Category: News and Events

Shooting Fish

Is it the closing ceremony yet?

Ah yes, the Commonwealth Games are on. This means I’ve had to totally rearrange my TV viewing since Channel 10 has dumped its regular schedule in favour of broadcasting the competition around the clock (do something else instead of watching TV? Are you mad?:))

I really find it hard to get excited about the Commonwealth Games. They’re really nothing more than a second rate Olympics with all of the serious competition removed. In several areas (the swimming in particular) Australia simply has the best athletes in the Commonwealth, which makes picking up medals akin to shooting fish in a barrel. What’s our tally so far? Nine gold, ten silver, five bronze, for a total of twenty four – putting us at the top of the medal count and thirteen ahead of current second placers India.

This sounds impressive, but with the big boys missing it’s all really kind of pointless. It even approaches embarrassing, particularly when the media try to get everyone all revved up about it. “Gold for Australia! Gold for Australia!” has a kind of hollow ring when there are no Americans, Russians or Chinese in the competition. Without meaning to put down our fellow Commonwealth members, it’s like wining a foot race against a bunch of amputees – crowing about it just comes across as pathetic.

So yeah, the Commonwealth Games. Is it the closing ceremony yet?

Free Range Ablett

Some people don’t smell like they should

AFL ‘Superstar’ Gary Ablett Jr announced today that he’s leaving the Geelong Cats and moving to the Gold Coast Suns.

The movement of AFL players between teams is something that would normally rate on my interest radar somewhere below the antics of the fleas on Paris Hilton’s chihuahua, but I’m feigning an interest this time because it’s a great excuse to pull out a reference to a strange and obscure song by the strange and obscure (and probably defunct) Perth band O!, which goes by the name of Free Range Ablett.

It goes a little something like this…

Some people smell good!
Some people don’t smell like they should,
Some people smell like a free range Ablett…

Free Range! Free Range ababababa abababa,
Ababababa abababa,

And his faithful companion the…
Egg roll, Egg roll,
Free Range! Ababababa abababa,
Gary-gary-gray-gary-gary-gary Ablett!
And his faithful companion the…
Egg roll, Egg roll,

 (Those lyrics may not be 100% accurate, and the song’s actually about his dad, but hey, let’s not let that ruin the fun :))

Carn the… oh who cares?

Football! Football football football! FOOTBALL!!

This weekend it’s that “one day in September”, the culmination of the Australian sporting year, the AFL Grand Final. I really don’t care.

Of course this shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone who knows me. I tend to regard sport as a waste of time that could more profitably be spent reading books or looking up humorous cat photos on Google. But the thing about this year’s grand final is I really don’t care.

You see I do take a very vague interest in the AFL. Not in the sense that I’d go to a game, or even watch one on TV. But I do very vaguely support a few teams, and am mildly pleased when they do well.

For instance, for reasons of geographic patriotism I very vaguely support the two Western Australian teams, West Coast (the Eagles) and Fremantle (the Dockers). I’m always slightly pleased when they crush teams from the Eastern States. On occasions where they play each other I tend to more or less favour the Dockers, since my brain still regards them as a new, underdog team in need of support – despite the fact that they’ve been around for over a decade now and did really well this season.

For historical reasons I vaguely support Essendon (the Bombers) and weakly despise Geelong (the Cats). I also have a slight fondness for Port Adelaide (the Power), for no reason that I can adequately explain.

None of these teams are in the grand final this year. Instead it’s between Collingwood (the Magpies) and Saint Kilda (the Saints). I have absolutely no opinion, positive or negative about these two teams, and as such couldn’t care less who wins.

(I suppose if I really think about it I’d prefer the Saints to win, because it would annoy Eddie McGuire. But really, that’s about it.)

Anyway, roll on Saturday, so we can get this over and done with for another year!

No-one Cares Enough to Hate it Anymore

The West should be Ashamed

This post from the Worst of Perth,

a) Says something really important about the decline of print news
b) Says something really important about the West Australian (although frankly it’s nothing we didn’t know already…)
c) Almost sounds like Spider Jerusalem

These can only be good things.

The End of the Begining

I’ve avoided any political blogging for a bit because it’s all been up in the air since the election. To recap – we’ve ended up with a hung parliament with a bunch of Independents (and one Green) set to decide who’s going to form government. The Green and some of the Independents have already made their choices, leaving just three holdouts to decide the fate of the nation.

Well, today these three are set to reveal their choice. What’s interesting is that one of them – the, shall we say ‘somewhat eccentric’ Bob Katter – has broken ranks and announced that he’s supporting Tony Abbot and the Liberal/National Coalition a full hour before the scheduled press conference. This puts the Coalition and Labor neck and neck on 74 seats.

So, does this mean that the other two Independents are supporting Julia Gillard and Labor, and Katter’s decided he doesn’t want to be associated with them? Or that all three are supporting the Coalition and Bob Katter is just being Bob Katter and jumping the gun for his own Bob Katterish reasons?

Stay tuned…

Later: Katter has now said if the other two go for Labor, he might change his mind…

Later: Tony Windsor has come out for Labor (he likes Broadband and Renewable Energy). Labor leads 75 to 74. The Coalition cannot form government!

Later: Windsor is still talking. He’s never going to have an audience this big again and he’s milking it for all he can get…

Still Later: A work colleague is going to register “tonywindsorpleaseshutup.com”

Again Later: Finally. Now for Rob Oakshot.

Later Later Later: It’s “there can be only one”, get your pop-cultural references right!

Later Still: Oakshot’s as bad as Tony!

Later: We don’t care about your children! Tell us who’s PM!!

Laaaaaateeeeeer: C’mon!

LATER: This is worse than Who Wants to be a Millionaire

later later later later: You can equivocate later! Just give us a damn answer you fool!

Later: We want to go home tonight too!!

Later: i can has gubermint plz?

Later: Finally! Labor has 76 seats! Labor and Julia Gillard it is! Hooray! (Mind you at this point I’d be happy with a new election just to stop Oakfield talking…)

WE HAVE A GOVERNMENT!!!

Student who electrocuted his nipples sues teacher and school for not warning him it was dangerous

Your gene pool needs a little chlorine…

The family of a teenager whose heart stopped after clamping electrical cord to his nipples is suing the school and the teacher, saying the boy suffered brain damage.

No. That’s what’s known as a pre-existing condition.

Well Hung

Election round up (of sorts) and things I must get done

Well that was a bit of an anticlimax. A hung parliament with power in the hands of a bunch of rural independents and one Green. Both Labor and the Libs are doing their best to cosy up to them, so it’ll be interesting to see who ends up forming government. At least the Greens managed to get up in the Senate – once the change over happens they’ll pretty much have total control of disputed legislation which can only be a good thing.

Bah. Politics.

There are a number of things I really have to do.

  • Update the Crash, and Package articles on the FreakWiki and finish the individual FreakAngel biographies
  • Upload and annotate the rest of the photos from my trip to the UK a YEAR AGO (I actually started on this over the weekend)
  • Write an email to Ali and Matt who’ve actually been waiting to hear from me for a YEAR
  • Write an email to Helen and Rob who’ve been waiting to hear from me for an unreasonable amount of time
  • Lose weight, get a girlfriend and generally sort my life out

The first four are at least feasible ;D

Regular readers (if there are any) will have noticed that I haven’t been updating on the weekends recently. There is a reason for this but I’m not yet ready to reveal it. I will however quote the Child and say “Things are going to change!”

Election 2010 – Beware of the Boats

Here we go again…

I’ve avoided blogging about tomorrow’s federal election so far, mostly since the campaigns have been pretty lacklustre and the differences between Labor and Liberal policies minimal at best. That said I’d prefer Gillard to get back in if only because Labor has made some kind of commitment to fighting climate change, whereas Abbott is on record as describing it as “a load of crap” (not that Labor’s policy is great, but it’s better than the Libs’).

There’s also something about Abbott I just don’t trust. I can’t pin it down but he comes across as sinister – as if he’s playing nice for the cameras but rubbing his hands and plotting something nefarious in the shadows. Sure, I wouldn’t trust Gillard as far as I could throw her, but being alone in a room with her wouldn’t give me the crawling heebie-jeebies the way Abbott would.

At least the blackout came in the other day, which means the TV and radio waves have been free of the endless campaign ads that’ve been driving us all mad. I tell you, if I hear one more scaremongering spiel about THE BOATS I think I’ll knock someone’s hat off with a cane (I’d have to procure a cane first of course, but I’m so sick of it all that I’d be more than willing to do so).

My ideal outcome tomorrow? Labor in the Lower House, Greens in the Senate. But honestly any outcome where the Mad Monk isn’t PM is OK with me.

About Time

Here comes the new boss…

Well, I’m near death with swine-bird-buffallo flu (by which I mean a minor cold) and so not going to write much, but I can’t let the appointment of Australia’s first female PM pass unmentioned. Shame it was done via leadership upset rather than an election, but it’s still a start.

Now let’s see some movement on asylum seekers, climate change and killing off that internet filter eh?

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