Child of the Planet

Antique charm but in a modern sense. There is a huge seventies style photo mural of Mick Jagger in foyer. In the Sixties and Seventies it was visited by musicians and these days fashionista seem to be drawn to it. The Albany isn't glossy and straight angles like modern accommodation. It's got a really nice vibration. There are plenty of restaurants a short walk up the road from the hotel, and a big tree filled park nearby.   From the sign out the front, it looked like they might be closing up shop but the girls at reception seemed to think that they will be around for a few more years. I hope so, I'd like to stay there again some time. I received a discount as I had booked in advance through Zuji . Promotion: Book 21 days in advance and save 15%. The Albany Hotel Star Rating: 3* Address: The Albany Hotel 1 Millswyn Street Corner of Toorak South Yarra 3141 AUSTRALIA Phone: 6 139 866 4485

The Easystay organisation has Buildings all over St Kilda The address that I was staying at was on the main road into St Kilda and apart from a few hours in the early morning, was very noisy. Sunday morning was an exception as council road cleaning trucks generated an amazing level of noise scrubbed up and down the road for a couple of hours. Much like my experience ant the Edinburgh in Tasmania , if you're a heavy sleeper or a party animal the noise shouldn't worry you too much. There did seem to be rooms out the back of the building that would probably suffer less racket. Right on top of restaurants, cafe's, and nightclubs. Close enough to the road hear the swoosh of the trams and the dinging of bells. There is a tram stop right out front. Not that I'm complaining about the noise the trams make. Much rather them then the grinding rumble of buses. Great pillows! Wow, makes a nice change to see both hard/flat and soft/plump pillows provided in accommoda...

Fed square is the main public focus point in Melbourne. There are a few tourist attraction type venues, a scattering of restaurants, and a large multi-purpose area. It's a nice place to sit and Chatting to locals while the trams cruise past. The square is the nexus for lots of public transport options.   Location Free WiFi service available in the square Federation Square is located at the corner of Swanston Street and Flinders Street in Melbourne’s CBD. Getting there Interactive map... During events such as the comedy festival, the square hosts free entertainment

This is a good thing for travellers. I installed it this morning and I like that it hooked straight into my Google Docs account and synced all the data to my laptop. Seems to also work 'offline'? When I travel I'm planning on using it to store Word docs, images, and video. I've been following this 'cloud storage' thang for a while now. I had a 'Net Drive' back around the early 2000's when I was travelling around Europe. I don't remember what the facility was called but I was storing photos and Word docs there. It got closed down and I've been reluctant to use online storage ever since. Why?

Santa Ana Tapas Bar 138 Acland Street, St. Kilda VIC 3182 (03) 9077 6679 Nice food and great view of St. Kilda life walking by. Spanish omelet: Monteith's cider           Walker's Doughnuts 26/2 Elizabeth Street, Melbourne VIC 3000 (03) 9662 2254 Every time I visit Melbourne I make sure I score one of these bad boys. Hot jam doughnut and coffee                                     Spanish Doughnuts 2/295 Flinders Street, Melbourne VIC 3000 (03) 9621 1001 Last time I was here, one had to visit the markets to score. Now there are several vendors in the city. Fresh Churros ‎ 

The story goes like this… The sales guy and Stu had found the locally infamous 'Red Dog.' Our Stu likes a game of ‘stick’ and he quickly partners up with the Sales dude, and they strike up a game with a local and his sister, who just happened to be related to the local ‘organised crime’ boss. They were his kids. Well Stu had been at his best roughhousing, Aussie 'blokeyness' that night, and had been giving this local girl a pretty hard time. She would demand that he play his shot but he would be in the middle of a conversation and he would ‘wave her down.’ He had been rubbing her the wrong way, mentally and physically all night. I'm told that this woman expected, and got instant special attention in that part of town. Stu’s ambivalence had made quite an impression.

After thrashing Instagram while down in Melbourne, I've decided the Instagram 'magic contrast' button is pretty useful and Vignette could use an 'auto level' feature just to get the images to 'pop' a bit more. Vignette Instagram These Vignette kids really know how to iterate. There is a new update to the App... The favorites all have little thumbnails

The next morning I follow my nose downstairs, and entered the dining room to find a beach-head of an amazing multi-course breakfast had been establish by the Colonel on the long polished dining table. I accepted a cup of coffee and told him that I’ll wait for Stu to appear before I started the assault. After a second cup and a nibble of toast,‘his lordship’ still hadn’t made an appearance. I’m wondering if maybe Stu didn’t make it back from last night, but the Colonel is sure that he heard him come in? I go up and take a rec of his room. The bed is made, and there is no sign of Stu.

A Saturday night during the Comedy Fest. is pretty intense with people everywhere.   Bulmers Best of the Edinburgh Fest (UK) The aim was to join John Fothergill, Jimmy Mcghie, Joe Rowntree, and a pack audience at the rmit capitol theatre for a bit of a laugh. But first we stopped at the roof top Young and Jacksons cider bar . It was a warm night and the space was packed. In the winter they serve up a hot mulled cider from a cauldron. I had a Forbidden Rruit cider and my mate supped a strawberry flavoured Cheeky Rascal . Then we went for some Singaporean noodles (there is a whole line of these restaurants up the street (Swanston St) from the pub. Chatting away we lost track of time and we were 20min late for the gig. Had to pick up the tickets but the box office at the Capitol had already shut. So we bolted across the road to the Athenaeum theatre which was packed with bodies. We elbowed our way in, trying to cut across the currents...

Gambling is a strange business on the banks of the Mississippi. You can only hold a gaming license, if your establishment is floating. I think it's a throwback to the days when river boats chugged up and down the river. The norm is to build a large flat bottomed barge, stack it up with a casino superstructure, tether the floating mass to the land, and 'Bobs yer Uncle!' Instant ‘cash cow.’ These casinos are every bit as gaudy as any other casino establishment in the U.S. and pretty much unusable as a water craft. Most are permanently moored to a section of river bank, but we found one that had had a bit of creative thought put into what constituted ‘floating.’ There is only so much river bank to go around, so an operator had a pond dug specially, so that a casino could be ‘floated’ inland.

This is a story about the time I visited Mississippi. It’s a bit long so I’m running it over a couple of days. You notice a certain something, as soon as you get off the plane. It felt quite different when we ventured down to the southern states. The air was warm and sultry despite it being the middle of the winter season. We were told that Mississippi was an extremely poor State and some had commented that it was a bit ‘run down.’ I thought the place seemed to be more ‘laid back,’ without that ‘over developed’ feel that you get from other places in the U.S.

[update] Here's what I reckon would be useful. Google should design a single text formatting module much like the keyboard facility that most Android Apps access. this facility can work on data 'on' and 'off' line. Apps such as Blogger and Docs can call this module and access 'rich' text editing with the usual fort of functions that are lined up across the top of a Google text entry dialogue on their web applications (things like bold/italic/underline, colour, remove formatting, add image, link, etc). Blogger App, Gmail, and Docs could all have the same functionality and the interfaces would be similar. Actually, why can't this functionality be bolted straight into the 'keyboard' facility. Then any App could make use of 'rich' text manipulation? Something similar happens at present when a 'entry feild' is selected and the keyboard entry window slides up. I've decided it's time to remove the official Google Blogge...

Continuing this post... Driver-less cars will allow the driver to experience travel like the passenger does. To be in a position to fully appreciate their surroundings. I'm reminded of a time when i was on a road trip to Glasgow ( Bunkum Backpackers : Glasgow ) with a mate. She managed to eat a hamburger, light and smoke a cigarette, and removed her bra with out exposing any skin while driving a borrowed Daihatsu . Googles  driver-less would have made the whole experience a lot more relaxing for me. Sans human taxi No need to worry about whether you should tip or not if your visiting the U.S. No language problems communicating where you want to go. No driver body odour issues. Sans human bus [update] I want to add robot buses to my 'can't get here soon enough' list. Landed at the airport this week and hopped on a bus. The driver was a 'dawdler'. He wasn't interested in the passengers getting to destinations in good time. On ...

Cont. from this article... What I'd like to see is someone do this 'retro' effect with motion. I want to shoot a peice of video on my phone and apply an effect that makes it look like 8mm film, or 'steven speilburg during the seventies', or like the Keystone Cops, or Bleach Bypass so it looks a bit art house. Been using Instagram over Easter and have some more comments... The Instagram Devs seem to be working as hard as the Vignette ones. An update has already appeared in the App store. There is a single button which does a 'beauty pass' on the image. I would describe this button as...  'imagine you took all the 'auto' image filters in Photoshop, added a dash of the 'shadow/Highlights' function, and you'd get a similar result.' I discovered that iPhone folk are a bit excitable. This Tweet appeared in my stream... RT @jayong28 iPhone users disgusted that @Instagram is now on Android. http://t.co/sPiTrdoS #NoPr...

This looks like a good idea... 'The Scrubba wash bag will be a must-have item for travelers and campers, enabling them to travel clean, free and light. The current Scrubba wash bag prototype weighs less than 145g and is almost pocket-sized'  The-Scrubba-Wash-Bag web site...

Seriously 'Optioned up' A quick comparison between android camera apps. Both apply filters to images that simulate the 'degrading' effects of old fashioned film cameras. Both will import any image from the phones gallery, allowing the user to apply these effects to any image. Both will use any cameras the phone has available to it. Conclusion. I'm not giving up Vignette cause I like all its options. As an example of the options avalable, the image on the far right is some of the 'frame' options. Instagram : Simple interface Vignette : Loaded with options

They are making this 'sliding scale' payment system a fine art! Logging onto the Jetstar website ( Jetstar ) is a joy, but it's amazing what this airline will slap a value on. Charging the passenger for seat selection*. One of the payed options is for extra leg room, and the middle seats is then a position on the isle or at a window. There is also a charge of $4 to board the plane ahead of everyone else. Pretty impressed with the 'carry on' baggage allowance**. 10kg is the minimum and they will charge you for each kg over that limit. A bag this size is easily enough for an extended trip away and I'm on and off the plane with minimum hassle ( this would be the perfect bag to use ). Also impressed to see a video embedded in the info page that outlines the baggage rules. For our Starter Fares you are permitted one main item of carry-on baggage and one other small item, with a total combined weight of up to 10kg. http://www.jetstar.com/au/en/pla...

Latest Earthwatch announcements... Website | Subscribe Expeditions Brochure One day tasters Donate Contact us Dear Earthwatcher,   With the cooler months approaching, now is the perfect time to plan a new adventure. Perhaps you are being called to the lush rainforest by the frogs of Eastern Australia , the clear blue waters and dolphins of Greece or the fascinating and most iconic endangered species, the giant panda . Our new expedition, On the trail of the giant panda,  you will help monitor newborn panda cubs and their mums during breeding season, observe 'trainee' pandas preparing for release into the wild and study a wild panda population in the mountain forest of the Wolong Nature Reserve.   To find out more about this expedition or any other, visit earthwatch.org.au or join the conversation on facebook . Warm regards, Richard Gilmore CEO, Earthwatch Australia Visit us on facebo...

[Update] Occasionally in Oz, we have a road accident that involves a sleep deprived 'drugged to the eyeballs' truck driver. Robot trucks would remove these 'whacked out' lunatic from the nations free ways. Then I'm thinking that once the truck's are gone, the ancillary services such as greasy truck stop cafes will disappear too. Lets imagine... You land at an airport in a city you've never visited before. It's late in the evening so while your being processed through customs, you tap out a taxi request with a destination on your Integrated Transport App*. On exiting the terminal a taxi is parked there waiting for you. There are four empty seats, and a wide screen monitor occupies most of the dash. There is no driver. The taxi is a robot which has just exited a parking building facility** where it has been powered down. There is no need for a driver sitting in an airport taxi queue wasting time, or chomping on his lunch, or getting impatie...