It's back to school kids!

Had the opportunity to photograph Pamela James and her gang again recently for a back-to-school story. What a super family!! [click the pic to view fullsize]

Wacky warranty T&C's!

I bought a new Pelican case today and happened to do something different and look over the warranty/instruction form. Thought this was a classic!!!

Townsville McDonald's Crocodiles 2008/09 Home game schedule

Stick the dates in your diary or you can subscribe to this calendar by using the links below. To add it directly into Google Calendar simply click the + at the bottom right of the calendar below.

iCal - Link | xml - Link

2008 North Queensland Cowboys HotSquad video

Photography: Cameron Laird

Cam's debut on Google Maps!

In early December last year I was sitting at my desk when my wife Kaya said "That's funny, a car with a Google sticker and a weird contraption on the roof just drove past". Being a news man and a geek I tore out the door and chased the car down the street and around a few corners and found it doing laps of our neighbourhood, its first outing in Australia. The guy was kind enough to stop after I had done a few pics and I did a few detail pics of the interior of the car. (I posted this on my blog at the time - http://blog.cameronlaird.com/2007/12/google-maps-zip-through-little-old.htm

It has been well reported in the past week that Google has now released this street view detail in Australia (http://maps.google.com) and I didn't think twice until a colleague remembered my pics of the Google car that were published locally and in metropolitan newspapers throughout the country. He called me up and asked for the address where it was shot. Sure enough - there I am! Not only in one place but two separate places!







See the pics in Google Maps at the links below

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Regatta+Cres,+Douglas,+QLD+4814,+Australia&sll=-19.312733,146.756744&sspn=0.005265,0.011201&layer=c&ie=UTF8&ll=-19.314971,146.756715&spn=0.001316,0.0028&z=19&cbll=-19.315365,146.756482&panoid=Z_GXyaFjCwQhcxtGsUn7fQ&cbp=1,349.69474496472924,,0,10.895498463218464

and

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Regatta+Cres,+Douglas,+QLD+4814,+Australia&sll=-19.312733,146.756744&sspn=0.005265,0.011201&layer=c&ie=UTF8&ll=-19.31373,146.756339&spn=0.001316,0.0028&z=19&cbll=-19.314389,146.755824&panoid=WsdR5rVbQ97bdokGN83fBA&cbp=1,288.58024718843967,,0,2.978686241182244

Dean Lance on JT's surgery

North Queensland Cowboys football manager talks about Johnathan Thurston's knee surgery

I MUST have that toy!!!

As a parent this video is pretty scary but then again, just goes to show when a girl wants a fluffy toy, she is going to get it!

The World's worst iPhone plan

Well, Telstra has done it again! Congratulations to Telstra for winning the competition for "The World's Worst iPhone Plans"!

Here are the plan prices - as a guide, my current $79 plan with Telstra gives you $550.00 of calls and I pay $29 for a data pack that gives me 80Mb of data for the month.

Now for $80 I get $70 worth of calls and $10 of data which equates to 10Mb.

So, 10Mb is ridiculous eh? Well you can opt for a data pack as per the below plans

So, if anyone can find a worse deal than this I would love to know about it. (This reminds me why I sold my damn Telstra TLS and TLSCA shares!)

WOW, check this out for new tech!

This is quite depressing :-(

Following on from my last post - it is only getting worse! Here are the current wooden spoon odds!

Current NRL season odds

Just fyi. Go the Cowboys!

Vote FIOS for Townsville in 2042

Now, this is my sort of broadband!

I'm guessing his day isn't going that well....

Thought your day was shitty?

and another angle

Divers Rich and Ally thank their rescuers

I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to meet and photograph Richard Neely and Allyson Dalton recently only hours after they were rescued from 19 hours adrift off Australia's Whitsunday coast after being left behind on a scuba diving trip.

I shot this as an exclusive for Britain's Sunday Mirror newspaper and the pics went to publications around the world within 24 hours of their publication in the Sunday Mirror.

Rich and Ally became instant celebrities due to their harrowing ordeal in the Pacific and jetted off to the US to make appearances on US talk and breakfast television.

Today they returned to Townsville to thank their rescuers, and it was a great opportunity to enjoy a beer with them and talk about their ordeal and the trappings of instant fame!

Australia, The Movie trailer released

The first trailer for the upcoming Baz Luhrmann film has been released. It is available in 480P, 720P and 1080P at this link. It looks FANTASTIC!!!

See all my pics from the movie set at http://www.cameronlaird.com/gallery/2849094_SoQ3t

What a load of bollocks!

Trust an Aussie icon to play with itself in the middle of a worldwide sporting broadcast!  What a classic!

Still testing Animoto

I have thrown another folder of my pics at Animoto and a song from my library and pretty happy with the results. Animoto tell me that they will be offering SD and HD resolutions soon, cool! Feel free to let me know what you think of this!

I'm really starting to love Nine Inch Nails

Up until a couple of months ago when Nine Inch Nails released their Ghosts albums (I blogged about it here) I hadn't even listened to a single NIN track.  Now they have earnt some of my hard-earned cash that I am really happy to have given it to them. I understand that from each CD sale that an artist makes through a music store they earn not much more than $1.00.  Their record companies, wholesaler, retailers, management etc are hoovering up the rest of the cash. But not Nine Inch Nails.  They are giving away much of their music and offering options to buy special merchandise and higher quality audio in the hope that it will attract audiences to live concerts in the future.
A NIN media release recently quoted
"Nine Inch Nails' 36-track instrumental opus Ghosts I-IV, released March 2 via NIN.com, has amassed a first week total of 781,917 transactions (including free and paid downloads as well as orders for physical product), resulting in a take of $1,619,420 USD.
"These figures represent the most relevant and contemporary metric for measuring how Nine Inch Nails' music is reaching its fans," said NIN manager Jim Guerinot.
As previously reported, the $300 Ultra-Deluxe Limited Edition of Ghosts I-IV immediately sold out its run of 2500. The $5 Download, $10 2XCD set and $75 Limited Edition Deluxe versions are still available at NIN.com. The $10 2XCD SET will be released to retail April 5 in Australia and Japan, April 8 in North America, and April 7 in the UK and most European territories. A $39 4X vinyl version will be available at retail April 8. Ghosts I-IV has been released under the Creative Commons license."
And now Metallica, originally one of the most ardent crusaders against online music file-sharing have changed their tune.  They now appear to be planning to follow the lead of Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails - The Age wrote about it recently here
Big record companies like Sony BMG, Warner, EMI and Universal must be starting to worry about their futures.  Their biggest loss to date was when Madonna left Warner after 25 years to sign a US$120 million 10 year deal with a concert promoter.  Now big name bands are releasing music for free on the internet?  I say the writing is on the wall...

Lovin' Animoto.com

I've only just discovered a new online slideshow service that really rocks. Thanks to Leo and Amber from Net@Nite for the introduction! Here's a quick sample of the service using a few of my pics of model Hofit Golan I shot at the Palazzo Versace on Australia's Gold Coast.

An amazing watch and a more amazing video!

What an amazing bit of CGI to show off the Urwerk 202 Automatic - Twin Turbine Hammerhead watch!  Please tell me there is a HD version of this video in digital surround sound...