blog 84: In which I say WHAM, BAM thank you SPAM!

I get heaps and heaps of SPAM sent to my Blog.  Spammers are by far my biggest and most vocal fans. They love me! I know this because they are always so complimentary. I regularly read their comments just to make myself feel good and to boost my confidence.

Sadly though, I’ve been unforgivably slack about responding to their messages. Time to address that glaring oversight forthwith.

Here’s just a handful of correspondence from this month’s Spam File. (Note: Spam messages copied verbatim.)

  • From Betclic: Thank you for the auspicious writeup. It in fact was a amusement account it. Look advanced to far added agreeable from you!
    By the way, how could we communicate?

Dear Betclic, I don’t know about me, but if I had to hazard a guess, I’d say you could definitely communicate ‘MUCH better’.

  • From autolabeler.com: What a stuff of un-ambiguity and preserveness of precious experience concerning unpredicted emotions.

Thanks Autolabeler, your email is the very stuff that un-ambiguity is made of! I think you’ve summed up beautifully what I’ve been attempting to achieve with my blogging!

  • From ??????: â€œä»–是飞天星盗的首领, «æŒ‚在这里,是因为帝国决定要大规模杀星盗了,这个只是第一个。外面大大小小的星盗团有七八百个,è

Dear ????? €Œä¸”å…¨éƒ¨å„è‡ªæœ‰å„è‡ªçš„é¢†åœ°ï¼Œå¬è¯´ä»–ä»¬æƒ¹åˆ°äº†å¤§äººç‰©ã€‚çŽ  🙂

  • From Sherita: I think that everything posted made a bunch of sense. But, consider this, suppose you wrote a catchier post title? I am not saying your content is not good, but suppose you added something to possibly get a person’s attention? I mean Blog 72: In which I quickly recap 20 highlights of July, August and September, is a little boring.

Hi Sherita. Bunch of sense? Is that the right collective noun? Are you sure it’s not a herd of sense or possibly a flock of sense? Anyway, thanks for the great piece of advice as well as the heartless criticism of my pathetic title-creating ability. You’ll be happy to know that I’ve now re-named blog 72 as “He quickly recapped 20 highlights of July, August and September, and you WON’T BELIEVE what happened next! Warning: contains NUDITY which might excite some readers and which you also probably WON’T BELIEVE!

  • From Latest Social Media Technology in Education: Year 2014 is expected to bring new awareness in users. If your business products or services are ones that people like to talk about yoou will hwve a much easier time acquiring social media interest, fzns and followers.

Dear LSMTIE,  do you think that the ‘new awareness in users’ might be the awareness that it’s actually 2015 – and has been for some time? Also I think yoou might hwve more fzns yourself, if you turned on your Spellcheck occasionally. Just saying.

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Every time you miss a TYPO, the ERRORISTS win!

  • From Digital Photographer: Exploring in Yahoo I finally stumbled upon this website. Reading this info So i’m satisfied to express that I have an incredibly just right uncanny feeling I discovered exactly what I needed. 

Thanks Digital Photographer. I’m satisfied to express that I have an incredibly just right uncanny feeling that you probably haven’t.

  • From Vehicle Accident Lawyer: So, they outcome to basing it on what is the typical compensation for the kind of injury.

Thanks so much for your moving and generous message Vehicle Accident Lawyer. This is why I write books!

  • From AEOkylegokxb: Hello admin, do you need some fresh content on your
    website? Daily fresh content will rank your blog higher in google, if you are too lazy to write everyday, search in google for: Elmit’s Essential Tool

Thanks AEOkylegokxb for that helpful tip regarding Elmit’s Essential Tool. But what do I search for if I’m even too lazy to write every month?

  • From Computer Support Fort Lauderdale: Thanks for any other great article. Where else may anyone get that kind of info in such a perfect method of writing? I have a presentation subsequent week, and I’m at the search for such info.

Dear CSFL, who are you kidding? Do you really think you’re going to find another example of a perfect method of writing like mine somewhere else? Get a grip CSFL. I’d expect much better of a Fort Lauderdale-ite. You’re being a fool to yourself and a burden to society! You know that don’t you? You should be banished to the edges of society and repeatedly poked with a stick! If you maintain this attitude, your ‘presentation subsequent week’ will be an unmitigated disaster!!!!!
I hope I haven’t come across as being too harsh. 

  • From Click Here: Thanks for sharing such a fastidious idea, piece of writing is pleasant, that’s why i have read it entirely.
  • From Susanne: If some one wishes expert view concerning blogging afterward i advise him/her to pay a quick visit this blog.
    Keep up the fastidious job.

Dear Suzanne and Click Here. Thank you so much for your emails. I often feel that the fastidious nature of my blog goes totally unappreciated! ‘Fastidious’ was my middle name at school. I’m pretty sure it was used as a term of endearment. Anyway, as the old saying goes, ‘Fastidiousness is next to (or to be precise, ten point two centimetres to the left of, and ever so slightly behind) Godliness’.

Well that’s it. A big thanks to all the Spammers who are continually amazed and grateful that my wondrous blog exists, as well as all those good folk who send me slabs of either indecipherable or totally irrelevant text. Keep the emails coming. I do it all for you guys!

Cheers
Michael

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blog 83: In which I recap August and September and where some of the things I say are actually true.

August and September have been very busy but very enjoyable months for me. They were packed with school visits, as well as a festival and a conference which took me from Brisbane to Melbourne to Ipswich to Hobart.

Here are some of the things that happened.

  • I had a birthday! (Never too late to send presents!) Strangely enough, the same thing happened to me on the exact day last year. Of course I immediately requested a recount because obviously some gross error had occurred in the tallying up of the years.
  • This was the mixer my wife had to use to bake a birthday cake big enough to support all my candles!

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  • On the plus birthday side, news of my rapidly approaching use by date, did make a newspaper in Frankfurt Germany. I really liked the fact that they used a photo of me from 2003. (For those of you who don’t read German the article mainly goes on about how young I look and what a tragic loss it was to the fashion industry that I gave up my stellar modeling career to become a writer.)

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  • Speaking of all things German, the recent German radio plays of the Ishmael series were released on CDs by the wonderful HÖRCOMPANY.

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  • I had lots of school visits in and around my hometown of Brisbane, including one to St Williams Primary School where grade 5R put together this great display for Eric Vale Off the Rails.

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  • While taking out the garbage one night I spotted a pair of rare mutant radio-active zombie possums watching me from the telephone line. True story.

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  • I had a terrific two weeks of school visits down in Melbourne including a couple of days in Sale as Writer in Residence at Gippsland Grammar – see below.

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  • While in Melbourne we had a lovely weekend away at Wye River where we took in the beautiful scenery …

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  • … and met the very friendly local wildlife, which as well as the feathery guys below, included spotting 4 koalas.

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  • My daughter Meg even managed to photo-bomb my bird selfie!

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  • Back in Brisbane there were more school visits followed by a week up at the wonderful Story Arts Festival in Ipswich where I spoke to more than 1500 primary kids over 4 days and got to do three session with my awesome son Joe Bauer – illustrator of the Eric Vale and Secret Agent Derek ‘Danger Dale series.

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  • While at the Festival Joe and I got to catch up with a fantastic bunch of authors & illustrators including …
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Tony Flowers and Valanga Khoza

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Barry Jonsberg and Oliver Phommavanh

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Mark Greenwood and Terry Denton (thanks for showing me the hand Terry!) Thanks to Janeen Brian for the photo.

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Joe with Terry Denton

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With James Moloney.

While in Ipswich we attended the brilliant and hilarious theatre performance of Eric Vale Epic Fail staged by the amazing THAT Production Company complete with wonderful songs by Liz Flynn.

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Joe and I join the Q & A with cast and crew on stage after the Opening Night performance.

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  • For my last trip away I went to Hobart to join the Scholastic Australia team for a couple of days to promote books and reading at the Australia Primary Principals Association (APPA) Conference . We gave away 500 free copies of Just a Dog and Eric Vale Epic Fail!
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The beautiful view from our hotel room. Thank you to Murray and the team from Scholastic Australia!

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  • While in Tassie I caught up with very talented author/illustrator Christina Booth in Salamanca Place where she spoke passionately at a Refugee support rally.

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  • Before returning home my wife and I did many fun touristy things but I was really disappointed that I didn’t manage to spot a Tassie Tiger.

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  • Thanks to Paul Collins I received my copy of Rich and Rare, a fabulous collection of stories, poems and artwork by a host of Australia’s best children and YA writers  – plus me. Highly recommended!

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  • Eric Vale made it to Poland under an assumed name!

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  • And finally, this video came for me from the wonderful folk at Carl Hanser in Germany and it shows why I am so lucky and blessed to have them as my publisher there.

Cheers
Michael

 

 

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blog 82: In which I don’t really blog at all.

It’s been a busy past five weeks packed with one or two school visits just about every day including a two week tour down in Melbourne and Gippsland. I have another busy two weeks coming up where I’m at the Story Arts Festival in Ipswich and then down in Hobart Tasmania speaking at a primary Principals Conference and signing books on the Scholastic Australia stand.

After all that is done, I’ll have time to blog about some of it in more detail.

In the meantime, here’s a video I made for a school on this year’s Book Week theme of ‘Books Light Up Our World’.

 

Cheers
Michael

 

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blog 81: In which I journey to the Nation’s Capital (or What happens in Canberra doesn’t stay in Canberra!)

I’ve just returned from a very enjoyable week in CANBERRA with my wife.

There wasn’t quite enough time for me to set all the Nation’s affairs in order, but you know, I did what I could.

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Here’s how it all went.

I spent the first five days visiting schools.

On Monday I went to St Edmund’s College and had great sessions with the boys from grades 4, 5 and 6. St Edmund’s was only about 800 metres down the road from our hotel, so I walked there early in the morning.

That day’s minimum temperature was -5 degrees.

It was a very refreshing and pretty walk, particularly seeing all the bare trees, fallen leaves and the grass dusted with frost. Sure, I lost the feeling in my face for two days and a few of my fingers may have to be removed, but such a small price to pay for beauty, I say!

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On Tuesday I spoke with the awesome grade 5s and 7s at Burgmann Anglican School who created these lovely displays.

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Wednesday and Thursday I had a terrific time with the 4s, 5s, 6s and 9s of Marist College Jnr and Snr Colleges.

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On Wednesday night I had the pleasure of joining Tania McCartney to address a gathering of teachers and librarians at Marist Snr College on Reading.

As you can see below, they didn’t quite get my name right on the original poster advertising the event. (Sorry Tehani – just too good not to share!).

But it all turned out for the best, because they were only expecting a crowd of 50 or 60 people and over 3,000 signed up to attend! Of course it was made clear on the night, that I was in fact NOT Gerard Butler.

But many people still left unconvinced!

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I finished the week of school visits at Palmerston District Primary School speaking with three groups of lovely 5/6 students in their very colourful and inviting library.

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I also received some lovely letters from one of the classes. The letters said some very nice things about my books and the talks. I was particularly fond of this observation from one very perceptive and intelligent student.

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After all the school visits were over, my wife and I had a few days of free time in Canberra.

We took in the sights (and I pretended to be a tree).

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We saws plenty of birdlife.

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We visited the National Portrait Gallery where I was insulted by this poster …

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… but was happy to find this guy lurking secretively undercover in the Portrait Gallery Bookshop!

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We visited the War Memorial and experienced the amazing new high tech Gallipoli and WWW 1 displays.

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And finally, because of my services to the Nation during my visit to the Capital, I was immortalised in bronze with ex-Prime Ministers John Curtain and Ben Chifley.

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Yes, it was quite a week!

A big thanks to the good folk at Booked Out Speakers Agency who organise all my visits so brilliantly and especially to all the amazing teachers, librarians and students whom I had the absolute pleasure of meeting during the week.

Cheers
Michael

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