Yesterday, while doing my daily view of Facebook, I was attracted to an alarming headline a friend had posted:

International Rockstar Legend Jon Bon Jovi dead again at 49

It’s not true. However, for the 3 minutes I thought it was true, I was sad and I’m not that big of a fan. It also had me yelling, “omg, Bon Jovi is dead!” to two friends that were over at the house. The three of us immediately began discussing, “how young he was”, “how healthy he looked”, or “how we didn’t think of him as someone who would overdose on anything”. Flipping back to Facebook and seeing a comment “remove this” quickly had me making the connection that the article we were reading was on a WordPress blog. This triggered a google search, which immediately exposed the headline as fake. I am relieved he is alive and taking this with a good sense of humour.

It did get me thinking, how quick and easy we accept our facts. A headline on Facebook or any info from Wikipedia. We believe what we see and we don’t always question the source and sometimes even worse, we perpetuate it. Next time you find yourself disagreeing with someone on the validity of something you’ve said… think about where you got your facts from!

I read a funny line recently, on a poster filled with funny lines, called Random Thoughts of People Our Age (#3), which seems to come from Aaron Karo’s website called Ruminations.

“Nothing sucks more than that moment during an argument when you realize you’re wrong.”

I was talking with my housemate about how much I’ve liked this year in music. A real mixture of my favourite blends – both new and old. I just downloaded the album Dark Country from James Justin & Co. A friend of mine’s husband is the front man and they really nail the blend that I love. Now, I just need to get them to bring their tour down to Australia, because from the sounds, they are def. a live band you don’t want to miss.

On another music front, I am tackling organising my iTunes library. I just subscribed to iTunes Match, which essentially gives me access to all my music in the Cloud. It was a weird release here in Australia (we meant to do it, we didn’t, oh yest we did). Whichever it was, it appears it’s here to stay and I couldn’t be happier. $34.99 AUD and the program, which is built into the latest release of iTunes, scans your library, registers what you have that is in Apple’s massive catalogue and allows you to access it on any of your devices. On the road, I have the choice download the songs to my phone or stream them. iCloud wonderfulness.

A sunny morning in Melbs  reading The Age in my garden. I’m first drawn to show “The Many Faces of Santa” from Andrew Weldon. Nothing to report on, although I’m interested in Santa’s supplier of “special cookies” and taking a ride over The Atlantic at 900km/hr.

Two days ago I was drawn into a link shared on a friend’s FB page:

Best promotion ever: Steal a Banksy. Stay in their hotel, manage to steal their Banksy without getting caught, GET TO KEEP IT!

Today, it’s featured in the paper and I wanted to give props to the Art Series hotels for what I think is great marketing. My parents stayed at The Blackman while they were visiting Melbourne in September and loved it, which made me even more interested in what they are doing for publicity. First thing, What is a Banksy?  The hotels have a competition going called StealBanksy and all you have to do is steal a piece of art being displayed in one of their three hotels. The piece of art is the No Ball Games and if you win, you get to keep it, and it’s worth $15,000. I wanted to know the rules and sadly I’m not having a go. However, it shows the kind of think outside the square mindset that businesses are using to attract and engage people on and off the Web.

Next for Melbourne art… the world’s first dedicated performing-arts museum. The first thing I remember about my first few days in Melbourne (over 2 years ago) was how packed the city was with two things – sports and art. I think its amazing how innovative the city is. Baillieu seems to be lukewarm on the idea. I’m sure I don’t know all the details and I wouldn’t want Melbourne to lose its status as one of the greatest sports city on Earth. I am saying that since travel abroad is rising due to the strong Aussie dollar, Melbourne needs to stay quick on its feet to stay in the game.

As a digital trends and gadget nerd, I have to admit, my use of Social Media for personal use is limited, but that doesn’t mean I don’t understand its importance for marketing ideas. However, while I have read so much on and continue to stay interested in Twitter, I still have probably only tweeted a handful of times. I am amazed at how real Twitter pros are using it and you don’t have to be Ashton Kutcher to be a pro at it. In the paper this morning, I found it very interesting to see the Islamist militant group (and that’s just me quoting the paper) al-Shabab has started tweeting. In the world of online networks and engaging communities, this shouldn’t surprise me, but it does. I’m impressed as hell. They are using their Twitter page very well, they’re articulate in their messages and I’ve just become a follower, because if nothing else; I find it interesting.

Now, my last bit from the paper is about the new competition of billionaires. I follow Sir Richard Branson pretty closely. I think he is one of the most inspiring people. I’ve read his books, written papers on him (back in my Uni days) and always click the link when I see something Virgin related. So, when I first heard about Virgin Galactic, I clicked the link and have been following it ever since. I think it’s great that space exploration has truly become the next frontier. I love when science fiction and science meet (and now it seems to be happening so much more frequently). Today’s article is more focused on another billionaire that’s joining in on the fun. Paul Allen co-founded Microsoft and he has now started Stratolaunch Systems. While Virgin Galactic seems to be focusing in on getting millionaires into space (and me if I can figure out a way), Paul Allen has his eyes set on more than ‘just’ people. Satellites and other supplies and helping NASA take their stuff up too. These two aren’t the only ones either, PayPal founder Elon Musk has started SpaceX and Amazon’s founder Jeff Bezos has started Blue Origin. My first thought is to laugh at how ridiculous their new endeavours seem, but I am quickly put in place by the fact they became billionaires by making the ridiculous ”the norm” and I think it’s amazing that one day space travel won’t just be for the rich.