Plurk, having recently celebrated its 2nd birthday, has opended up its blog to contributions from Plurkers and the blog now has regular posts from Plurkers from around the world. There are posts on a range of topics from the thoughts of a veteran Plurker to grand friendship networks that have developed via Plurk and, something all Plurkers will recognise – recipes!
If you’d like to contribute to the Plurk, visit this post, have a read and submit your thoughts now.
If your contribution is used by Plurk, you will get one of these on your Plurk profile:
I was invited into this fiendish place by Rantz. The least I can do is introduce myself, right?
My name is Dave, and I am an airport planner living in Houston, Texas, USA. I am married to a wonderfully understanding woman, and have two kids (one at home, one at college).
My hobbies include Plurking, FBing, Twittering, Buzzing, and Foursquaring. I also am keen on photography, motorcycling, and hamburgers. Believe it or not, all these things work together. To see how, you’ll have to pay attention. :)
I look forward to spending some time with you. If you want to spend time with me, I am Dave77459 on Plurk.
The thing about Plurk people is they soon get a bee in their bonnet. Circle mania is a case in point. First seen on the timeline under the artistry of our good friend Rantz. (working in Gimp and as is his character, he duly shared the method in a tutorial.) Having played with polar distortion in the past using photoshop, I quickly realized the error of not selecting good images or the correct image area in the past! A fire was lit under my tail and I mirrored the tutorial for people using photoshop. In a very short time Amazing circles were being traded regularly and circle submissions to PPAD reached a level where a sub group was required… and so Plurk Amazing Circles was formed. At the time of posting: 14 members and already 150 submissions… Congratulations my friends!
We’d be pleased to have you join us as we begin this photographic journey through 2010 – visit the group via the link above and request membership – either myself or the Mad Poet will add you to the group as soon as we possibly can.
One of the many things I like about Plurk is its user interface – it’s a rather grand , interactive, left-right scrolling timeline that allows user to easily see their own Plurks as well as those of their friends, including an easy way to identify Plurks that have been responded to. I’ve been using Plurk for nigh on eighteen months, having been introduced to it by my online friends that I’ve been in contact with for well over five years.
I’ve tried Twitter -and I still use that for brief contact and posting of links as well as keeping up with various services/organisations that post brief information, often including links – but it’s Plurk that is my preferrred social-networking microblog service. Plurk is easy to use, easy to understand and easy to communicate with. Having used Twitter and having had a go at a mutltitude of microblogging services, Plurk stands out way above the crowd. In short, Plurk rocks.
Like many grand things that rock, it has – unfortunately – been ripped off. Not just by any company – but by Microsoft China. A big corporation ripping off a young startup that is doing amazing work. Surely Microsoft has the resources to do their own work? One would think so – but one would be wrong.
This amazing dessert has no name, but it certainly has punch!
I had mentioned on Facebook tonight that my wife had made dessert for us: Ice-cream and ‘Schnapps over a slice of pine-apple. The first comment included the recipe below, courtesy of a fellow Facebook-follower:
1. Cover pineapple slice with brown sugar.
2. Pour on Brandy and bake in the oven for a very short time.
3. Cover in a double-shot of Butterscotch Schnapps.
4. Place dollops of icecream over contents to fit size of bowl.
We plan to make this recipe over the weekend! Enjoy!
I’ve been thinking about this post for all of this month – one year since I entered this place called Plurk. It’s been an interesting year, catching up with old friends met via other networks and meeting new people many of whom I’m now happy to call plurkfiends and forging new relationships based on learning about and exploring photography.
I first became aware of Plurk via people I’ve known online since 2004 via game called Blog$hares. There’s a graph in this somewhere charting my increased time in Plurk and my decreased time playing with shares based on blog linkage, but I’ll leave that to @billythekid to blog about and your imagination otherwise.
I was on the Gold Coast last year and caught up with @gcgal and @aussiejohn for my first ever Plurkfest and since then I’ve had a visit from @soulcreates here in Darwin. These interactions as well as time spent plurking (and via Plurk, flickring) had me thinking that I’d like to have a larger gathering of those I Plurk with and so suggested a gathering. Plurkfest Oz 2009 will now be happening in November in Adelaide.
Many of my plurkfiends are photographers and/or have a keen interest in photography and I’ve learned much from them over the past year as they also share this mad passion. Some of the grand photographers that I’ve met whilst Plurking that you might want to check out are murfomurf, eztephen, soulcreates, werewegian and claudecf.
Not a lot of content for having thought about it for most of the past month, is it? But that is it – I want to get back to Plurking and flickring – much to amuse myself with. Thanks for dropping by.
You’d probably like to know that this is the (23*3)th post.
Have many interests. If you can’t travel, read about new places.
This is the one thing I love about the internet. I cannot afford to travel far and wide overseas. We managed to get to New Zealand about five years ago – but unless we win the lottery or one of us manages to secure a better-paying job, or EmailCash finally pays out, I don’t see us going anywhere further than a thousand kilometres for a few years yet.
So I travel around the internet. Google News, Technorati, Bloglines, and many other desktop configurations allow me to go around the globe in sixty minutes. Who needs airlines when the world-wide-web gives us instant access? Its like when the Twin-Towers unfortunately fell: Most of us who had internet access watched the second tower fall in REAL-time. Scary.
Having a wide interest in a lot of differing subjects means not being restricted to one or two websites. The world-wide-web is the ultimate oyster.
Hate poisons the soul, so don’t carry grudges. Avoid people who make you unhappy.
I gave up hating anyone many years ago. It is so true that it poisons the soul. It also makes you a recluse because you cut yourself off from anyone who can do whatever what was done last time again.
What we need to do is not ‘avoid people who make us unhappy’, but ‘find like-minded people’. This might joining community-groups and/or non-profit organisations, joining a local sports group, going to new locations to meet new people – particularly those who don’t smoke and don’t mind sushi for lunch.
Maybe its a group of people who like to write children’s-books, or enjoy a few hours of Chess-playing in the Botanic Gardens, or a LAN-group who either enjoy Dungeons and Dragons or testing Web Design-styles.
Too many people spend too much time trying to perfect something before they actually do it. Instead of waiting for perfection, run with what you’ve got, and fix it as you go.
Small problem though: My idea of ‘unique’ changes every five minutes. At least I am happy.
I found this great list over at Troy Worman’s corner of the internet a few years ago. It’s not there any more, but it’s still a great series by which to live your life:
12 Tips on Building a Positive Attitude
Make up your mind to be happy. Learn to find pleasure in simple things.
Make the best of your circumstances. Everyone has problems.
You can’t please everybody. Don’t let criticism worry you.
Don’t let your neighbour set your standards. Be yourself.
Do the things you enjoy, but stay out of debt.
Don’t borrow trouble. Imaginary burdens are harder to bear than the actual ones.
Hate poisons the soul, so don’t carry grudges. Avoid people who make you unhappy.
Have many interests. If you can’t travel, read about new places.
Don’t hold post-mortems. Don’t spend your life brooding over sorrows and mistakes.
Do what you can for those less fortunate than yourself.
Keep busy at something. A busy person never has time to be unhappy.
My next eleven articles will expand on each of these. Links to each will be added shortly after the last article is published.
Your goal: identify the images used in this panorama.
Your prize: a cloth version of said image at full resolution (ie 6760 x 3380). This will go to the person who identifies the highest number of distinct images. Other prizes may be awarded for originality.
How to enter: leave comments either here or on the flickr page of the above image.
Your deadline: 23:23 on 23 Jun 2009.
Your clue: visit the image on flickr and note that I’ve already documented one image used in the above panorama.
Any more questions? Leave a comment and I’ll get back to you as soon as practical.
I don’t know where I’d be in the world if I hadn’t discovered online ‘Social networking’.
Sites like Plurk (and PlurkFest Oz 2009), Twitter, Facebook, Skype and various other online social-sites have enabled one tenth of the planet to talk to each other via their computers instead of the telephone.
But I do know this: You and I certainly wouldn’t have found Yooouuutuuube.com. Not by accident, not in a million years. I only found it because someone mentioned it on Facebook. Now I am telling everyone about it!
One of the joys of social networking is that many of us are connected in multiple ways so we are able to communicate via this blog as well as through Plurk, email and other social networking avenues. With that in mind, we’ve been using Plurk and other avenues to work out which weekend in November would allow as many Plurkfiends as possible to attend the inaugural Plurfkest Oz 2009.
So… enough introduction and to the point – we have decided that the weekend of 20, 21 and 22 November 2009 will be the inaugural event. We’d appreciate if you could leave comments on this post with any ideas that you may have for specific events for the weekend and below you will find other events that are not Plurkfest related that are happening on the same weekend.
Now that we have the dates confirmed, we welcome any suggestions and ideas that you may have that will help to make this an amazing Plurkfest Oz 2009.
We will keep you updated via this blog with detailed information regarding what’s happening where and when – your input into making this a succesful event are essential – so get to Plurking!
Thanks to the detective work of Charlie, we have a listing of events taking place in Adelaide during November 2009 such that we can now look at a specific weekend (unfortunately, this particular November doesn’t have a 23rd available – bugger!).
So let’s look at quickly at the last three weekends and what is on for each of those dates:
13, 14 and 15: Feast, Christmas Pageant, YogAid Challenge, Vegan Festival
20, 21 and 22: Feast, Classic Adelaide Rally, Ramsay Health Care Triathlon Pink
27, 28 and 29: Feast, Adelaide Challenge
I reckon it’s convenient that Feast is on during these three weekends as it might give us a chance to get more Plurkers from the GLBTI communities (and I could be completely wrong, of course) – the other events I have very little knowledge of so don’t know if they would help or hinder our efforts at organising Plurkfest Oz 2009.
So – now the decision making – for those in Adelaide, which weekend would be the best for you – taking into account your local knowledge and how busy things get with the events noted? For those travelling from interstate/overseas, which date would be best for you considering you need to make travel plans/book time off from work et cetera?
If you intend on coming or would like to come to this inaugural event, please let us know via the comments which dates would be most suitable for you.
Us Plurkers love our smilies, so to make Plurkfiends a more realistic experience, I’ve installed Custom Smilies such that those who leave comments are able to properly enjoy the Plurk experience of a vast assortment of emoticons.
To see what I mean, click on the emoticons above the ‘Leave a Reply’ form and the code for that specific smilie will be added to your comment. Go on – you know you want to.
Having had two Plurkfests to date, I’m keen to have a big Plurkfest that would enable me to meet up with the large group of Plurkfiends that I have come to know and adore over the past 10 months of my time on Plurk.
So here’s the initial thinking: a 2.5 day Plurkfest Oz 2009 to be held over a Friday, Saturday and Sunday in Adelaide sometime in the last half of November 2009.
I envisage that the event(s) would be open to anyone who Plurks, or is interested in Plurking, and would involve a variety of social/artistic happenings. My Plurkfiends consist of a plethora of talented artists from a variety of backgrounds with a broad range of interests as well as many from Adelaide who, as can be noted from their Plurks and other non-micro blogs, have a grand interest in social networking (and please, don’t forget the red wines).
So – that’s the idea – let’s develop and see where it leads. Please feel free to leave your comments on this post and I will create another page on this blog for Plurkfest Oz 2009 that will pull together the various ideas and events that we can participate in as the event develops.
I’m looking forward to this event and know that we can make it so.
I have lived in Adelaide since 1987. From ’87 to ’94, I was on a bus at least twice a day, sometimes four times. In order to get anywhere, you have to go via the Adelaide CBD – thus getting to some suburbs meant TWO buses. It’s now I wish I had gotten my Drivers Licence back when I was 16, more than half my life ago!
For the first time in over 10 years, I am back on an Adelaide bus.
And it’s not quite the experience I wanted, yet not any less than I expected.
For the second night, I’ve discovered the interesting horrors that are endured. The buses seem not to have improved at all since I finished High School. Yeah, they build ‘em better now, and they look clean. Yet … They still stink like a camels sweaty leg-pit after crossing the Nullarbor Plains.
After a few minutes of sharing this sardine-can on wheels, the combined body odours forms a translucent gelatine which we all swim when attempting to escape through the non-pliant doors.
Whether sitting or standing, there is no escaping the continual stop/start as each bus-stop, stop-light, stupid car driver or unpredictable and random moment whereupon the driver stabs his left foot upon the brake-pedal. One could almost assume that the brake is auto-executed when he lifts his foot from the accelerator, it happens so often!
I swear the seat padding has not been replaced since Noah gave the two Yeti’s seats on the Arc! What little padding remains is now a hindrance as it stabs at my gluteus maximus in much the same way that the princess felt the pea at the bottom of the mattresses.
Taking corners at speed forces hand from pocket up to the window, bars, nooses… Wait, that is a hand-strap? Anybody shorter than five-foot-tall had best find a step-ladder!
Standing passengers frantically adjust their feet to ensure they don’t tumble over. Having a mesh of bodies is suddenly not a bad thing: Crammed together as one large mass means no one moves at all, we just sway in unison like a thousand hippies at Woodstock.
The only downside is that the people in the middle either die from suffocation, crushed bones or from the desperation of not getting off where they need.
As the evening darkens, discerning one bus stop from the next gets difficult. Since I’ve not travelled these back roads in some time, I get a little disorientated. Is that the sinking sun in the west or the glow of the city? Cupping my hand to the window and face, hoping a land feature will protrude from the darkness, I bring my phone to my ear…
I’ve rung the wife to tell her I think the train is closer to the CBD than home, and that I might be another 15 minutes. She says not to worry, she’ll meet me at a well-lit bus that’ll I surely recognise and not miss. Suddenly a hole appears in the ozone layer (the traffic thins as we head up the hill), and moments later I’m standing on the side of the road making the phone call to find out she just left home.
Sigh. You just cannot get good transport these days.
