Category Archives: General

With 2012 here flouting it’s presence with fireworks, resolutions and constant Mayan doomsday references, I thought it would be the best time to reflect on what I learnt last year.

I can make time
The words “I didn’t have time” aren’t right. I had time. A whole 24 hours of it every day in 2012. I just chose to use it on something else. I didn’t make time.

If I want to grow, I have to open the door and let growth in
Opening up my mind to new ideas and perspectives was the best way to grow as a person. The hardest part of growing like this was letting go of the old ideas I’d become so attached to. New healthier habits, new perspectives on the world, new ways of doing things… All would never have been possible if I didn’t open up my mind.

There’s so much more to learn about myself, I just need more mirrors
I spent so much time with the same people that my definition of myself was trapped within the perspectives of these people. Meeting new people and becoming closer with them brought me to learn so much more about myself. What one group thinks of me isn’t who I am, it’s only one mirror held up with its own preconceptions and agendas. To really learn about myself and grow, I need to boost the range of mirrors I’m looking through and be willing to accept what I see.

Life is what I make it
Every major moment in my life was due to my own decisions at one point or another. If I want my life to go in a direction, I need to guide it there. It’s so much harder for it to wander there on its own.

To learn from mistakes they need to happen
The hardest lesson of all in 2011. I hate making mistakes. Especially ones which affect people around me. I’ve learnt that no matter how hard I try to be perfect, I’m going to make bad judgement calls at times. I’m going to mess up. The important bit is learning from each mistake. We all make mistakes but that doesn’t mean we need to make them a second time.

The best choices are the ones which are scary
The best new years resolution I made over the past two years was to do things I wouldn’t usually do. To push myself out of the comfort zone I’d become quite relaxed in. By breaking that boundary my life opened up to so much more. The best rewards came from the scariest actions.

Happy New Year everyone!

There has been a reason I haven’t been posting much on both my regular blog and my music blog over the past year! It’s not just laziness! I’ve been spending quite a bit of time experimenting and working on my new site redesign.

Finally it’s live for all to see.

The overall idea was to redesign my website to be able to include all the other sorts of things I create. At the moment it’s mostly photography but I’ve thrown in some poems as well. Soon I’ll add in some of the photoshopping that I’ve done from my FreakingNews days, might do some new photoshop work too. I might add some of my drawings too. I’ll also be doing more experiments with HTML5/jQuery/Canvas… etc, so they’ll come up here. If I start doing more short films or podcasts, I’ll be able to put them up here too. I’m hoping to work on a few more freelance websites, so I’ll have a bit more there as well. Overall, lots to come!

Hope you like the new site design. It’s my first time creating a more complicated website with different content types using WordPress 3. Fun experience! Let me know your thoughts, it’s probably got a few bugs here and there. I hope to improve it a bit over time and hopefully make it a bit faster too.

*Disappears into bed to sleep and recover from this whole process*

Ever wondered what would happen if you challenged a girl to try on 100 different outfits in one day? Me neither. That didn’t stop me setting that exact challenge for my amazing and beautiful girlfriend, Meri, to try to accomplish on the first Saturday of May. If she succeeded, I agreed to buy her one of the outfits she tried on. If not, she had to buy me a crazy hat.

Myer
Within an hour of arriving at Myer, she had already chosen at least 10 different outfits. Meanwhile, I’d started to realise just what it was i’d gotten myself into. After conversations with various people in the weeks leading up to this, I thought the main challenges would be the waiting at the change rooms and overall being a guy in the women’s clothing department for around seven hours. Neither of which really bothered me (I’m weird, I know). With clothes hanging from both arms (as well as being strategically hooked onto my shirt), it was clear that my pack mule clothes carrying skills would be tested too. I hadn’t trained for this. For anyone planning on trying this at home – clothing is surprisingly heavy after balancing several layers above the ground for quite a while. It’s not for the weak willed/armed.

Myer staff were really helpful at the beginning, they even gave us our own rack to put our insane amount of outfits onto. Along with allowing us to use the counter to keep the rest of the clothes and accessories (yes, there were that many). Myer staff did get a bit annoyed when I tried to take photos and document the adventure, apparently it’s store policy not to allow photos. That was a little disappointing. Meri ingeniously, steathily and sneakily took a few photos MySpace mirror style instead with her phone, defiantly stating there was no way she’d go through all this without a record of what she’d tried on. Talk about determination.

One Myer staff member was really sweet. She helped put a lot of the clothes back and offered to take a photo of us (she was surprised at the number of clothes I was carrying… after we’d already put half back). When i’d pointed out we weren’t allowed to take photos, she even went and checked with her manager who sadly said we couldn’t. Apparently a walking clothes rack with a DSLR camera and a girl whose face was shining with happiness and joy really wasn’t enough to invoke a leniency of the rules. We must have been giving off a European tourist vibe because they asked if we were from Germany. Guess not many locals photograph what they’re trying on.

After about two and a half hours, Meri had reached 16 outfits and we’d decided we’d probably reached the limit of Myer’s staff patience. Time for lunch and then some more stores.

Favourite outfit: I really liked the trenchcoat look, I get the feeling I should be worried Meri is actually a secret agent or detective from the government sent to spy on me. She pulls off that look pretty dam well.

Small Parramatta store 1
We were instantly given much better service at this store than Myer. The lady behind the counter had no worries about me taking photos and even let Meri try on way more garments than store rules usually allow. Meri was granted “special” status (totally deserving of such a title too).

Favourite outfit: The outfit including only one cowboy style boot… just because we couldn’t find the other to try on with it at the same time.

Hip Hop Charisma
My favourite store of the day by far. Seeing Meri dress in hip hop outfits was hilarious. Disappointingly, Meri didn’t wear anywhere near enough bling, nor did she breakdance. She did wear suspenders and pants that reminded me of MC Hammer. Staff here were brilliant too, they had no issues with me taking photos and even were happy to have a conversation with me about my annoyance at their lack of Phoenix Suns merchandise.

Favourite outfit: The monkey hoodie for sure. Closely followed by the outfit that involved wearing suspenders. Gave off a hilarious MC Hammer vibe. Honourable mention to the hoodie I saw with the Flash on it. Lets just say I really liked this store.

Small Parramatta store 2

This store had my favourite staff member of the day. He was really friendly, had no issues with me taking photos and even offered me a seat while I was waiting for Meri to get changed. While Meri was trying on outfits, I was having a whole conversation about DSLR cameras with him. Had a great time!

Favourite outfit: There was a really nice white dress which looked amazing on her. Still very tempted to go back and get it for her (shhh, don’t tell Meri).

Small Parramatta store 3
Staff here were pretty busy, so we didn’t really interact with them much. It was a nice store but no really interesting stories.

Small Parramatta store 4
This wasn’t really a clothing store but a bit of everything. It had a lot of pink everywhere, with stuffed toys, random character based clocks and other cartoony merchandise. Meri tried on one outfit here which included a brilliant tiny hat. Loved the hat.

Small Parramatta Store 5
Ended up being the store which killed our adventurous buzz, prematurely ending the challenge. While it’s an interesting story to tell and I can finally say i’m technically banned from somewhere (only took 21 years), it wasn’t a nice way to end the challenge. All was well, the store lady was really kind, friendly and was happy to make conversation. Didn’t worry or yell at us when we were taking photos and even gave feedback on one of the dresses. Then she changed as soon as we were about to leave without buying anything. That’s when I was told to delete every photo I’d taken on my camera before I left the store. It got worse when we were called back to the store to search for an outfit we’d apparently tried on that was now missing. Funny thing was, Meri hadn’t actually tried an outfit on which matched the description the lady was giving. We’d know because i’d been documenting each outfit and we’d been taking photos. After searching Meri’s bag and surely after the confusion both Meri and I were showing, I thought it was pretty obvious we hadn’t stolen or misplaced the outfit. Those who know us will agree, neither of us are the sort of person to even consider such a thing. While walking away after finally being allowed to leave, she made sure to call us back and tell us she didn’t want to see us around there again.

Guess she won’t be. Though my mind is entertaining itself with thoughts of us walking in wearing trenchcoats (already know Meri can pull them off really well), secret spy hats and Groucho glasses. Possibly with the Pink Panther theme playing in the background.

Small Parramatta Store 6
This was the store we were in before getting called back to sort out the whole missing dress drama. The lady in this store was also quite friendly and nice. I think there were a few outfits Meri liked in this store, I didn’t get a chance to see or focus on much of them.

Final thoughts
I’m actually quite surprised at the approach a lot of stores take on photos. I don’t see it doing any harm allowing customers to take photos of what they’re wearing. Even if they don’t purchase it that day, looking at the photos later leads to purchases down the track. Meri was finding dresses and clothing she wanted to go back for after reviewing the photos and I’m sure many others would too. Even if she didn’t buy them and just showed them to friends… that’s free publicity. That’s a whole bunch of people considering your store’s clothing line who might not otherwise have even thought about it.

There was one good point that photos in some places aren’t allowed because you could be photographing where security cameras are placed. Surely if I was going to be doing that though, I’d be doing it secretly and not so openly with a big DSLR camera.

OR maybe the store owners could sense my shockingly bad portrait photography skills and instinctively knew they were against their clothing lines being a part of it.

Honestly, it seemed like retail stores have a very short term view of customer habits. Just because someone doesn’t buy something from you that day, doesn’t mean they won’t be back. I’d definitely go back to the store with the really nice guy who offered me a seat and talked to me about my DSLR. I’m seriously considering going back to Hip Hop Charisma for that Flash hoodie.

Overall, it was a pretty fun adventure. Meri reached a total of 43 outfits. She could definitely have gotten to 100 but had a serious moral objection to wearing anything she wasn’t happy with. Meri’s pickyness lead to her downfall.

Mobile devices like iPods, PDAs, smartphones… all pretty great technologies. They make our lives easier. We’re always connected. Gotta love it right? Well, sometimes it’s a good thing that technology, whilst improving all the time, also loves to fail.

I thought I’d summarise this story in a list of yays and uh ohs.

Yay – I get a friend request on Facebook over my iPod (hey, that’s convenience… no need to go all the way to a PC to accept a friend right?). It’s a guy I know, he’s pretty cool, always good to add a new friend on facebook.

Yay – My girlfriend is on my iPod making a song selection (she does have good musical taste).

Uh oh – Aforementioned girlfriend also has access to my Facebook account.

Uh oh – She likes to respond.

Uh oh – In interesting ways.

Yay – My iPod failed (rarely a “yay” situation)

Yay – This error didn’t appear until I went back to my iPod the next morning

You know what? Errors aren’t so bad after all.

* Zazu is the name I gave my iPod. Yes… I named my iPod. It’s after the singing bird in the Lion King and was a name suggestion from Ali. Maybe naming technology makes it like you more? More personal. Shows you care?

I wrote this poem a while ago as a reminder for myself each day. Made it into a really simple web page for a bit of fun. Hope it can inspire, help or bring a smile to someone’s face today!

It’s dedicated to all my friends who’ve needed a bit of positivity and motivation over the years

You can see it here: http://patrickcatanzariti.com/eachday/

Just over seven months ago while reading Michael Kordahi‘s blog, I came across his twitter voting site which tallies up responses to a hashtag. I thought it was a pretty cool idea and thought it would be useful to be able to embed into a web page. I got inspired to give it a go and see how well I could adapt his code into an embeddable format.

I attempted it soon after, failed and then got a bit distracted. Long story short, seven months later when I got a new netbook and could play around with it on the bus and train to and from work, I attempted it again.

I managed to get it done using an iframe. It’s not the most amazing solution really but seems to work okay. I’m thinking it might also be possible via JavaScript and an ajax call but personally I like the iframe approach here, it keeps it all contained nicely. To make it a little bit more interesting, I put in a few extra parameters so that you can update the colours and size of fonts. I also added the ability to update the padding for everything to help when things get smaller/bigger and need more/less space.

It’s a first draft concept at the moment. There’s more that could be done but I was pretty eager to post up the first draft (only a few hours work so far):

The parameters are:

• hashtag: the hashtag you’re searching for
• keywords: the keywords you’re comparing
• themeColor: three comma separated hex values for colours (background colour, highlight colour and text colour)
• themeFontSize: two comma separated values for the font size of your theme in ems (first value is for the first text, second is for the second text which appears)
• themepadding: the padding around various elements

<iframe src="/twittervote/twittervote.html?hashtag=nowplaying&keywords=hanson,beatles,lifehouse,gaga&themeColor=fff,ff6600,000&themeFontSize=0.7,1&themePadding=2" width="150" height="200" style="border: none;" frameborder="0">
</iframe>

I’d like to reiterate, this isn’t my code at all. All I’ve done is add a few style inputs and put it into an iframe so far.

A major thanks to Michael Kordahi for creating TwitterVote in the first place, it’s a really cool idea. If you’re reading this Michael, I hope I haven’t messed up your code too much! I just had to give this a try

Feel free to post up comments and suggestions. Overall it’s been a little side experiment for a bit of fun.