Podiatry First

I've pretty much abandoned this blog due to being more active on Twitter & Facecrook.

Anyhow I've just helped Sian my brothers girlfriend partially set up her a site using wordpress as the CMS. I'm becoming a major fan of wordpress beacause of amount of quality themes and awesome plugins. So I figured I'd give Sian some link love. If you need a quality podiatrist in Auckland I would give Sian a call. She's located in Ponsonby & offers a range podiatry treatments.

2009 link love

So I have been off air for a while due to a multitude of reasons that I won't go into now. I thought I would start 2009 by throwing a couple of links out to some worthy sites.

The first is for a fitness mad mate of mine who trains like a demon & has been using kettle bells as a training tool for a while. He has set up a site full of reviews of dvds & has pulled together some excellent kettlebell training videos. So if you are into progressive training techniques or just want to find out exactly what Kettlebells are for check out Kettlebellsydney.com.au .

Next I wanted to throw a few links to a South coast catering business run by a mate of mine Jonny. Jonny is a legend in the kitchen and produces some seriously nice food as well as being an all round good guy and a mad keen surfer. If you are planning a wedding or function on the south coast ofI NSW I would give Citrus catering a call.

The last link is to Medecins sans frontiers who are one of my favourite charities. I really like how they are non denominational with no religious or political agenda and they pretty much are on the front lines at all of the worlds most dangerous and horrible places. I don't know what they would want to rank for so I'm running with Independent Medical-Humanitarian charity. If you have $50 spare or can afford a regular monthly donation I would urge you to give them your cash as they really do make a difference.

Well I'm going surfing.

Ridiculously perfect Indonesian waves

The title says it all. Looking at these photos whilst laid up on the couch with sniffles and general feelings of malaise makes me want to be in Indonesia right now.


These smoking shots are stolen from surfingthemag.com

10 excuses for not updating your blog

Dear Sir/Madam,

Please find following a series of lame excuses for why this digital scratch pad has been a barren wasteland of content recently:

1. The surf has been good
2. I have been surfing a lot ;)
3. I have started a new exercise regime to try and balance my creaky body and improve myself thanks to Levity Health
   (spot of link love)
4. I have been an inhabitant of the procrastination nation
5. I have half started writing things but then destroyed my ideas with a salvo of excoriating self doubt and moody lazyness
6. I'm sometimes flighty and prone to sporadic fickle attention spans
7. I've been trying to help my beautiful beyonce plan our wedding
8. I've been creating crap lists but not publishing them
9. I've been planning a last minute trip to Hawaii courtesy of my good friend Kev (AKA the gooch) - (more on this topic to come I imagine).
10. All of the above

Yours Sincerely the owner of this Blog

This Blog is not abandoned

It just looks that way.

A beginners guide to dub step

I've been sifting through my analytics data and the most popular piece of content I have written was about dub music . I thought I would continue in a similar vein and provide an intro into the world of dubstep.

Dubstep is a dark brooding, minimal (at times), bass heavy experimental musical genre that Originated in the UK underground but is spreading across the gobe. As a musical style it tips its hat to traditional dub reggae, drum n bass/jungle, weird clattery sparse electronica, UK garage, grime and even elements of breaks and Techno.

A good jumping off point to explore this genre is Mary Anne Hobbs bbc radio one show which can be a challenging listen at times but also delivers serious gold (best listened to via IE as it seems to have issues with Firefox when listening outside the UK). Mary Anne has been seriously championing this sound since 2006 and is helping push it to the world. I have a copy of the Warrior Dubz compilation she produced a few years back. There are a a couple of cracking tunes that in my mind help define this genre with my favourites being The Digital Mystikz tune Anti-War dub, , Bengas tune Music Box, Burials tune Versus and a number of other gems. Probably my favourite tune from this genre is Burials tune "Unite" which is on his myspace page, I personally think its amazing.

The thing I like about some dubstep is the sparse moody sound, the beats and the blatant disregard for and commercial sensibilities. The downside of this adventurous production approach is at times the bass lines can be harsh, paranoid, heavy as F**K and almost un-listenable and it can all be a bit too much.

If you like your tunes on the more bass heavy side of things the dub step underworld is well worth an explore and if you have an internet connection it is all so easy. Other pages to check for a listen include:

• Kulture - I heard a wicked track of theirs/his "Vitamin D" on Mary Anne Hobbs show.
  
• Skream - A huge name in the scene
  
• NZ Dubstep - This style has taken hold in NZ, Kiwis dig bass heavy styles

Well enjoy the dub step for dummies guide I'm going surfing

New Improved Blogger Page Title Hacks

After discovering to my horror that the page titles on this blog had reverted to the dreaded "blog title: post title" format which is the bane of semantic indexing and plays havoc with click through rates in search engines. Thus I was forced to edit the code of this blog again.

I decided to see if anyone had produced any updated code that would create decent titles while still allowing me to manipulate the page elements without breaking the page (which was a previous massive failure of the code I linked to in my previous page title post). Anyway I stumbled upon this awesome piece of code hackery that will easily let you to swap xml blogger page title's (thanks Archit !). This is a great piece of code and is super simple to install. I swear that if the world becomes the internet then brilliant indian devs/programmers like Achit (& Kunaal) will build it.

Yes I am a wannabe Geek!

Software used to bust sly sickies

I noticed this article in the Sydney Morning Herald about voice analysis software that can identify if you are lying when chucking a sickie. Apparently the software has been rolled out by an organisation in the UK which has saved them squillions. I'm no fan of people taking heaps of sick days to take the piss - in fact I personally haven't taken a suspect sickie in years but this reeks of big brother and is a little terrifying. On the upside maybe this opens the door for voice modulation products to use when calling up to throw a sickie to lay on the couch so you can finish the final stages of GTA IV.

www.disguisemysickdaylies.com is available for any budding entrepreneurs....

Give Six Ounce Surfboards your money

I caught up with Ben at Six Ounce Surfboards on Saturday and was reminded of why he is such a dead set legend. Ben was kind enough to play the role of "ding whisperer*" for me and sort out some minor cracks and tail damage to three of my boards that I have purchased from him over the past 3 or 4 years. I have basically been delaying this life admin task due to slackness and a consistent run of surf over the past couple of months.

Anyway Ben worked his ding whispering magic and hey presto the majority of my quiver was back in top form, Benny also would only except payment in Beer (coopers pale) and minor cash which I think is amazing for someone trying to pay the rent and feed his Hugs N Kisses and two kids. So in return I thought I would do the charitable thing and tell the 4 whole visitors I get to this blog each day what an exceptional human being Ben is and that if you are planning on buying a minimal surboard bondi or a longboard bondi then go see Ben and give him some money (not beer as Barnaby is too young to drink).

Oh and don't for a minute think from the link text that I ride any retro hemp smelling craft, I am a short board fascist kind of guy although my daily ride is a little fatter to deal with the lurch burgers that the Eastern suburbs frequently dishes out. The anchor text selection is purely based on my thoughts of what kind of things prospective customers might be throwing into Google when trying to hunt down a reputable surf shop in Bondi.

Anyway the swell should be building over night due to a nice Tasman low pressure system. Check the explosion in the WAM below courtesy of Coastalwatch




*A ding whisperer is a human who is like a horse whisperer of Surfboards that have magnificent powers to magically restore boards back to a sleek non busted up state. Favour should be curried with these talented wizards of resin by any keen surfer with poor ding repair skills (like me).

Trying to get Base Pizza to rank

As the title says I'm trying to get my favourite outsourced dinner provider Base Pizza to rank as it annoys me when I try and find them in Google and they are nowhere to be seen. I figure a link may assist as their site is shocking from a search perspective committing a number of basic crimes against semantic markup (or lack thereof). Anyway hopefully this link will make it easier to find and order one of their excellent Spanish seafood pizzas ;)