Coming up this week: Barter, exchange, bargain or haggle. Which ever way you look at it, Kyle from One Red Paperclip is king of trading stuff.

Wow, thanks to everyone who subscribed to BloggerView this week and thanks to everyone who came to the site. We’ve had over 1,000 people visit the site since we launched a little over a week ago, so thanks if you’ve dropped by and made a comment.

Coming up this week we have Kyle from One Red Paperclip. If you haven’t already heard his story WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN!!!

He managed to barter his way from a paperclip to a house in exactly one year. If you believe one man's trash is another man's treasure, then you won’t want to miss this Thursday’s interview with Kyle from One Red Paperclip.

004: Steph from Much Ado About Sumthin!

Today we welcome Steph from Much Ado About Sumthin. This is a girl that will tell you what she thinks and isn't worried about what people think of her. A self-confessed attention-seeking famewhore, her blog is a diatribe of her colourful and entertaining life at home and work.
She swears, she farts and she falls down a lot. To her mother’s dismay, a lady she is not. This genuinely funny and honest girl talks about her life with brashness and sincerity that instantly warms readers to her vocal gymnastics about love, life, sex and fun.

BV: Steph, welcome to BloggerView and thanks for taking the time to answer some of my questions. I've really been looking forward to this interview as you seem tobe the type of girl that says what she thinks. I suppose one could say you're not backwards about coming forwards; where do you think this character trait came from?

I've always been outspoken and I've always had lots to say. Whether anyone listened to me or not never concerned me, I think I just like the sound of my own voice, and now with the blog, I like the fact that my ramblings reach so many people.

Famewhore! Yes I am. My parents both encouraged me to stand up and speak up for myself. The best thing they ever did for me was to LISTEN to me, and encourage me to have an opinion on everything, regardless if I knew what I was talking about or not.

Haha! I also have to credit my older brother who taunted me mercilessly when I was a kid. I had to be loud to be heard above him, and I often got him in trouble because I could talk my way out of almost any situation, and talk him INTO it. The gift of the gab – I never shut up.

BV: It seems like every other day life throws something at you that is just dying to be put in your blog. From bogan weddings to bin juice, home-made porn and the ongoing battle with the PA from hell, Moronica; do you think these things happen to you for a reason?

That's the thing. I don't think extraordinary things happen to me. These things happen to everybody; they just don't write about it or see the humour in it to even want to write about it. I see things through bloggy eyes. Every situation I find myself in, I assess for blog fodder. Quite sad really, but it's something that's just happened to me since my blog addiction. I wear blog-coloured glasses! I do have a few weird and wonderful things happen to me, but I go looking for that. Like the bus story. I saw an opportunity to annoy some people who liked to sit in the same seats every day, and it just escalated from there.

The bin juice thing… if I hadn't gone to that meeting and deliberately voted against popular consensus, none of that crap that followed would have happened. The bogan wedding… well I just KNEW that would be funny. I was looking for the humour/bizarre in it. I'm also very klutzy, I DO fall down and do stupid/thoughtless things every day. Luckily I love to laugh at myself and I don't mind if others do too.I also have insane friends and a slightly wacky family, so there is always SOMETHING going on. I believe there is a story in every situation. It's just the way you look at it, and put your own interpretations on it. Tilt it to see the funny.

BV: If your blog was a night out on the town, what would happen? How manypeople would there be? Would there be booze, drugs and a blow-up kangaroo?

There would be crap-loads of people! We'd start at the local RSL to get pissed on cheap drinks and laugh at the bogans, then we'd move on to the latest/hottest club so we could be refused entry and yell at some bouncers, then we'd probably find some tiny pub and totally over-run the place. The night wouldn't be complete without sleeping it off in the local police cells, and then staggering into McDonalds for a hangover cure wondering where our underwear went and how we got lipstick on our ankles. Blow up kangaroo is optional. I'd prefer a donkey.

BV: It seems you have quite the following and community buzzing around your comments box. What's the thing you love most about the people who comment on your blog?

They are the funniest bunch of fuckers on the net. I read my comments and laugh till I cry most days. They're amazing and it still freaks me out that people actually read me and then bother to leave a comment at all, let alone a well-considered, often thoughtful, and mostly hilarious reply. Someone recently referred to my comments box as like the office water-cooler, and it's so true. Sometimes the commenters have little discussions amongst themselves and I love that. I have a cool bunch of 'regulars' that I know would help me hide a body if I asked them to. I've met some amazingly talented, kind and crazy people on my blog, and that alone has made writing my dribble worth it. They've become as much a part of my blog as I am.

BV: You talk a lot about your friends on your blog. In fact you have been, as youput it, "in the shit" for using your friends as blog fodder. If you didn't have your friends to blog about, what would you write?

I really don't use my friends as blog fodder all that much. I'd probably keep writing about tripping over and debauched behaviour I guess. They're all pretty cool about it though. At first they were like, 'What's a blog?" and then seeing themselves mentioned once or twice – especially Kylie who is a bigger famewhore than I – they loved it. Often we'll be having a chat and they'll actually suggest things to write about. They'll say, "Remember that time when... you should blog about that". One or two have had an issue with stuff I've written in the past, but mostly they're OK about it.

BV: No doubt you’ve had some pretty funny stories to tell as a direct result of your blog. It would be great if you could share one of these with us.

The funniest would have to be the guy at the airport who recognised me just from the things I was saying! I did blog about it and he emailed me after I mentioned it on my blog. He's a blogger too, and seeing a loud-mouthed, blonde chick getting harassed by security… I guess it wasn't too hard to figure out.

The other funny thing that took me by surprise was all the weird emails I get. Especially from foot fetish guys. I used to have pics of my shoes as my profile pic and I'd get so many horny feet fetish freaks asking me about my shoes and even wanting to buy them, or do untold things to my sweaty toes. The fact that my mother occasionally reads me is funny too. She picks out all the spelling and grammatical errors and asks me to cut down on the swearing and calling my readers "mofo's" and "bitches". Bahahahaha!

She knows more about me than any mother should know about their daughter! She stopped reading for a while because she was getting all upset about some negative attention I was getting, and then all my bodily functions and vibrator posts put her off, but I see her lurking sometimes and I'd love her to do a post or two for me. THAT would be funny.

BV: Me thinks you might insult, annoy or disgust some people with your writing style. If you were locked in a cage for a fight to the death with these people, would you choose the chainsaw, the mace or your bare hands to destroy them?

Funny you should ask that. I was just in my very first catfight (since high school anyway) last night and I'd have to say nothing beats bare hands! There are definitely some people in the blogosphere that could use a bitch slappin', and I'd love to be the one to give it.

BV: And I’d love to see that! Steph, thanks for joining us today – it’s been a fantastic interview.

Coming up this week: Vapid, attention-seeking, famewhore alert… it’s Steph from Much Ado About Sumthin!

Firstly, a big thanks to everyone who visited BloggerView during our first week - I hope you enjoyed the first three interviews. Also, to everyone who subscribed to our RSS feed and for those of you who subscribed via email, thanks for getting on board with BloggerView.

Remember guys… if you like what you read, let me and the BloggerViewees know by dropping a line in the comments box. We would love to know your thoughts, so don’t be shy - drop in and say hi.

This week I’ll be posting my interview with Steph from Much Ado About Sumthin! If you haven’t met Steph yet, she’s the girl in the corner laughing way too much and having a fucking great time. She is wicked and sweet, powerful and pretty, but most of all her blog is piss-your-pants funny. If you haven’t already dropped by her blog, do yourself a favour - read her posts and leave a comment. You won’t be disappointed.

During my chat with Steph we talked about all sorts of crazy stuff, from bin juice to bogan weddings, blow up donkeys and more!

Be sure to tune in this Thursday to read all about the exploits and mayhem she calls Much Ado About Sumthin!

003: Chris - Rude Cactus

Today we are joined by Chris from Rude Cactus.

Chris is a music, book and cat loving IT security geek that writes one of the most eloquent and popular blogs on the net today.

He is husband to the fish and father to Mia Bean, and he’s a self-proclaimed wannabe rock star. His blog is funny, sad and provocative. He even finds the time to throw in the odd Haiku every now and then. His wonderful photographs, honesty, integrity and regular posts have gathered him a loyal following.

BV: Chris, thanks very much for spending the time to answer some questions for my readers. It's always great to hear everyone's story and you definitely have a few to tell. Can I ask, what made you start your blog in the first place?

I have not the slightest clue…well, okay, maybe one or two. Back in 2003, I was bored, surfing, and stumbled on a blog. It was honestly the first time I'd seen such a thing. I'd never really imagined there were people out here in the blogosphere writing about every aspect of their lives. I was hooked. As I stumbled through other people's blogrolls, I found more and more interesting people who I felt compelled to keep following. Eventually, I figured “what the hell”, and started my own. I have will-power and motivation for certain things in my life but writing tends not to be one of them. I figured it would last a week. That was nearly four years ago.

BV: You tell a story in your About Me page where as a child, you woke up one morning, rolled over in your bed, looked out the window and saw a hundred hot air balloons. This stuck in your mind. So much so, you recounted it to your wife the first night you talked. What was it about this sight that made you remember so vividly?

As a kid, I had my bed pushed right up to one of the two windows in my room. I'd gaze out at the neighborhood in the middle of the night. The sky would inevitably be my first sight of the day. I always slept with the stereo on, a mixed tape on an endless loop. I'm sure my parents loved it. One morning, I woke up facing an open window on a cool spring morning. The bright blue sky was filled with hot air balloons. Yes' Yours Is No Disgrace (because I listened almost exclusively to progressive rock at that stage) was playing. I'm not sure why it was so memorable. It was just one of those perfect moments, the ones that just happen, out of some confluence of sights, sounds and feelings. The ones that stick in your mind the rest of your life. It's a little like magic.

BV: You write Haiku's often in your posts. Is this something you intentionally set out to do or did you stumble across this type of poetry by accident?

Haikus have always played some minor role on the site since its inception. At least once as a restless teenager I'm sure I fancied myself as a poet and wrote angst-ridden crap that would embarrass the hell out of me now. I also have a rather inappropriate sense of humor. There's something very funny to me about taking a soothing, calm form of poetry and using that form to write about something crass or impertinent. Haikus always seem pretty random to me. And I'm kinda random.

BV: OK… Genesis, you admit loving them. Are they on your iPod at the moment? C'mon Chris, be truthful with me. As a side note, we all have one shameful band we like, is this one of yours? (I know for me, when all my friends were listening to Black Sabbath and Guns N’ Roses, I liked Frente… oh, the shame of it all!)

Genesis. Yes, they're all over my iPod, from the early days with lead vocalist Peter Gabriel right through the syrupy Phil Collins Top-40 era. They were the band that got me into music which has long been an important part of my life. I have a 3500-album strong collection of music, so of course I have more than my fair share of crap. I went through a rather lengthy and unfortunate hair-metal phase. During my progressive rock phase, I managed to pick up some really crappy stuff as well. Then there's the fact that I own the original 1960's albums recorded by William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy. I have no excuse for those. I was curious.

BV: You often take photos of yourself, your family and other things that happen throughout your life. What's the appeal of photography to you?

There was no appeal until a few years ago. I bought a cheap digital camera and got a copy of Photoshop. I found it to be a previously untapped creative outlet I didn't really know existed for me. So, the first appeal really is the fact that it's a way for me to channel some creativity using images instead of words. The second is more obvious – I've got a family and I want to document that family. Before my daughter was born, I'd overhear parents telling others how quickly children grow up. You never fully understand how accurate that statement is, how fast kids do indeed grow up, until you have one yourself. My daughter has to be the most photographed kid in history. But that's fine. I want to remember every minute.

BV: You mention in your blog that you read roughly 100 books a year. What is it about reading that inspires you?

I've always read. Reading was important in my house growing up. My parents read constantly and read to me when I was little. As soon as I was able, I started reading everything in sight. In high school and college, that trailed off a little. I eventually hit the books again. After reading Iain Bank's The Bridge back in 1997 or 1998, I was totally energized about reading again. I started keeping a diary of what I'd read and vowed to read at least six books a month. I've managed to keep that deal with myself with only a few exceptions.

We're all limited by lots of things in life – not many of us have a ton of spare cash handy, a private jet waiting at the airport. We're tied down by jobs, we have responsibilities. We can't, in short, take off at a moment's notice and travel the world. Nor can we experience life as other people. Reading lets you do that from the comfort of your favorite chair.

BV: In one of your posts you mentioned seeing a sign that read ‘Be Silly, Be Honest, Be Kind’. How do you think people can improve themselves using this advice?

The world – all of us in it – works because of trust and compassion. If you don't have those two things, you might as well call it a day. All you have to do is turn on the news and you're given a lot of reasons to be hopeless. Yet, we somehow pull through. The problem is that too many people take themselves too seriously. What fun is that? So, yes, be honest and kind because those are important but also remember to be silly.

BV: You manage to get loads of people giving their opinions and comments on many of your posts. What is it about getting comments from your readers that gives you a buzz?

Two things… the most obvious? People are reading me. My site stats prove it. For some strange reason, hundreds of thousands of people read me every month. I'm at a loss to understand or explain why. I'm just a guy who writes stuff about his life. No biggie. Don't get me wrong – I appreciate it more than anyone can imagine. It's just a mystery to me. The other reason is validation. Here I am, sitting in one little corner of the world, writing about the things that are happening to me, and there's always someone (if not many someones) out there who understand. There's something nice about that.

BV: There is a photo in your blog banner, fourth in from the right. It's a field with white crosses spanning its width, trees in the background and clouds in the sky. Is this just a random photo or is there more to it than that?

The picture was taken at the American cemetery in Normandy. When Beth and I went to France a couple of years ago, we visited Normandy, walked down to the beach that was stormed, where thousands of men lost their lives. It was surreal. You stand there, on the desolate beach and look up at the hills that immediately rise from the sand and you wonder how anyone thought it was a good idea to storm that particular beach on that particular day. Whoever made the call was either delusional or insanely optimistic. Yet, it worked. There's no personal connection for me. My grandfathers both served in the Pacific theater. But it's impossible to be there, to stand on the beach or walk through the field of white crosses and not be somehow moved.

BV: Chris, thanks very much for taking part in BloggerView and giving us an insight into your life.


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002: John Best - Hating Autism

Today we welcome John Best from Hating Autism. John is a dedicated campaigner to the cure, or eradication of autism in our society. Through his blog, he is spreading the word about autism and how it can be avoided for us and our children.

Mercury is a very harmful substance that shouldn't really be in our bodies, but John has discovered a disturbing fact that many of us simply don't know, or choose to ignore. This has led to the creation of his blog Hating Autism. His son has been touched by autism, making his campaign to wipe out this man-made disease even stronger.

BV: John, thanks so much for taking the time to talk to me about your mission to wipe out autism. Through your blog you are letting many people know of the horrors of autism and how this can be avoided. I don't know much about autism and I'm sure some of my readers will be the same; can you tell us a little about how autism affects the body and the brain of a human being?

Mercury kills brain cells. More importantly, it prevents methylation, which means the body cannot convert B-12 into methyl B-12. Without methyl B-12 it is impossible for anyone to pay attention to anything. That is what autism is, an inability to pay attention. It's important to remove the mercury while the child is young and still producing new brain cells. Autism can be avoided by avoiding vaccines that still contain thimerosal like the flu shot.

BV: You claim that Mercury use in vaccines is a major cause for autism. Can you tell us how you came to this conclusion and what research you did to find out about this?

Thomas Verstraeten, a CDC employee, reached this conclusion in 1999. It was confirmed by Mark Geier in 2003. Subsequently, Richard Deth of Northeastern University wrote a report describing how mercury prevented methylation.

Mercury was first used in vaccines in 1931 and the first cases of autism were found in 1943 in children who were under 12 years of age. Some claim that autism has always been here and is genetic. However, the fact that there are no autistics older than 76 confirms that something happened to cause this nightmarish condition. What we've learned in the last few years confirms that it was mercury from thimerosal.

BV: You write extensively on your blog about the medical profession and drug companies and what they are doing by covering up their incompetence or non-caring attitudes about the use of mercury in vaccines, which you believe is the main cause of autism. If you had an opportunity to address skeptical medical practitioners with the chance that they may come around to your way of thinking, what would you say to them?

They don't need any convincing. Doctors already know the truth. They will never admit it because it would disgrace their profession. Drug companies will never admit it because they would lose everything they have in lawsuits. That's why they bribe politicians to make laws that protect them from lawsuits.

BV: You get a lot of flak on your site about your opinions and subject matter; I can tell you are incredibly passionate about this subject. If you were speaking at a conference for parents with kids who have autism, what would your speech be about?

Autism is curable.

BV: Can you tell us a little bit about other ways you are trying to get the word out about this subject other than your blog, and if people wish to contribute, what can they do?

Send money to Generation Rescue or the National Autism Association.

BV: I'm sure after reading this interview there’ll be many parents that will now be thinking about their children and the possibility that they may be afflicted with autism. What signs should people be looking out for in their kids and what can they do if they see signs of autism in their children?

Autistic children could never be missed. Parents will know. Asperger's is more difficult to diagnose but I don't care about that so I won't get into it.

Are there any websites or blogs you would like to tell people about if they are interested in finding out more about autism?

The Yahoo group Autism-Mercury can teach you how to cure autism. http://www.generationrescue.org/ can tell you anything you'd want to know about the causes and cures for autism.

BV: John, it's been a pleasure interviewing you - I wish you all the best for the future.

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001: Steve Lacey - Random Thoughts

This week we are joined by Steve Lacey - software engineer extraordinaire. Steve is a pommie (that's an English person), a father to two wonderful kids and he's worked on some pretty amazing projects.

Graduating from the Imperial College of Science Technology and Medicine in London, he came away with a Masters of Engineering in Software Engineering and has worked on projects like XBox games, Direct X 5, flight simulators and more.

A co-founder of SwitchGear, Steve has also spent considerable time at Microsoft and is currently employed at Google in their Kirkland office.

BV: Steve, firstly a big thanks for taking the time to answer a few questions for my readers. I'm very grateful you have taken the time out of your busy schedule to chat.

No problems - I feel honoured that someone from Down Under has the least bit of interest in what a pomme is up to in the USA :-) Oh, and by the way, I'm definitely not speaking for any current or former employers here :-)

BV: It seems like you have spent a large proportion of your life developing software or games and even some other interesting projects that we will get into a little later. Can you tell us a little about the type of kid you were and where the drive for this area of your particular passion came from?

I was the typical geek kid at school - generally ignored by all; especially by members of the fairer sex. I couldn't kick a football for toffee, so I generally just did well at the academic stuff. My parents were pretty encouraging and I guess I got into it all through a friend whose dad bought him all the computer toys. We're talking KIM-1, PET, Apple IIe, etc... Then my dad bought me a ZX81 and a Spectrum and I was hooked. I learnt Z80 assembly 'cos BASIC was boring, and then helped out a computer science teacher of mine with a book of computer games he was writing. This was at the time when you could buy magazines and books with printed listings of games in them that you'd type in.

He'd written a sort of graphical adventure game for the Spectrum, but the display code was just incredibly slow. I rewrote it in self-modifying assembly code and sped it up by a few thousand percent. He was horrified - not that it was faster than his code, but that I'd done the unspeakable act of writing self-modifying code. Nonetheless, the book was printed that way.

Anyhow, I just ended up loving the low-level - eek out all the performance possible code, which led to working at a games company whilst at college, then eventually joining Microsoft to work on games technology.

BV: Please be patient with me as I'm not that technical. In your five things meme you mentioned that in the early nineties you wrote an application for the official scorers at TCCB cricket matches that replaced the traditional, centuries-old scorebooks. You even got to sit in the scorers box at the 1993 Ashes series. Can I ask, were you gutted when the Aussies kicked your arse? : )

No comment. We was robbed. But at least I had the best seat in the house!

BV: Seriously though… to me, that's a pretty big achievement in itself. Was it a real buzz to get, as you put it, '70 year old cricket geezers' to use a system like this that you had developed? What did they say?

They loved it! It really surprised me. I was expecting them all to go on strike and refuse to use the machines. These were 386 Dell laptops running BSDi UNIX and X-windows. So far away from Microsoft Windows... anyhow, they took to it like a duck to water.

BV: You have worked on some pretty damn cool projects in your time at Microsoft, what stood out for you as your most important work and what made you so passionate about it?

Two projects really - DirectX and Flight Simulator. DirectX really changed the game (pun intended) with gaming on the PC. Windows as a gaming platform was a joke before DirectX game along and we turned it into the premiere platform - I'm really proud of that. Plus the technical challenges were out of this world and a lot of fun (and late nights) to solve.

I spent the last nine years of my career at Microsoft (with some side diversions into other gaming things) working on Flight Simulator - I worked mostly on the graphics engine and completely rewrote its underlying architecture for the latest version. If I do say so myself, it's a beautiful thing to behold. I also love the fact that it's a universal game - people from eight to eighty (and beyond) play it and explore the world flying aircraft as diverse as the Piper Cub to the Boeing 747. And it's just so damn technically correct.

BV: In 2006, you moved to Google in their Kirkland office. Working at Google has obvious advantages, but what was it that drew you to this company?

After Switchgear, I was looking around and thinking about what to do next when I had lunch with a friend and ex-colleague of mine who I have the utmost respect for. He's a former long-time employee at Microsoft and now at Google Kirkland. He convinced me to check out Google and the more I thought about it, the more it made sense. Google is so developer-centric... it really is all about the code. In most other companies the developers are second class to other roles such as management, marketing, sales, etc. At Google, the individual developer is king. After all, that's where the product comes from, isn't it?

Oh, and the fact that the office is about three minutes from my house didn't hurt either...

BV: Google seems to be a pretty forward-thinking company, always thinking about it's users and the experience they have through their products and services. In your time at Google, what have you learned about the way software and the online medium (blogs, podcasts, search engines etc.) can change people’s lives?

Man, it didn't take working at Google to convince me of that! How about this: my best friend had been estranged from his mother and brother for quite a large number of years and they'd lost touch. She Google'd for his name, found my blog where I'd written up a post about his wedding and then she emailed me. I sent him some email saying something like - do you know this person? To which he replied "Man THAT'S MY MOTHER!!". I do believe capital letters and volumes of exclamation points were involved. Anyhow, they're now back in touch and a grandmother now knows a granddaughter she never knew she had.

BV: You're stranded on an island with a laptop and an endless battery supply. You can take one game, one piece of software and a book. What would they be?

Do I have a satellite uplink? I guess not. Game? Wil Wright's Spore - I'm hoping I don't get stranded before it's released. Software? A C++ compiler so I can write more software. A book? Robert A. Heinlein's Time Enough For Love.

BV: I'm guessing you must have some amazing stories from your time at Microsoft and Google. If you ever make your way Down Under, I will be sure to shout you a pint and get a few of these stories out of you! For the time being, what's one of the funniest stories in your time at these companies?

So far it's probably regarding some of the outrageous developer events we threw for developers during the early DirectX times.

From hiring out the San Jose State University arena where we threw a toga party complete with playboy "stars" being auctioned off in a slave auction and live lions (that ended up getting loose); to closing down Microsoft's RedWest parking garage to host the launch party for DirectX 1 (which the VP running some division there claimed would cost them money and apparently we managed to convince Gates that closing down the campus for a few days would actually save MS some money - anecdotally of course...); to a Vampires and Witches party in the French Quarter of New Orleans at Siggraph in '97.

Man, you just can't do that kind of stuff anymore. At least you can't at Microsoft...

BV: OK, last question… out of all the blogs in your feed-reader, which are the ones that you just can't live without?

OK, I'm culling from a couple of hundred here! In no particular order:

Lifehacker http://www.lifehacker.com/
ParentHacks http://www.parenthacks.com/
BoingBoing http://www.boingboing.net/
TechCrunch http://www.techcrunch.com/
Scripting News http://www.scripting.com/
Joel On Software http://www.joelonsoftware.com/
Coincidental Floss http://halbryan.spaces.live.com/
Robert Scoble http://scobleizer.com/
Random Acts of Reality http://randomreality.blogware.com/blog/
GapingVoid http://www.gapingvoid.com/
Old New Thing http://blogs.msdn.com/oldnewthing/default.aspx
The Post Money Value http://ricksegal.typepad.com/pmv/
Feld Thoughts http://www.feld.com/blog/

BV: Steve, it’s been great chatting with you – I look forward to that pint whenever you eventually make it Down Under.

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