This website is like Digg for restaurant menus

One of the people who commented on my post of last week about how the PR industry engages with journalists was David from Webmenu.com.au. If I don’t know a commenter I like to check out their website, and I was amazed and delighted at what I found — a website that’s like Digg for Australian restaurants, which allows restaurants to upload their menus and users to rate and comment on them.

One of the nicest features, which made me laugh out loud, is the concept of “your fridge” — if you like the menu of a particular restaurant you can “stick it to your fridge”. That is gold.

The site also has opening hours of restaurants and integrated Google Maps so it’s always easy to see exactly where they are in relation to you. It looks like Webmenu might be using the old version of Google embeddable maps, as they don’t have satellite view or directions integrated into the map view, unlike the new embeddable maps.

You can also join up “in less than 60 seconds” using an extremely streamlined sign-up form, and the site will remember your home suburb for future restaurant searches.

According to an article in The Australian, republished on Webmenu’s blog, the website is the brainchild of restauranteur Kristian Livolsi, who is 29 years old. (Drats, yet another entrepreneur who has done something more impressive than me by my age… must hurry up and have a brilliant idea that will make me rich.)

Why no late movie sessions in Sydney?

I’ve been perplexed ever since getting to Sydney why it is that there are so few — if any — late night movie sessions beyond about 9.40PM. In Melbourne, almost all cinemas have a few movies starting at 10.40 – 11.00 PM, sometimes even as late as 11.50PM!

I reckon these late sessions are ideal for busy people — e.g. I could work till 7.30PM, get home, have a bit of an unwind and leisurely dinner, then go off late in the evening and catch a movie. Going to bed at 2am on a Friday or Saturday night doesn’t bother me… and surely there’d be even more of a market for this in cosmopolitan Sydney than Melbourne?

Maybe it’s the ‘tits and teeth’ culture of Sydney (as my friend Sian puts it) that dictates that of course everyone is out getting hammered on the dancefloor on a Friday/Saturday night so therefore there couldn’t possibly be  market for late-night movie-goers.

Hoyts is a PBL group company — same parent company as my employer, ACP Magazines — maybe I’ll track down their PR manager and ask why it is.

Sydney’s most beautiful girls?

I snapped this scene of ironic juxtaposition on my cameraphone on the way to work the other day. The “Sydney’s most beautiful girls” truck was parked outside the strip club where they work, next to a street person clad in clothes that looked like they had survived a nuclear blast, with piles of stinking garbage behind him.

Low sun, sodden sky

Don’t you love it when this occurs… late in the day when the sun is low, it can illuminate the city skyline brilliantly against a dark sky. These are some great photos that I took when I stepped off the bus on the way home.

Brushing shoulders with the PM

Who should I brush shoulders with on the way to work this morning but Australian Prime Minister John Howard, on the way in to the Australian Wheat Board / Iraq corrupt kickbacks inquiry. Of course I didn’t literally brush shoulders with him. Before I could do that, a man in a black suit and dark glasses politely came up to me and asked me who I was with. When I politely disclosed that I was a journalist but really just on my way to work and hanging around for my own interest and to catch a cameraphone image of the PM, he politely told me to please move back behind the white line, sir.

(Click the picture for the whole photoset, including a blurry shot of a protester being body-slammed by about 20 police at once and being hurled into the back of a paddy wagon.)

And then if seeing John Howard on the way to work wasn’t enough excitement, as I was ordering my morning coffee from Nick and Gina at the bottom of Stockland House in Castlereagh St, who should walk past but Richie Benaud.

I almost walked after him and asked if I could get a camera phone pic with him to complete the photographic essay of my amazing walk to work, but then I thought, “don’t be a tosser, Dan… Richie probably hasn’t had his morning coffee yet either. Give the man a break.”

When Sydney had trams, too

My girlfriend Kate, who is a local history buff, found this tram, circa 1951, online at the Leichhardt Council website.

It would have been powered by the White Bay Power Station which is a gigantic derelict building near our house. When we first moved here I couldn’t stop looking at it — such a towering, monstrous structure. I’ve been finding out bits and pieces of history about it ever since.