Monthly Archives: June 2005

Wedding Album

Wedding

Last night Claire and I cruised to Brisbane to see Jason from Studio 60 about photography for our wedding again. We’ve now confirmed and paid our deposit to have him photograph our wedding; it is now set in stone.

When we got around to confirming what album we wanted (Studio 60 offers a bunch of different styles and types of albums), Jason pointed out that his pricing scheme was about to change. Initially, I thought that was going to be a bad thing. However, he then pointed out that he is simplifying it again (I thought it was simple before, see below) – which for us made it cheaper than what we were going to pay, half the cost in fact! I nearly couldn’t believe it.

Previously, you picked the physical size of the album you wanted. You then picked the binding of your album (types of leather, fabric, wood and so forth) and from here you picked which base package you wanted. There were different bases, which included a different number of sides in the album. If you wanted additional sides, on top of the base, you’d have to pay a fixed amount per additional side.

The concept of sides is that you aren’t paying per photo, so it doesn’t matter if you want 10 photos on a side or 1, the side has a fixed cost. I think this method of costing a photo album was excellent; it makes costing an album a whole lot easier.

With the new pricing structure, Studio 60 have now removed the ‘confusion’ of picking different albums. They now have a fixed price for all albums. This means you could have a bigger squarer shaped album or a more rectangular book like album, which ever you prefer – they all cost the same. These all include a predefined number of sides. Now, you just have to pick what binding you want your album in and away you go – couldn’t be simpler.

I’m really excited to see how it turns out in the end, as all of the albums we’ve seen of Jason’s have been stellar. Its also really nice to know that we don’t have to worry about it anymore too. I’ve talked to a few people about wedding albums now and some have had good experiences and some have not; knowing that we don’t have to worry about walking the bad path is very comforting in my opinion.

Scratch one more off the list, time to move onto the next.

Gold Coast Zorbing

General, Photos

Alistair Lattimore Zorbing at Pimpama, Gold CoastAfter we went zorbing at Pimpama (Gold Coast), I asked Dave if he could chase up the photos of our experience. It has taken a couple days for them to filter down the chain, however they have arrived and I think they came out really well!

  • Myself in the Zorb (90k)
  • The Zorbing Course (88k)
    This image you can see the main course that I rolled down. It might not look it in the picture, however the hill you are rolling down is about 120m or 130m long and probably about 20 to 30 degrees in angle as well. You’ll probably notice, on the right hand side of the image, a curved path. This is apparently one of, if not the only slalom Zorbing path in the world. Unfortunately, we didn’t get to go down it as it was too windy. The bloke informed us that with the breeze blowing on our day, we’d either leave the path all together or end up in a damn right past the bottom of the hill.
  • Up close and personal with a Zorb (125k)
    This shot shows one of the Zorbs up close and you can see the guy wires I referred to in my original post.
  • The starting platform (130k)
    A zoomed in shot of the starting platform. The Zorbs are floating in a pool of water at the top to make life easier on the Zorb instructor and the Zorbanaut. It also gives a little bit better idea of how steep the hill is.

Cinema Etiquette

General

After we went shopping on Sunday, we went and had dinner at Hogs Breath, followed by a movie.

When we entered our cinema, it was pretty much empty however it was bound to fill up. Belinda was leading the way and decided we’d sit about midway up the seating on the right wall. We all sat down and soon there after I said we should move forward a little and into the centre section of seating.

We moved into the centre section, which in my opinion put us in a prime viewing position. This is where the cinema etiquette came into play. At this point, there was no one sitting in front of us so Belinda was happy – then someone happened to sit in front of us. Belinda had said to us, that she felt it was rude of them to sit directly in front of us, based on the logic that there were other seats available in the cinema that were just as good. Andrew reasoned that since they sat there, with no concern for us/Belinda at all that cinema etiquette clearly doesn’t exists, does it?

About five minutes later, the row in front of us was pretty much full on the left side. A new group of four people came into the cinema and instead of sitting back a few rows of seating – they had the nerve to ask the front row of people to move over two seats, so that their group of four could all sit beside each other. Keeping in mind, that if they went back about 4-5 rows they could have done that anyway and everyone else on the front row wouldn’t have been sitting in each others pockets.

My take on the situation is that in the first instance, it wasn’t particularly rude to sit in front of us. However, if it was me I probably wouldn’t have sat there; so for me, cinema etiquette does exist. In the second case, it was plain rude to ask the front row to move over two seats. For me, the only time moving of seats should take place is if you are asked to by an usher or if the cinema is clearly full and its just polite to do so. In this case, it was neither and they group of four could have seated themselves in seats just as good, if they would have moved back 4-5 rows.

Do you have any personal cinema etiquette rules you generally abide by and what gets on your goat when others don’t play nicely?

Female Shopping Psyche

General

Today my older brother Andrew and his wife Belinda decided they’d come for a drive to the Gold Coast for the day. After a little discussion between Claire and Belinda, it was decided we’d head to Pacific Fair to check out the shops (I know, who would have thought; women and shops?).

We all had some lunch in the food court after which the chicks decided to get a little shopping in. Belinda tells us that it is nice to have the shops so close, as they have to drive into Brisbane from Ipswich (roughly 45 minutes) to get to them; where as it takes about 12 minutes from our place to Pacific Fair. One has to wonder, it takes 45 minutes from Ipswich to Brisbane and about an hour from Ipswich to the Gold Coast; was the extra 15 minutes a sacrifice to get to one of the largest shopping centres in the Southern Hemisphere? ;-)

Back on track, women shopping is an amazing act to watch take place. The female species have an uncanny ability to walk through shopping centres aimlessly for hours on end, not looking for anything in particular, whilst being perfectly content. They’ll go in and out of shops, touching nearly every piece of clothing, just to see what it feels like and if it would look good on them. Keep in mind, they aren’t looking for anything in particular, they are just there, therefore they must look and touch.

Compare that against how a male shops. Males will go to a shopping centre with the express purpose of buying something and those somethings will be predefined before they get in the car. When they get to the shopping centre, they will seek out the nearest shop which offers one of the items on the list. Once in said shop, they will do one of two things; buy the item or immediately move onto the next nearest shop which offers one of, but not necessarily the same item.

I wonder if the difference is that women find shopping relaxing and fun, where as for a male it is more of a chore. I personally, don’t not like shopping; I just don’t like shopping for no particular reason. If I’m not there to buy something in particular, I’d prefer to be at home relaxing. By comparison, Claire hates just sitting at home doing nothing. Is the driving force to do something one of the forces that makes females shop? Maybe we’ve just unravelled part of the puzzle.

I think you could summarise the two like this:

  • shopping for men is an exercise in efficiency
  • shopping for women it is a relaxing fun excursion
  • a graphical representation