Doing the Numbers

My friend and colleague Philip Machanick, the Greens' candidate for Moggill, made this neat little YouTube clip. It puts a couple of facts about Queensland in perspective...

How you can help to Put a Green in Greenslopes

With the election only three weeks away and 29 000 Greenslopes voters to reach out too, we need every little bit of help we can get. If you can help out, even for an hour or two over the next three weeks, it will make a difference. The old parties have millions of dollars to saturate the state with their advertising. I don't and I am relying on volunteers to get the message out.

Can you put a "Put a Green in Greenslopes" sign up in your front yard?

Can you stand next to a busy road holding a Put a Green in Greenslopes sign in the mornings?

Can you hand out some leaflets or put them in letterboxes in your neighbourhood?

Can you just sit next to a Put A Green in Greenslopes sign near a busy road?

Most importantly, can you help hand out how to vote cards on March 21? We've got to cover about 20 polling places for 10 hours on Election day. This is our one chance to reach out to every single voter and remind them to put a Green in Greenslopes, and it works. We will do four or five percent better at the booths we staff.

Every hour you can spare will bring us closer to our goal of changing politics in Queensland. If you can help, or if you've got some ideas about what we should be doing, email volunteers@putagreeningreenslopes.net.

Please help us out on election day, March 21. It's really important!

March 21 it is then...

Well, Anna Bligh decided to go to the Governor and get an election today. My wife thought I was mad for suggesting she'd go early "Don't you listen to the news? She said she's going full term!" says Mrs Rosin.

So the race is now good and proper. I've got 27 days to convince thousands of people to Put a Green in Greenslopes. It's a big ask and a tough run at this time of the year. I can't just get snap leave from work at the busiest time of the year so it's going to be early mornings, late nights and long weekends.

If you can help out, send me an email or leave a comment.

Game On

I went to the Game On exhibition at the State Library of Queensland this afternoon with the kids and had a wonderful time. It was very crowded when we first arrived, but thinned out quiet quickly. A lot of things I was happy (and surprised!) to see. The biggest shock was Spacewar running on a PDP-1! The Magnavox Odyssey in the hall of consoles was good (but the picture was terrible, the game frozen and the controlled was cracked and broken!). Jeff Minter's Tempest 2000 on an Atari Jaguar! I had a couple of good goes on Katamari Damacy, which was a hoot and good fun. I'd buy it in a shot if there were a cheap, easy and legal way to. Ditto with some of the other Japanese games.

Some striking omissions as well, most notably neither Dragon's Lair or Space Ace, which were Videodisc driven arcade machines, with Don Bluth animation. But there was a wall of production art from Dragon's Lair and a description of the game. Didn't see any Amiga, or a CD32 (or a 3DO now I think about it). I was kind of surprised Qix wasn't in the arcade area.

But enough of me and my relaxing Sunday afternoon with the family.

It's also "Game On" for the Campaign to Put a Green in Greenslops. My Facebook group has attracted a lot of members all of a sudden, so I best get started. I need to update my biography, get new photos, write some flyers and letters, work out numbers for printing, think of some public events and advertise them and lots of stuff I've not thought of yet.

This is going to be a lot of work, but we're going to make a difference this time. In 2009 we are going to turn Greenslopes Greener than it has ever been. If anyone has some time they can spare to help with the campaign, let me know. Talk to me in the comments below or send me an email: putagreeningreenslopes@gmail.com

Game on.