Back at my part-time job today - sunny, windy and quiet - so what better to do than to update my blog!
It's been a while since I spoke about my revamped web site. Norm Douglas from Netreach in Victoria has been working away at it. I've spent about 100 hours in the past 2 weeks updating the products database for the site. Sheesh - I never want to do that again. This is a list of all the products which were currently entered, a list which came to over 8,000 products. I managed to get a copy from the company which currently hosts my site, and Norm then converted it into an Excel spreadsheet and sent it to me. It's the first time in the 12+ year history of my site that I'd seen it all on one spreadsheet.
So, I had a lot of work to do! Deleting about 2,500 videos was dead easy, but then came all the finicky work: adding an image here, a review there, the correct volume number etc etc etc. Seeing it all at once for the first time helped me realize how much of it was either out of date, or just missing. As an example, I've added about 2,000 images to the site. Now the database lists about 4,000 products, almost all of which have all the available info connected to them (correct title, format, volume and episode numbers, running times, image, languages etc). The payoff should be that it will be a pretty complete listing of anime in Australia, plus quite a bit from the US. The serious work is now being done by Norm, and I expect that in a few weeks I'll have something to show you people.
I'll get in touch with some of my old anime clients, explain what I'm doing, and ask them to test the site - give it a thrashing, and let me know what doesn't seem to work properly or make sense. Some of my followers will be invited ^_^ And, by the way, a very big hello to my 4th follower, whoever you may be!
Now, to the story of the duck...
You see some strange things by looking outside the office window, and one of the stranger things I see is a very cute-looking rubber duck, floating in a basin of water. I'm a big fan of rubber ducks, so it's nice to see one anywhere. What makes this one interesting is that the basin is positioned on the nature strip, where anyone walking past could reach down and grab it. But, in the 8 months or so that the ducky has been there, no-one has.
OK, so this is an industrial area where you don't get much foot traffic, but even so, it is amazing that not even one bastard has stolen it in all that time. Most of the regular clients who come into this place know about it, as do others who work in this area, yet there is something about a cute rubber duck which seems to bring out the nice part of people's nature. There are joggers going past, people walking their dogs, yet the duck lives.
Thinking of ducks reminds me of possibly my all-time favourite Tshirt: one from the Australian cartoonist, Michael Leunig. It was his trademark duck, with the words "innocent bystander" arranged around the image. I wore that shirt for a lot of years before it fell to pieces. Maybe I just have a weird thing for ducks? It's possible...
I'm struggling to think of anything else of value (OK, so the duck isn't worth much, but it has an intrinsic value) which could last for that long in a public area without being stolen or vandalized. Is there a message here, or do I just have a weird thing for ducks...
Is it possible that items which are cute and defenseless are somehow immune from the usual fate of found objects? I would suggest that a psychology graduate look into this as an interesting topic for a thesis.
As for me, it makes me smile everytime I look in that direction, and that's a very nice thing indeed. May the duck float for a thousand years and help everyone who sees it feel a bit better.
Stay well until next time.
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