End of an Era

Blogger was my early companion when I started blogging. I have had lots of fun keeping this blog and writing stupid things for no-one to read. Now my focus is different and you can continue to catch up on my whereabouts on my professional blog www.psychsplash.com - reviewing the web for Psychologists.

Join me in my move!!

Slow on obvious product placements

I gotta admit I have been really slack on the "obvious product placements" front over the past month. I thought life would slow down following completion of the PhD but well................its got faster. This month I have:

Gone away to Clare Valley!
had one of my ideas at cambrian house enter the finals!
looked for jobs
helped move my partner out of her house
started looking for a new rental place
kept psychsplash up-to-date
got back on my bike
tried to catch up with friends
cleaned out my room

On the Cambrian House front, things are really motoring along. Their main product "Prezzle" is booming, they have a number of cool market tests happening (my favorite is Spoil my Spouse), the forums are abuzz with confidence for the future of CH and my idea "Spot Light Special" is in the second Idea Warz Tournament "The Golden Axe". Head over to check it out.

OMG! - I have finished

Phew - the last couple of months have been the craziest period in my 29 years on this planet.

Finishing the Phd counts as the single most stressful activity I have completed. Here are some facts about how it turned out!

• for the last month, i did average 15 hours per day
• i left the house rarely during that time
• in the last 6 months, i read over 300 articles, of which 150-200 ended up in the thesis
• total length of thesis, including references, and appendices - over 600 pages!
• number of redbulls consumed - estimated at around 30 (doesnt sound that much actually! - i should have had more)
• my partner was an absolute gem - she did the reference section and edited the full thesis - WHAT A CHAMPION!
• i slept on average around 5 hours per night
• i lived mostly on chicken and rice
• i pretty much completed my entire thesis on a laptop
• the binder had a nice scottish accent
• when I ventured outside for the first time a few days ago, it was like being in a different world
• I now know I am capable of working at an extremely high level, but also know I never want to - lol

If i think of more - i will add them in the next couple of days as I reflect on the process.

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Invisible man - collection of kick arse creative souls

This looks really cool. Just one of many sites I have found recently late at night after trying to mentally wind down from working 15 hours on the thesis (two weeks to go by the way). I have been searching out creative inspiration. This is also the first post I have done from Diigo - head over to Diigo.com if you want to know what I am talking about.

Obvious product placements has obvious product placements

I looked at my blog today and saw that the little google ad above the most recent post says "product placements. What could be better for a blog called obvious product placements?

As usual I will reel off the updates for today:

1) For the first time in 6 months, I can actually see an end to the PhD. Holing myself up in the parent's lounge-room has been a highly successful strategy

2) I have been using a small timer to work in 45 minute slots. Keeps me focused and it is kind of like attending 6 lectures a day

3) I am eating too many kettle chips

4) my sister had her birthday on the 29th - Happy birthday Sis. Hope you enjoyed the birthday dinner.

5) I am building plans for the next version of PsychSplash. It is going to be awesome. I may need to earn some money first and pay off the original version - lol

6) Big planes flying low overhead appear to disrupt the electricity supply and cause momentary darkness.

7) I won at scrabble last night. This is a first, and testament to my left brain.

8) check out www.mojizu.com - awesome little characters

9) some of my cambrian house ideas are moving back up. I think it was that $10000 i wired them yesterday.

10) google mail is the best - sign up and get rid of hotmail forever

22nd September - Report from the wilderness

Actually, this is not really the wilderness, it is my parent's house, who are off galavanting around the UK. I am holed up in the lounge room, attempting to drive the final nails into the coffin that is my thesis.

Today's points of interest
1) I have written over 150 posts here at Obvious Product Placements. I do not think however I have done enough obvious product placements.

2) Cambrian House is exploding all over the place (in good and bad ways). Waiting for the new Ideawarz system to get in place so that my ideas stand some chance of not scoring -182343459. There seems to be a Guy Kawasaki love-fest going on there at the moment.

3) I watched the first series of Extras last night (long night!) - awesome series, easily as good as the office.

4) I am dining at Greedy Goose tomorrow night to celebrate 4 years with my partner - She is beautiful and i love her lots. This restaurant won "my restaurant rules"

5) my parent's TV makes a high pitched noise that would be out of their hearing range, but is well within mine. I wonder if the dog next door can hear it?

6) this isnt going to be a 10-point post, so you will have to make do with 5.5 (you cant really count this as a point)

Rant and rave

Its been a few days since my last post. Plenty for me to rant about this fine saturday morning.

1) my friend Jess gave birth to a healthy baby boy. Congrats Jess, you are gonna make a great mum
2) the chicken and chip shop around the corner does a 1/2 chicken and chips for $9. They put so many chips in there that the meal could potentially feed about 3 people.
3) I have 1.5 months to go on the PHD. Everything else has come to a standstill while I finish the monster.
4) I think I wil learn how to use Drupal, the content management system to build a psychology news-site. I am also thinking of building a guitar news-site as well. These are post-PhD projects of course
5) sister is on a crusade to take the perfect sunset photo. Good luck sis, they are a bugger. FLickr buddy Allan took a great sunrise photo.













6) I have watched the entire first season of LOST - kick ass TV show
7) jet li is an awesome martial artist, but his hollywood films have been pretty lame
8) my friend penny sends me lots of nice messages when I am struggling with work. She is very considerate
9) One of my projects - the psychology and health forum - a networking community of psychologists, counsellors, therapists, students and researchers in SA is growing nicely.
10) my ideas at cambrian house are going really badly. I will reconsider the whole creative entrepreneur thing :)