Public Address - Hard News (Home)

Away for the Weekend | Feb 13, 2009 10:11

This week's Media7 is online at TVNZ ondemand. People have been telling me it's the best show we've done, and it certainly felt pretty good.

Our first panel brought together three journalists who have devoted themselves to the cases of men convicted of the most grievous crimes: Pat Booth (who campaigned tirelessly to exonerate Arthur Allan Thomas of the Crewe murders); Donna Chisholm (whose work in overturning the conviction of David Dougherty on child rape charges was depicted in last Sunday's TV drama Until Proven Innocent; and Keith Hunter, who has argued that Scott Watson was wrongly convicted of the Sounds murders in both a documentary film and a book.

There's also a chat with Jeremy Rees and Julie Starr on occasion of the Herald website's tenth anniversary, and a look at the very cool Hulu.com ad (starring Alec Baldwin) that screened during the Superbowl.

There's still no sign of TVNZ's YouTube problem getting fixed, but the podcast should be updated eventually (last week's discussion on Fiji and the media is there now).

Anyway, that'll do. I have to practice my whaikorero (many thanks to Mikaere Curtis for his help) and get out to the aiport to pick up Emma and Karl before heading north for the weekend at Foo Camp.

I will be tweeting from Foo.

Anyway, here's that Hulu ad:

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The Crusaders | Feb 11, 2009 09:38

We normally announce this earlier, but we were still confirming a few things up till yesterday afternoon. This week's Media7 covers two topics: the crusading journalist and the tenth anniversary of the New Zealand Herald online.

On the former topic, I'll be talking to two journalists whose work helped exonerate men convicted of grievous crimes -- Donna Chisholm and Pat Booth -- and one who hopes to do the same thing: Keith Hunter, writer of Trial By Trickery and Murder on the Blade, both of which deal with Scott Watson's conviction for the Sounds murders.

On the latter, we'll be joined by the Herald's Jeremy Rees, and journalism teacher and commentator Julie Starr, who worked in the Daily Telegraph's groundbreaking web division in Britain.

If you'd like to join us to watch, click "reply" and let me know asap. We'll need you at The Classic Comedy Club no later than 5.30pm today.

Also, Simon Pound has opened a Facebook group to help back Billy Black, who featured in lat week's show, fulfil his dream of appearing on the Letterman show by training a his pet pig to ride a motorboke: a "Hog on a Hog".

Here's the story if you missed it:

Tell friends. Help a hog be famous.

PS: The Great Blend RSVPs filled up by yesterday evening. I'll have a look at numbers and see if we can fit in any more.

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Go | Feb 10, 2009 11:40

Well, we're ready. You may now RSVP online for The Orcon Great Blend on Saturday February 21 in Auckland. The event features an onstage interview by Russell Brown with author and futurist Bruce Sterling and his multi-talented wife Jasmina Tesanovic (brought to you in association with Webstock); plus a talk by digital music thinker Andrew Dubber (who we've helped bring over from the University of Birmingham) and actual music from DJ-producer Simon Flower. Plus … other stuff.

The event is free, and we expect it to fill up quickly. I may be able to release some more tickets, but don't count on it.

Thanks are due to Orcon, Freeview, the Quadrant Hotel and Eden Coffee.

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Nerd Dad | Feb 10, 2009 10:43

The older boy was bored on Saturday, so I suggested that we hit the archives. He'd read Watchmen -- so why not Swamp Thing? Sure, he said. So we headed down under the house to fetch the large plastic box of comics resting there for the decade we've had the place, and essentially untouched since 1991.

Surprise! Under the house, on a dirt floor, turned out to be a climate-controlled environment. The comics were in excellent condition. We fished out the Swamp Thing back issues, as far back as #29, from 1984. One of them -- I haven't been able to summon my logic at the time, so we'll have to search for it -- is actually signed by Alan Moore.

But there, a layer down in the box, was a blue folder. Tucked inside its plastic sleeves was treasure: the original monthly issues of Watchmen, 1-12. Not only had I kept them safe, I'd been nerdy enough to file them in the protective folder.

The younger boy, Leo, as is his way, immediately wanted to know what they might fetch on Trade Me. It turned out that there was no such booty with which to compare on the local auction site, so we checked eBay, where it appeared that the Watchmen series might be worth two or three hundred dollars.

We won't sell them, of course. But it's nice to know. Against the (wholly sensible) objections of the only female person in the house, the big box is now resident in the kids' room. Any time they're bored, they can check out Nexus, and if they're really bored, they can set about sorting all those back issues of 2000AD into chronological order.

By the way, Leo finally relented (we did a deal) and set up a blog, which will count as a home educational activity. He wanted to go the blogspot way, so I watched him set it up and bring up the edit window, then popped out to the bakery to get some buns for lunch. It can't have been much more than five minutes I was out, but when I arrived back he'd knocked out an introductory post and a game review. I think he might be quite good at this.

Thanks to Bob Glancy at EA Games, who has put Leo on his reviewer list (Leo's relationship with the nice ladies who handle XBox games is already quite well established -- he can be quite the charmer when he needs to be). Any idea who I'd contact at Nintendo?

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Valentine's Day is almost upon us, and our friends at Felt have a gorgeous prize pack for a lucky Public Address reader. It features a beaded heart by teribear, rose-scented teardrop candles by roseinthorns, a lavender heart by sweetmary and kimono fabric brooches by podflower.

To enter, you need to email renee (at) nzmusic.org.nz with Felt Like a Valentine in the subject line. She'll pick a winner by day's end, so the prize can go out promptly.

But hey! What if you don't win? Perhaps it would be safest to check out Felt's Valentine's Day showcase and find a special something for a special someone.

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