Google Bombs away

According to Wikipedia "A Google bomb (also referred to as a 'link bomb') is Internet slang for a certain kind of attempt to influence the ranking of a given page in results returned by the Google search engine, often with humorous or political intentions." (link)

Here's a perfect example of a classic Google Bomb. Go to Google and do a search on "French military victories". Read the first result and then click on the link to follow through with the joke. It's all rather well done and should give you a few chuckles, unless if you're sensitive to jokes about the French.

If you're lazy to type in the Google search and click on the link, follow this link to take you straight to the page. Pay close attention to the entered Google search term and the "Did you mean:" suggestion.

Only recently, Google updated its search algorithm to remove one particularly nasty Google Bomb which returned George Bush's home page when a user ran a search on "miserable failure". Google have also stopped the "liar" search term from returning Tony Blair's home page as the first returned result.

"Why can't Sony give us any good news?"

This is a classic rant done by a Sony fan. Even if you don't know much about the video game scene, you should get a few laughs simply listening to this guy going on about how Sony keeps on "pounding us with bad news, after bad news, after bad news, after bad news!"

Classic rant here.

Enjoy.

Limited edition Aussie cricket cap competition winner

We had some fantastic entries in this competition and I thank-you all for your participation.

I must say though, using Google search results to defend the statement was simply inspired. Congratulations, Omeed, the cap is already on its way over to you!

Stay tuned for more competitions in the future!

3 new works

In these three pieces, I've deliberately thrown away my old techniques and inclinations just to see what happens. I'm not sure if they all worked out as well as they could but I thought I'd put them up and get some feedback. All three are 30x20cm and after this post I'm going to start work on a much larger canvas and see where that one takes me.

The entrepreneuring Nicael Holt

It is not uncommon to come across strange and interesting ebay listings but the listing I came across today is the most hilarious and outrageous "item" that I have ever seen listed on ebay.

Meet Nicael Holt. He's selling his life. Currently, the bid is at $30,700 and if you care to outbid, you will be in the running to win a new life as a 24 year old male in the coastal town of Woolongong.

Here are some things you will inherit:

A new name "Nicael Holt"

A new phone (Nicael Holt's current phone number)

All of Nicael Holt's possessions (e.g. clothes, roughly 300 CDs, childhood photos, etc.)

The winning bidder will also be provided with 4 weeks training by the current Nicael Holt and will also be offered 2 months of on-call support. Nicael is a skilled Surfer, Climber, Skateboarder, Handstanding Expert, Fire Stick Twirler (and the list goes on) and will be passing these skills on to the winning bidder.

Other inheritance includes: Nicael's friends, anecdotal stories of Nichael's life, 6 jokes, a $20 debt, a haircut like Nicael's, lessons in Nicael's personal history, and so on.

Not all is rosy, though. The winner will also need to become a vegetarian (as the current Nigel is vegetarian), although, it is stated that this requirement can be changed in the future if the new Nicael doesn't want to continue being vegetarian. Nicael also recently went through a rather nasty breakup and so the new Nicael will also inherit any lasting tension that may still exist.

The winning bidder will also not have access to any degrees/qualifications, driver's license, passport, future inheritance or formal/legal identity.

The current Nicael states that this auction is selling all aspects of his social/work life but is not selling his legal identity.

You know, I've said enough about this auction but there's a lot more to it that's written very well. Check out the auction HERE for some guaranteed LOL action.

Doomsday Clock snubs Australia

Has anyone heard of the Doomsday Clock? In 1947 this clock was set to seven minutes before midnight by a group of prominent scientists to indicate how close the world was to facing a global cataclysm. Since that time, the clock has been adjusted 18 times; during the beginning and the end of the Cold War, following the nuclear bombings in Japan during World War II and immediately after the September 11 attacks in the United States, to give a couple of examples.

This clock was first envisaged to portray the danger that the advance and use of nuclear technology would mean to the peaceful perpetuation of the world, however, only recently, the clock was brought two minutes forward, to 11:55 pm on account of concerns over global warming. So while the clock originally symbolized the coming of widespread nuclear conflict, it is now used to describe man-made threats to human civilization, which of course continues to include nuclear armament but also encompasses topics such as global warming and terrorism.

So where am I going with this post? Take a look at the clock (note, this picture was taken before the recent adjustment to 11:55 pm).



Australia's nowhere to be seen and neither is most of Asia for that matter! I think this issue should be much further up on the agenda than the proliferation of nuclear weapons. I mean, if the world's top scientists can't even recognize the mere existence of Australia, why should they be even thinking about the issues surrounding nuclear weaponry, the threat of global warming or terrorism for that matter?

If you cut us, do we not bleed?

...

(Just for giggles, guys, I lost the plot about 3/4 into this post. I needed a distraction and editing this was as good as it gets. By the way, we have had some brilliant entries in the Ashes cap competition...it's going to be even more difficult to choose a winner this time. On a final note, you are allowed to enter more than once to increase your chances of winning, so hurry while there's still time! Entries close on the 20th.)

Dead Wii

Well, just over a month since I bought my Wii and it's dead! I tried to turn it on yesterday and I just got a black screen. After various troubleshooting attempts, the best I could get was 2 minutes of normal use followed by a system freeze with garbled images on the screen. I had noticed problems a few days ago when I accessed the Forecast Channel to be greeted with irregular imagery with a system freeze but I thought that it was one of those rare happenings and thought nothing of it.

Anyway, I've contacted Nintendo of Australia and have sent my system off to them for repair. As expected, I was expected to pay for postage to Nintendo ($20) with no guarantee of repair. The service consultant even said that I will have to pay a $35 dollar appraisal fee if they find that the system does not have any manufacturing faults. I can't really complain about all of this, it's been known for years that Nintendo of Australia's service is pretty poor. Had I been in the States, I would not only have paid less for my Wii and games, I would have also had free postage and handling for any repairs and I know I would have my system back in my hands within 2 to 3 weeks. Since I only just sent my Wii today I can't complain about lengthy service, but I can be pretty sure that I'll be Wii-less for at least a month.

Ok, so now that I don't have a Wii, it's time to relax and give my thoughts about the system, the games and other related impressions so far. I've got a lot of different points and I plan on listing them in no particular order or significance.

The good

Even though the Wii is expensive in Australia, it's still cheaper than the competition

The Wii shows a lot of potential to be great fun in games such as Wii Sports and Zelda

Wii specific channels such as the Forecast Channel, Internet Channel and the upcoming News channel are fun and exciting.

The Virtual Console offers great retro games that are a blast to re-live.

The bad

There aren't enough compelling Wii games on the market right now and it seems as if there's going to be another Nintendo game drought. If Nintendo don't keep up with a solid release schedule, the Wii's popularity is definitely going to wear off quickly.

As mentioned above, Wii games are showing potential but they have a way to go before I'm completely convinced in the system's long term viability. Wii Sports, for example, was fun for a while but I don't really play it much. Maybe that's just me but it stopped drawing me in when I realized that I could just swing my arms any old how and the balls would be returned almost every time. I'm not saying the Wii is not capable of tracking more precise movements, it's just that it seems Wii Sports and a few other games (Wii Play and even Zelda) have been dumbed down a bit too much in the control department.

The Virtual Console has some good games on it but a lot of them suck right now. Nintendo's doing this deliberately to milk as much money out of people that will simply buy any 'new' game that's out. Great classic game releases have been few and far between, which makes sense in that if all the great games were released in one go, they would be cannibalizing each others' sales. Still, it's not good enough. When I see Japan's Virtual Console release schedule and compare that to Australia's, I once again have to sigh in resignation at Nintendo of Australia's incompetence.

It's still early days but Nintendo really has to come out and bring more original content to the Virtual Console and the Wii software channel. We have the Forecast and Internet channels and the News channel is coming soon but where are the other channels that I can buy? Why isn't there a time channel so that I can tell the current and international time at a glance? What about a 'this day in history' channel or a dedicated music channel where I can play mp3s straight from the TV? Where is all the unique content and games? As I said, it's still early days but since Nintendo hasn't even hinted at new stuff yet, I'm getting a bit antsy and things will definitely be looking stale once I've beaten Zelda.

Why is it so hard for me to populate my Wii with a friends list? I not only have to write down a long alpha-numeric friend code and email it to someone so that they can add me to their list, they have to do the same for me to be able to add them. So far, due to the complexity of the situation, I don't have any Wii friends...it's just too much trouble.

Wow, so there are a lot of bad points and maybe I'm being a bit picky (and it could be my annoyance at the death of my Wii speaking), but I'm beginning to feel that while the Wii has great potential, I'm not so convinced that we're going to see it fulfilled any time soon. Nintendo comes up with great ideas but has a long way to go before it can prove that it can come close to turning these promises into reality...particularly in Australia.

This somehow reminds me of the iPhone situation. Sure it's coming out in the States mid this year but you can only get the phone if you subscribe to the Cingular network, partly because of the unique visual voicemail features that are not implemented on the phone but on the network itself. In Australia, however, Telstra's fighting for the exclusive rights to the iPhone but the phone won't make it to Australia until mid 2008 (!) and even then I think some of the functionality may be crippled due to a dumbing down for the smaller Australian market. What's more, with the network monopoly over use of the phone's hardware, we can all be rest assured that we'll be paying premium prices. I would have appreciated if Apple made the phone have network specific features that you could use if you subscribed to a certain network but still allowed the phone to operate (sans a few services) on all networks, thus not enforcing a network lock down. In a way, the lock down will limit sales and perhaps in the future they'll consider releasing an unlocked phone to sate other consumer needs.

So :) what started out as a Wii death post, ended up as a complaint letter about a whole bunch of little things that have been annoying me recently. Sorry for the rant but it's a good release for me. After all, I'm still reeling from the untimely demise of that Wii little console that could...but really couldn't.

New year. New competition.

I happened across a limited edition Ashes Series Australia 2006/2007 cricket cap! And, to extend readership, I'm gifting this to the person who can adequately defend the following statement: "Cricket isn't really a man's game".

I'll choose the best entry and send the hat free of charge to the lucky winner.

Entries close on the 20th of January.

Good luck!

We have a winner!

Thank you so much for your entries! I had quite a few laughs and if I had enough Wii sweatband packs, I'd give one to each of you for your efforts! It really wasn't easy picking a winner but since the competition ended yesterday, I had to finally force myself to make the tough decision. I spent a lot of time pondering which entry was the best and here are some of my thoughts on your posts.

Swee Cheng's entry was well thought out and showed a solid knowledge of Wii pop culture (as elaborated upon at Wii Have a Problem). (But Swee, I would never kill you over destroying my current TV set...I mean, it's not even HD! ;))

Amelia dug deep into Australian tennis history to pull out the obscure, yet very apt, Pat Cash sweatband reference. Kudos to you for even coming up with "Pat Cash land"!

Shingo's refreshing entry provided us with a concise and accurate commentary on the nature of materialism, whilst maintaining a healthy level of wit and humour.

Saba further expanded upon the "dangerous Wii remote" concept and also showed a deeper knowledge and appreciation for the Wii by mentioning Wario Ware: Smooth Moves, which is a highly anticipated party game for the system.

Omeed used previous entries as leverage to build his own argument, which was a very innovative move, indeed.

So, really, it's been a very hard one to pick, but I must say, whenever I think of the entries, it is Shingo's one that comes to my mind before anything else; it always makes me smile.

Congratulations, Shingo! I will be sending the Wii sweatband pack to you tomorrow!

Thank you all, once again for your participation and keep tuned to The Blue Ocean for more competitions in the future.

Wii sweatband competition

I managed to get my hands on an extra Wii Sports sweatband pack recently and thought that it would be great for ratings if I shared the love with the two of you (my loyal readers) by organizing a "WII SPORTS SWEATBAND PACK GIVEAWAY COMPETITION"!



The rules for the competition are simple: describe how owning these Wii sweatbands could potentially save your life. You're free to be as imaginative and creative as you like. Entries close on the 2nd of January and I will choose the winner and send the prize pack out soon after!

Good luck!