to follow...

Sydney Gigs for your consideration

• Wed 9th Feb - Acrobat + By the Sea at The Hopetoun.
  Acrobat are a damn fine band. I've taken some photos of them so has Niina. Just so you know what they look like.
• Thurs 10th Feb - The Lamento Suite (!!!) + The Chronics at Spectrum
  The Lamento Suite called it quits about a year ago but like a phoenix from the ashes they rise again. Elmo is the bands drummer.
• Sat 12th Feb - The Mess Hall and The Cops at The Annandale
  2 of the best bands in the land on the same bill.
• Thurs 17th Feb - Sarah Blasko @Newtown
  She's rather lovely.
• Thurs 17th Feb - The Grates and Snap Crakk at Spectrum
  Crazy art rocker types. I'll probably go to this since i've seen Sarah Blasko a bunch of times.
• Fri 18th Feb - The Panics and Faker @Newtown
  I saw The Panics at Homebake and was rather impressed.
• Thurs 24th Feb - Carla Werner at the Vanguard
  Y'all know i dig Carla Werner.

Embarrassment Beckons

I had my photo taken by a Herald photographer for an article about the Bloggies. It was somewhat embarrassing, though not as embarrassing as it'll be once i actually see the photo in print. I have a feeling i'll either turn out looking like a smug poseur or some sort of lunatic. The photographer was nice, she was shooting on digital, a Canon 10D and showed me how the pics were turning out. She said i didn't look like the typical blogger/internet type. I think that's a compliment, though i'm sure she says that to all the internet geeks.

The article might appear in the Next section of The SMH and The Age on Tuesday.

Mmmmmmelbourne

I've posted some rather ordinary pics from the trip to Melbourne last week.

Some of the highlights were:

• A tantalisingly tasty meal at Livebait with nine ravishing individuals.
• Racing all over town looking for the ABC studios to watch elmo on Einstein Factor. She may not have won but she was the star of the show.
• Hanging out at Ding Dong on Australia Day night when it was closed to the public
• Roast Duck salad with lychees at Cookie
• Catching up with all my blog nerd pals plus the odd non blogger
• Falling in love with Bob Ellis

Rock the Vote

There's just a day or two left to vote in the bloggies. If you feel like it you can vote for Boudist in the category of Best Australian or New Zealand blog. There's lots of other great blogs to discover by clicking through the nominees in all categories.

The other day a journalist from the Sydney Morning Herald emailed about a story he's doing on the Bloggie awards. He asked me several questions and they're sending a photographer to take my photo tomorrow. This could be highly embarrasing.

Below is the questions i was asked and my responses to them. I'm not sure when the article is due to appear.

What does nomination mean to you?

It's surprising, humbling and makes me proud. I know a small bunch of people who read my site regularly so I was surprised at being nominated for a bloggie. There's a lot of very talented people writing blogs in Australia so it's very humbling to get nominated. I certainly didn't expect to get nominated as most days I think my blog is pretty crap.

When/why did you start blogging?

I started just over a year ago.

I was a voracious reader of blogs and felt I ought to start one myself in order to feel like part of the conversation. If you leave a comment on someone else's blog it's good to have a blog of your own so people can click through to to discover a little bit about the comment writer.

Also as a web developer by trade and a bit of an amateur photographer it was an excuse to exercise my skills and show off my work.

What is your traffic volume like?

I get around 700-900 unique visitors a day.

What feedback do you get from readers?

Most of it is comments on blog posts. Often quite funny conversations can develop in the comments of posts, sometimes on a topic completely different to the original post.

Sometimes the odd reader emails me to say they like my site or my photos. That's quite nice.

One of the stranger bits of feedback came when I was at a rock gig and a complete stranger walked up to me and asked if I was Daniel Boud. I said yes and he told me that I had a great website and good taste in music. That was odd. He recognised me from photos I'd put up on my site.

Is the blog form becoming commercialised?

To an extent.

You've got people like Nick Denton and Jason Calacanis putting up money to start blogs with the view to making a profit. You could view the fact that Nick Denton's Gawker Media empire got 7 nominations in the Bloggies as evidence that commercial blogs are taking over, or the blog space is becoming commercialised to the detriment of other blogs. On the contrary it could be evidence that even though those blogs have a commercial impetus they are still providing great content that a wide audience loves.

Although there is a rise in the number of commercial blogs I bet there is an even bigger rise in the number of average people starting blogs. Tools like blogger mean that anyone can start a blog and be published in less than 5 minutes.

Much like any blog, commercial blogs will fail if they don't provide compelling content. And unlike TV, radio or print media in blogland there are thousands of alternative voices. The monetary cost of entry for blog publishing is minimal to non-existent, so commercial blogs have to be doing something really interesting and worthwhile in order to get heard.

Blogs thrive because of the personal voice and opinions of the author. It's difficult for a commercial entity to emulate that personality.