Human Flesh Meat Hook Tug of War

Ouch!, Ewww and fuck that!

Point and Shoot Camera

My wife's small point and shoot camera is always around and I'm more inclined to take photos of random things with it than my big DSLR. I also carry my Nikon around with me less. Tonight I raised the memory stick of her camera and found some really old shots I took and forgot about and I present them here for all the laughs.

What Not to Name Your Bluetooth Virus

Why You Should Put Sunscreen on Your Ankles

How I Roll in Indonesia or What the donation box at our wedding ended up looking like

Fatty Hands or What my hands look like after walking non stop for 14kms or It hurts to make a Fist

Elite Salads

I also realised after doing a backup I have travel photos from 2006 that I havent processed and have fallen behind on 2009 photos too.

Soda Milk

Free Internet & Rice!

Masturbate to the Moon

Serious About Junk Mail

At Soap I always encourage the guys to take photos at every event but the main complaints are

- Forgot
- Didn't have camera
- Soap camera too big
- iPhone doesn't have flash and it was too dark

So we recently bought the Olympus Tough camera to try and solve that problem. I'm looking fwd to taking that out on a Jetski and getting some videos. I know it's selfish or weird but a work event without photos to document it is a wasted event. Capturing the culture is really important and sharing the culture not only a great talking point at work but a great recruitment tool also. Taht's why we have so many photos on our agency Flickr.

Top 10 Flickr photos for Soap

While my Flickr stream has broken the 2 million views mark (thanks for Earth Wallpapers) Soap Creative's account is ticking along with 470,000 views total.

Here are the top 10 photos (well pieces of content) on the Flickr account that are not weapon designs. The reason for that is the weapon designs make up 80 of the top 100 viewed images. This is due to the popularity of our old site Build Your Own Weapon.

Not surprising the top photos are mainly light drawing ones

Look how chubby Rob looked!

A huge different to my personal Flickr account's top 5 photos but it makes sense as we don't have any boob photos at work.

Predictions for Digital in 2010

During the slow days between Xmas and New Years we at Soap Creative decided to put together a prediction list for what we think will impact on digital advertising in 2010. There is a mixed bag of stuff in here. Some we know (like new iPhone in June/july) but other we hope will happen. Some are focussed on the Australian market (the internet filter) while others international.

It was a lot of fun and I think we'll do one of these each year.

The Blu-Ray Experience

I rented and watched my irst Blu-Ray disc today and while the quality was amazing it was something else that had me shaking my head in disbelief.

Both discs, one from Sony and the other Paramount, had BD-Live which let me "chat with friends while watching my the film or my fav scenes"

W.T.F.

They seriously expect you to chat on your screen while watching the film. Chat with friends who are watching it at the same time? Does anyone use this feature? Did anyone request this? Or were the studios so desperate to look for a Blu-Ray only feature that they threw money at this?

The Paramount disc had a mini web browser where I could watch trailers and other crap but I do this much better with my computer.

Lucky I have a PS3 as it's connected to the net but I'm guessing most people who have just a standard Blu-Ray player wont have it connected. My guess is based on zero fact but why would would bother to connect your Blu-Ray player when the only extra is a chat feature. Why would a Blu-Ray player manufacturer waste the extra money on adding Wi-Fi or an Ethernet port.

I like features like the one seen below where I can get a PSP version of the movie I own from BD-Live but why not pack that smaller file onto the disc by default? Seems silly to make me download a 1GB file

Studios are advertising directors chatting through the dics in "screenings" like in this video here for Hellboy. Cumbersome indeed, sales ploy for sure.

Sad gimmicks that seem to have been created more to sell the discs than to make the experience better.

If you are one of thise people who have used the chat feature let me know what it's like.

More reading on BD-Live here and here.

Many Ways to Give

For some reason when I'm on Holidays (or vacation as they say in America) I always feel the urge to donate money. I'll struggle for a week on which TV to buy, looking at features, deals, discounts all in the effort to save a few hundred but then see an ad for Fred Hollows foundation and feel this insatiable urge to donate $1,000. I also had this funny notion that someone there would see my donation and call me personally to thank me for the donation. But alas I got a generic printed letter as if I donated $20 and a bunch of junk mail (a pet peeve).

After seeing this video from Mother where they donated $10,000 USD as cash in a briefcase it got me thinking. It's not the amount that matters it's the gesture. Sure donating $10,000 via an online transaction is nice, but dropping that wad in cash to an actual person, video taping it and putting that video online gives you much more bang for buck.

In fact a briefcase of cash is the best way to pay for anything. I realise now that putting the deposit on my unit would have been much more dramatic (read: awesome) had I filled a briefcase with $60,000 and marched into the bank. I also missed an great photo opportunity.

Seriously though I have a point, so back to my main point.

Donating money to a charity is easy to do if you associate the donation with something tangible. $500 seems like a lot of money but if you say "Well that's just one months Adsense revenue" it has more meaning.

Here's a few ways to easily donate some money to charity without really feeling the pinch.

Adsense Revenue:
Donate a months Adsense revenue. If you earn <$100 a month on this then pledge to donate 6 months worth.

In fact any revenue you make from your site you can donate. For Bannerblog I donate 25% of it. This ends up being a sizeable chunk of my yearly contributions.

eBay Stuff
The digital garage sale. Find some stuff you no longer use. eBay it and donate the money to charity.

Client Gift = Donation
Clients hate this. Well they never will say so but they get nothing, you get he charity donation tax write off and if the client complains they look like douche bags. So it's tough to do every year but slip it into the regime or make it a regular thing for all smaller (read: non important) clients.

No Friday Drinks
Cancel one of the Friday drinks in your office and donate the budget to charity. Or if that's too crazy cut the budget by half and have everyone drink soft drink!

% of ????
Donate a % of something to charity. Your salary, the amount you spend on clothes or the amount you spent on presents.

Karma Offsetting
Download a movie or copy some MP3's? Donate the money you would have paid for those goods instead.

No Coffee Wednesdays
Don't have a coffee on Wednesdays and put that money to a charity fund.

The Coin Jar
Keep a coin jar in your office of home. Dump your coins in there at the end of every day. My coin jars busted out at $187 when I finally got around to counting. So don't tip waiters keep the coins for people who really need it. (Note: this applies to Australia where waiters/bar staff are paid well. Not in the USA)

Provide Links to Charities
Pick a couple of the charities you support and give them prominent links on your site. Ask your workplace to do the same. Go one better by having a small page explaining why you support that charity. I've seen plenty of blogs doing this but not that many small company sites. Banks do it best. I'll have to do this myself :)

Two years ago we bought every major Soap client One Laptop Per Child . We bought $5,000 worth of them! It felt great. The next year we got clients Flip cameras! This year a random assortment of junk.

And remember don't donate in little pieces save it up so you can do one big grand gesture like the briefcase full of money.... no just kidding, give regularly. You'll feel much better.

The added benefit of all this giving is people will buy less shit they don't need thus subtlety saving the environment from making more shit. I just watched the video below so I'm in that anti-consumerism mode. Even though I work in advertising.

Life TODO Update for 2009

Going back to my TODO list from 2003 I'm now able to cross a few more off the list!

1: Travel to Japan
2: Feature on Boingboing.net
3: Write an article for a magazine
4: Write an article for an online mag (Smashing Mag)
5: Speak at a conference in a foreign country IG Digital Day Sao Paulo
6: Do the Bridge climb
7: Bungee Jump
8: Sky Dive
9: Snorkel the Great Barrier Reef (I snorkelled in Bunaken Indonesia but doesn't count)
10: Shoot a gun
11: Write an article in a newspaper
12: Have a photo of mine published in print (The lady with helmet backwards in Who doesn't count as it was uncredited)
13: Design a CD cover that's sold in stores
14: A credit in a Hollywood film
15: Compete in a fun run
16: Own a house/unit
17: Surf a wave on a surfboard
18: Visit Easter Island
19: Visit Antarctica
20: Go bobsledding in a foreign country (ice)
21: Ski in snow
22: See a sumo match in Japan
23: Become a Muslim (what we do for love hey)
24: Learn Indonesian fluently
25: Be an extra in a film (this would knock off #14 too)
26: Swim with a dolphin
27: Learn to juggle
28: Visit Great Wall of China
29: Visit the Pyramids
30: Do a high dive (10mtrs will do)
31: Attend a Comic Festival in costume
32: Attend a Superbowl
33: Buy something at a big auction. One that requires me to hold one of those big numbers
34: Go white water rafting
35: Have a book published
36: Produce a TV show
37: Go water skiing
38: Ride an elephant (came very close to this one)
39: Make a baby
40: Finish one of the GTA's. (Might remove this one)
41: See a UFC fight live
42: Attend a Wrestling Match live. WWF, WWC any will do
43: Get married. I better add that one in case Ervi is reading :)
44: Visit Chernobyl

So just #10: Shoot a Gun, #43: get married and #23: become a Muslim in 2009.

Next year I will tackle fun run. I came close this year. I'll miss #41: UFC fight asI'll be overseas when they are in Sydney :(

2009 Looking Back on a Big Year

In the grand scheme of things 2009 has been my biggest year ever.

I got married

Which reminds me I haven't uploaded all the photos from the wedding. Here's a few Ervi picked out.

I converted to Muslim
A few days before getting married I said the Shahadat, signed the papers, shook the hands and become a 100% Muslim

I bought an investment property
It's 2 doors down and the exact flip of my apartment

I bought a LCD TV
I held out long enough and can now watch stuff on a screen that doesn't make an annoying buzz sound.

Started Running
Running 3 times does count as starting :) Here's me on Nike+

Got the rest of my Wisdom teeth out

Photos here for those interested

I went on a Detox

Although I've slipped back into bad eating habits I am drinking much more water. As Rob noted "I've seen you pee at work now! WTF is up"

Auditioned and failed for Gruen Transfer
Need to up my cheeseburger talk. It did help Soap get the guest spot on the show though.

I sold my WTFcostumes blog
When it did 3 million visitors in October I kinda wish I had kept WTFcostumes but I had too many things to update as it is

Did a lot of Travel

Not as much as 2008 which was nuts but still pretty hefty
Married in Indonesia.
Judged at One Show in NY and went to a stopover in LA
Spoke at AGIdeas in Melbourne
Spoke at MADC in Melbourne (thanks to Bob at Host for pulling out to make room for me :)
Spoke at PADC in Perth

Shot a Real Gun

Tick that MOFO off my life todo list. I did this in LA and the Gold Coast.

Got my head scanned in 3D

While small I'd wanted to do this for ages! This was at the GDC in San Fran which was interesting seeing the gaming industry struggle and ask the same questions as the advertising industry.

Contributed to a book

Well I drew some cocks but hey that's the fine print no one will read. Tick that off the life todo also.

What about Soap!

And all of this is personal stuff. Soap itself had a huge year and even with the GFC (which did affect us) we had one of our best years ever creatively. There's still ups and downs, miscommunication, assumptions, egos, rivalries, enemies, friends, emotions, wins, losses and all the other stuff that comes from helping run an agency with 2 offices and 30+ people.

In some ways the quite month and half we had this year was good for us. We were able to put 4 developers onto iPhone R&D which has already begun to bear fruit.

We were named Highly Commended by B&T for Digital Agency of the Year coming runner up to Deepend. It was tough to not win again (this is our 4th finalist but no win title across B&T and Adnews) but you can't hate on Deepend they do nice stuff. We're still wondering what that magic formula is that wins you an "Agency of the Year" title.

The Meeting Game cards.

We finally finished them! They were in the works for over 2 years and it's finally done! Complete and better than I imagined. I wish I could find the original docs or trace back what date the initial idea came up in as it'd be an interesting look at the timeline.

2010 will be a big year for us at Soap. New staff, new clients and the US office at a place where it can stand on it's own.

Blogging for 2010
Looking back at my blogging on here for 2009 it has been pretty sparse. I used Twitter much more this year and also Flickr to dump my images. I didn't see the need to blog that much. Factor in updating Sleevage occasionally (Alex has been keeping it alive for me) and Bannerblog every few days it took all my blogging juice. Also having a game console at home didn't help either.

Next year will mark 10 years I've been blogging. O F'n G I know. Here's me talking about Social Media in 2004 if I need to lay down some more creds.

Not that getting into something earlier makes you any good at something.

I look forward to 2010. There's plenty of things/people/situations I wish I could change but overall I've netted out with a good deck of cards.

All My Santa Photos

All My Santa Photos


Originally uploaded by mrtruffle

Cahier Moleskines 1-8 | 18.3.2008 - 15.12.2009

Cahier Moleskines 1-8 | 18.3.2008 - 15.12.2009, View my Flickr stream here.

I've used these everyday since March 2008 after reading Getting Things Done. I carry them everywhere and they have allowed me to become much more organised. I still forget stuff but only when I don't have them with me. Also if I arrive to work and I forget my notepad I feel naked and useless.

I also remember seeing Russ from Tequila write stuff down when people told him URLs or books to read when at industry functions. I looked at him doing it thinking "you write shit down to remember" so simple. This was what inspired me to carry these suckers with me everywhere.
www.moleskineus.com/cahier-pocket-graph.html

Image Eating Sheep

Crips and Bloods

I love this photo from the Crips and Bloods: Made in the America doco. Even gansta's love to game

The only thing I wanted from the film was for it to be longer. I wanted more info and more details.

I Love Raptr

If only there was a service like this for my other media consumption. Tracking my usage on a console is an insight into the ROI of a game and a way to compare myself against friends.

If this existed when I used to play my Sega Mega Drive every night and weekend I'd having something to show for all those lost hours.

Top 5 Flickr Photos (by views)

From the 8,942 photos I have uploaded to Flickr these are the top 5.

The Ciggies photo is because there is lots of search traffic and my photo is #1. It's also been stolen on lots of sites selling them illegally.

Interesting is it's #6 and #7 that jumped out of no where

The blood photo got lots of interest which was surprising.

My most interesting set is generated automatically based on views + comments + favs

This has a better selection of my photos than ones based purely on views. The Earthwallpapers site I made and hosted the images on my Flickr account heavily skewed my views towards them.

Japanese Blog Part

Water Pressure at Ervi's House

Indo Water Pressure from Mr Truffle on Vimeo.

I usualy just end up having a traditional Indonesian "mandi" (filling a bucket with water and then using a large ladle to pour water on yourself) as the pressure was so bad.

I will never complain about water pressure again in Australia. Ervi said it does help save water usage though!

That Guy

You're at a large out door music festival watching a band. Someone behind you has a big stick and is hitting people's heads with it. You watch the stick hit 3 other people and then it hits you. You turn around and tell the guy to "stop being a dick head" and he replies "chill out out man it's a party, stop being so uptight" and then he continues to hit other people on the head.

I hate that guy.

Man Week Post

I was away getting married when Man Week happened so I thought It's better to be late than never for the party of all things manly.

As usual I can't write a good story just lots of little tid bits so here they are. Anything man related I can think of.

1: My Dad's Name

It was at the signing ceremony during the wedding that I discovered what my dad's name was. Gerald Anthony. Not Brock Sampson as I was hoping :(

It was weird seeing his name as I have seen about 3 photos of him and never had any interest in catching up with him since becoming an adult.

The first thing that came to my head when I saw the name was "wonder what will come up if I Google him" but then realised it's a pretty generic name and thus nothing comes up if you try.

I guess my mum gave Ervi's family his name as when they asked me I said I didn't know and if not needed to get married then don't worry.

Update: I did have a father figure (my sisters dad) growing up (well say 50% of it) but this wasn't the best example. Ie he's a douche bag :)

2: Barber Shave

While in Indo (again for the wedding) I decided to get a shave at the Barber's. I've wanted to do this for ages and Indo is great as it's so cheap for this type of stuff. I went to the same place Ervi's dad has been going for 25 years. I'm not sure if it's just this place or what I had was the real deal but it fucking hurt. I was expecting a hot towel to start but the guy just cleaned me up then went into shaving balm/creme stuff. And then right into using the blade. My eyes watered it hurt so bad. The guy ended on a hot towel? Either way I'll be sticking to my Gillette Quatro with aloe vera blades from now.

Funny but this was the most painful experience next to having my blackheads cleaned while getting a facial. Which I also did in indo as again it's so cheap and Ervi was getting one too.

3: Dick and Balls

Being a man is being obsessed with dick and balls. No man can say he's never drawn a dick and balls on a photo of his friends. How detailed you draw the dick and balls is up to you but everone has a style which is similar to a hand writing style.

Here's the ones I've tagged with penis on my Flickr

I believe this might have been Rob's creation.
And here's Superbad talking about dicks

Update: Women don't seem to draw Vaginas so it's a MAN thing.

4: Hair

My most mainly features would be my ability to grow facial hair. Although now I hate shaving as it's a pain in the ass.

Here's me trying to think of more manly things

In addition to facial hair I now have Magnum PI chest hair in addition to other parts I wish didnt have hair. I remember when I just had hair around my nipples in primary school. Ahh those were the days.

This hair however did help me sneak into Jupiters Casino on the Gold Coast and nudie bars when I was 16-17 as I looked older.

Additional 5: Man Stuff

In terms of checking off the items on "Being a Man in Australia" sadly I can't change a car tire, even a bike tire would confuse me. I don't own a tool set and only last year got a hammer to um... hammer stuff. Never owned a shed, was always bad at chucking a wheelie on my bike. I'm also shit at fighting and the last time I punched a punching bag I hurt my wrist. (I am a whiz on the speed ball though)

And that's about it for manly stuff and me. Here's a post from Mark P which covers everyone else's posts about man week. Which I haven't gone through in full as I'm lazy and skim read.

Also Mark P and Gavin are putting a book together for Man Week which you can contribute to. More info here.

Getting married soon

My wedding date is closing in June 26th and the thing I was most worried about was the conversion to Islam but that will all be sorted soon in Indonesia.

So now I just have to sit back and let is happen. As it's in Indonesia I didn't have to organize anything which was good. I just sent money over :)

The photo at the top is the pre-wedding photos which I'm told we needed for an indo wedding. These will be printed large and around the wedding reception.

The wedding will be a big one 500+ people but in Indonesia that's a normal size. Here's a 1,500 people wedding and it doesn't seem that big. Although I didn't take any crowd shots.

Funny, after being with Ervi for 10 years now the marriage part of things seems like a small part.

Lean Pockets Quesadilla Breaks

In addition to the 2 huge games below we also launched another game on Miniclip for Lean Pockets. Quesadilla Breaks is a series of mini games that fill in the 3 minute it takes to microwave a Lean Pocket Quesadilla. Mmm I could go one of those right now.

And if you think that's a lot of games we have two more for Marvel done but not live and another multi-player game that involved shooting chickens. You could say "shooting at your cock" but that would be rude and in poor taste. We're also starting work on 2 more for various clients now.

So yeah it's been game central at Soap lately but the quality and level of games we have been producing is better than we have ever done before. I look back at the games I made in 2000 and laugh. Although I still think Bogan Surf is a classic.

Civil War Online for Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2

The biggest game Soap has ever worked on is now live. Civil War Online is a turn based multiplayer game which launched as part of the site for Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 which falls under our HeroHQ site we built for Activision for all their Marvel games.

This is a small dream come true for me as when I was in highscool I played Heroes of Might & Magic the game all the time. And the best part was the battles. Civil War Online took inspiration from this. It's also our second multiplayer game we have made. The first being Biggest Battle in History for Night at the Museum 2. The good thing about CWO is that the Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 community we have is very active. And since the game launched 2 days ago we have had over 3,000 battles. Considering the shorted battle we have recorded is 3 min and the longest 1hr with an average of 12 min for each battle that's quite amazing. Every time I login I see between 20-70 people online battling away.

We still have a couple of bugs in the game which we are fixing which is understandable for such a complicated game.

The game also works on 2 levels.

1: 1 vs 1 battles: This is the main game. You battle another person with your team of 4 Marvel Superheroes

2: Pro vs Anti: each battle is part of the Pro-Registration and Anti-Registration sides. Which ever team controls the most grid positions on the battle world wins the round.

We took inspiration from Tom Clancy's End War for this one. Rather than just having your battle mean only something to you, your battle is now part of a greater war. Picking where you battle is also a strategic choice. You want to control the map so battling on a position which is dominated by the other team is a waste. Choosing a neutral or even position is the way to win. It seems the Anti side are less strategic with their choice as they are losing bad this round (rounds reset every week) but in terms of overall battles are not far behind.

We also got to make a sexy PV3D world map. Although we failed in creating a Earth representation in hexagons that easily wraps to a sphere. We had to change it to a generic grid just days before live.

We also did something sneaky to the MUA2 community. Initial forum chatter was heavily weighted towards the Anti-Reg side. So before we asked the community to choose a side we threw them a curve ball. We offered 500 hero points to the users who sided with Iron-Man and the pro side. Not only is this true to the comic book story but it also convinced some of the heavy hitters in the community to switch sides. It also generated lots of talk and debate which is exactly what we wanted.

I've had a blast working on HeroHQ as Ive found comic gamer fans to be the most passionate and active people on the web. They really get into it and are really appreciative of our efforts. I've never been thanked/praised so much for doing work from a community before.

The added benefit is that we have learnt so much as a company from HeroHQ as to what works and what doesnt when running a community and forum of this size. We now have 10,000 members who have posted over 220,000 times on the forum. That's in 4 months! We now get over 50,000 posts to the Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 part of the forum a month.

The previous game had 30,000 members who contributed 120,000 posts over the entire campaign so we are punching above our weight right now.

I look forward to seeing the community grow as we get closer to the release date in September 09. Having a 6-7 month lead up to a release has been an interesting one. Considering the first MUA game is 3 years old now it's surprising how much traction this has gotten.

Oh and if you want to say hi on the forums I'm DrTruffle.

Oh and here's a sketch I did for CWO I found which we used to pitch the idea. Amazing how you can hardly tell the difference between my sketch and the final game.

Oh we pushed for Hexagons as they are 50% better than squares.