Ever wondered just how close to midnight your town’s personal doomsday clock should be? Start the calculations rolling with this little tool that lets you know just how much nuclear danger you’re in.
Please note the disclaimer:
“Please, please, please do not make any important decisions based on this information.”
I’ve spent the last 3 and a half years trying to get Townsville positive news coverage around the globe. It’s a great place. It’s worth publicising. But, this morning I had an epiphany. Here’s an easy 3 step process to get your home town/city/village some positive media coverage.
1. Win Miss Universe Australia
2. Visit your home town
3. Turn up at your old job at McDonalds with cameras in tow
It’s that simple.
This is quite incredible.
It really wouldn’t be out of place in a circus – and I feel like I should know. Because last night Robyn and I hit big top for the Great Moscow Circus. It’s in Townsville for three weeks.
It was worth the price we paid for admission (free through a work contact) and probably worth the price others will pay.
There was a disappointing scarcity of scary animals – unless you’re scared by miniature ponies. Which Robyn isn’t – she wants four for the yard. She dreams of running our very own menagerie of rare and bizarre animals. That’s why ordinary people have pet dogs – and we have turtles.
It was actually a thoroughly enjoyable night – despite Robyn’s head cold/flu thing (she caught my man flu but it’s bashed her about a bit) – and it’s pretty cheap.
There are 13 performers (by my count) who each take on multiple roles (including selling pop-corn before the show and flashing trinkets and refreshments during intermission). It’s impressive. As is the guy on the ball – who prompted the post, and was discovered here…
It’s not only teachers striking in Townsville – apparently we’ve got the highest incidence of “bird strike” in an Australian regional city.
BIRDS have hit more planes at Townsville airport than at any other regional centre in the country, a new report shows.
From 2000 until the end of March, 324 bird strikes at Townsville airport were reported to the Australian Transport and Safety Bureau, with 17 strikes in the first three months of this year.
The figures were higher than at Rockhampton with 263 and Alice Springs on 160.
I only really posted on this because I saw that great Pelican picture in the Wall Street Journal’s photoblog.
Henry Petersen probably googles himself pretty religiously – so if you’re here, reading this Henry – thanks for the mangoes.
Henry Petersen is the promoter behind the “Fashion Bash” an event that sees young girls from Townsville fight it out on the catwalk for modeling supremacy every year – and an event that can now claim to have launched the career of the new “Miss Universe Australia” – Rachel Finch.
Henry apparently spotted her at the airport.
When you’re talking about shameless self promotion in Townsville, Henry Petersen takes the cake. He’s everywhere. He made national news for his “wife hunt” a few years back (his story is at the bottom of this link), he repays locally bestowed favours with fruit grown on his farm – and he relentlessly plugs his events with terribly worded emails. I’m sorry Henry. If you’re reading this. They truly are terrible. He once requested recognition at our tourism awards for his outstanding contribution – comparing himself to Peter Brock and Steve Irwin weeks after they died saying it was a shame accolades are so often dished out posthumously.
Well, now he’s a success again. In the news for all the right reasons. As a model scout. A teen model scout.
And Townsville is on the map. As a place capable of producing a Miss Universe Australia (MUA). Not sure if this little description of Townsville from the new MUA is productive or not as far as marketing northern Australia’s “largest city” goes…
Coming from such a small town it’s not only somewhere to grow up that’s naturally beautiful but you really learn the value of growing in that small community and you get a lot of support and love and you can take that in your heart and take that to a bigger city or move on with your life and your career and really make a change.
Yes, we’re all only here so that we can leave. Thanks Rachel.
Generally speaking I’m not a big fan of Christian music. Usually because it’s a cheap and nasty rip off of perfectly acceptable (if not sanctified) secular music tailored to a gullible Christian audience who will fork out money for poor quality material thus perpetuating the existence of bad Christian music by creating a market for it. Wake up people. Stop buying bad Christian music just because it’s Christian.
Here’s some of the baddest Christian music ever released (at least judged by the album art) – while these are all thankfully stuck in the past there are modern equivalents who were no doubt performing at Easter Fest over the weekend. And will be turning up at a Youth Alive event near you.
I wanted to follow up my post on humility with a reference to possibly the most arrogant Christian brochure I’ve ever read – where a guest speaker – a youth worker from Townsville – was hailed as a “voice of a generation” and a “once in a lifetime evangelist” – and I’d never heard of him. And I live in Townsville. But instead you get these.
And – if you like the heading of this post you can get it as a shirt from the Red Vs Blue store.
If you haven’t heard of the Conficker Worm you must have been living under a bush or something. Even the ABC Morning Show in Townsville is talking about it.
To be honest I haven’t done anything about Conficker. I haven’t even checked my various computers for the nasty little monster. And now its fury is meant to be being unleashed upon us tomorrow I am feeling like I should.
The US Government has come to the rescue with a nice, easy test from a reputable(?) source…
I’ll be running it at home tonight. I think we’ll be right – but it’s probably worth checking.
I received an email today with a media release from Australian Traveller magazine. They’ve named Australia’s 100 best towns. Top of the list is pretty close to my childhood stomping ground of Maclean, Yamba. Awesome. Go the North Coast.
“Residents of Yamba, the sleepy and secret fishing village (population 5600) at the mouth of the Clarence River on NSW’s North Coast, may be upset at being named the Best Town in Australia. Their idyllic secret is out and they may have to share.”
If you’ve never been there you should definitely go. After holidaying in Townsville of course.
Dalby didn’t make the list. A travesty, obviously, but Picnic Bay on Magnetic Island did.
The methodology was pretty scientifically sound:
“A panel of tourism & travel experts decided the 100 Best Towns. The panellists were presented with a shortlist of 300 towns and asked: “On a scale of 1-10, how likely are you to recommend a friend add one hour to their trip just to visit this town?” The answers were tabulated and the 100 Best Towns revealed.”
The full list will be available on the Australian Traveller website tomorrow.
Threadless has extended the $5 sale until the end of March.
Three posts ago I hit 1,000 posts. I’ll do some sort of best of those 1,000 posts to celebrate in the next day or so. To me, every one of them is like a wicket for Glenn McGrath – I remember them all. Maybe.
Speaking of Cricket. Australia has an all rounder. A bowling all rounder. Mitchell Johnson. He’s from Townsville you know.
Here’s Roebuck’s view on Johnson’s all round credentials:
“Several of the batsman had fallen foul of Harris’s Disease, the name nowadays given to batsmen who suddenly play boneheaded shots against apparently innocuous spinners. Hereabouts the main topic on spectators’ tongues concerned the tourists’ ability to take the match into a fifth day.
The next hour was startling as the Australian’s launched a two-pronged attack. Johnson’s innings is etched in the memory. After a quite start, he hurried to 50 in 51 balls whereupon he raised the tempo sufficiently to reach three figures in 86 balls. He did not swipe. He did not depend on luck. Instead he produced a stream of swashbuckling strokes all around the wicket, executed with a free and full swing of the bat.
Some of his strokes stirred the cricketing soul. Johnson took the ball on the rise and dispatched it through extra-cover or he stayed still and smote lifters into the 10th row at deep mid-wicket. Without exception his pulls and hooks went forward of square. Some of them dashed past mid-on. Moving in for the kill, the South Africans tossed the ball to Makhaya Ntini and Dale Steyn. Even Jacques Kallis had a crack and he, too, was swiftly swamped.”
The Gruen Transfer returned to TV tonight. It’s a brilliant show. Tonight’s topic – tourism advertising. A subject close to my heart. Made some interesting observations about how tourism marketing works and the basic formula.
A couple of years ago at a marketing workshop with Virgin Blue marketing guru Sean Cummins (from Cummins and Partners) showed two tourism advertisements from different states with the soundtracks switched – and it was almost impossible to tell the difference.
Tourism ads are by and large formulaic and in the past were too focused on iconic shots of postcard landmarks – and apparently what we’re really into is collecting experiences rather than pictures.
Tourism marketers are limited by government funding and the fact that the tourism industry is a disparate bunch of small businesses who don’t really want to throw much money into advertising a destination rather than their own businesses.
I’m going to make my own tourism ad on their website and figure out how to put it up here.
Monday was my blog’s third birthday.
Yesterday was the third anniversary of my arrival in Townsville.
Friday is the third anniversary of Cyclone and my first day at work.
I was hoping to have my 1000th post done on Friday – and I’ve got about 40 posts to go – so expect a bit of filler.
A lot has happened in my life in that time – so I have much to be thankful for. Particularly my wife.
Townsville’s esteemed local rag, the “Bully” is series of stories highlighting a scandalous use of personal time by a local city councilor who is daring to moonlight as a radio commentator for Cowboys games. Shock Jock horror. It’s a nasty campaign determined to boot the councilor out of the roll he held prior to being elected.
They’re going on and on about how it shows he’s not a 24/7 councilor. The counter argument is that he’s simply making money from his hobby.
Both arguments ignore the fact that the council actually entered into some form of ownership agreement a major sponsorship agreement with the Cowboys and thus he is simply promoting a council asset. Not to mention the $72 million economic impact the Cowboys have in Townsville – which he no doubt helps to promote by spruiking the product over the radio.
One of the top ten search keywords that brings people to my blog is “Townsville Strip Clubs”. Not many of them stay. Perhaps I wasn’t what they were looking for.
If you’re here because you searched for that – skip the strip clubs and head to church for a more satisfying experience.
This one’s for Townsville locals – but those of you who don’t live here should check it out too.
We’ve launched a new campaign with the Townsville Airport – and you can win prizes by chucking your photos and videos of North Queensland on the website. Then using them to lure your friends and family up here.
It’s called “Shout Out Townsville” – and you’ll find a few of my pics up there as placeholders. But don’t worry. I can’t win.
It’s definitely the coolest campaign we’ve done since I’ve been here.
Debt should not be a campaign issue in a recession. The fact Queensland has a big debt is a problem – but the future Queensland Government needs to be building infrastructure to create jobs.
So campaigning on the fact that you’re not going to do anything to address rising unemployment is ridiculous.
This raises a question for me – what happens when a state can’t pay off its debt – it’s not like infrastructure assets can be repossessed. And you’d think with all these countries racking up trillions of dollars in debt it’s all a bit moot.
Anyway, the ad makes some good points about Labor’s pointless debt – borrowing without finishing jobs (Traveston Dam) and spending money on projects that don’t work (Desal plant in the south east).
Springborg has been shaping the debt narrative for some time. His favourite line is that we’re paying $10 million a day in interest as a state. As a campaign issue debt is a winner. But politically it shouldn’t be. Particularly in a recession.
It worked a treat in the Townsville City Council elections because for some reason people are comfortable with personal debt in order to invest in infrastructure (housing) but not government debt.
The ads also look nice. Black again. They get points because it will work, lose points for political content, and lose some points for style – it’s an attack ad.
Grade – B-