Hello friends, are you still with me? I know it's been a while but it only seems like a few days! So. I'm in Tokyo, nestling back into my cosy little house with a new vegie cookbook, a million chores to catch up on, fresh Kaldi coffee in the fridge and my full iTunes library. I got back on Tuesday, during a remarkably mild period - it was 12.5 degrees that day, but the coming forecasts scare me and I think I feel a healthy hibernation coming on. I'm back at work, eating well, avoiding alcohol and considering a detox.

2007 was a fantastic year for me, I have to say, although it did have the odd sour point too. Spending the past 6 or so weeks with my family and getting to catch up with so many old friends and family members during the Australian holiday was such a momentous occasion. The trip was important on so many levels, and I will be sharing many of the highlights with you over the coming weeks as I trawl through the photos and dig through my beer-soaked memory files.

In the mean time, please feel free to check out this ROADTRIP slideshow I made testing the slideshow generator at animoto. It's made up of photos taken during the roadtrip I took from Mossman, in far north Queensland, to Maroochydore in the states south-east - a distance of around 1800 km. I had this idea about making a roadtrip slideshow after watching the awesome video Michael Gondry made of a cross-USA road trip. Of course, his video is way more awesome and well-planned than this little kindergarten piece... but I have to say I'm pretty happy with animoto - it's a rather nifty little service though the photos seem to have degraded a little and maybe even been made a little fuzzy (?).

They told me I needed a long, legal song so I chose one of my favourite old songs - The Day Everything... - from the fabulous Rival Flight (a great band I used to manage) since I doubt they'll sue me for copyright infringement. It's a little dramatic but I like the effect and I think it makes for a nice little first slideshow video attempt.

Just remember, it's 8:49 minutes of your life that you'll never get back :)

Oh, and I put a handful of new holiday pics up at Flickr. More to come.