Ever since we bought our house we have wanted to get a puppy. The search to find the exact puppy Helen wanted was long and stressful. We wanted to find puppies for sale from a quality cattle dog breeder. We were chasing down a plain face (no mask) female, blue cattle dog. The first one we found ended up being the wrong colour (red) because cattle dogs are born completely white and then become red or blue within the first few weeks, the breeder got mixed up and couldn’t tell the colour. This was a horrible experience, knowing that you don’t have a puppy after 5 weeks and the thought of “giving it up” and hoping that it finds a new family

We found out later from other breeders that this is a rookie mistake, you can easily tell if they are red or blue from birth based on the tint in their skin or colour of their paws apparently. Anyway, the next puppy we found was gorgeous, we went through the entire process again. On the 6th week we were excited about going to see her on the coming weekend a week before we would bring her home. We got an email from the breeder saying that she had lost two of the pups to a snake. Whatever we thought about the process being hard before, just became devastating. You start questioning yourself “Is this telling us we shouldn’t have a puppy” etc.

After a long wait and remaining in contact with the breeders for months, we finally found out that a trusted breeder in north Queensland had a puppy for us. At first it is hard to get attached as you don’t want to be let down again, but as 8 weeks approached it was very exciting. Our cattle dog puppy flew in (to Brisbane) from Nth Qld with a brother from the same litter. She was so tiny, smaller than we expected, but so beautiful. If you want to read more about Tessa, visit her dedicated site to read a Diary of an Australian Cattle Dog.

The Spring Racing Carnival is upon us. There’s some great racing this weekend at Randwick starting with the Epsom Handicap. We have the Turnbull Stakes on Sunday at Flemington, an absolutely awesome race with more “big names” than The Expendables. Visit my favourite sites for everything you need to know this Spring Carnival:

 2010 Spring Carnival Racing Guide:

• Caulfield Guineas - Date: 9th October 2010
• Caulfield Cup - Date: 16th October 2010
• Cox Plate - Date: 23rd October 2010
• Victoria Derby - Date: 30 October 2010
• Melbourne Cup - Date: 2nd November 2010
• Crown Oaks - Date: 4th November 2010
• Emirates Stakes - Date: 6th November 2010

Use these sites for all of the latest news, results, odds, final field, form guides etc.

The 2010 Melbourne Cup is right around the corner, set to be held on Tuesday November 2 at about 3PM.

As the Melbourne Cup is such a popular event that brings more than just the diehard racing fanatics to the track at Flemington, you should buy your tickets now to guarantee a good view of the race.

Tickets are available from the main Melbourne Cup site, and there are options for restaurant seating and private boxes for those who want more than just general admission. Corporate marquees are also available for those who want to take the usual Cup tradition a little further.

The 2010 Melbourne Cup is looking to be a very good run, with the early nominations for the race suggesting the final field will be truly incredible. It’ll likely be packed full of international runners, too.

While the numbers for 2010 Melbourne Cup nominations are down from 2008, they are up from last year with 253 aspirants hoping to make it into the final field of 24. There were only 230 nominees in 2009, however it included an impressive overseas contingent of 57 foreign horses.

The final Melbourne Cup field will be released on the Saturday October 30 at around 7:30 PM. A lot of casual punters will just start betting then, but the real players are already placing bets right now at online betting sites like SportsBet, which has odds up for all of the Melbourne Cup nominees.

Well, mostly for girls. Pretty much all online bingo sites are targeted at women. Colours, graphics and promotions. It’s true, the market is primarily female, but its just as fun as keno and there are lots of great people online in the bingo chat games that laugh at my jokes.

Some of the chat games in bingo rooms are pretty fun, its like the old IRC channel #frenzy if you ever played. The bingo chat host says “I am thinking of an occupation starting with P” and everyone in the room types out name after name in a guessing frenzy. But that is just one example, the chat games are a fun community game and combined with a live chat host, apparently an extremely good retention tool.

Online bingo is heaps better than playing bingo in real life (apparently, I’ve never been). However I can imagine there’s a lot less old people smell. When playing bingo at an online casino you don’t have to worry about smoking or drinking at the tables, it’s your computer, do whatever you like. Also, “talking” is frowned upon while the numbers are being drawn in a live game, but online you can chat away to your heart’s content. Also, you can buy hundreds of tickets for each game and the computer marks them off for you, and in most rooms, automatically orders your bingo tickets by the one’s most likely to win (least numbers left to go).

I’ve been working on a few bingo sites lately, check out  on of my favourites (UK Bingo) and sign up to some of the online bingo sites and prepare for unlimited fun and games!

Google released its “Streetview” feature on Google Maps today. It is an amazing (free) service that will revolutionise my house hunting efforts. If you are unfamiliar with Google Streetview, it is a add-on feature (to the currently awesome Google Maps product) that allows you to jump down to street level and view photos of almost anywhere you can think of.

Google Streetview Australian Street/Road Coverage

Google Maps is ultra fast vector mapping software that allows you to search the country for streets, roads, parks etc. They also supply a “Satellite View” that allows you to see roof tops and parkland, roadways to sports stadiums.

Earlier in the year (I think this year) Google added street numbers to all the blocks, this added a great amount of win to their already superior service. Every night as we search for real estate, this amazing tool [Google Maps] allows us to find a property, even when the agent doesn’t list the address of said property. We simply look for a unique feature of the house, roof shape, gardens, background landmark or something as simple as the number on the letter box and then we use Google Maps (with Satellite View) to  find it.

Once we locate the block and the address, we used to take a closer look at it from the sky using whereis.com, a Sensis product. The Whereis product used to have far greater zoom ability so we would jump over there. However, not to be outdone, Google (within the last month) upped their resolution and zoom function to an amazingly superior level. You can literally see dogs in backyards, flowers in bloom and even make out the type of material a roof is made of. So forget the Sensis product, it is now (again) too slow, full of ads, and generally an inferior peice of software.

However, today marks another win of epic proportions as Google added the Streetview feature for Australia. We are the third country to receive this awesome technology, after the USA and France!

The photos are generally about 8 months old (I’ve read), and their elite software automatically blurs out faces and number plates. If they happened to miss something, you can report it using a simple form.

Anyway, the product is fantastic. There only seems to be one problem, they forgot the street I live on. I checked our street sign tonight and noticed someone had put a “nofollow” tag on it, I guess that’s why the Google Streetview car skipped us

Something wrong with my META data perhaps?

A new game show starts here next Tuesday on Channel 9, Wipeout. The latest creation from Endemol USA (Big Brother etc). The show starts with 24 contestants who are quickly whittled down to 12 in the qualifying challenge. Some of you may remember a show around in the late 80’s called “It’s a knockout”, and of course you have seen the current “Gladitor” series on TV and possibly even “Friday Night Games” from Big Brother, well WIPEOUT is a sort of like those, only better.

Straight from the USA, only 2 episodes have aired so far (before we get it here in Australia). The 12 contestants who make it through the qualifing round continue on through additional water filled, mud pool, rubber balled, slippery and foam covered courses only to be cut in half again. The remaining 6 will battle it out in another spinning, running, falling, jumping, splashing timed course, until the final 4 are decided.

Bigger is better! In the final round, the contestants battle their way through a huge obstacle course, apparently “the biggest ever”. Whoever does it in the best time, wins $50,000 cash! Great prize. The show will air once per week and it great viewing for those who love seeing people getting pwned.

It should have been on Friday nights so you could get drunk with your friends and watch, I am sure it would be twice as funny.

This one is fun. WIPEOUT on Tuesday nights!

I had an interesting conversation with some colleagues this week, one of whom I thought was quite internet savvy. He is a regular eBay user, yet he claims to have no knowledge of a bidding method known as “snipering” an auction.

In a few short days, eBay will be testing a new policy on its guinea pigs Australian user base. From May 17, sellers will be required to offer PayPal as a payment method on all auctions. From July 1, PayPal will be the only available payment option (apart from the old pickup / cash trade). eBay hopes to attract new users to the site with their new “safer” policy. However, most comments so far suggest that it will push many (current) users away, as fees increase through the use of both (eBay owned) services.

Let’s face it, eBay is going to crap anyway, so we may as well discuss a few of my favourite eBay buying and selling techniques.

Buying Tip, Snipering and the uneven proxy amount: Well this isn’t really a tip. It’s more like an instruction. If you are new to eBay, you will (should) get used to snipering by the end of the first auction you bid on, unless of course you are an idiot and have bid too much for something that no one else wants. If not, you will notice that in the final seconds of the auction someone outbids you and you lose. That is a sniper, welcome to eBay. It is the only real way to bid and win on eBay.

Some people don’t even realise how eBay’s “proxy bidding” system works, so they will never understand sniper bids. But if you have your head around proxy bids, then you must sniper. Just like a regular proxy, work out the maximum you are prepared to pay for an item, let’s say it’s $40. For heaven sake, don’t put the $40 bid in at the start of the auction. To sniper correctly, you have to enter your $40 with only seconds to go.

But let’s say you did, and now the item is at $12 with 5 minutes to go, you’re laughing to yourself going “Gee, look at this Mary, I’m winning this thing for $12 and it’s worth $70 in the shops!” Don’t worry, if there is even one (1) other person that wants it, you’re not going to win. Even with your $40 proxy.

The item has 2 minutes to go, some idiot on dial-up puts in his “sniper” bid a few minutes out and the bidding hits $31. You’re still winning and it looks like he hit his $30 limit. Your proxy has auto-incremented your bid to $1 more than his maximum bid. 5 seconds to go, you can’t believe your eyes! F5, F5, F5. Bidding for this item has ended, you were outbid. PISS! How did that happen? WTF? It sold for $40.11? Someone beat you by 11c? Let me tell you why.

They are smarter than you. Their spend limit was $40 too, but their “smart” proxy was set at $40.11. So they win because they bid more, but only 11c more. Even though the regular minimum bid increment is $1, they have pipped you at the post for 11c. Always use an uneven proxy amount, I usually use $1.21 or something over my maximum. This is an awesome snipering technique and one that you must employ to win more on eBay.

There is another reason the odd amount can win, and it’s what I refer to as a “rounder”. I am a rounder myself, but you can’t be if you want to WIN on eBay. If an item is worth about $80-$100 and the shipping is $15. You can be guaranteed that someone will have a proxy at $85 (making the full payment round off to a neat 100 sheet). $85.11 and you could win here too.

Buying Tip, Buy Now Elimination: Sellers often start their auctions at 99c, generally because the exorbitant eBay fees. It’s ok to throw a bid on here, I like putting a very low bid on something just so it ends up in “My eBay” so I can keep an eye on it, because I generally forget if it’s just in my watch list. But its even MORE important to put a first bid on, especially if the seller has a starting price a lot lower than their “Buy Now” price. Say an item that is worth $400-$500 is listed with a starting bid of $200 and a Buy Now of $500. Put in the $200 bid immediately, get rid of that $500 price tag out of everyone else’s mind. Don’t remind them it is worth that much money, don’t let anyone else know. Oh and if someone lists something for $0.99c and $2000 Buy Now, just put the $1 in to piss them off. The “Buy Now” option disappears as soon as a bid is placed. Sucker you just wasted 10c. Note: 10c is accurate at time of writing, by the time you finish reading this post, eBay have probably upped their Buy Now fees.

Selling Tip, Go Long, Start Low use a Shill Bidder:

Go long. I always like to use the longest auction option which is 10 days. Due to proxy bidding, a 10 day listing is basically a week long advertisement for the auction that is going to happen in 9 days, 23 hours and 59 minutes. Yes that’s right, everyone knows the auction doesn’t really “happen” until the last minute. Research your market before you list. Have a look at who else is selling etc. If someone has a similar item to you with great bids and 6 days left, it might be right to put in a 5 day auction and get all those bidders to hop on yours first. Don’t let the dummy set a precedent with that auction, pushing it through the roof and then the other bidders pay too little for yours. If there are early bids, make sure the dopey one gets on your auction too. Sometimes, in this case, it is better to put it up for 7 days. Maybe pick up the dummy who misses out (because of snipers) and then thinks he has to pay way too much for yours just so he doesn’t miss out again.

Start low, the 99c auction saves you listing fees. It also looks good in the search listings when you scroll past an item that has 49 bids on it. Lots of bids attracts lots of attention, it also gives suckers that winning feeling. It also might create a bit of “bid rage” where people get suckered in to paying too much to retain that “winning feeling”.

“But its too risky to list my $1,000 stainless steel fridge for $1 starting price, what if I don’t get the money I want?”

Don’t be a fool, you never go in to battle (read “99c listing”) without a shill bidder. OMG Paul, what is a shill? A shill under eBay policy is illegal. Don’t read passed here if you have any morals. A shill is a friend of yours who bumps up the price for you. A shill makes you more money, a shill makes eBay LOTS more money, so I think they probably turn a blind eye to it. Oh but if you see evidence of shill bidding, please inform eBay.

Use your shill to push the crap out of stupid people’s early proxies. Use your shill to set your own “reserve”. Use your shill to push “rounders” to their proxy. Use your shill to win your auction if you think you are going to get crushed. Just email the under-bidder after the auction and sell it to them on the side.

Anyway, I could go on all night about eBay buying and selling techniques, but I have an item finishing in 30 minutes and I have to get my shill bidder suited up for action.

Note: Paul Cherry does not condone the use of “shill bidders” or any other method or means that violates eBay policy and local laws. This post should be read for its comedic value and used for educational purposes only.

I’ve seen these billboards and bus shelter ads popping up all over Brisbane. It is for some “secret launch party” that Christian Bowman is running. I can’t see it being so “secret” if he is running advertisements all over town. I smell bollocks Christian, what is going on?

Michelle Lozanovki, one of the female contestants of the 2008 Australian Biggest Loser TV show, is apparently allergic to money. In an amazing feat of stupidity, this fat apprentice hairdresser from Sydney, NSW tonight turned down the chance to leave the house for $50k.

Here is how it went down. Michelle won the weekly challenge of being the “biggest loser” by losing the most weight in week 6 of the 12 week competition. Her prize is $50,000. The catch? Leave the Biggest Loser House and give up her place in the competition.

Leaving with the $50k also means the overall prize of the game show becomes $150,000 (the money is removed from the $200k final prize).

Her Mum comes on the show, let’s call her Mrs Stupid Lozanovki. Mrs Stupid tells her obese daughter that “her place is in the house” and that her dead grand parents would want to see her in the house. I can only assume that Mrs Stupid is filthy rich.

Michelle from Biggest Loser speaks to her original USA trainer Bob Harper and he says “take the money”. Wow, even an American is smarter than “fats Lozanovki”.

Somehow, Michelle could not see that she could leave the house in week 6, spend $500 a day on the best personal trainer for 7 days per week for the next 6 weeks ($21,000), buy the best food for about $100 a day ($4,200) and fit out an unbelievable home gym for about $10,000 and still have how much? About $15,000 of the $50,000 to spend on her new wardrobe. And that’s 6 weeks, the absolute maximum amount of time she could possibly have left in the house. If she gets voted out in 2 weeks time, she’s effectively paid $25,000 a week for “weight loss training”.

Maybe, just maybe it may have been a sensible decision if ..

• There was less than 4 people left, giving her a greater than 1/4 chance of winning the whole $200,000 (ie, 4 x $50,000) . Even then, it is still ridiculous. Tell me 1 person you know who would pay $50 for the chance to win $200, when the odds are not even really an “out of a hat” 1 in 8 chance.
• If the voting was based on viewer participation and not by the colluding bunch of fat bastards “playing the game”, or;
• She gets out of the place and gets an endorsement deal worth > $50k because someone else agrees that “health is more important than money” and decides to pay her a ridiculous sum of money to represent it.

I honestly can not wait to see her get kicked out now. If anything, this has made me want to watch the show even more.

Michelle Lozanovki, Biggest Loser or Biggestest Loser?

Tonight on ACA they reported about all of the “stars” at Aussie Millions. They spoke to Aussie comedian Stephen Curry and Hollywood actress, turned poker pro Jennifer Tilly. Phil Laak was sitting right next to her the whole time, but they never introduced him or asked a single question. So according to A Current Affair, the only stars of poker are Hollywood celebrities, surely they could have mentioned a few of the best in that “sporting” field. They did touch on Joe Hachem for about 5 seconds, but the reporting always seems like they don’t really know what they are talking about and/or throw in too many puns. “This guy certainly knows when to hold’em and when to fold’em”.

Anyway, for my update. Apart from the fact that they ran a story about the Aussie Millions the night after I mentioned it in an email about the Phil Ivey identification mistake, they also apologised! At the end of the episode they said sorry for the error mis-identifying poker play Phil Ivey as James Blake. I win!