Megan and I enjoyed a visit to the new Lace in Fashion exhibit at NGV International. Below are a selection of photographs.
Making bobbin lace
Lace fan
Lace dress
Black lace shawl
Detail of a black lace shawl
European Masters' names outside the NGV International
Seasoned journalists have an interesting perspective on the world. If you get a chance to listen to a journalist talk freely about their career, listen.
This month iMug, a Mac User Group (MUG) based in Melbourne, hosted two journalists: Garry Barker and Matthew JC Powell. Both talks were engaging and covered a wide range of subjects. The iPad and Apple’s entry into the publishing world has their attention.
Garry Barker at iMug
Matthew JC Powell at iMug
Megan and I have always enjoyed going to the cinema and catching up of recent movie releases. Recently we stumbled upon a big green box outside of a local supermarket. The Oovie box claimed to be a self-serve DVD rental machine. I looked up the name and discovered Oovie offers free rentals on Wednesdays. You need a code, but they are distributed freely on the company’s FaceBook page and through an e-mail mailing list.
For the last few weeks, we have been enjoying a Wednesday movie night courtesy of Oovie. Only once have we encountered problems, and a quick e-mail to support sorted out the mislabelled film.
Oovie's big green box - self serve DVD rentals
Oovie was founded in 2005 and is now part of the Australian Hoyts Group. Great to see a small company find success.
I now hope they will publish a little more history, drop the Flash web site introduction, and maybe share a story or two about the creation of their boxes.
Megan and I spent yesterday sightseeing along Victoria’s Great Ocean Road. Our stops included Torquay, Bells Beach, Apollo Bay, and the Port Campbell National Park.
I had my camera on hand throughout the day and came away with great footage and stills.
Watch the High Definition (HD) edition of the film on YouTube.
Below are photos from the day.
Melbourne in the early morning
Beach, Great Ocean Road
Great Ocean Road
Apostles, Great Ocean Road
London Bridge, Great Ocean Road
Last week, DssW launched a new preview of Power Manager 4. This preview introduced AppleScript support. To celebrate we made chocolate and walnut muffins.
Homemade chocolate muffins
AppleScript is never easy to implement. I have been planning our AppleScript implementation for more than a year. That planning paid off and the work involved was pleasantly stress free. As ever, a few esoteric aspects of AppleScript’s requirements caused moments of wonder but nothing requiring a change of course.
The muffins were a delicious well-deserved treat.
A disappointing error from Apple’s Backup software this evening:
…will no longer back up files to your iDisk because it has more than 60 backups. Create a new plan or convert to a scheduled plan.
I am using Mac OS X 10.6.3, aka Snow Leopard, with Backup v3.2 (v417).
Apple's Backup limited to 60 manual back ups
Why is Backup’s manual task limited to 60 back ups? I have plenty of iDisk space; gigabytes of unused space in Apple’s data centres, just waiting for my files to be backed up to.
Melbourne’s city festival season has begun. This weekend saw the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival overlap with the Thai Culture Festival. Next weekend the Greek Festival begins, the Formula 1 crowds descend on the city, and the Jazz Festival coming soon. With all these events going on, it is difficult to resist a walk around the city centre with camera in hand.
Monk reflected in Federation Square's BMW Centre building
The Thai Culture Festival drew in the crowds today. The weather was ideal for investigating all that was on offer.
Thai Kick Boxing at Federation Square
Crowds, Thai Culture Festival
On Melbourne’s Southbank were the slightly calmer and less trafficked Melbourne Food and Wine stalls.
Wine stalls, Melbourne Food and Wine Festival
This afternoon Megan and I visited Melbourne’s annual Moomba Festival. Yesterday’s storm made the Yarra river’s banks muddy and slippery, but did not appear to reduce the crowds.
Carnival ride, Moomba Festival, Melbourne
Carnival ride, Moomba Festival, Melbourne
I put together a short film of the waterskiing on the Yarra River. This is my first film experimenting with Garage Band. The result is not what would I like but I learnt a lot.
Watch the High Definition (HD) edition of the film on YouTube.
Twenty-four hours after the hail storm, Melbourne appears mostly unaffected by yesterday’s spectacular weather. The signs of yesterday’s flash flooding in the city centre are minimal.
Flood damage in a Melbourne shop.
Walking through the central business district this afternoon, I noticed the stairs near Elizabeth Street/Bourke Street still sheltered hail storm ice hidden from the sun.
Leaves caught in railings.
Stairs leading down below yesterdays flooded street.
Ice remains protected from the sun a day later.
Ice remains protected from the sun a day later.
This afternoon an unexpected hail storm hit Melbourne. Megan and I were lucky enough to be inside at the time. I grabbed the camera and we joined others in the building’s lobby to watch the storm build.
Watch the High Definition (HD) edition of the film on YouTube.
The thunder storm that followed lasted for most of the afternoon.
Hail storm, Melbourne, Australia
Chunk of ice from the hail storm
Hail storm, Melbourne, Australia
Update
The day after I ventured out into the city and took photos showing the remaining piles of hail ice.
This short film has appeared in the Slovakian Pluska.sk, the Australian Herald Sun web sites, and has accumulated a handful of YouTube honours:
