One of the big issues constantly getting a lot of media attention is the self contracting subject of Internet Privacy. It's a pretty good bet that if something's on the Internet it's not fucking private and that's not about to change any time soon. Basically, if you really want your blog to be private try buying a diary and a pen.
Note for the teenagers: A diary is a book full of blank pages intended for keeping track of important dates/events, or to simply keep a log of your boring life if it's that important to you. You can buy a diary from most supermarkets, department stores, and newsagents. A newsagents is a shop where, to this day, you can still buy a wide range of news papers and magazines among other items such as stationary and gift cards. We're talking real things here, not packets of electronic data, real physically tangible objects.
If you're after security there are ways to defend against cyber attacks. There's anti-virus software, there's anti-malware & anti-spyware software, there are firewalls, there's file encryption, there's password protection, etc, etc, etc. There are also ways around all of it for those who's social lives are so fruitful that they spend all day everyday online learning more ways to cripple a computer system simply because they can. If you're concerned about certain information that may be on your computer you always have the option of not putting that computer online. You always have the option of not looking at that virus riddled porn site. You always have the option of not putting someone else's USB device in your poorly protected computer. You also have the beautiful option of using an operating system other than Windows.
The short story is as follows.
If you use a Windows OS, surf the net with Internet Explorer, don't back-up your data to an external storage device, use Windows Live for all your email needs, click on banner ads & suspicious links, set your firewall to allow everything, and put up pictures and info about yourself online that may end up biting you on the arse and have never looked at your account & privacy settings... you and your computer are both sitting ducks.
Have fun with that.
Review: The Spider Goddess
The Spider Goddess by Tara Moss
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Many sequels leave the audience wondering why anyone even bothered to make the sequel. This is generally because the sequel was rubbish, or had nothing to do with the first except for a theme or location.
Don't stress. This is not one of those of those sequels.
Like all good sequels The Spider Goddess steps it up a few notches to keep the reader turning the pages. Tara Moss's heroine, Pandora English, is thrown deeper into the dark & mysterious world of the supernatural in nightmarishly skin crawling fashion that would give Buffy the Vampire Slayer cause for concern.
If you're not much of a novel addict, the Pandora English series is the literary heroin to get you hooked...
...only with out any nasty side effects. Well, except for gnawing on you finger nails in anticipation for the next hit i.e. The Skeleton Key.
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Shopping at the Tip
Spalding leather golf bag: $20
- Rapier Australia High Calibre 700 Putter: $5
- PGF 707 Golden Goddess Enchantress Stainless Steel Sand Wedge: $5
- Exclusive Stainless Steel Pitching Wedge: $5
- PGF Status MK X 3 Iron: $5
- Cobra Tour Model 4 Iron: $5
- PGF Statesman Power Sole 5 Iron: $5
- PGF Statesman Power Sole 6 Iron: $5
- PGF Inceptor OS Series Three 7 Iron: $5
- Cobra Tour Model 8 Iron: $5
- Cobra Tour Model 9 Iron: $5
- Cobra U.S.A. 3 Wood: $5
- Cobra U.S.A 5 Wood: $5
- Cougar 7 Wood: $5
Aussie Aussie Aussie? Some Of Us Still Are.
We play cricket in the summer, dressed in trousers and long sleeves while standing around in the stinking hot sun. We play rugby in the winter with just T-shirts and shorts in the freezing night air. In the summer we slave over hot barbecues in the middle of the day. That's part of what makes us Australian.
We drop everything at our paid & air conditioned jobs to go fight bush fires with no thought of reward. We ski behind boats on crocodile infested rivers and swim in shark infested oceans. That's part of what makes us Australian.
We laugh when people fall, then we help them up. We welcome new neighbours whatever their heritage and are always keen to lend a hand.
That's part of what makes us Australian.
We'll try anything once. We'll give it a go until we're blue in the face. We'll do it the hard way if we know the hard way works. That's part of what makes us Australian.
If you lost a limb to a shark then got back on the surf board... if you got bitten by a dog and accepted that you probably deserved it... if you look after your own when they need more than others... if you're willing to give when you have nothing to spare... if you have a drink in remembrance on ANZAC Day... if you celebrate Christmas and Easter even though you're not religious... if you want your five cents change from the pizza boy but drop the last of your coins in the bar worker's tip jar... if you can take a joke and laugh at yourself...
...that's part of what makes you Australian.
But if you sit on your backside all day, refuse to do the grunt work and then complain about immigrants stealing our jobs that's part of what makes you lazy and weak.
If you eat Indian curries, Turkish kebabs, Mexican tacos, Italian pasta, and then tell the foreigners to go back to where they came from that's part of what makes you xenophobic and racist.
If you treat ANZAC Day as a cause for celebration instead of commemoration... if you're opposed to homosexuals, bisexuals & transsexuals just because they're different... if you can't tolerate our multicultural society...
Then maybe the true blue Aussies who have come from all over the world don't want you here. Perhaps the yuppies in the city and the bushies from the outback are sick of you flying our flag while spouting your prejudices. Maybe we, the fair dinkum Australians, would like you to stop labelling your Neo-Nazi fascism as Aussie pride and piss off back you came from!
We drop everything at our paid & air conditioned jobs to go fight bush fires with no thought of reward. We ski behind boats on crocodile infested rivers and swim in shark infested oceans. That's part of what makes us Australian.
We laugh when people fall, then we help them up. We welcome new neighbours whatever their heritage and are always keen to lend a hand.
That's part of what makes us Australian.
We'll try anything once. We'll give it a go until we're blue in the face. We'll do it the hard way if we know the hard way works. That's part of what makes us Australian.
If you lost a limb to a shark then got back on the surf board... if you got bitten by a dog and accepted that you probably deserved it... if you look after your own when they need more than others... if you're willing to give when you have nothing to spare... if you have a drink in remembrance on ANZAC Day... if you celebrate Christmas and Easter even though you're not religious... if you want your five cents change from the pizza boy but drop the last of your coins in the bar worker's tip jar... if you can take a joke and laugh at yourself...
...that's part of what makes you Australian.
But if you sit on your backside all day, refuse to do the grunt work and then complain about immigrants stealing our jobs that's part of what makes you lazy and weak.
If you eat Indian curries, Turkish kebabs, Mexican tacos, Italian pasta, and then tell the foreigners to go back to where they came from that's part of what makes you xenophobic and racist.
If you treat ANZAC Day as a cause for celebration instead of commemoration... if you're opposed to homosexuals, bisexuals & transsexuals just because they're different... if you can't tolerate our multicultural society...
Then maybe the true blue Aussies who have come from all over the world don't want you here. Perhaps the yuppies in the city and the bushies from the outback are sick of you flying our flag while spouting your prejudices. Maybe we, the fair dinkum Australians, would like you to stop labelling your Neo-Nazi fascism as Aussie pride and piss off back you came from!
Review: The Betrayal of Natalie Hargrove
The Betrayal of Natalie Hargrove by Lauren Kate
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
"Spoilt little rich girl" is the thought that comes to mind in the first few chapters of The Betrayal' but it doesn't take long to start relating to poor Natalie Hargrove and understanding the world from her point of view. The world is out to get her.
There are various points in the narrative that hint slightly towards something supernatural, this coupled with the overall dark theme help save the story from the cliché teeny-bopper genre. The "girl from the wrong side of the tracks now living with the upper class" theme is an important part of the back story but mercifully this reminder of The O.C. really only serves as a back drop to an otherwise respectfully dark insight to the human mind and how heavily certain priorities can influence decision making and where it can all can lead.
Although I could (kind of) see where it was heading the ending left me stunned, thinking of events in the plot where there could be so much more told, and ultimately wanting a sequel.
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Review: The Blood Countess
The Blood Countess by Tara Moss
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Remember the old Sega and Nintendo games that you just couldn't put down once you got home and started playing them? Remember how you got wisped away into to Video Game World and before you knew it you had finished the whole game, and how the feeling immediately after was a mix of wanting to play it all again and the anticipation and impatience of waiting for the sequel? Perhaps that's just me.
Either way that's what hit me when my eyes reached the last word of the last sentence of the last page of the last chapter of The Blood Countess.
So now, not only am I waiting eagerly for a certain Canadian Amazon Psycho Magnet, Makedde Vanderwall, to full on go postal in Assassin, I'm also busting to see what kind of Hairy Scary Hobgoblin jumps out at Pandora English in The Spider Goddess
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Review: Siren
Siren by Tara Moss
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
It's not often that I reach the end of a movie and think "Holy Crap! What just happened? That's one epically shocking finish that'll take a while to recover from. Bring on the sequel!"
Congrats to Tara Moss because I just got that from a book. I'm referring to the kind of event depicted on screen that in the first half hour of a movie or the end of a pilot episode that lets you know it's all action packed epic from this point on and the bad guys better run.
I'm only giving a 4 out 5 because I have a feeling that if I give it the 5 it deserves I'll want to give the next book a 6 out of 5.
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