Changing Times

I don't really believe in fate, destiny, kismet, etc, but as someone said to me recently, sometimes things have a way of falling into place nicely.

I'm happy to announce that I have been appointed the new entertainment reporter for Fairfax digital paper brisbanetimes.com.au.

The move comes after nearly seven years with 4BC/4BH radio, which became part of the Fairfax group in 2007. It means that I am staying in 'the family' as it were, which is great because my radio newsroom colleagues are pretty special people (even if they are obsessed with Big Brother and Carly Rae Jephson).

The opportunity came as a surprise, and given my interest in the arts, is a great fit. I look forward to features and other longer-form writing that the print form allows, and developing my knowledge and skills in a new area. Plus the new colleagues are fairly incredible too (even if they are obsessed with soccer and The Bold and the Beautiful).

Having said that, I will miss the state political beat that I have been walking for two years now (and on-and-off for two years before that). But the challenge ahead of me is irresistible, and anyway, you can never truly escape politics!

The timing is quite remarkable; I had already booked five weeks of leave, starting this Saturday, when I jet off to China with The Wah for two weeks.

I'll return for a week in October, just in time to host what promises to be a blockbuster show - the Theatresports Grand Championships. Produced by ImproMafia, it will feature teams from Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra and of course Brisbane, battling it out to see who can be the most captivating and entertaining on stage.

Saturday 6 October. One show only.

As an aside, I have in fact been pondering potential conflicts of interest within my new role. After all, ImproMafia and the Brisbane Arts Theatre are great loves of mine. However, I've always fully disclosed my role with these companies. I also think a conflict of interest is more pertinent when you  actually MAKE money: ImproMafia is not-for-profit; the community-based BAT scrapes by with only its income from box office sales (no government or corporate support). I'm always keen to promote these companies; but I'm always keen to promote the live arts in general. Hopefully what my own experiences will give me is some insight and contacts within the sector.

After that, I head to Burma of all places, travelling with my parents and ever-impressive Gran.  In fact, the old girl and I will be sharing a cabin during part of the trip downriver from Mandalay. It'll be just like that time she was in the WRNS in World War Two (with less vomiting, hopefully).

After those adventures are done and dusted, I will start with brisbanetimes.com.au in late October.

It really is shaping up to be a lovely spring.

Thanks to everyone who reads girlclumsy.com - I can't wait to share even more tales of clumsiness with you.

Ermahgerd

The following is the main body of a speech I gave this evening as part of a Gr8 Debate held by the QUT Information Professionals Alumni & ALIA Queensland.

To celebrate 2012 as the National Year of Reading, the topic was "Digital Culture is Killing Reading and Writing". I was allocated as first speaker for the affirmative, which in a sweet coincidence was my usual position in high-school debates (only in adulthood have I really come to appreciate how awesome rebuttal can be; it scared me a bit as a teenager).

Given that other speakers came from professional and academic backgrounds - plus a politician, Education Minister John-Paul Langbroek - I thought there was no point in going for the weighty, thinky stuff, and that I might as well spend my time in the shallow end of the pool.

Dan Beeston very kindly helped me make up some memes for a Powerpoint display; it seemed a shame not to put them out on the web.

As an improviser, you can be sure I ad-libbed a lot during this speech; but hopefully the argument comes through. Thanks to all of the erudite speakers, and to IPQUT and ALIA for having me.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ladies and gentlemen, I’m honoured to be among such fine company here tonight, and look forward to an evening of lively debate. As it happens, I wasn’t even AWARE this is the National Year of Reading, so thanks to whomever it was who tweeted that information to me earlier today.

And perhaps my general state of ignorance – I am a journalist after all – is a good place to start, on the topic of Digital Culture and whether it is KILLING reading and writing.

Clearly, as first affirmative, I must wholeheartedly agree. Ladies and gentlemen, we are through the looking glass. We’re so far through it, Lewis Carroll would be justified in suing us for seven years’ bad luck and a replacement mirror.

It may come as no surprise that I initially wanted to use as my main argument the biggest-selling book possibly of all time – the now notorious 50 Shades of Grey.

Surely the elevation of a hastily adapted Twilight fan fiction story – that features more creative uses of rope and cable ties than a Bunnings catalogue – is ample evidence of a brain drain sparked by our digital world.

Surely when we, collectively, as humanity, are reading books “just to see what the fuss is about”, something I thought we’d left behind with The Da Vinci Code – surely that shows the art of reading is turning blue and keeling over on the floor.

But it turns out I would rather stitch copies of Hansard to my eyeballs than actually READ 50 Shades of Grey to prove my point.

Which actually, when you think about it, proves my point (think about it on the way home, it's a quantum argument, you'll see I'm right).

But given I’ve still got a few minutes left of debate time,  I’d like to discuss another internet phenomenon with you, one that I think will demonstrate just how bad things have become.

I’m sure most of you will be familiar with the concept of internet memes; those childish picture-based capsules of web humour that spark seemingly out of nowhere, only to clog up your Facebook feed more thoroughly than even baby photos.

They began with lolcats, and moved onto other animals like sharks, llamas and sloths.

But a few months ago, one meme began that I really believe drove the iron nail into the coffin of reading and writing, then began a self-satisfied jig on its grave.

This image of a young girl, pulling a goofy face while holding some of R.L. Stine’s Goosebumps books, has become known as the ERMAHGERD girl, a slack-jawed pronunciation of “Oh My God”.

Now I don’t dislike this meme just because that girl could have been me circa 1992.

I dislike it because the language created by this meme is a bastardised, cauterised, ALMOST de-humanised version of English – stripped of nuance and care, and reduced to the sounds of so many cackling yokels.

Versions of this meme have taken off online [Ed: to save space, I won't put them all here; a quick Google search will bring up more than enough Ermahgerd memes!].

They’re even being used to subvert our democratically elected leaders.

That was one for the Minister [Ed: Education Minister John-Paul Langbroek, who was the first speaker for the negative, and sitting not two metres from me at the time].  But perhaps that’s a little touchy, so here’s something more palatable.

My concern is that our future stories will be written in this language. Infantile, simplistic, ridiculous.
Can you imagine generations that come after us, looking at what we produced in the most mass-consumed field of literature? Fan fiction and ERMAHGERD?

What about Ian Fleming’s suave super spy? Can we imagine 007 introducing himself to a sexy Russian informant or an exotic Caribbean beauty with…. this?

One of my favourites, Gone With the Wind, how could we forget Clark Gable’s perfectly delivered final line to Scarlett O’Hara? But how classic would it be if it were like this?

Would the frustrated, demented rage of Robert de Niro in Taxi Driver be as threatening or confronting, if…

But it’s not just pop culture; it’s our rich literary heritage. Sure, William Shakespeare was known to invent the odd word or two, but would we find Hamlet’s existential conflict so captivating if it played out like this?

And finally, the delightful, much-beloved work of Jane Austen, again, one of my favourites. Would we really find Colin Firth’s flustered Mr Darcy at all attractive, if he’d come across Elizabeth Bennett after his lake swim like this?

Ladies and gentlemen, in conclusion I would like to say that I wish it wasn't too late, that humanity hadn't already run off the shoulder of the information super-highway.

But it is. Digital culture is killing reading and writing. It's time to put the damn phones down.

The Avengers 2: Still Avenging After All These Years

My friend Dan caused a bit of Twitter scandal ("twandal"?) this week by issuing the following statement:

Dan's was the first kind-of-negative take on The Avengers I'd seen, and at first I thought he may have been stirring. Dan often likes to be a figure of controversy. His optional use of "pants" in our improvised stage shows once savagely divided audiences.

Even I thought The Avengers ticked all the boxes, and I'm one of the seven geeks left on Planet Earth who doesn't slavishly salivate over everything Joss Whedon does. My primary objection was that Thor didn't appear shirtless once. Frankly that was a massive oversight. They managed to shoot several minutes of Scarlett Johannson, from behind, in an ass-caressing catsuit - but Chris Hemsworth did all those sit-ups for nothing.

By thunder.

But Dan's entitled to his opinion, and maybe he has a point. Maybe there wasn't enough "story". So I've decided to pitch my mad screen-writing skillz against His Jossness', and pack more punch, but less "punch", into an Avengers story.

Here is my "treatment" for the inevitable The Avengers 2: Reassemble.

I don't think I'm really giving anything away about the movie here, but I should issue a SPOILER WARNING just in case.

"Guys, has anyone seen Hawkeye?"

The movie opens with Tony Stark facing a congressional hearing on his Arc Light power generation system. The US government has been unable to shut down the billionaire engineering genius through a series of punishing IRS audits, and so is trying to co-opt the technology through a show of public shaming, in the name of the national interest.

Stark's usual good humour is on display as he whips out the portable Iron Man suit, plays AC/DC to accompany a dramatic, jet-blasty exit, then quips "So much for Mr Stark Goes to Washington" to Pepper Potts, who promptly slaps him in the junk.

But the confrontation puts him on a collision course with a friend; for, like another famous American who worked in showbiz during World War Two, Captain America has finally accepted his destiny as a Republican presidential candidate. His campaign suffered a slight setback when a printing error saw the comma left off posters featuring his catchphrase "Rogers, Everyone!", but he's still polling better than Newt Gingrich.

Hawkeye is particularly peeved about this development, as having survived Loki's spooky trance, thought he'd never again have to share the same room with someone who wanted to bend his will to their own. It's lucky he has Olympic selection trials coming up to distract him. Not in archery, that would be too easy. He's prepping for fencing.

Luckily, S.H.I.E.L.D's Asgardian contractor is ready to mediate the group dynamic. Now host of the MSNBC discussion program "Thor Spot", everyone's famous demi-god challenges the Avengers group to appear live on prime-time TV to wrestle shirtless thrash out their differences.

Unfortunately Bruce Banner can't make it, as he's dealing with a diagnosis of inoperable bowel cancer. It's not the cancer itself that's inoperable, it's just every time doctors attempt surgery, the Hulk explodes into action and crushes the skull of the nearest medico. The colonoscopy alone levelled a city.

"I guess you could call that a colonic irritation."

The shirtless wrestling debate doesn't go well, as Thor labels Stark an obstructive egomaniac, Stark challenges Captain America's war service record, and Rogers threatens to tighten immigration laws to prevent more invasion by bifrost.

Nick Fury declares enough is enough, and once again shuts down the Avengers initiative, telling the heroes he's lost faith in all of them. Natasha Romanov decides regaining some faith is precisely what she needs to help reduce the guilt she feels in having murdered so many people. She feels this guilt because she is a woman character; male characters don't have to worry about such trivial matters when there are shirts to remove bad guys to punish.

The Black Widow journeys to the wilds of Tibet, where she spends days meditating and trying to achieve inner peace, and nights kicking ass for cash as part of the Shaolin Monks show.

But then she learns about a mysterious plague sweeping the continent, leaving whole cities crumbling out of civilisation. It turns out a former Roman emperor, Dayus Massheena, has risen from the dead, and is using a combined supernatural army of Christians AND lions to raze factories producing high-end electronics and other luxury items for the American market.

Ditching her comfy gi pants for that catsuit once more, Romanov calls up the others one-by-one, begging them to join her in the wilderness of remote south-western China (population only 300 million). Stark and Rogers cannot refuse the call to help save capitalist enterprise; and Thor hopes to pick up a few cheap iPhones with universal roaming. Hawkeye had some frequent flyer points.

They all show up at the monastic fortress at the same time, which proves VERY awkward. But it's all part of Natasha's plan - by getting them to just flick their shirts on the couch and flex knock heads, she makes them realise the world needs them to work as a team.

Meanwhile a depressed Dr Banner fears his friends will face more danger without him there to "help".  But he's struggling with radiation treatment, which just doesn't seem to take. In a climactic scene, his rage at his disease overcomes him, and the Hulk is released. After smashing several burns ward victims onto the streets of New York, the Big Guy shoves his fist down his throat and punches the tumour out of his own bowel. The whole incident is declared a medical marvel and documented in The Lancet.

The Avengers assemble on a field outside the ancient temple of Ho Lee Chit, where Natasha offers up a prayer for assistance. But oh no! Dayus Massheena has summoned an army of terracotta warriors to take them on.

Battle commences, and it's a brutal affair. A massed army of felines, God-botherers and rejected pot plant holders is a challenging enemy. Natasha's gun runs out of bullets, but she realises the faith she needed came not from religion, but the sharp martial arts techniques of the Shaolin Monks. Rogers, knowing a victory will mean generous campaign donations, drives the team forward, cutting through the ranks of the warriors. Stark fires up Pat Benatar and gets stuck in with his lasers, burning up the enemy like popcorn in a kiln. Thor takes his shirt off and ripples waves of energy with his hammer or something. Whatever, the second unit director and SFX people can just fill in the gaps here.

Eventually it's Hawkeye who manages to foil Dayus Massheena - literally stabbing him in the eye with his fencing sword. With that, the supernatural soldiers revert to mere statue form.

The Avengers are all patting themselves on the back when the Hulk shows up. Full of rage at missing the smashing, the Big Guy crushes the inanimate remains of the army. "Puny statues," he mutters. Everyone laughs, because they're too scared not too, even though it's not really a very good witticism. The Hulk knows they're just pandering to him, and is about to get even more furious, when Natasha gives him a kiss, because she's the only girl there, and it seems like that might be nice. With that, Dr Banner's human form re-emerges, and the Avengers all re-assemble and take their shirts off go to Baskin Robbins to celebrate. Over the credits, we see Banner being served the mint ice-cream and everyone laughing.

It's a happy ending - but Rogers still has a campaign to run, Stark can't keep getting away with pissing off the government, Thor has ratings to maintain and Hawkeye needs to win the gold. There are all the classic hallmarks of yet another sequel.

Oh wait... I forgot to kill someone off. You always need someone to die. Umm, let's see. OK - Pepper Potts. Maybe not dies. But she falls into a mysterious coma around 40 minutes in, and Dayus Masshena has the formula to save her, and Iron Man gets it off him during the battle, then they give it to Pepper in the form of a new Baskin Robbins flavour, and she wakes up, and Iron Man says "Watch out, she'll be STARK RAVING MAD!" and Pepper slugs him in the penis.

The End.

WTF? New Clumsy!

Welcome to the refreshed, rejuvenated, revived and renaissance-d Girl Clumsy HQ.

For several months now, I have been working diligently with the divine Ms Sharon Carpenter, Esquire-ess, Supplier of Fine Boutique Websites for the Distinguished and World Domination-Inclined.

This week, Ms Carpenter and I have been holed up in her three-storey underground eco-lair near the Melbourne seaside, emerging only to restock the lair's supply of flavoured sparkling mineral water and scare pelicans off the satellite dish.

Yumi, Kony & Misplaced Rage

My friend Dan falls into spells of inexplicable rage at the moment.

"For no real reason," he confessed to me on Wednesday afternoon. "I was doing something in the kitchen the other day, and I just got furious about the idea of a merciful God. If a real person behaved like that guy, they'd be locked up as a psychopath."

Now Dan co-hosts a science and skeptics podcast, so I guess it's a hazard of his job to become occasionally infuriated by immaculate misconceptions.

But as I emerged briefly from my state election bubble on Wednesday evening, I became aware of two current (.... events? Issues? Memes?... let's just go with) things... that seemed to reflect Dan's experience of misplaced rage on a national, and an international scale.

The first was the online destruct-a-thon of Channel Ten presenter Yumi Stynes, over comments she made about Australian Victoria Cross recipient Ben Roberts-Smith.

I knew something controversial had happened on morning chat show The Circle, but wasn't really aware until now of the vitriol hurled at Stynes. The wonderful Heathen Scripture has a great piece on it, and the acerbic John Birmingham is spot on as usual at Brisbane Times.

What Stynes (and let's not forget, George Negus) said was inappropriate and insensitive. But the level of pure bile and personal abuse spreading across social media, online forums and the dreaded comment sections did seem far in excess of justified, stern criticism.

I was going to put it down to simple internet trolling, but then I saw the Twitter hashtag #Kony2012, and eventually got the chance to watch the associated film.

Produced by the charity Invisible Children, this film is an inspirational way to spend 30 minutes of your time. It chronicles the charity's fight to bring Ugandan warlord Joseph Kony to justice for his truly evil crimes against humanity. The group is advocating a worldwide protest on April 20, to cover your local streets with posters and flyers of Kony, in order to "make him famous". The aim is to keep American military advisers in Uganda, to help the local army finally track Kony down and capture him.

The documentary is bold, it's beautiful, it pulls all the right emotional strings. The existence of child soldiers is truly one of the most abhorrent and perverted phenomena of our time. There is nothing to redeem Kony; he is a monster who deserves his number one ranking on the International Criminal Court's hit list.

And so the online world has exploded in fury that he continues to walk free, and the video has been shared at a rapid pace.

We are angry. And it feels good to be angry, particularly when somebody truly deserves it.

It's good to have a bad guy. A bad guy we could conceivably track down. A bad guy who doesn't force us to question our own role in his creation, a la Saddam Hussein or Osama bin Laden. Joseph Kony is an ideal supervillain.

And so our anger is funnelled there, even when it's potentially questionable, because we feel useful. We can wear bracelets, put up flyers, post photos on Facebook (even though the site has blocked a dissenting critique of the Tony 2012 campaign as "spam").  It's rock-star activism. We can turn our rage into action.

It is a good thing that social media can educate us all about the existence of people like Kony, but the reality is that his removal from the battlefield will not end the problems in Uganda. I wish I had answers, but I don't. The country, like many others in Africa, is still struggling with issues that took root decades ago. And once Kony is arrested, how much will the bracelet-wearers do to help those left behind? I hope for the best; but the cynic in me is not convinced.

Foreign policy and international conflicts are rarely simple. But complex is hard to fit into 140 characters. And right now, we need a target for our rage.

There's something about us humans right now that has us mad as hell, and not willing to take it anymore. The Arab Spring and Occupy Wall Street movements of 2011 demonstrated this. Even the Gillard government's fresh attack on Australian billionaires reflects this. People are not happy with the status quo. We're sick of the bad guys, we seem to be frustrated that we're in the 21st century but are still waiting for the enlightened Age of Aquarius (in whatever sense you define 'enlightened'). Diplomatic talk doesn't seem to have gotten us anywhere. And frankly, it's boring, and takes forever.

So it's good to have a real villain like Kony, someone who deserves to bear the brunt of our all-encompassing rage. It's "good" trolling.

But in his absence we can always get riled up at faux-villains like Yumi Stynes. And my fear is one day we might forget the difference.

Shooting the Message

Facebook is the natural home for sharing images with your friends. For many years, this was mostly humorous cat and or dog pictures...

OMG IS THAT KITTEH UNDER THE DOG'S EAR OMG SO CUTE.

...but that's since expanded into a much broader range - from famous quotes all the way to parody famous quotes.

Generally I've been unable to work up enough yellow bile to justify writing about these Facebook fads.

But a recent growing trend has gotten my sphincters all uppity.

Making a Contribution

Like most humans with an internet connection, I enjoy browsing the websites Damn You, Autocorrect! and Lamebook. The former explores the perils of not double checking your text messages; the latter is simply a celebration of the sometimes clever, often trite and mostly laughably stupid things people say on Facebook.

I've often wondered if I'd ever stumble across or inadvertently cause something to occur that could justify an entry into one of these websites. I never thought I would have justified entries for both occur on the same day.

Late Monday night, I was searching online stores for a BOSU, a piece of exercise equipment my personal trainer Jon makes me use. An acronym for "Both Sides Up", it's basically half a fitball attached to a board. It's great to use for stepping exercises, as the inflated side means a lower impact on your knees (I've always had bad knees). You can also use it as a balance board. I know, I know, as Girl Clumsy I have no need for balance training, but it's nice to have the option there.

I found a proper BOSU online at Optomo for a decent price, which included free shipping. Having recently paid down my credit card (bless you, tax return), I clicked and bought it. I was expecting delivery to take days, if not a week or so - but then my doorbell rang around 2pm yesterday and there it was!

Excited, I texted Jon. "Omg! I ordered a bosu at midnight and it just got delivered."

He didn't reply. I thought that was slightly odd, as I'd been expecting Jon to be excited by my purchase. All became clear though later when I messaged him on Twitter about the new arrival. This was his reply:

Obviously his silence was some sort of acceptance that I'm just freaky enough to be a part of some male-order mail-order scheme.

The other outstanding contribution to the internet comes from the Facebook event page for my How To Be A Man audition. This show - based on the John Birmingham/Dirk Flinthart book and adapted by the erudite Simon Bedak - finishes the trilogy after He Died with a Felafel in His Hand and The Tasmanian Babes Fiasco, and will play at the Brisbane Arts Theatre in November/December.

The audition pages lists the criteria for potential cast members, including a general age guide of 18 to 40. Now sometimes I really just loathe Facebook - but sometimes I admit it does provide comedy gold like this:

And now, I will await a call from playwright Simon Bedak demanding I cast that 14-year-old kid...

Agatha Holmes Ahoy!

Egads! It's been over a week since I posted an entry here at girlclumsy.com

I should really say "It's been over a week since I blogged", but something about the word "blogged" still seems to evoke an unfortunate bowel movement or a gardening mishap.

The week has been extraordinarily busy, covering state parliament at work, and rehearsing and preparing for  Agatha Holmes Ahoy! - ImproMafia's latest season at the Brisbane Arts Theatre.

This is a murder mystery comedy set on the high seas, in which the audience determines the murderer by ballot every night. We also use their suggestions for the murder weapon and a tell-tale clue, and it's up to Britain's sharpest detective mind to solve the whodunnit.

Here's a clip from our opening night on Thursday - "The Reason for the Rhyme". This gives you a good idea of what an insanely brilliant (or possibly just insane) sleuth Agatha Holmes is.

I play Lady Augusta Wellesley, an ice-cold socialite of aristocratic heritage with a tongue sharper than her great-great-uncle Arthur's battle sword. She's a lot of fun to portray - and hell, who doesn't love dressing up?

Picture courtesy of the brilliant Kris Anderson.

I do hope those of you living in or near Brisbane will come and check out the show - we're playing until Saturday 13 August.

Epic Status Win

My friend Steve Martin (not that Steve Martin) is one of nature's gentlemen. He also wears his heart on his sleeve in a sometimes confusing, but always endearing way.

Steve, like many people on Planet Earth, has a deep and abiding love of breasts. He's openly admiring too, incapable of sneaking furtive glances at cleavage when their owner isn't looking. He has such a comically wide-eyed and appreciative way, that I've been known to torture him by telling him firmly "Steve! Do not look at my breasts in this top!" in order to guarantee an immediate glance downwards followed by a forlorn "I'm sorry, I was really trying not to."

It's entirely possible Steve is a secret genius who's worked out a way of ogling women without ever getting in trouble.

Regardless, I always enjoy Steve's unrelentingly honest Facebook status updates, and chose to exploit him somewhat today.

I set 'em up, Steve knocks 'em down. Thanks to Steve for allowing me to re-post this.

On another topic - thanks to everyone who suggested names for drunken car-based heckling. They all made me snort like a pig watching Letterman.

But after careful consideration, I am going to award the double pass to ImproMafia's Agatha Holmes Ahoy! to Syme, for the simple, efficient and evocative "Alco-Holler". Now when I get yelled at by drunks in a passing cab, I'll turn to my friends, wink, and say "Charming alco-holler, wasn't it?"

Syme - if you want to shoot me an email, we can arrange a time for you to come and see the show!

Words With... Nobody

The other afternoon, surrounded by good company and many friends, I had a moment of feeling completely and utterly alone.

In conversation, somebody brought up the online game Words With Friends - the Scrabble You Play When You're Not Playing Scrabble Due to Copyright Reasons.

All of a sudden the room exploded with chatter.  There was discussion of the game's relative merit/addictiveness. There was talk of triple word scores and tactics and dictionaries and cheating. It turned out they were all in various states of play with at least one other person in the room.

Except me.

Gripping

Ladies and gentlemen, it is my pleasure to introduce you to the new "hands-on" extreme sport.

It's dynamic, it's challenging, it's going to be the next worldwide-smash-hit-internet meme.

GRIPPING.

That's right. GRIPPING.

All the cool kids are doing it. Well, to be honest, it's just me at the moment. But my Dad thinks I'm cool - or at least, that's what he tells cab drivers.

Totally cool.

There are three simple rules of GRIPPING.

1). You MUST grip with both hands. This sorts out the men grippers from the boy grippers. You can't just hold onto a lamp post and take a photo of yourself with your other hand. Oh no, sir, that would be TOO easy. You've got to grip in pairs - or preferably wrangle a stranger into taking your picture.

2) You MUST adopt an intense look of concentration as you grip.

3) You MUST grip inanimate objects - no people or animals (unless they're fake animals, like Banana the Bullock, pictured above). And don't bother trying to convince your Mum to take a photo of yourself mid personal grope. It's not just a little perverted; it's also against the rules.

Apart from that - the world is yours to grip.

Here are some shots of me gripping on the replica ship Endeavour, while it was berthed in Gladstone last weekend.

Anchors away, grippers!

An appropriate tribute to Captain Cook.

Now, good readers - I need you to join in! Let's see some photos over at Twitter - use the hashtag #gripping.  Let's get this spreading faster than Arnold Schwarznegger's seed!

How to Write a Blog Post

I'm feeling a bit bereft of ideas for GirlClumsy content at the moment.

Perhaps it's because I've been using my creative brain power to write readable reviews for the Brisbane Comedy Festival. Perhaps it's simply because I haven't had enough sleep.

Anyway, my initial thought was to have a bit of a self-indulgent rant about how shit I am as a writer. But having a rant about something that I do that isn't 100% perfect is a bad habit that I'm trying to break.

It's time instead for positivity. It's time instead for action.

It's time instead to punch "How to Write a Blog Post" into Google.

The resulting find was this post by Problogger.

Now the Problogger website seems to prove my theory that while you CAN make money from your blog, the only real way to do that is by blogging about how you can make money from your blog.

I've had a few emails approaching me about cross-promotion ("sponsorship" doesn't really cut it). My favourite was the start-up humourous t-shirt company that wanted me to post about their hilarious slogan tees, but had the caveat that if I didn't actually like them, to NOT POST ANYTHING AT ALL. Seriously, they capitalised that. Obviously weren't all that confident in the postmodern ironic statements adorning their retro ringspun cotton garments.

But I've yet to attract any actual, sweet corporate coin - and maybe there's a reason. Maybe I am just not a good enough blogger.

So OK, let's do this. Let's follow Problogger's tips, and see if I can indeed start raking in the cash reward readers with excellent content.

Am I the baddie?

This is one of my favourite Mitchell & Webb sketches:

I've been reminded of it again by a particularly spectacular piece of internet trolling.

Smart Enough to Know Better

For the past six months now, I've been contributing to the Smart Enough to Know Better podcast, run by The Wah and Dan Beeston.

It's a podcast about science, comedy and ignorance - and it's very good.

If you haven't listened before, I'd suggest starting with this week's Episode 8.0 - in which the boys interview Brisbane's own super author John Birmingham about the science of his world-building, and the technology of writing itself.

There's also comedy sketches, challenges and zombies.

I'd highly recommend hitting up their RSS feed, or subscribing through iTunes.

#TelstraWP7: Figaro Duet

I've been blown away by the response to the "Blogger of Note" nomination. So many people have dropped by to take a look - it's incredibly humbling. It is my intention to pay a return visit to everyone who's left a link back to their own blog - but I think that will take some time, so my apologies if I don't turn up straight away!

In the meantime, I'm still using the HTC Mozart Windows7 phone Telstra gave me for their social review. Below is a video featuring many ramblings about said product and my experiences with it. Please excuse the fluffy, uncombed hair.

#30before30: Buy an iProduct

Taken on PhotoBooth. With some sort of filter thingy.

Oh, I’ve become everything I’ve ever hated.

I’ve bought a Mac.

I blame John Birmingham. I really do. The man gets such a loving, faraway gaze in his eyes when talking about his master Steve Jobs and his shiny precious gadgets.

I wanted to feel like that! For once, I wanted to own a piece of technology that actually made my life easier, and didn’t make me want to bash my face into an electrified fence.

I’ve spent years loathing the “Cult of Mac”. I don’t even own an iPod. But repeated exposure to Apple-philes started me thinking that perhaps, PERHAPS, it might be worth a try. And then, my three-year-old HP laptop had a tragic encounter with a stretch of bitumen and couldn’t be revived.

Was it a sign? Like Sir Isaac Newton, was it time for me to have an Apple-induced revelation? I decide to give it a go.

#30before30: Become a Minor Hate Figure

This is a completely accidental #30before30 post.  I didn’t mean to become a minor hate figure.  But it turns out if you slag off open mic stand-up comedians, these things can happen.

My article about attempting stand-up at a tough pub room was certainly insensitive in parts. Perhaps describing some of the comics as “relentlessly awful” was a tad on the harsh side.  I was fully prepared to cop a bit of stick for that. Putting myself in the comics’ shoes, I could see how I might come across as some hoity-toity media type who was just toying with an entertainment form to which they’ve dedicated a large chunk of blood, sweat and tears. (Hell maybe I am that. Just wish I had the money and clothes to match).

What I didn’t anticipate was a firestorm of epic proportions engulfing my humble little corner of cyberspace. I understand the principles behind a “flame war” – basically, people getting angry and hurling poorly spelt insults at each other on the internet – but had never actually been in one, let alone caused one.

Frozen in Time

I bought a Frozen Coke yesterday.

A foolish drink for winter weather, absolutely. But damn it was tasty. And it had a nostalgia factor.

Quit

Because yesterday was official "Let's all quit Facebook Day", apparently:

New Look

A big thank you to Dan for creating my new website header, and to Aurelie for taking the photo. Both are very skilled people - I'm terrible when it comes to photography, Photoshop, all of that stuff, and I'm very fortunate to know so many talented people who are willing to help a noob like me.

The site makeover did happen a touch faster than I'd planned, so it's not properly finished yet. Just warning you in case you notice further fiddling going on.

Please let me know if you'd like to see anything else on the site - I'm always open to suggestions, ideas or challenges. I do like to stretch and flex my writing and other creative skills, and sometimes I feel like I've got nothing left in the tank, beyond promoting my beloved show The Tasmanian Babes Fiasco, of course.

Finally, a big thank you to everyone who takes the time to read Girl Clumsy - and props to those of you who comment. I really appreciate everyone's two cents!