:: gia’s blog ::

First off, thanks to everyone at Walking With Robots for such a brilliant 3 days. You guys rule! Also, thanks to all of you blog friends for visiting the Walking with Robots blog and saying ‘hi’. We all really appreciated it. A super, special thanks to Jonathan Sanderson for asking me along. Nice to finally work with you after all these years!

Now, I am mental busy.

I’m heading off to San Francisco first thing tomorrow. Brian has been invited to speak at TED which is the initial reason for our trip. We are also going to meet up with friends and people from Seesmic (who are friends, too, but I wanted to give them a special link :).

Apart from the whole, boring ‘cleaning stuff from Bristol, cleaning stuff for SF, getting 12 days’ of stuff ready for my son who’s here while we’re away’ domestic rubbish, I also have a lot to do for Water Lilies (yes, that’s an invitation to check out the site!:). I suspect I might be ripping DVDs and putting clips up online from Business Class on the Munich to SF flight tomorrow… cos I don’t think I’ll have time today.

Broadband on planes is a life-saver.

I decided to try a bit of video…(about 6 minutes long)

Watch Video

I got a message from an executive producer/friend of mine via Facebook this morning. It’s one of the most wonderful and flattering things that anyone has ever said to me. I thought I’d share.

I looked at all your photos on your Blog and a few things struck me…

Whether it was as I always think of you - with your red hair and crazy look or your more ‘mature’ look - you never once look the same and I think that’s why I think you are one of the most beautiful women I ever knew.

But I also think that might be why you aren’t a TV Superstar as you should be.

You see TV Producers need to know what they are getting. After all Jeremy Clarkson wouldn’t turn up in a suit - it isn’t him. And Cameron Diaz woudn’t appear in a pair of gardening trousers - it isn’t her.

Your problem, I have concluded, is you are able to be so many things no-one actually knows what they are getting.

There you have it, now you know why you are not earning $3 million a year!

But maybe the fact that I think you are so gorgeous makes up for it a bit…or maybe not!!

I know I never look the same. I’ve got one of those weird faces where I can kind of look like anything I want. Brian says he loves it because he feels like he’s always got a new girlfriend. :)

I’m used to people I know really, really well not recognising me. I’m comfortable with the fact that people I know fairly well will have no idea who I am when I see them. It happens constantly and has always happened to me. Like people mispronouncing both my names, it’s something I’ve got used to over the years…

Still, even I think my chameleon-like look is freaky. I look at my photos and even I can’t tell that it’s the same person… It’s not just that my hairstyle might be different, my whole entire face changes. Very odd.

I’m not quite sure what to do about it… other than work in an industry (teh ‘net) where it’s all about your brain not what you look like. :)

…And then Seesmic comes along. *sigh*

One of my secret New Year’s Resolutions this year was to start video blogging. I’ve tried and tried to do it for the past two years, but it’s always been really difficult for me for some reason. Having been a presenter for 15 years, I’m very comfortable in front of a camera, but only really in a ‘tv’ way. I like knowing exactly what I’m going to say, I like having perfect hair and make-up, I like only seeing the ‘good’ takes. Video blogging has always felt too intimate and too rough. Also, I can’t be bothered to put make-up on most days… and I couldn’t dream of going on camera without make-up.

Well, I started video blogging on Seesmic only just this week. It’s been an excellent experience so far.

Filled with enthusiasm and remembering my New Year’s Resolution, I decided to join the Semanal Video Blogging Project- the aim is to make one video per week this whole year. Here is my first one:

I started posting on Seesmic yesterday after lurking for several weeks… Here’s one I did last night.