Did I say I'm just a boy?

Flashback

2011-04-11T20:17:00.000+10:00

Here's an example of when I was right:

I think this is a cathartic experience for Mr West. Next year he'll be back with his swaggalicious fifth album, and he'll be back to being Mr Arrogant.

And

Kanye will return to rapping. I think this is a diversion into pop that will influence his next work, not define it.

I said that in 2008 about 808s and Heartbreaks. My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy was his next album, and I believe it fulfilled my prediction.

Here was a fun post I did about celebrities I like. I'm still there with them, although Ryan Reynolds has weirded me out with the whole "was that a real marriage to Scarlett?" thing.

And here is my ode to the importance of a thick skin. I believe a thick skin is one of the most useful mental attributes you can develop if you want to succeed.

Football is back, yo

2011-03-30T22:28:00.000+11:00

My preview of this AFL season with some ladder predictions.

The clear favourite
No one is doing what Collingwood is doing right now. You can't go past the Pies as the clear Premiership favourite. They cleared out some experience and some dead wood over the summer, but kept the Premiership 22 together. It also opened up some salary cap room, which had been tight thanks to the recruitment of Darren Jolly and Luke Ball. Recruiting Krakouer was brilliant, same with Tarrant. Krak has matured as a man and a player after spending 16 months in jail for assault. He is grasping the second chance with both hands. It's great to watch. In terms of the rest of the team, the coaches have focused on making sure they don't get complacent. It looks to be working so far. The Pies didn't need to win the preseason comp. Most senior players only played two preseason games. They won it because they were clearly better than everyone else.

The top three
Despite the Essendon game, the Western Bulldogs will still finish top four. They have pace, depth and talent. There are always aberrant results in round one that you look back on with disbelief at the end of the season. St Kilda are still strong, as are Geelong, but I get the feeling that they could both struggle a bit this season. They've got the miles in the legs and the skills... but Geelong have lost some quality, and St Kilda lack a decent bottom six or any depth. One of these two teams could well finish eighth or ninth, with a bad run of injuries and luck.

The next three
Carlton, Fremantle and Hawthorn - they should all be here. There are no excuses for these teams. They have the personnel and the time to put their gameplans together. The big issue for Carlton is how important young Kreuzer is to their team. It was all over for the Blues when he went down last year. The other problem is the stupidity of Jarrad Waite. At 27 he should be a dominant key position player. Instead, he should have been suspended for kicking a player in the nuts (how he got off that charge is a mystery). Hawthorn need a big season from Buddy Franklin and for the rest of the team to stay injury free. Freo have had a shocking run of injuries and at the moment look the most likely to drop out of the eight. Which is sad, because it would have been nice to see the Dockers go on with it.

The chasers
One finals spot, a bunch of teams chasing it. Essendon and Adelaide are the clear standouts at the moment. Adelaide have recruited well with Tambling off half back, and Dangerfield looks an absolute gun. Essendon look amazing at the moment, but it's hard to tell if that's just the extra month's fitness they have on everyone. Will they die in the arse? (Yes, a lovely Australian term). North Melbourne could do anything, as could Melbourne. They each have some talent but need the gameplan to come together. Sydney lost Kirk, but Goodes is as amazing as ever. This is a real mixed bag of even teams and it's hard to know who will sneak into September.

The bottom five
Richmond are the best of the rest. Riewoldt would be the main goal threat for any team in the league. He is that much of a gun. Taller than his cousin Nick, more mobile than Chris Dawes, and a better kick than Travis Cloke. More durable than Jonathan Brown at the moment too. Port Adelaide... who knows. They won a bunch of games at the end of last season, but they seem to lack talent. They will win a few at home though. West Coast will rebuild this year, but losing Mark LeCras will hurt. The club needs some serious work on its playing list, and perhaps John Worsfold isn't the man to do that job. The Gold Coast Suns will win a few games, definitely. They have an amazing collection of young talent. They grabbed the best players from two years worth of drafts - guys like Swallow, Toy and Maverick Weller. Brisbane is a car crash. Now they've lost their best player - Brown - for months with facial surgery. Black and Power will do what they can, but 2011 is basically a writeoff.

To end this preview: some pics of Miranda Kerr in a Collingwood jumper :)

WWRD

2011-03-22T22:25:00.001+11:00

The infamous What Would Riggins Do? conversation

Riggins again

Hey 7.

Going to State

QB1

Conversation

Party at Tyra's

Okay so yeah I just spent the last 10 minutes searching through Friday Night Lights tumblrs. This one and this one.

Yeah so I love this

2011-03-22T22:14:00.000+11:00

A long time ago, we used to be friends

2011-03-22T22:00:00.000+11:00

Things I learned from TV shows

Veronica Mars
So much to learn from the sassy little blonde.
- Following people is a great way of finding out what they're up to. People just don't expect to be followed these days.
- Pretending to be someone else might be lying, but it's a good way of getting an important piece of evidence.

Gossip Girl
- Leave the scheming to the experts. If you think you might be able to pull off a complicated scheme against someone who does it regularly... you are fooling yourself. Chuck and Blair are experts - no one ever gets past them in the long run. Little J, Georgina, Vanessa, any number of other guest stars - all got smacked down.
- Money solves problems. Mostly. Ask Lily.

Friday Night Lights
Soooo many lessons to learn about teamwork, humility, sacrifice and friendship.
- But apart from those, FNL preaches the virtue of maximising your talent. If you're only ever going to be a mid-level player... be the best damn mid-level player you can be. If you've got the talent to be a superstar running back... then do the hard work to become that superstar. Coasting on your talent is wrong. You might be the best in your team - but are you the best you can be?
- Another lesson. Don't go searching for pics of Friday Night Lights because it will want to make you do an entire post of Friday Night Lights pics.

Fringe
- There is no limit to what you can achieve with creativity and ingenuity. Problems are solvable. Think of the impossible solution, and what it would take to make it possible. Start there.

- Never accept a free drink from a mad scientist.

Slow day = new blog

2011-03-21T12:58:00.000+11:00

That was the first month I had missed a blog post since I started Did I say I'm just a boy? Sorry.

Searches that found my blog
Anyway, a quick check of my Google Analytics shows that apparently I'm one of the world's most important repositories of knowledge about Steven Tyler's kids. You may know him as Liv Tyler's dad, but he's also the father of Chelsea Tallarico, who is a very pretty girl with a weird looking father.

She's the one on the right. Liv Tyler is in the middle.

Anyway, some variation of 'Chelsea Tallarico, Steven Tyler's kids, Steven Tyler children, Steven Tyler daughters, or pictures of Steven Tyler's kids' make up the vast majority of search terms that found this blog.

Once you wade through a couple of pages of terms like that, you also get:

girl from scary movie
A little bit vague, I'm probably going to need more information.

avatar breasts
If I recall correctly, they were blue. And computer generated.

monster giuseppe heel
Nicki Minaj fan! Nice to have you here. This is a line from her verse on Kanye West's Monster, in which she absolutely tore it up. That verse alone got her so much heat that her album Pink Friday was worth checking out.

"czech republic" "marieke hardy"
This is a very random search and I have no idea why someone would look for it. Marieke is a writer, sometimes for The Drum. She wrote Last Man Standing, which my housemates and I used to watch. She recently wrote a comedy for the ABC titled Laid (I think?).

christina hendricks naked
HA! Sorry tiger, you won't find Joan Holloway's nudie photos here. Good luck searching for something I doubt actually exists though!

joy behar feet
A mental image I REALLLLY didn't want.

y did kevin rudd got kicked out of being a p.m
Good question. His autocratic, micromanaging style was unpopular with his caucus and took a high toll on his staff. He was also pursuing policies that Labor party power brokers believed would lead to an election defeat in 2010.

Self indulgence

2011-01-13T15:44:00.000+11:00

Has there been a bigger female artist than Rihanna in the past 10 years? Past 20?

Look at this list of singles:

SOS (huge)
Pon De Replay (big enough)
Unfaithful (big enough)

Umbrella (ridiculously huge)

Shut Up And Drive (big enough)

Don't Stop The Music (damn huge)

Take A Bow (big enough)

If I Never See Your Face Again (big enough)

Disturbia (huge)

Rehab (not massive)

Russian Roulette (big enough)

Rude Boy (not massive)

Love The Way You Lie with Eminem (damn huge)
Only Girl In The World (ridiculously huge)

What's My Name (big enough)

Plus some big feature spots

Live Your Life with T.I. (huge)

Run This Town with Jay-Z and Kanye (huge)

All Of The Lights with Kanye (too early to tell)

Alllll of that is from five studio albums since August 2005. I reckon she can make the claim to be the biggest female artist of the new millenium so far. Lady Gaga has been big, but has not been as consistent for as long as Rihanna.

Also, put this collection of songs on at a party and watch the dance floor get smashed: SOS, Pon De Replay, Umbrella, Shut Up And Drive, Don't Stop The Music, If I Never See Your Face Again, Disturbia, Only Girl In The World.

There we go. Enough self indulgence for today.

I'm the best

2011-01-12T15:05:00.000+11:00

The things about rap music I like and don't like

THUMBS UP
1) The competitive nature of it. The fact that you can beat someone by being better with your words. It reminds me of one-on-one basketball. When I used to play basketball as a teenager, against someone who was a similar size to me, it soon became apparent who was better. It wasn't subjective. It was an objective thing. I can beat you because I am better at this. That is part of what I like about rap music. "8 Mile" is a great example of this.

THUMBS DOWN
2) The violence. Is generally a negative, especially the repetitive violence. Sexualised violence is horrible to listen to, but the majority of rap music I listen to doesn't go near that. Only the occasional Eminem track goes in that direction. Sometimes though, the violent lyrics can contribute to the overall feeling of menace, which is actually quite attractive. Music can make you feel emotions. Listening to badass music can make you feel like a badass. Just like listening to JT can make you feel like a futuresexy love machine. Or listening to Nickelback makes you feel dumber. The menacing feeling is pretty cool sometimes. Because, I've got to say, I'm really only menacing to people when I've got a keyboard in front of me and I'm writing a negative story about them.

THUMBS UP
3) The beat. There is a lot of skillful musicianship that goes into rap music, but I don't have to tell you that because you have brains. And no one would dismiss an entire genre of music as useless without recognising the skill that goes into it. Dancing to rap music is a lot easier than dancing to the majority of rock music (especially current rock music, which seems designed to make people move up and down and up and down and that's it). It helps that I love dancing, of course.

THUMBS UP
4) The ability to make a statement. I sometimes feel like rappers are the only ones who aren't afraid to call a spade a spade anymore. It happens less than it used to, but how often to you hear a rock or pop or indie musician make a point about the murder rate in Chicago or the plight of child soldiers in Africa or the hypocrisy of western culture? And if they do make a point like that, how often do they do it without sounding like a massive tool? I love listening to clever, pointed lyrics. Sometimes whimsical just doesn't cut it (hear that, indie bands! Stop with the whimsy!).

THUMBS DOWN
5) The attitude towards women. It's weird. Because rappers clearly love women. But they so often demean them in songs. Perhaps it's because unlike rock stars, rappers actually got women before they were famous? Rockers usually have to wait until they've played a couple of chords at a pub before women find their smelly bums irresistible. Perhaps it's part of the male culture that permeates football clubs, where men who have women throwing themselves at them constantly develop an unhealthy view of the opposite sex. Is it something that rap music suffers with alone? No. Female pop singers do arguably just as much to demean women as rappers do. But it's a part of a culture that is surprising given how many women enjoy rap music.

THUMBS UP
6) The confidence. Pop stars seem so fake and manufactured. Indie musicians lie their asses off about not caring if people like them or not. Rock stars still sing songs about how no one loves them. Rappers say "Hey, I'm young, handsome, talented and rich. Let's party!" There is something appealing about that. It was part of what I liked about Oasis too. Liam and Noel said "We're the biggest band in the world and we're going to party and rock out." If you can't enjoy or use your success, why bother? Confidence is attractive - any dating expert worth their salt will tell you that.

Okay that's a few things. There are more. But that's enough.

Grammar things that annoy me

2011-01-05T14:28:00.000+11:00

Grammar things that annoy me

"It was an historic day..."
ARGH! Do you say "I wore an hat"? Or "I picked up an history book"??? It should be "It was A historic day...". Unless you're a Cockney flowerseller who happens to moonlight as a television presenter. "It woz an 'istoric' day, 'ullo guvna!"

"This is the reason that we wanted to do this."
Spot a completely unnecessary word in there? Yup, that one. It's "that". "That" is almost always unnecessary in a sentence. Seriously, try it. Read a sentence with "that" in the middle of it, take it out, and see if it reads better. (It will). People constantly put "that" into sentences that don't need them.

"John got the book which he picked up at the library."
MISSING COMMA! If you're using "which" in the middle, it almost certainly comes after a comma. Missing commas are about as annoying as unnecessary commas.

"John picked up the book, from the library, where it was in the history section, on a shelf."
First comma doesn't need to be there, and the second half of the sentence should be rearranged to say "...where it was on a shelf in the history section." (I would remove the shelf bit completely, but hey, whatever).

I don't I need to address possessive apostrophes, do I? And mixed tenses annoy me no end, but they are very complicated to explain because the rules around tenses conflict with the driving principle of simple writing.

The best B in the league

2011-01-04T09:38:00.000+11:00

Nicki Minaj's album is not quite what I expected. I kinda thought she'd be all "I'm tha bad beeyotch!" and go with the sexualised lyrics that she came out with a year or two ago. Instead, Pink Friday has toned that right down and goes more for the thoughtful and even syrupy songs. It's definitely a good move. I think it might have something to do with the advice Lil Wayne (her boss) gave Drake a while back. Weezy told Drake never to get tattoos, never to get involved with stupid criminal stuff. Because that's what's holding him back from getting a bigger stake in the corporate world. Wayne is covered in tattoos and just spent about a year in jail. Soulja Boy said the same thing in an interview with XXL recently. He looked at what was holding back Lil Wayne, T.I., Gucci Mane and others from continuing their career upwards. It was all legal problems. All three of those rappers released their most popular albums within 18 months of going to prison. It's tough to capitalise on a successful album when you're locked up.

So Nicki Minaj has tried to go mainstream. The beats are quite poppy, with a few recognisable samples and guest spots from Drake, Eminem, Kanye and Will.i.am. They are all fairly poppy and light - except for the Eminem track. Em does NOT HOLD BACK on his verse. And Nicki didn't hold back on hers either, really. Their collaboration, Roman's Revenge, is the only "hood" song on the album.

My favourite song at the moment is Blazin', with Kanye. I love Kanye's verse. It just rolls and flows really well.

This is the moment grab your Kodak while I'm flying with a flow that is the greatest throwback since that Nolan Ryan
And the days been crazy and the nights even wilder
And the lights even brighter, baby stand next to my fire
Only higher is Messiah or notes from Mariah
'Rari six hundred horses, that's my chariot of fire?

It's catchy. And I like "I'm The Best", the opening track.

So fair play, Nicki. Will be interesting to see if you can turn that talent into a hit single that could break through here in Australia and around the world. I think it's possible.

Back in the day

2010-12-28T16:24:00.000+11:00

Things younger me was better at than I am now:

Basketball. My 14-year-old self, only an inch or two shorter but a fair bit skinnier, would kick my ass at the moment. He was a good basketballer, could control the ball well and was creative approaching the basket. Could also hit a jump shot, which I today found out I can't really do anymore.

Risk. My 20-year-old self was a super sharp Risk player. I'd like to think I'd get back into it pretty quickly, but the younger me was pretty good at the strategies. I won more often than not.

Soccer. This is a bit different because I probably have a better understanding of the game now, but my skill level and fitness were higher when I was about 22. That was also the year I did my knee.

Guitar. When I was about 16 I played guitar heaps. I wasn't that great, but I got on okay. I haven't played in a long time and my fingers do not remember the fretboard quite as well.

Now, of course, I'm a better writer than I was. And a better organiser. I'm not entirely sure what 27-year-old me will do better than future me. Hopefully not too much because I would like to keep improving.

Monster Giuseppe Heel, that's the monster shoe

2010-12-17T12:41:00.001+11:00

How good is My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy????

This is how good it is. It makes songs heard on their own sound better because they are part of the album.

This album is meant to be listened to as an album, which is rare in these days of iTunes and downloads. This quote:
It is so good that I went out and bought Nicki Minaj's album, purely off the strength of her verse on Monster. It is a truly breakout, killer verse.

Fantasy is an idiot-savant smash, an example of a musician overreaching, yet triumphing through dumb bravado and an imagination gloriously unfettered by logic. Kanye actually set out to make the album of the year when nobody listens to albums anymore.

I love:
- The opening of Dark Fantasy, when the first chord hits and the choir comes in "Can we get much higher?"
- Nicki's verse on Monster.
- All of the Lights and the driving beat
- The entirety of Lost in the World. So much love for this entire song. It has everything.
- Jay-Z's verse on So Appalled. "I'm so appalled, I might buy the mall, just to show n***** how much more I have in store."
- Runaway. I thought I would hate it. But I don't. In fact, it's really good.
- Power... aaaayyy-aaayyy!

Lynx

2010-12-06T21:50:00.000+11:00

- You might have heard about the guy who sent an email to an entire Federal department trying to find a girl he met at a party. This is his real, heartbreaking, story.

- Lessons in becoming an expert in drawing an owl.

- How a PI tracked down a rapist. Interesting long form piece.

- Pop culture expert surprisingly not ashamed of herself.

- A collection of awkward public kisses and embraces, featuring celebrities like Reese Witherspoon and Ryan Philippe.

- A view on gay marriage not expressed that much. Not saying I agree with it, just interesting.

- Now this is something I've been thinking about for a while. How my personality has developed, what my outlook on life and people in general is... is in a large part down to how I look.

- Cheerleaders who became scientists trying to encourage girls to realise they don't have to limit themselves to traditional fields.

- I really liked this whole (short) post:

Interesting, perhaps still relevant, quote from the preface to H Rider Haggard‘s Marie (1912).

“To-day the flag of England flies from the Zambesi to the Cape. Beneath its shadow may all ancient feuds and blood jealousies be forgotten. May the natives prosper also and be justly ruled, for after all in the beginning the land was theirs.”

Isn’t it fascinating how recent that was? There are people alive today who were around when this was written!

- What it feels like to be suicidal.

- Why we procrastinate (read it later)

- Where have all the great movie lines gone? What was your favourite line from a movie in the last 10 years? I think mine are all from Anchorman.

- Lil Wayne making history from prison

- Weezy and his thoughts on the Miami Heat super team.

- Bill Simmons talks about LeBron's return to Cleveland.

- Carrie Fisher's life

- To finish off, a freaking awesome piece about Michael Jordan from back in 1998 when he retired for the second time.

Get on it

2010-11-22T15:04:00.000+11:00

Quick update on shows you probably should be watching

Community
Yes it took me a while to get it too. But then it just took off and I fell in love. The paintball episode is fantastic. Dooda doesn't like it, but then he didn't like 30 Rock, so take that with a pinch of salt. Season two has been hilarious so far.

Misfits
British, funny, violent, crude, clever, different. Season two is on at the moment, so it's worth getting in to. There is a fair bit of swearing, a bit of violence and the occasional sexy time. So you can take those as positives or negatives depending.

Parks and Recreation
Season one (6 episodes) was so-so. Season two (24 epsiodes) kicked it up a notch to begin with and got better and better. From the creators of the US Office, it is funny, sharp and has a surprising amount of heart. Amy Poehler is great as Leslie, the deputy director of the Pawnee Parks Department. Aziz Anzari is awesome as Tom Haverford. But the real star is Nick Offerman as Department Director Ron Swanson. He hates local government as a concept. It's great.

Glee
It is up and down and can be very heavy handed. But the singing is a lot of fun.

Friday Night Lights
Seriously, if you've heard about the best show on television and haven't been watching it, I feel sorry for you. But I also feel very happy for you. Because it means that one day you will get to watch it and experience joy (maybe for the first time?). The final season, season five, showing now.

Heartbeat

2010-11-21T13:43:00.000+11:00

I have not abandoned thee. I have mountains of links piled up in my Gmail account, waiting to be linked to. Unfortunately I have neither the time nor the energy to extract them. It is sad, yes.

But luckily for me, that blogging time is being taken up with fun and important social activities, like weddings and bucks nights and Christmas drinks with politicians.

So yes, this will probably be my least productive month on this blog. And the next posts will probably come in an avalanche, close together. Just go with it!

A post you should avoid...

2010-11-01T21:49:00.000+11:00

....if you dislike Kim Kardashian.

She was trying out Halloween costumes and posted the results on Twitter.

She ended up with Little Red Riding Hood

Speaking of Twitter, here is Dane Swan and St Kilda's Sam Gilbert in their Halloween costumes

Back to Kim. She has form for Halloween. Like Wonder Woman

And I'm a big fan of Aladdin, so this...

...is two thumbs up.

Okay, back to your regularly scheduled blogging! Actually, about that, I've been struggling to maintain my posting rate (you may have noticed). This is because I've been working pretty hard. I just had a week off and barely had any motivation to write. So yeah. I'll keep doing what I can, because I enjoy it still. But I enjoy it less. That said, this blog is a useful creative outlet for me.

My favourite palindromes

2010-10-29T14:38:00.000+11:00

Palindromes are fun.

My all time favourite is "civic". It just sounds so rounded and complete. Say it. "Civic". Fun.

I don't mind "level". I prefer "Hannah" over "Anna". "Racecar" is pretty cool!

If you're super nerdy, enjoy Demetri Martin's poem: "Dammit I'm mad"

“Dammit I’m mad.
Evil is a deed as I live.
God, am I reviled? I rise, my bed on a sun, I melt.
To be not one man emanating is sad. I piss.
Alas, it is so late. Who stops to help?
Man, it is hot. I’m in it. I tell.
I am not a devil. I level “Mad Dog”.
Ah, say burning is, as a deified gulp,
In my halo of a mired rum tin.
I erase many men. Oh, to be man, a sin.
Is evil in a clam? In a trap?
No. It is open. On it I was stuck.
Rats peed on hope. Elsewhere dips a web.
Be still if I fill its ebb.
Ew, a spider… eh?
We sleep. Oh no!
Deep, stark cuts saw it in one position.
Part animal, can I live? Sin is a name.
Both, one… my names are in it.
Murder? I’m a fool.
A hymn I plug, deified as a sign in ruby ash.
A Goddam level I lived at.
On mail let it in. I’m it.
Oh, sit in ample hot spots. Oh wet!
A loss it is alas (sip). I’d assign it a name.N
ame not one bottle minus an ode by me:
“Sir, I deliver. I’m a dog”
Evil is a deed as I live.
Dammit I’m mad.

Shooting

2010-10-18T16:49:00.000+11:00

A 16 year old Dutch girl shoots a target at fair in 1936. Hitting the target takes a picture. She goes back and hits the target every year from then on.

Cool stuff.

I'm rewaching season 3 of The Wire. It's my favourite season. So much goodness.

Stuff n shizz

2010-10-15T17:53:00.000+11:00

- The Onion is great. This one and this one. And this one.

- Mad Men has reshaped modern fashion.

- Know your stereotypical female characters. A flow chart.

- Minka Kelly has gone from being Lyla Garrity on Friday Night Lights to apparently being the Sexiest Woman Alive. (I actually liked Tyra better).

- Antoine Dodson performs The Bed Intruder Song at the BET Awards. Check out the full version, it's so catchy.

- Former NFL agent admits all in paying players scandal.

- Two Florida dudes dress up as Russian basketball fans, get in newspaper. It's a bit rough to blame the journo for being taken in. It looked a like a good pic story. Still, they should have checked a bit harder.

- Kim Kardashian goes bowling in evening wear.

- If every website got a dramatic movie adaption like The Social Network.

Next step: PROFIT

2010-10-15T17:44:00.000+11:00

Step one: Links

- A Parisian flat sealed up since World War II is opened up to reveal a painting worth $2.1 million.

- Play The Wire monopoly game. Five-O!

- Read the books you see them reading on Mad Men.

- A list of all the programs Windows has to write around due to poorly written code. There are more than 6000.

- Salma Hayek is so beautiful she can even make a red jumpsuit look good. And something with a blue bandanna.

- Too many subjects in behavourial science experiments are WEIRD - Western, educated, industrialised, Rich and democratic.

- McSweeneys can't wait to get into decorative gourd season.

- Amazing collection of pics from Floridan housing developments.

- What happens if you put "Liz Lemon..." in front of Kanye's tweets?

- The complete Liz Lemon flashback collection:

Step two: ?

Step three: PROFIT

Sports thoughts

2010-10-11T10:58:00.001+11:00

1) Does Collingwood need Chris Tarrant? No. Is he a useful addition to a team going for another premiership? Yes. He will replace Presti in the backline and offer more speed and agility. Taz will also be a really good option to replace Ben Reid and Nathan Brown if they get injured. Reid and Brown are both 22 and share a house. They will share Collingwood's backline for another decade or so. But Tarrant, 30, has a couple of good years left and will be part of a backline squad. Collingwood showed that football is becoming a squad game. Your best 22 is no longer enough. You need a best 30 to cover for injuries, suspensions, loss of form and to match up against different teams. It's the Manchester United model, which every club has copied in Europe over the last few years.

2) The Bulldogs have rejuvenated well. Justin Sherman is an outside runner coming into his prime, while Mitch Wallis and Tom Liberatore are father/son selections with pace and skill. Goodbye Aker, Brad Johnston and Nathan Eagleton.

3) Brisbane... it's hard to know. I thought they'd be great this year, they were for five games, then things turned horrible. They've traded away Sherman, Michael Rischitelli and Jared Brennan - three players in their prime, with the good years still to come. A strange decision. But they've picked up heaps of draft picks, and they still have some good players. With Jonathan Brown in your team you can do anything. A fit Fev and Brown and who knows??

4) Geelong has a chance to prove the Ewing Theory. It's when a team loses its superstar and everyone writes them off, and they actually go better the next year. Based on Patrick Ewing, the great Knicks centre, whose teams played better without him. He was a weapon, but for some reason his teams did better when he was injured or gone. Time for Selwood to show he's worth the big wraps and big dollars and take over games like Ablett did.

5) Who knows what will happen with Carlton? Judd was great, Murphy was good but hasn't learned how to break hard tags, and Bryce Gibbs... is taking his time maturing. Carlton's top 8 players are damn good - the rest aren't so good. Andrew Walker may well thrive somewhere else.

6) Why do batsmen always "save their Test career" with a big hundred? You know what I want? I want a batsman to make runs to WIN GAMES FOR AUSTRALIA, rather than so they can stick around and be s*** for another five Tests. Shane Watson is the only player I feel will reliably make runs. WHEN DID THIS HAPPEN? I mean, I've always been a big Watson fan. He was awesome for Tassie. But you could never call him reliable. Now he's the big man at the top of the order.

7) Marcus North... all of Australia is expecting you to screw us over during the Ashes. Will you do a Hussey and do nothing for four Tests, only to make a big score in the final match when it's all over and the pressure is off? Or will you make a big score in a huge win and live off that for the rest of the summer, slowly finding new ways to suck? I would love you to deliver like you were a while back. It would be great. Please do it. I'm just saying we don't expect it.

8) The Opals' performance in the World Championships was a bit embarrassing. Fifth in the world. Losing to the Czech Republic. The only silver lining I can see (not that we got close to silver... fifth... pffff) is that now we know what we need to do to win gold at London 2012. Liz Cambage will be two years older and more experienced, the team will have more time together. The big worry is that Lauren Jackson will finally break down and her body won't be able to bang it in the paint anymore. We need a healthy Jackson and a firing Cambage to physically dominate other teams, while our guards can match it with anyone.

Mostly ladies in dresses

2010-10-07T20:23:00.000+11:00

Some more links while I'm writing random stuff at home:

- Thanks to Shiloh for Tackyweddings.com. Oh wow, I thought these pics were a hoax but it turns out there have been at least two of these dresses worn at weddings. (Warning, RIDICULOUS cleavage. Must have been extremely awkward for the groomsmen. Trying to look anywhere but their mate's new wife's décolletage). Also, this:

I want sherbert for some reason.

- From the ridiculous to the sublime. Maybe?

More Kim K at Octoberfest. And at Coco Chanel.

- Christina Hendricks update: Ladies love hitting on her. And she looks comfy in bare feet and cute glasses.

- Russian students release a lingerie calendar to celebrate Vladimir Putin's birthday. Those crazy Russians!

New post!

2010-10-05T22:00:00.001+11:00

Some news links

- Kim Jong-Il names his son a General. He is likely to be his successor. His older brother has been ruled out for the reasons below.

According to Kenji Fujimoto, who worked as personal sushi chef to Kim Jong-il and knew his young "princes" well, it was obvious from his childhood that Jong-un would eventually take over from his father.

As a boy, Jong-un drove a Mercedes-Benz with specially adapted pedals and seat around the grounds of his father's home. He liked Chinese food and sushi, especially squid and the finest cuts of tuna, and he was a precocious smoker of Mr Fujimoto's menthol cigarettes.

"The older brother, Jong Chul, had the warm heart of a girl," Mr Fujimoto told The Times last year. "The younger prince, Jong-un, was a boy of inner strength.

- Someone has targeted Iran's nuclear plant in a cyber attack... and some signs point to Israel. Pro. It's a pretty interesting attack. It has been destroying computerised industrial equipment.

- Queensland bans the bikini sprint.

Some opinion links

- Marieke Hardy gets in trouble for being a bit disgusting about Christopher Pyne. Her article got pulled and the editor of The Drum apologised for running it. This is a trend in opinion writing from the left in Australia. Opinion writers on the right tend towards cynical hyperbole, while those on the left lean towards vicious personal abuse. Each to their own I suppose. (This is just my observation. It's based on a lot of reading of Australian opinion writing, but is by no means comprehensive.)

- Senator Stephen Conroy talks about his emotions... in reference to Collingwood.

- Interesting piece from Sam De Brito about blokes kissing blokes. Not my cup of tea (too prickly around the lips, obviously). He raises some questions about homophobia.

- Opinion writers from around Australia give their gripes about the responses they get. I have to agree that people who don't actually read the article and then proceed to straw man it are the most annoying.

Some pictures

- Kim Kardashian in Bebe.

She is a bit gorgeous.

Thanks Shaun for that one.

Hee hee hee this is Josh Holloway (AKA Sawyer from Lost). From Fire Your Agent. Lots of embarrassing old modelling shots of famous actors. Jensen Ackles from Supernatural (and Dark Angel and Dawson's Creek) cops it the worst.

Some other links

- The Oatmeal explains why email can mean HATE. And why you should not use the word "literally".

- 10 Great Science Fiction Books That Have Been Banned.

- Fascinating article about a master thief who stole a massive pearl when he skydived onto the roof of the palace it was in. And how he got caught by random Canadian police years later.

- A comic about working at "Docklands Entertainment (clearly Channel 7). Funny.

YOOUUUU Crank dat Soulja Boy

2010-09-25T10:34:00.001+10:00

Hee hee hee

I LOVE this song from Gladys Knight and the Pips. Truly love it. It's one of my favourites from the 70s. Anyway, this clip of Ben Stiller, Jack Black and Robert Downey Jr as backup dancers to Gladys is great.

- Bill Simmons makes the point after the FIBA World Championships: never bet against Kevin Durant.

We went into this tournament thinking Rose and Rondo were the two best under-24 point guards in some order. Rondo got sent home, then Westbrook outplayed Rose so convincingly in the tournament that, at some point, everyone who loves basketball glanced around in confusion and said, "Hold on, does Oklahoma City now have the best young guard AND the best young player in the league?"

- I love Jon Hamm and Blake Lively talking. Jon does such a good job as Don Draper. I've read that it's difficult for him, because Don is such a horrible man and Jon isn't. And Serena Van Der Woodsen is gorgeous. Seriously.

- Speaking of Bill Simmons, write your own Sports Guy article with this Mad Lib form.

- SPOILER FOR TRUE BLOOD. This is a video from Jessica's video diary.

- A Carlton fan learns to appreciate Collingwood players for who they are.

- Fiddy and Lil Kim in the studio

50 Cent's Twitter feed is ridiculous. It's stream of consciousness beefs with other rappers, comments on leadership, and explicit recaps of his latest sexual encounters. When I said it was ridiculous, I meant it is awesome.

- All actresses were young at some point. Christina Hendricks appeared in what is known as one of the worst soaps ever. Undressed. Here she arrives at a friend's house with a surprise guest. I won't spoil the entrance, except to say that it is horrible.

There are three other clips on that site... so so so bad.

- Tony Martin has a website! The Scrivener's Fancy. And he gets people to write things for it. It's good!

- This is Oktoberfest

Kardashian style.

- This is great. Emma's husband built a countdown website one day and left it running... and heaps of people signed up to use it. Countdowndays.

Apparently there's a market out there for counting down to (or up from) events, because thousands of random strangers have created a total of 16,000 countdowns (and ups).

There are countdowns to babies, weddings and holidays, there's a countdown to deer season (71 days, 0 hours, 59 minutes, 58 seconds), one to retirement (806 days, 1 hour, 0 minutes, 48 seconds) and one to going home (0 days, hours, 0 minutes, 0 seconds).

- This

- Michael Pascoe says: just you wait til China and India REALLY get their economies going. Then Australia will be kicking it with CAAAAAAAASH.

- Sam De Brito on Australia's Champion Douchebag Matthew Newton:

Newton's mother said she feared for Taylor's safety and told her so, but I wonder if she warned any of her son's male friends.

Abusers pick their marks: people weaker than them.

You can bet Newton did not fly into a violent rage with Peter Phelps or Peter O'Brien while shooting Underbelly. When he lost it visiting Taylor on the set of Red Dog he didn't do it in front of her fellow actors Noah Taylor, Josh Lucas or Luke Ford.

- Some noob on Australian culture. He reckons the mining tax debate shows we're okay with inequality.

Clive Hamilton, professor of public ethics at Charles Sturt University, says the controversy is indicative of a belief among Australians that people's circumstances are a result of their own efforts, and that rich people deserve to be rich.

Yeah, damn, how crazy is it that people who work hard want to keep the rewards of their hard work? Buffoons! Some rich people have it easy, and some poor people have it rough. But should we really be discouraging hard work?

- Great article about the NBN. Similar to something I wrote my column on during the election. The NBN shows some vision. It will be HORRIBLY EXPENSIVE and probably won't work as well as promised. But it shows some vision.

- No, Gen Y isn't apathetic on poverty.

- Why are non-Americans so ready to believe the worst of Americans? Why the hell did ANYBODY pay attention to a crackpot pastor who wanted to burn a Koran? Guaranteed there are similar tools in Australia, England and France.

- Sam De Brito says it's good being born white. It's something I've considered. How much of my outlook on life and personality is based on my skin colour, height, and level of attractiveness? Maybe if I was a short, ugly, Blasian I wouldn't have the same personality that I do now. And that's interesting to me.

- How much is the mafia inspired by Hollywood and how much the other way around? Interesting bit about the Russian mafia looking to American film and TV for tips.

- If this kid can smile, so can you.

- 6 Brutal Leaders and their Ridiculous Secret Hobbies.

- 6 Insane Foreign Memes. Australia gets a mention!

- The most ridiculous magazines of all time.

- AWWW! Kids find their widowed mum a new husband online.

GO PIES.

I'm nervous because of history, not a lack of confidence in this team

2010-09-23T21:40:00.000+10:00

Points about the Grand Final

1) This is the best Collingwood team I've seen in my lifetime. It is incredibly even, but also very skilled. Players like Tarkyn Lockyer, Josh Fraser, Shane O'Bree, Paul Medhurst, Nathan Brown and Tyson Goldsack would be in the first 22 of many other clubs. They aren't even in the team for Saturday. Not because they're too old or bad players. It's because they're skill levels are not quite good enough. It's a good thing to know that the 22 players in the team are better, because the guys who are left out are great.

2) The game plan has taken three years to come together. It's why other clubs may find it tough to catch up to Collingwood and St Kilda in this. The players have committed to it. The game plan means everyone plays a role, and doesn't play for stats. Geelong coach Mark Thompson said he tried to introduce something similar, but his players wouldn't go along with it. They liked how they were playing. Fair enough, it worked beautifully - but it doesn't cut it anymore.

3) Darren Jolly and Luke Ball have been huge additions. Jolly is a dominant ruckman. One of the top 5 in the AFL. Ball... is at the bottom of every pack. He's added a hardness that has allowed the Pies to give Dane Swan the ball more often. He used to go looking for it - now Ball gives it to him, and he uses it well. Steele Sidebottom, Dayne Beams, Chris 'Early' Dawes, Brent Macaffer and Sharrod Wellingham have improved tremendously too. Collingwood's improvement has come from those recruits, young players getting significantly better, and everyone committing to the game plan.

4) I don't understand the hatred for Collingwood out there. If we had been dominantly successful, then fair enough. But we haven't been that since the 1950s. We've won one premiership since 1958. We're not the freaking Yankees or Lakers or Manchester United. All anyone alive today can remember is Collingwood losing grand finals. Hardly something to build hatred on. It would be like hating Swindon Town for all the success they had in the 1910s.

Perhaps it's the arrogance? That was definitely a factor. But supporters today don't have the arrogance that they did. Carlton supporters are more arrogant. Try talking to a Geelong supporter!! They think they're freaking God's Gift to Football. What with "the way it's meant to be played" and the recruiting of a bunch of nice blokes who happen to be amazingly talented on the field and humble off it. So Collingwood is not nearly as arrogant as other clubs.

Yes, we do have a working class supporter base. And in the past, that has meant racism. Obviously we weren't the only club with racist supporters, but we were the best-supported club, so we probably had more of them. That's all changed now. Eddie McGuire has overseen a cultural change at the club. It's still got working class roots - but the positive aspects of those are to the forefront now, not the negative ones.

Perhaps it's Eddie? He is everywhere. But he's a passionate bloke who came from a poor background who has made his own way in the world. It's a really good story. A positive story. Broadmeadows boy made good. So maybe people hate him because he's been successful? And because he passionately supports a football club? It can't be that, because millions of other Australians support teams with one eye removed.

So I'm not entirely sure why people hate Collingwood. I think it's just that people are expected to hate them. So they do. Logic is not a part of the decision. Emotion is not part of the decision. Expectation is.

5) I wouldn't begrudge St Kilda a victory. I have a soft spot for them. They've been through a lot of heartache, and I really like Nick Riewoldt, Lenny Hayes, Nick Dal Santo and Brendan Goddard. But if they win, it'll be because we lost it. I think Collingwood's best is better than St Kilda's best. If St Kilda win, it will be like Hawthorn in 2008. Geelong had the better team, but they bottled it on the day.

6) Collingwood by 40 points.

Ella ella ella, ay ay ay

2010-09-13T23:17:00.000+10:00

Lynx!

50Cent has a Twitter feed. Here is one where someone translates his posts into English. It's great.

- Best magazine cover finalists.

- Video of deaf baby getting a cochlear implant being turned on for the first time.

- What did it cost to be Kanye this week?

- A controversial bio of M.I.A. - she wasn't stoked about it.

- Awesome piece from a writer on Conan O'Brien, talking about the ill-fated Tonight Show stint.

- Hating on Tony Blair is a lot of fun, but perhaps he doesn't deserve the criticism.

- Caroline Wozniacki is a fox. And a good tennis player.

- The Onion is classic. I love these headlines:
Archeologists Unearth Lousiest Civilisation Ever
Guy Carrying Guitar Case On Elevator Envied By Everyone On Elevator, Imagines Guy

- Now THIS is a real independent.

In an all-night conscience vote on euthanasia in the mid-1990s, the socially conservative Lewis surprised colleagues by rising to support the legislation on the grounds that, while working as a mercenary in the Thai jungle some years ago, he shot dead one of his fellow soldiers in a mercy killing after he had been mortally wounded by Marxist guerrillas.

- A post I wrote back in September 2008 about the AFL Grand Final. Shaun and Emi and I have differing opinions on the value of the Tasmanian tourism arrangement with Hawthorn.

- Kanye West turns to Twitter to try to get his message across.

- Would it be a blog post without a mention of Christina Hendricks.

All-Ireland Final

2010-09-07T22:05:00.000+10:00

Cool hair.

In other news:
- It's harder being anti-war when your preferred president is in charge and the war is still going. Activists are finding it tougher to maintain the rage.

- Apparently Christina Hendricks had to beg designers to make her dresses.

Lawren has to beg, buttering up the designer, saying Christina is a 'huge, huge fan' of their work. Yet nine times out of ten, it is still a flat 'No'.
'They'll say: ''Unfortunately, we don't have the sizes to support her,'' or ''Unfortunately, we only have a size two or four." '
For the Emmys, a handful of designers - Dolce & Gabbana, Dior, Donna Karan - said they wanted to help, but were too busy to make something specially for Christina.

- Katy Perry's parents think Russell Brand is going to be a "man of God".It's possible. It'd certainly be interesting. Anyway I love that she had to tell her mum and Russell to stop flirting.

- Former Collingwood player Chris Bryan joins Tampa Bay as a kicker.

- Tommy Conlon in the Irish Independent had a crack at Aussie Rules football. He reckons it's a game with no skill. He reckons it's lucky former Collingwood player Marty Clarke came back to Ireland before his "brain turned to mush".

[Clarke] played 46 senior games for Collingwood in the AFL, but obviously had far too much brainpower for a sport that requires no brainpower at all.

It is stupid, of course. Especially when viewed in the light of this other article in the Irish Independent, which recommends young Irish players staying in Australia to avoid the intense spotlight the Irish system puts on them.

Overall, since 1984, Gaelic football has probably lost Jim Stynes, Marty Clarke, Colm Begley, Tadhg Kennelly, Setanta ó hAilpín and Tommy Walsh to the AFL. And some of those boys came back. But how many have we lost to rugby? How many to soccer?
It's easy pickings to say that the invaders/non-natives are the culprits here; the people stealing our local talent. But what about the guys at Marty's level who are literally wrecked by the time they're 22 because of the pressures county teams put on their better players.

The other issue is that Marty Clarke has gone back to Gaelic Football as an absolute star. He is leading his team to an All-Ireland Final off the back of his pace, endurance and creative kicking game. He's also powerful in the tackle. He's a weapon. Where do you think he learned that? He's only 22. He could return to AFL, or he could go on being one of the best players in Ireland. But the professionalism and skills he's showing now, he learned in the AFL.

Connie, Joan and Bill

2010-09-05T10:24:00.000+10:00

Links!

- The decline of gossip reporting in New York City.

- Pete Campbell's bitchface Tumblr. What it says on the tin.

- The story behind the hacking of Prince William and Prince Harry's phones. And why Scotland Yard didn't want to investigate further.

- Check out these screenshots of the reoccuring newspaper. This article explains where it comes from.

- Behind the scenes on Mad Men.

- More Bill Simmons, asking why Shaq signed with the Celtics. He reckons it's because he still hates Kobe, and his competitive juices are flowing now that Kobe has one more Championship ring than he does. Kobe hasn't forgotten the "Tell me how my ass taste" rap that Shaq did after he won a ring in Miami without Kobe.

You might remember the press conference after Game 7 of the 2010 Finals -- or, as it's known in my house, "The Night That Led To Dad Not Speaking To Anyone For Five Days" -- when Kobe couldn't conceal his delight when someone asked what the title meant to him personally, saying "I got one more than Shaq! You can take that to the bank."
Everyone laughed. Then Kobe added cryptically, "You guys know how I am. … I don't forget anything."
He's not kidding. A few minutes before, when everyone was celebrating in the Lakers locker room, Kobe let everyone know how much he enjoyed passing Shaq in the ring department. He did it loudly. Boisterously. Euphorically. With a few expletives. I've heard this story a few different ways, but in each version, Kobe sounded a little like Tupac lighting everyone up at the end of "Hit 'Em Up." But "everyone" was Shaq. You know, a little revenge for the "Tell Me How My Ass Taste" rap. And that's fine. I love this stuff. It warms my heart to know that, in an era in which the league's best players would rather join forces than beat one another, two of the best 12 players of all time still despise each other.

- If you want to know more about the Shaq vs Kobe feud, it has its own Wikipedia page.

- Connie Britton gets a "Well played" from the Fug Girls. She's so wonderful. I love Friday Night Lights.

Ay oh ay oh ay

2010-09-01T22:17:00.001+10:00

Links to the linky links.

First of all, a tshirt for y'all.

As Shaun said, it's hard to know if the shirt was created by someone who loves her or hates her. That's why it's great.

Well RedHead is awesome. It's Leigh Sales, aka the woman on the ABC's election night coverage.
- Here she links to YoungMe, NowMe, people recreating photos from their childhood. It's lovely.
- Why nice people turn horrible when they get into positions of power. This happens at every level.

- Here's an absolutely horrible story. An indepth look at people who leave their children in cars. It happens across all groups, with no difference for race, sex, education, religion or any other social factor. It's devastating.

- Following up on a previous link, a sex addict who went to rehab talks about how he dealt with his time out of the rehab centre. And how quickly he relapsed. Graphic language and themes.

- A great interview with Bill Simmons, in which he talks about heaps and heaps of things. Mostly basketball. So awesome.

- Looking back on Michael Jordan's baseball experiment.

- One in four lap dancers in England has a degree.

- Someone at the New York Times writes about twentysomethings and how much they suck apparently. I would read it, but it's 10 pages long. TOO LONG DID NOT READ.

- Heather Morris (AKA Brittany from Glee) looks awesome at the Emmys:

Mad Men's Christina Hendricks always creates debate at these events. Basically because she has to find ways to make her figure look good without overstepping the mark towards too voluptuous (not sure if you saw that 'controversy' but it was ridiculous). Sometimes she gets it right, other times not. She had a crack here, and I think she managed it fairly well. Yes, the bosom is prominent, but you try wrangling those things into a designer dress usually made for a size 0.

Her waist looks tiny. It's a Zac Posen dress, and according to this article, she loved it because it was a different colour to her usual wardrobe and it actually fit with very little alteration. The Fug Girls weren't sure about the sleeves.

EDITED to add:
This looks fun:

This song is called "I'm so sad, so very very sad"

2010-08-26T22:36:00.001+10:00

If you've read a bad review of Scott Pilgrim, I can set your mind at ease. It's great. Without spoiling anything I can tell you that it's got a solid story. It's worth going in with the mindset that Scott thinks he's a nice guy, but is actually a bit of a jerk when it comes to dealing with women. It will explain a lot about the start and how some women react to him.

Now, if you want a breakdown of why I think the story is strong, SPOILERS BELOW.

Yes, Scott thinks he's a nice guy. But he clearly is a bit of a player with women. He just doesn't see himself that way. He's happy to coast through.

When he meets Ramona he realises she's the girl of his dreams (literally). He wants her. He goes hard for her. Unfortunately he's too much a wuss to break up with Knives Chau first, so he strings her along until she says she loves him... and that's when he dumps her. Yes, Scott is a jerk.

So he falls hard for Ramona. Unfortunately he realises she has issues. Basically, issues with her ex boyfriends. This is a pretty regular thing for a lot of guys to deal with. So Scott starts to fight for her. It gets difficult. He's never had to actually fight for something before. He loses heart, especially after he fights Roxy, immediately after defeating Todd.

Scott thinks her issues are too much to deal with. He gets frustrated and lashes out verbally at Ramona, which makes her realise that he is just as much of a jerk as her exes. Things aren't great.

Scott's friends remind him that it's time to grow up. Wallace wants his own space, and that means Scott moving out. Scott can't just be "that guy" anymore. It helps that he gets a passive-aggressive call from Gideon, the 7th evil ex and Ramona's controlling boyfriend. Scott realises that he loves Ramona and is willing to keep fighting for her, even though her issues are overwhelming.

He has a go. He reveals he loves Ramona and fights for her. It isn't enough. Why? Because he hadn't learned the lessons about himself. Luckily he has a second chance (he reloads!). He learns that he has been the guy that he's had to fight against, and it's not what he wanted to be. He learned some humility.

It meant he apologised to Kim for how he had treated her and behaved. He recognised he had cheated on both Knives and Ramona. He realised he wanted to fight for Ramona not just because he loved her, but because he needed to earn his own self respect. Finally, he had to face himself. He made peace with himself. Then after all that, he pursued Ramona again. Because he had fought through all her issues, learned a lot about himself on the way, and was still in love with her.

-------------------------------------

It's a good film. Apart from everything I said there, it's also HILARIOUS. And amazingly well cut. It tells the story of a journey that many young men go on. Marrying their self-image with their actual personality. The music is fun, the characters are great, and the action is good. The video game references, the Seinfeld bit, the random comic stuff. It's a lot of fun. Seriously see it.

Hung up on you

2010-08-23T15:29:00.001+10:00

Well that was fun. My observations:

1) Wilkie is not home in Denison yet. If Jonathan Jackson squeaks home then Labor needs to look hard to what it has done in the electorate to suffer such a huge swing.
2) The Libs' national broadband plan was a loser (I wrote a whole column about it). It cost them terribly in Tasmania, losing one senator and turning two marginal seats in safe Labor seats. Now it looms as the issue they need to resolve to win the independents' support. Abbott would do well to change his broadband plan based on that (and also because his original plan was crap). Unfortunately, the Coalition had banked on saving the NBN money and using it to return the budget to surplus.
3) The result should NEVER have been this close. Labor should have got home, with a reduced majority. That is how politics works in Australia. This result says a few things. Labor have been embarrassingly poor. The Libs have not escaped from the shadows of their past just yet. And the majority of Australians have not yet figured out that voting for the Greens is not a protest vote.
4) The Greens have said they would work with any party to form government. This is clearly untrue. I asked Christine Milne about it yesterday - could you actually form government with Tony Abbott and Eric Abetz? - and she said it was still unclear who would win the election. Picture this: Abbott and Milne shaking hands while Bob Brown and Eric Abetz high five in the background. Not happening.

Still lots of fun to go! Here are some links!
- That feeling you're getting isn't an illness. It's the possibility of a Collingwood flag.

The fear is a reflex. It pierces directly into the soul. It's not a learned reaction. It's innate to the human condition. The odd part is it strikes on both sides of the divide. Collingwood is shaping to win the AFL premiership for the first time in two decades. The prospect unnerves those born to believe equally as those programmed to despise.

- Peter Costello in The Age raises some interesting quotes that highlight a lack of judgment.

"Mark Latham has made a real connection with Australians" and "Mark's the one who is putting forward a vision for Australia". "He's got the capacity to govern".

Who said that in 2004? Julia Gillard MHR. He may be a tool, but he's Labor's tool, and he was the tool they wanted to rule the country in 2004.

- A long but fascinating piece about Jessica Rudd's novel about politics, in which a PM gets knifed by his female deputy. The comments about the Howard family are interesting too.

- Americans don't get New Zealand humour apparently. I can't wait to see Boy.

- Natalie Tran (aka communitychannel) apparently brings in US$100k a year thanks to her YouTube videos. It's big money, but understandably on Facebook the other day she was pretty upset about an invasion of her privacy.

- Don't piss off television writers - because they can get revenge in front of millions of people.

- Back on politics, I loved this article. It's something I've been thinking about for some time. There's a column in it.

Now, entertainment!

2010-08-16T13:25:00.000+10:00

So Aussies are "taking over Hollywood" again. While I totally recognise this is part of the Australian "we cannot believe something we made is good unless it is validated in England or the USA" cultural cringe... I still feel it too. I love it when our actors or sportspeople or musicians do well overseas. Geez, even when Savage Garden had a couple of top 10 US hits I was like "nice work, Savage Garden".

All that said, the article makes some interesting points about Australian masculinity.

Di Bonaventura says the pool of US actors who radiate genuine toughness is drying up, so he and other producers and directors are forced to look globally, particularly Australia.

"I think there is something that is going on in American culture which is interesting - the toughness is getting a little bit eliminated from the culture," said di Bonaventura, while doing the promotional rounds for Red.

It might not be true, but I'll take the compliment. I'm wearing a flannie right now, so yeah, we tough.

Speaking of masculinity, this blog from Sam de Brito was great.

"Civilians balk at recognizing that one of the most traumatic things about combat is having to give it up," writes Junger, "and yet throughout history, men like ... O'Byrne have come home to find themselves desperately missing what should have been the worst experience of their lives.

"To a combat vet, the civilian world can seem frivolous and dull, with very little at stake and all the wrong people in power. When men say they miss combat, it's not that they actually miss getting shot at - you'd have to be deranged - it's that they miss being in a world where everything is important and nothing is taken for granted.

- In praise of Inception. Yes, it really was great. This article points out how the film mirrors the issues involved in making films. A really good reading of the movie.

- Kanye on Twitter. He used to hate it, now he's the best thing on it.

- Someone hatin' on Mad Men. I get where he's coming from. I find it hard to articulate why the show is so great. But I find it really good to watch. It's adult and complex and morally ambiguous.

- Want to take down the world's cyber structures? Spend two years and $100 million and you can do it.

- The Bedroom Philosopher coming back to Burnie, with his Awkwardstra. Great name.

- Is Eat Pray Love just more "white girl problems"?

- The journo who wrote Black Hawk Down talks about writing.

- An amazing account of a guy who entered rehab for sex addiction. This one is a bit graphic in terms of some of the things he talks about (no pictures, obv). Most pertinent was this quote:

My therapist said the fact I was aroused by **** and ****** **** meant I had brain damage, simple as that. His conclusion took a couple of days to sink in. Essentially, the part of my mind responsible for rational decision-making has been overridden by a huge desire for more pleasure chemicals, and I do stupid, dangerous things to get those chemicals no matter the consequences. That's addiction.

- Here is an interview with someone who has overcome sex addiction - Russell Brand talks to weekend television's most attractive presenter, Samantha Armytage.

Yes, they flirt. He is a terrible flirt.

First up: Politics!

2010-08-16T12:54:00.000+10:00

So, this weekend we vote. Without getting too much into my opinions (as I will be paid to write them for Saturday's paper!) there are some key things to consider about this election:

1) People in NSW and Queensland HATE Labor, and with good reason.
2) There is something a little bit rotten going on in Labor, and I see a lack of "true believers". The ones who are there - are leaving (Tanner, Faulkner).
3) If Gillard wins, she will face three years of backstabbing, backbiting and ugly politics. Live by the factions, die by the factions.

Anyway, here are some good articles.
- Paul Daley in the SMH argues Ms Gillard should have called the election later. (H/T Craig)
- David Penberthy on The Punch (former Daily Telegraph editor) reckons Abbott will win because the Coalition will claim the marginal seats.
- Annabel Crabb (Australia's best columnist) on The Drum gives her take on the election if Abbott and Gillard were allowed to speak freely.

My pick? This far out, I'm tipping Labor, but possibly only by one or two seats.

International politics
Things don't seem to be going so well in America. According to SMH journo Helen Pitt, they've lost that "can-do confidence". An interesting piece from an Australian perspective.
- This article, from a left-wing perspective, says President Obama's legacy is on the line. I don't think it is, but then, his polls are pretty bad apparently.

Don't flirt with this taboo

2010-08-08T12:48:00.000+10:00

A good piece on Bill Henson from The Age

He is flirting with one of the last great taboos, and it is not puritanism or ''pandemic fear'' (his words) to ask: is there a moral issue with photos taken for adults that dwell so intently on the sexual awakening of children?

Should there be limits to artistic expression? I am not a believer in art for the sake of art, or that anything can be considered art. There are works that are pleasing to the eye, there are works that are confronting in order to send a message. There are works that are entertaining.

It is the works that send a message that seem to be most in danger of being misused. "This drawing of a man having sex with a horse is a comment on the relationship between man and nature. This photograph of the same thing is a similar comment, but it takes it a step further and adds the immediacy of the modern age into the dichotomy."

Society has taboos for a reason. Incest, paedophilia, a whole bunch of others I won't name because I don't want people searching for them and finding my blog.

I understand some things were taboo once and are no longer. Interracial relationships, women owning property etc. Perhaps art played a part in changing those things. But can anyone really tell me that artistically flirting with the taboos we currently have will result in a good change? Will anything change for the better if people continue to photograph children entering puberty in a sexual light?

Or maybe I'm too old-fashioned?

A post that isn't just links...

2010-08-02T16:49:00.000+10:00

...and no pics of Christina Hendricks.

Some observations on the football

- I know people hate Collingwood, and for good reason. They play attractive football, score goals, defend well, and display a team mentality often lacking in professional sport these days. It's sickening. But if you can overlook all that, you will see a team that is really doing the biz in almost every way. Mick Malthouse has added hard bodied, experienced players (Ball, Jolly, Brown) to the established core (Swan, Maxwell, Shaw, Didak, Davis, Cloke, O'Brien, Pendlebury), and brought on young players who show no fear (Beams, Sidebottom, Dawes, Toovey, Blair). It's a potent mix. This is the best Collingwood team I've seen in my lifetime. I guess the 1990 Premiership team was bloody good too, but it was slightly before my time (I did start supporting Collingwood in that year though).

- All that said, Collingwood may not have enough to beat Geelong at their peak. The Cats are running hot again. It's scary how good they are. I can only hope Gary Ablett Jr comes out before the finals and announces he's leaving to go to the Gold Coast. It might upset the apple cart enough for the Pies to snatch a key win. We'll find out this weekend if Collingwood have improved enough to tackle a red-hot Geelong.

- Brisbane... where to start? A debacle of a season. Someone said the other week to judge the team next year after all the new signings have had time to settle in. I don't know. They've actually got worse as the season has progressed. Surely they should be settling in better? This could ruin all that good work Voss did in his first season as coach.

- Got to say, I'm still enjoying West Coast's demise. HAHAHA. Fun. Other people irrationally hate Collingwood, I irrationally hate West Coast. And Essendon. But seriously, HAHAHAHAHA West Coast suck.

- I want to make a public apology to the young Richmond fan who sat in front of me and Dr Harry at the preseason game vs Hawthorn at Aurora Stadium. While watching that performance (one of the worst I have seen), we were dead certain the Tigers would not win a game in 2010. We discussed their chances of ever getting a high draft pick in the next three years (chance: zero). We said how they had no one coming through. We said it would be three years of pain for Richmond. Well, young bloke who had to listen to us (justifyably) verbally destroy your team - I apologise. Turns out Damien Hardwick is a better coach than we gave him credit for.

- Also, on Richmond, who in the AFL thought Jack Riewoldt wouldn't make it as a goal scoring forward? Anyone - anyone - who watched him play for the Tassie Devils in the VFL as a 17-year-old would have known he could do it. Why? Because as a skinny, light weight 17-year-old, he regularly kicked multiple goals against hard-bodied, AFL listed players. That takes skills and intelligence. Once he added the bulk and got a few games under his belt, he was going to take off. I thought he went low in the draft at the time, and now other people are recognising it too. Also, got to give Richmond credit for playing Richo on the wing that season to allow Riewoldt the chance to develop up forward. Not only did it give Richo a real chance at the Brownlow (a crying shame when he missed out), but the dividends are paying off handsomely now with Jack's goal-kicking form.

- Melbourne are a game and half outside the eight. Ridiculous, I know. They won't make it... but they could go very close. Considering they were missing a few players through injury this year, it's a great effort. The Jim Stynes effect could get them over the line.

- On North Melbourne moving to Hobart for a few games, I have this to say.
1) It would be their fourth base outside Melbourne in eight years. Sydney, Canberra and the Gold Coast didn't work. Why would Hobart?
2) More than $20 million needs to be spent on Bellerive to get it to AFL standard, including removing the Hill and adding a drop-in wicket. Nice way to ruin the cricket.
3) North Melbourne are uninspiring. They look at the Hawks and the success that has been. They're not realising just how well the stars aligned for Hawthorn. A young team, an absolute superstar in Buddy Franklin who brings people to games, an unexpected premiership early on in the deal, and a huge latent supporter base from the 1980s. North has none of those things. The team is uninspiring and has no one to attract new supporters.
4) Hobart people do not have a culture of going to sporting events. It's unfortunate, and no fault of ours. We have been starved of national winter sport for so long that it doesn't occur to us. When we do have some sport - like the Tassie Devils in the VFL - we only go along when they're successful.
5) The Mercury is pushing this hard, because their readers only care about AFL football. They don't give a stuff about local football (which is why it is covered intermittently). The Merc wants to write about the big time. AFL is the big time. And it's in Launceston right now. I work for the opposition, sure, but I'm a Hobart person born and bred. I would love to see AFL games here. Unfortunately, the deal on the table will not work. Richmond could make it work. North will not.

- There are a few footy books coming out worth reading. Andrew McLeod's autobiography will let everyone know what happened between him and Tyson Edwards that meant they did not speak to each other for FIVE YEARS, despite playing in the same team that entire time. Mental. David Schwarz talking about his massive gambling debts and when his father got shot dead by a masked gunman should be interesting. And, of course, Aker. Damn. That is going to be a good read.

- Carlton suck sometimes and I like that.

Things and stuff!

2010-07-28T21:44:00.000+10:00

Is it weird that I'm SUPER excited about this movie based on the fact that two actors I think are awesome are in it?? It is weird, isn't it.

Battleship will be directed by Peter Berg, who previously helmed superhero movie Hancock. True Blood actor Alexander Skarsgård and Taylor Kitsch of Friday Night Lights will star as brothers who must protect the world from invasion. Both will play naval offices, although Kitsch’s character will be wilder than Skarsgard’s.

Rihanna is in it too. Rihanna, Riggins and Eric Northman. VS ALIENS. ON A BATTLESHIP.

- Scissor Sisters perform with a special guest. Would have been a good show.

- Christina Hendricks a great role model for girls, says British MP.

- Daniel Craig to star in remake of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. Why? The Swedish version was really good, if supersupersupersuper intense in one particular scene.

- iPad owners are "over-achieving, selfish elites."

IPAD owners are six times more likely to be wealthy, highly educated and sophisticated 30-50 year olds who value power and achievement. They're also selfish and unkind, according to a survey of 20,000 people conducted by US consumer research firm MyType.

Heh heh heh.

- Lauryn Hill! Lauryn Hill! Returns with a song!

How many links can I fit in one post?

2010-07-20T21:49:00.000+10:00

I'm sorry if you can't get through all these links. There are heaps.

- Carrie Fisher on her autobiography, Wishful Drinking.

- The tensions within the Green Party. An interesting article. Senator Bob Brown leads the party, but doesn't approve off all its decisions.

- Santo Cilauro talks the making of Funky Squad. Not too many people remember it, but we loved it as kids.

- The Australian writes a massive massive massive piece about why Rudd was taken down.

Around midnight, Rudd called senior DFAT and military brass to the Lodge. The Prime Minister was in shirtsleeves, standing over topographical maps of the Owen Stanley Range.
Rudd had famously walked the Kokoda Track a few years before. Now he was planning the routes for the rescuers. It was, says one source, an extraordinary example of his micromanagement.
And of Rudd's belief that he was the smartest guy in the room.

- Some of the more random collaborations with rappers. Katy Perry and Snoop Dogg?

- A former weatherman learns the patterns of the Price is Right and wins it with a perfect bid.

Terry Kniess studied prices. He saw that virtually every prize on The Price Is Right, from a pack of gum to the flashiest car, repeated. He and Linda memorized their values the way Terry had learned to count cards. When they felt they were ready, they made their way to California. They got up in the early morning hours of September 22, 2008, and waited in the dark outside the metal gates at Television City. There were only three people in line in front of them: an older couple named Norbert and Frances and a middle-aged man from Texas named Ted. At exactly six o'clock in the morning, the gates swung open, and Terry and Linda walked across the parking lot, dizzy with the numbers flashing in their heads.

- Conservative SMH columnist Gerard Henderson points inconsistencies in Julia Gillard's approach to asylum seekers. I missed the news for a week and I couldn't believe it when I found out about her policy. The only reason the left wing politeratti hasn't destroyed her is because there is an election to win.

- Left wing ABC writer Bob Ellis said an August election would be a foolish idea for Ms Gillard. And he makes a bunch of good policy suggestions.

- A good piece about ethics in journalism. A tough situation for the reporter.

- Looking for Rudd in New York.

- Interesting piece about the relationship between Gillard and Tony Abbott. I like that they like each other. I find that more Australian, somehow.

- Richard Castles asks why everyone is happy to crucify Mel Gibson, but Roman Polanski isn't copping it from the Hollywood establishment.

- Lady Gaga and Katy Perry's girl power message... what are they really selling?

- Jersey Shore cast to go on strike!

- How MasterChef sucked us in.

'Two years ago I sat here with a bunch of other media buyers watching a pilot and we all thought it was a bit of a yawn,'' says John Alderton, director of research at the Mitchell Group, which buys advertising space for clients.

''I can say pretty confidently nobody picked it, here or in any of the other media agencies. We thought for it just to survive would count as a pretty good achievement,'' he says.

- Breasts are getting bigger across the Western world - and not just because we're getting fatter. Modelling agencies are seeing more and more women come in with skinny body and large breasts. Of course, Christina Hendricks was all over this article.

- In online journalism, young reporters are burning out faster.

Such is the state of the media business these days: frantic and fatigued. Young journalists who once dreamed of trotting the globe in pursuit of a story are instead shackled to their computers, where they try to eke out a fresh thought or be first to report even the smallest nugget of news — anything that will impress Google algorithms and draw readers their way.

- And, just for the record, Christina Hendricks.

Reach for the Cup of Life cos your name is on it!

2010-07-16T14:07:00.000+10:00

World Cup review

Thoughts on the final
It was not a fun game to watch. Two teams, packed with talent, decided to play not to lose. It was understandable. The stakes were so ridiculously high. In the end it was good that the teams that went through did so on the basis of good use of the ball. It's good for the game. Spain are redonkulously talented. Their reserves would have probably made the quarter finals on their own. If soccer moves in the direction of more skill and creativity with the ball, that's great. I think what's happened recently is the athleticism of the game took some creativity out of it, as creative players without huge engines were overrun. Now everyone is athletic, and every creative player knows that they need to be able to run just as much as anyone else. It means the creativity is coming to the fore again.

That said, Mark Van Bommel is a bitch. He should not have even been playing in the final because he should have picked up four yellow cards in the previous two games.

Thoughts on the Socceroos
This has been a watershed for us. This is what we know:
- Australians play attacking football, no matter who it is against.
- The never-say-die attitude extends to our national soccer team
- It took a 4-6-0 formation against Germany to tell us that.
Pim Verbeek did some good things. He gave us a consistency in defence that Australia has never ever had before. He easily qualified for the World Cup, which was hugely important to the development of the game here. And he showed us how we want to play in the future... by playing the opposite in the opening game.

Unfortunately for Australia, we lack another great generation coming through. Qualifying for the 2014 World Cup will be tough.

Best Young Player
Thomas Mueller from Germany was the business. Fast, powerful, skilfull, energetic, fun to watch. He was great.

Best player
I find it hard to go past Wesley Sneijder. Forlan was great for Uruguay, but I'm with Wes. He had a tremendous season with Inter (super long too) and then provided the main invention in the Dutch team that made the final.

Most hilarious
The French. Heh heh heh. I think "The French at South Africa 2010" will go down as a punchline. They were abysmal. So much talent, so many goals in that team. Tight defence. Creative midfield. It was there for the taking. And they fought amongst themselves. I think it was the Sun who did "The French are revolting!" headline, but it could have been anyone. AHAHAHAHA. In the words of Diego Maradona - "Suck it, France".

Most Diego Maradona
A tie between Luis Suarez and Diego Maradona. Suarez's goal line handball kept Uruguay in the World Cup, but only because Ghana missed the 119th minute penalty. Diego, well... he was touching everyone on the sideline, getting his grey suit everywhere. I'm wearing a grey suit today in his honour. (Or because it went with my dark shirt. Either or.)

Best goal
From an Aussie perspective, Brett Holman's long range stunner. A couple of the Japanese free kicks were great.

The Jabulani
Why didn't Adidas design a ball for control next time? They keep designing balls that fly weird or feel too light. Why don't they design one that players can control better? It will make for a better World Cup if players are confident with the ball.

Cutest moment
Iker Casillas kissing Sara Carbonero when she was interviewing him after the final. Okay, so it might have undermined her hard work getting to that position as a journalist a little bit. But it was cute.

Most shameless famewhore
Larissa Riquelme. She promised to pose naked if Paraguay won. Then if they reached the semis. Then the quarters. It didn't matter. She got her clothes off and the Paraguayans were stoked.

Favourite article
Bill Simmons plays 20 Questions with the World Cup.

When Donovan scored that Cup-saving goal against those spineless playing-for-a-tie-when-they-needed-to-win-by-two-goals Algerians, the moment resonated like no other goal in American soccer history. We didn't have anyone telling us how we should feel, what the implications were, what the moment meant. We knew what it meant. We wanted more games. We wanted our boys to keep playing. Someone scored. We celebrated. We jumped up and down. We ran around the room. We were alive for another game. For once in a fragmented sports world, we all happened to be rooting for the same thing.

Runner up: Michael Davies and Roger Bennett

Americans will never completely understand how crap it is, most of the time, to be English. We might have cute accents and be good at cocktail parties. But we are mostly losers.

*************

I love the World Cup. The three weeks I was meant to have off would have been great. Instead I had to work and fit games around sleep. Not ideal. In 2014 I will make more of an effort to plan my work life around games.
Until Brazil...

Le Le Le Le Le Le Bron

2010-07-14T23:51:00.000+10:00

A round up of a bunch of LeBron James links.

In case you didn't see it, LeBron James chose to join the Miami Heat, leaving his hometown Cleveland Cavaliers. He did it on an hour-long special on ESPN called "The Decision". Let's just say that it did not go down well. Both things. The decision to go to Miami, and the decision to announce it on "The Decision".

- Bill Simmons and his fans sound off.

For LeBron not to understand what he was doing -- or even worse, not to care -- made me quickly turn off the television, find my kids, give them their nightly bath and try to forget the sports atrocity that I had just witnessed. He just couldn't have handled it worse. Never in my life can I remember someone swinging from likable to unlikable that quickly. I will forgive him some day because I like watching him play basketball, and whether you're rooting for or against him, his alliance with Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh in Miami created one the greatest "Holy s---, how is this going to play out?????" scenarios in recent sports history. Sports are supposed to be fun, and eventually, this will become fun -- for everyone but people in Cleveland -- because we finally have a Yankees of basketball.
But I will never, ever, not in a million years, understand why it had to play out that way. If LeBron James is the future of sports, then I shudder for the future.

Man, the comments from fans that Bill posts at the end will help you understand the depth of feeling there is about sport.

- Check out Bill's piece just before The Decision, especially the rumour he had heard about LeBron, Bosh and Wade making a pact to play together... with CHRIS PAUL. Yes.

As the rumor went, the 2010 free agents (LeBron, Wade and Bosh) would sign with the same team (at that point the Knicks if they created enough cap room), then Paul would join them in 2012 (or sooner). I thought this was the craziest thing I had ever heard -- so crazy, I only mentioned it once (in a November '08 column). It reminded me of being in my mid-20s in Las Vegas, gambling in the wee hours with my single high school buddies, then all of us drunkenly saying, "We should all pick one city and live there, we'd just go out and kill it every night!" Then you wake up the next morning and forget it was ever discussed. So even if the China rumor was true, that didn't mean it was actually going to happen. Or so I thought.

- J A Adande from ESPN points out that people expect their hometown heroes to move onto brighter lights. But it's the manner of James' departure that rankles.

But it's not too much to ask him to be respectful on the way out. In this case promotion took precedence over protocol. He strung everyone along, tried to build the drama at the expense of the common courtesy of notifying teams of his plans so they could get about constructing their teams.
Everyone associated with this looks bad.

- Cleveland's newest No. 1 pick John Wall gives his thoughts on LeBron's decision.

- "Never has being a sports fan felt so stupid."

Never has it been laid more bare, and never did it feel so empty. It felt like a break, the moment when the tide crested, when we looked at the games, and their players, and ourselves, and wondered: Why in the world are we watching these awful people? It was a question impossible to answer.
LeBron James, thanks to this debacle, will never be the same. (That he appears unable to understand why is the precise reason why.) ESPN, it feels, will never quite be the same: There were surely thousands of employees there who rubbed their eyes, aghast at what they were watching, guilty to be a part of it. The NBA, the hunger laid bare and the wound gaping for all to see, may never be the same.

- The Cavaliers' owner fired off a bitter letter after LeBron left. Which players will want to perform for him now?

- The Bulls console themselves over missing out on Wade and LeBron.

- The Knicks have been building towards this moment for two years... and ended up with none of them. Who dropped the ball? And another article on how much it's going to suck being a Knicks fan. AAAAAND an article looking at ALL the players who have played for the New York Knicks since LeBron was drafted in 2003.

- So, how will it work? Will LeBron, Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh make it work in Miami??

Dude...

2010-07-12T23:25:00.000+10:00

...it's been a busy couple of weeks.

A couple of links!
- Pravda says "Australia's new Prime Minister to face severe unfeminine problems."

- The crazy Russians also say "Give Obama a chance."

- I love the way Bob Ellis writes this piece. The writing style just feels so flowing.

One of the few maxims I live by, Bad things happen fast, was evident yesterday in Canberra, where I saw the big change unfolding.

It was all too fast, and it was not thought through. And mistakes were made that needlessly gave the Abbott Opposition a tactical edge.

The first was to give Rudd permission to speak first, and emphasise (like Mark Antony) the enormity of his assassination and the majestic wonder of his many achievements (I cured the lepers, he said, and I raised the dead and I sought to save the planet but they wouldn't let me save the planet, the bastards, and the knife-thrust to this valve in my heart was cruel and unusual punishment, in my humble view) and to show, for the first time in years, the decent, civic-minded, smart, self-mocking, uxorious husband and parent that I (for one) first met and very much liked, and liked getting on the turps with, in 1999.

- Oscar Wilde quotes.

There are only two kinds of people who are really fascinating: people who know absolutely everything, and people who know absolutely nothing.

- The most mental new soccer move I have seen in a while.

That is Juan Mata nutmegging Raul Albiol at World Cup training. Brilliant.

- How Germany saw Rudd's defeat.

- A crime novelist happened to be on the scene of the Rudd stabbing when it happened.

IT’S FOUR on Wednesday afternoon and I’m wandering the corridors of Parliament House trying to figure out where I am. The place is vast, a world entire, and its navigation presents a considerable challenge for the non-denizen on a temporary visa.

I arrived yesterday, come for a bit of a sniff around, collecting background for a novel way beyond deadline. I’ve already got what I came for – a few minutes with a handful of members, people who can draw diagrams of processes and describe situations that will become grist to my fictive mill – and I’m wondering if I can trade my cut-price ticket for an earlier flight back to Melbourne. What I don’t yet know is that an accident of timing has put me in the dress circle for the biggest show in town.

- Anna Kournikova and Martina Hingis got back together to play doubles at Wimbledon. I saw them play together at the 02 Australian Open and it was great. The other pair kept hitting the ball to Kournikova, trying to keep it away from Hingis. Anna was great.

- Possibly the most successful band you've never heard of.

- Bill Simmons' hilarious draft diary from a while ago. It's great.

5:09: Just found out that Rasheed Wallace is definitely retiring. Gotta say, I respect Sheed for knowing when to call it quits … and then waiting two more years, getting two more paychecks, and finally calling it quits.
(Follow-up note: Apparently he's doing one last noble act, not filing his retirement papers right away so the Celtics can trade his cap figure for another player … which, ironically, gives him real value to teams looking to dump payroll and/or get under the tax. This reminds me of a dying Darth Vader being nice to Luke Skywalker at the end of "Return of the Jedi." I don't know where this is coming from, but thank you, Darth!)

- The Bulwer-Lyton Competition for the worst writing in the world - winners announced!

- Larissa Riquelme (on the left) has become something of a massive celebrity since she's been following Paraguay at the World Cup.

There are plenty of galleries of her floating around, but here is a mainly safe for work one. She has said she deliberately went to the World Cup to boost her career by being photographed. It worked!

- The owner of the Cavaliers wrote a bitter letter to LeBron James after he dumped them for the Miami Heat (full post to follow). Unfortunately... he wrote it in Comic Sans. Heh heh heh.

- Snoop Dogg eyes cameo on Coronation Street!?!?

- The story behind why soccer players swap jerseys at the end of games. (Thanks Ben).

- Awwww the cutest thing from the World Cup Final!

Spanish goalkeeper Iker Casillas being interviewed by his journalist girlfriend Sara Carbonero... and giving her a big kiss :)

- Some criticism of Germany because they didn't have as many German-born players as people might have liked. At least Thomas Mueller hasn't let the team down.

- Is Suliemen Benn the Baddest Boy In Cricket??

His career highlights so far:
At least two tripping incidents.
Mouthing off to every opposition player.
Mouthing off to most players on his own team.
Getting in scrapes with Johnson and Haddin that lead to a suspension.
Being thrown off the field by his own captain.
And getting spat at by Dale Steyn.
That is not bad for a guy who has played 50 international matches.

Nathan Hauritz played that many before anyone knew he was alive.

- And... every pick up line on Mad Men.

A brutally large links post

2010-06-26T02:54:00.001+10:00

A week's worth of browsing, I'd say.

- Questions that authors are never asked.

What is the most demeaning thing said about you as a writer?
My eight-year-old son, when asked by a school friend what his mother's job was, said: "She's a typist."

- The story of two black men named Wes Moore. One ended up a writer, the other a criminal.

Both Wes Moores had troubled youths in blighted neighborhoods, difficulties in school, clashes with authority and unpleasant encounters with police handcuffs. But one ended up graduating Phi Beta Kappa and serving as a White House fellow, and today is a banker with many volunteer activities. The other is serving a life prison sentence without the possibility of parole.

- Spain's goalkeeper Iker Casillas has to face his girlfriend after Spain lost to Switzerland. She interviewed him and asked "How did you muck that up?" Awkward! Also, she is very very pretty.

- A murder case in Victoria that never got properly investigated means a killer got away with a terrible double murder.

- Where are they now: Hang Time! I used to watch Hang Time on Saturday mornings! It was about a high school basketball team, who had a girl playing. And a short guy with a lazy eye at point guard (I think that was this show? Or was it Saved By The Bell: The New Class?)

- Reserve pitcher spots a woman in the crowd, writes his number on a baseball and throws it to her. They got married on Sunday.

- Apparently the sex trade is larger than the worldwide drug market.

- The AFL is targeting 100 young Australian basketballers playing college ball in the States. They're looking for mobile ruckmen.

- Kiwi amateur plays in the World Cup against multi-millionaires Italy. He works at a bank.

- Peter Costello remembers when some people - including the ex PM - thought the GST would mean the sky would fall in.

There was no more ferocious opponent to the GST than Prime Minister Kevin Rudd. Opposing the passage of the legislation in Parliament he declared: "When the history of this Parliament, this nation and this century is written, 30 June, 1999, will be recorded as a day of fundamental injustice - an injustice which is real, an injustice which is not simply conjured up by the fleeting rhetoric of politicians. It will be recorded as the day when the social compact that has governed this nation for the last 100 years was torn up." I doubt anyone (including Rudd) will be writing next week of the injustice of the GST or the need to repeal it.

- The BP oil spill has spoiled the English accent for English people.

Now for some Rudd and Gillard stuff.

- An economist explains how ridiculous it was for Rudd to rely on twentysomethings for his political, media and economic advice.

Kevin Rudd constructed a benign dictatorship on the back of three influential twenty-somethings with virtually no experience at all. That is to say, his principal political, media and economic advisors had never held down day-jobs in the real world for any meaningful length of time. And how could they have been expected to do so? While brimming with talent, these guys had only been out of university for a handful of years. Rudd's decision to surround himself with kids who acted as echo chambers of his own opinions was a mistake of both stunning and catastrophic proportions.

- Jack the Insider says Live by the Polls, Die by the Polls.

- Barrie Cassidy says Rudd's hypocrisy on climate change was the end.

It helps to cast the mind back four months to the end of February when he went on Insiders and said he would never walk away from climate change. He said this: "When our kids look back in 20 years and ask the question of this generation, 'were they fair dinkum or did they walk away from it?', I'd rather say that I threw everything at it, threw absolutely everything at it, to try and make it work, and to try and deliver an outcome at home and abroad. "We think we've got to act, and act appropriately. That's why we don't walk away from this one bit." Then two months later, he walked away. And when he did, according to Newspoll on May 4, Labor lost a million supporters in a fortnight.

- Finally, the ABC's Chris Uhlmann explains how the story was broken and the risk they took in putting it on the 7pm news bulletin.

We knew that the first sign that we were wide of the mark would come by way of an outraged phone call from the prime minister's office to the ABC's bureau chief, Greg Jennett. That call never came.

Enjoy!

Gary and LeBron

2010-06-20T18:30:00.000+10:00

Mike asked for some NBA coverage. Unfortunately I don't work next door to my house anymore so I've missed seeing most of the finals series. Disappointing yes. I think I was going for the Celtics, but only because I don't really like Kobe. I respect Kobe. But I don't like Kobe. So sadly, LA won, the Cavs didn't, and that means LeBron James is off somewhere.

Bill Simmons did a really really really good job of looking at where LeBron should go. He tipped Chicago. It's a good choice. He'd have Derrick Rose (a scoring machine) and Joakim Noah (athletic big man) alongside him. It's a huge media market, and he was a Bulls fan growing up.

Others have suggested New York, and there are pros and cons.
Pros: LeBron could be the man to end decades of pain and bring a title to New York.
Cons: It's New York. They are useless. Organisationally. LeBron would most likely get stuck in crap teams and never achieve that greatness a ring brings.

Chicago is a better choice, but there is a huge shadow there. Michael Jordan. Whatever LeBron does will be compared to MJ. That said, perhaps he's actually good enough to handle it.

----------------------
Another superstar could be on the move - Gary Ablett. Should he stay at Geelong or go to the Gold Coast? Let's have a look at the options.

In purely monetary terms, it's a no brainer. He's been on about $500,000 a year with Geelong - well below his market value. Gold Coast are prepared to offer him something like $1.5 million a season, while Geelong can only go up to $1 million due to their excellent list. If you knew that you could only earn big money for another seven or eight years, what would you choose? He could sign a five year deal worth $7.5 million. That's not small money. And it doesn't include endorsements and prize money he might win.

What about the football? Geelong is an amazing team. Fast, skilfull, dominant. It probably has about two more years at this peak, and then another three years as a top four side. That would probably mean two more flags in the next five years for Ablett.

The Gold Coast is a brand new team. It will be based on uncontracted stars, recycled players, and, crucially, massive draft concessions. This is a big deal. Ablett at the Gold Coast would get to work with 17-18 of the best young footballers in Australia. He could mould them, lead them, and show them what it takes to win a premiership. This story from the Herald Sun was a bit over the top, but the message is clear - this new team has been handed a HUGE chance.

Consider the names if the Gold Coast had been able to take their pick of players from the 2008 and 2009 drafts: Steele Sidebottom, Nic Natanui, Jack Watts, Dayne Beams, Daniel Rich, Dustin Martin, Jack Trengrove, Tom Scully, Stephen Hill, Anthony Morabito... FRICK. Give that team two years and they will be playing finals. Put Ablett in there and they would gun.

I used to deal with one of the Gold Coast draftees - Maverick Weller. Yes, his name it's Maverick, and yes, it's awesome. He was a nice kid, very very quick, and he made his senior debut for Burnie in the NTFL a couple of weeks after his 15th birthday. He got taken by the Gold Coast a year early, so he didn't actually go into the main draft. If he had, I believe he would have been Tasmania's first midfielder taken in the top 6 since... well I don't know who. What I'm getting at is this: the Gold Coast squad is packed with these sort of players.

Gary Ablett has won two premierships, a Brownlow, a Norm Smith medal, and club best and fairests. He is already a legend at Geelong. What more can he do there?? Add a couple more medals? He has been very very good to Geelong. They signed him to a long term deal very young, meaning he earned less than half his market worth for years. He is massive for them in marketing terms. He helped break the premiership drought.

Ablett owes Geelong nothing.

He could go to the Gold Coast, earn much much much more and take a fantastic group of players to a premiership. But does he want to? Good question.

A collection of... things

2010-06-16T22:51:00.001+10:00

- Watch North Korea to follow 'The People's Rooney'! He's actually from Japan, and his teammates are intrigued by his iPod and Nintendo. They play Rock Paper Scissors to amuse themselves.

- If you haven't seen this story, it is absolutely amazing news. They have discovered ONE TRILLION DOLLARS worth of lithium... in Afghanistan. Yes, lithium is key in making the batteries for all our laptops and smartphones and awesome gadgets. This is a game changer. Scott Adams makes some interesting points here.

- One of the best articles I've read about the mining super tax.

When the miners say that making 6% the level when the tax should kick in is too low, they are dead right. No company that I have ever worked for, and certainly no mining company – where the risks and rewards are greater – would contemplate a project where the return on investment (ROI) was as low as 6%.
....
Thus, to qualify as “super” profits, a much higher ROI would need to be specified for it not to be a disincentive. It is no accident that the petroleum resources rent tax is set at 11%.
....
In summary, the tax was poorly designed from the outset, though the basic idea of miners paying a reasonable amount for the resources they dig up is sound and, indeed, should be implemented.

- How much do I hate Justin Bieber? Well I didn't care about him at all until I saw these photos. Of him. With Kim Kardashian on the beach.

Little 16-year-old bastard! Go back to singing songs about love to 13-year-old girls!

- Natalie Tran does a great video about singles ads that pop up on websites occasionally.

- And this one on how they make love scenes was good too.

- I think I'm with the Fug Girls on this - I kind of don't hate Katy Perry. I'm not a fan of her songs, but Russell Brand seems to love her and he's a pretty funny bloke. In his book he said he likes the kind of girls they put on lads mags and Page 3 in England. I think Lucy Pinder got a good mention. Anyway, I liked this dress too, because it was fun:

So Katy Perry, I think you are a bit ridiculous, but I also think you're kinda fun and I like that.

My initial thoughts after the game

2010-06-14T20:02:00.000+10:00

A letter I sent to Football365, a site I read a fair bit. They have a mailbox or two every day. No idea if it will get published.

- That was never a red card, not in any league in the world. A yellow card, yes. Who knows what the World Cup appeal system is like, but any fair viewing of Tim Cahill's challenge would rescind it.
- Australia was awful. Vince Grella, much as I love him, seems done. Chipperfield is finally showing his age.
- How pissweak are the Germans?? I always thought of them as stereotypical Teutonic giants, broad-shouldered and strong in the tackle. We rounded up the smallest collection of Aussie men we could find, sent them to South Africa and the Germans made them look like brutes. Pissweak.
- That said, Germany looks frightfully talented. And young. Prepare for another decade of semi-finals, I expect.
- Wilkshire and Emerton down the right were great. It was notable how many of Germany's attacks came down our left.
- I expect we'll see a very different line up and gameplan for Ghana, and I'm still hopeful we can get the win we need.
- What are the odds of Australia qualifying for 2014? Not high at the moment. We don't have the quality players coming through and playing regularly in top leagues. A decade ago it was Kewell, Neill, Emerton, Aloisi, Agostino, Zdrillic, Moore, Vidmar, Bosnich, Schwarzer, Grella, Bresciano, Viduka. Which young Australian players are now playing regularly in La Liga, Serie A or the Premier League? Or the Bundesliga or Ligue Un? It's worrying.
- I have adopted Journey's "Don't Stop Believin" as my personal (super cheesy) World Cup anthem. There will may well be tears after the Ghana game.

On reflection, I'd add this:
- It appears we went in already conceding the game. Verbeek is focusing on winning the Ghana match and getting a draw at least against Serbia. Assuming Germany win both their remaining games, that's all we need.
- That's is all well and rational. But it's not the Aussie way. We have a crack. We have a go. We set ourselves to knock someone off their perch. We are the underdog. We thrive as the underdog. Against Brazil in 2006 we played extremely well, got the rough end of the stick with the referees and had a couple of chances. We lost 2-0, with their second goal coming in the 90th minute as we pressed forward to find an equaliser.
- We need to attack against Ghana. There is nothing to be gained by sitting back. They would love a draw. We really cannot afford one.
- I only hope the game's rest will mean Harry Kewell, Mark Bresciano and Josh Kennedy are fired up to have a crack.

Link-lonk-lank-lenk-lunk... link

2010-06-10T23:31:00.000+10:00

First up, I really like Kanye's new song - Power.

That version seems a little bit low quality. The MP3 is a fair bit better. I love the tribal drums, the catchy sing-song and the rapping. Seriously, Kanye's rapping is getting a lot better. He's sharper, harsher, more creative. This could be the album where he kills it official style.

- One of the most hilarious stories I've read in a long time. Daily Tele journo goes with a clairvoyant to find the body of Peter Falconio.

"Show me the bones of Peter Falconia," said Lorelle Trickett, rods in hand, as we set off from Alice Springs in the dark hours of Saturday morning.
"Falconio," I gently suggested. "That's what I said," said Lorelle. "Falconia."
For the next three days, she would ask the rods again and again for the bones of Peter Falconia. This may be one logical explanation - in a journey that was otherwise void of logic - for why we never did find Peter Falconio or, for that matter, Peter Falconia.
(I hope I'm not spoiling the ending by prematurely revealing the mission's failure, but had we found Falconio, those of us on this expedition who are The Daily Telegraph staff would have resigned by now, signed up with Harry M. Miller and would be watching the big euros rolling in from somewhere in the south of Spain.)

- Charlie Sheen could be going to jail soon, and apparently the inmates love him. Two and a Half Men is one of the most popular shows in jail.

"The prisoners typically like to watch sports and anything that shows half-naked women. Two and a Half Men delivers the half-naked women," the officer told Fox News.
"They love Sheen’s character because he gets with a lot of women and he rarely suffers any consequences for his actions.
"God help you if you change the channel during Two and a Half Men."

- Long article about how Sarah Palin is becoming big big big dollars in the US.

- Interesting profile of Christopher Hitchens. A conversation goes from amiable to violently abusive in a few sentences. Worth a read.

And then the young doctor to his left made a passing but sympathetic remark about Howard Dean, the 2004 Presidential candidate; she said that he had been unfairly treated in the American media. Hitchens, in the clear, helpful voice one might use to give street directions, replied that Dean was “a raving nut bag,”
....(a few sentences later)
"F*** off. No, I mean it: f*** off. I’m telling you what I think are standards, and you say, ‘What standards? It’s fine, he’s against the Iraq war.’ F***. Off. You’re MoveOn.org."

- A parent's worst nightmare. 15-year-old son gets accused of rape, gets arrested and spends a year going through the courts... and he didn't do it.

- HILARIOUS entry from 1999 about Hobart's night life!!! It's classic!

Reigenes
A night-club that attracts many 35 year old seedy moustached men. It is sleazy, with bad decor, bad music, and really not much going for it. A place to stay away from unless you are keen to pick up what ever is going around at the time, or would like to gain or ruin a reputation.

- How bad would it be to be a member of the NSW Government?

- Matildas' captain says there should be more coverage of women's sport.

- I really liked this piece about Matthew Richardson. He is a legend.

I looked over at my almost 20-year-old daughter that night and was surprised to see tears streaming down her face. And then it occurred to me how much a player like Richo must have meant to Richmond fans of her age and below. For all of her living memory he has so often been the only thing worth going to the football for.
Richo never had to try to be loved. It has been written before what a phenomenon he was to have been one club's best player for a decade-and-a-half. It was sad on the nights that Scott West was narrowly pipped at the Brownlow counts, but when Richardson fell just short in 2008 the entire room seemed devastated. In the end, individual glory was all he had left to vie for.

La la la la la link!

2010-06-05T14:31:00.000+10:00

Not enough links???

Right this way!

This Onion article was funny but actually made me kinda sad...

Good article from Chris Uhlmann from the ABC.

What this Government wins on the swings of daily tactical battles it loses on the strategic roundabout. The short term has utterly swamped the long term and it's hard to avoid the conclusion that this is because there is chaos at its core and that is something that has been evident in this administration since its earliest days.

A teenage girl about to be sent against her will to be married in Lebanon called the Federal Police and got her name put on a watchlist so she would be stopped at the airport. Pro.

New tablets are cheaper than the iPad, and have things like USB (crazy!) and cameras (no freaking way!).

Another psychologist quits after having a relationship with an armed robber. This is the second time this particular guy has had a relationship with a psychologist assigned to him.

Preview of Romania's Eurovision entry - this guy got it right and put it in the top three.

Folau the market leader

2010-06-02T09:47:00.000+10:00

Israel Folau, rugby league's brightest young star, is switching codes to join the AFL. Some people say it's a great move, others say it will never work.

My take? This is a piece of marketing genius.

Folau is 21 years old, 195cm and 102kg. He has won an NRL premiership and State of Origin. He averages a try a game with Brisbane. He is Polynesian and comes from the Western Sydney area where he will play AFL. That's all useful marketing stuff.

But I think the real genius will come when the Greater Western Sydney team enters the AFL in 2012 and Folau plays. Kevin Sheedy, the master marketer, will play him in defence. Here's the pitch:

"Folau vs Riewoldt! Folau vs Jonathan Brown! FOLAU VS BUDDY FRANKLIN!!"

Who can run faster, jump higher, tackle harder? The AFL's superstars taking on the hardness of rugby league's Man of Steel. I can see it on the back pages of the Daily Telegraph and the Sydney Morning Herald right now. It will be the chance for rugby league fans to see how the best of them does taking on AFL players at their own game. Any loss for Folau can be written off as inexperience. Any win would be huge.

You see, you don't get those one-on-one duels in rugby league. The best players never square off against each other. In AFL it doesn't happen as much as it used to, but there is still that element of "superstar vs superstar". The fans love it. The media love it. Coaches don't love it as much, but sometimes they'll pander to it. Sheedy knows how to build a buzz. He will do it with Folau.

So yes it's a lot of money. But as a former sports journo, I can see the back page stories filling up. I can see the opinion pieces writing themselves. I can see the letters pages filling. I can see the website views rising. It's all the stuff the AFL desperately needs as it tries to build a following among kids in NSW.

Friday Night Lights oh yes

2010-05-31T21:49:00.000+10:00

Eight reporters try to go a week without using the internet.

Season four of Friday Night Lights is showing on NBC in America right now (it's already been on cable). They're up to episode four. Slate did a recap. Without spoiling anything, I liked this statement.

At some point Tami says to Eric about the pep rally, "Hey, if it's not great, you still get to come home with us." I love this line. I plan to use it with my husband in the future. But it's also very particular to the Taylors. Their family is a portable down comforter, something you get to carry everywhere for warmth and support. For everyone else in Dillon, family and home are complicated and overwhelming forces that can drag you down.

I think there are stacks of reasons why people connect with Friday Night Lights, and family is one of them. Another one is location. Coming from Tasmania, growing up here in the 90s, it wasn't an awesome place to be. We were in recession, there weren't a lot of jobs. Dillon feels similar. Family can be a good thing or something to escape from. Football means so much in Dillon because there is nothing else.

Damn I miss Friday Night Lights. Season five... can't wait.

Things!

2010-05-30T21:03:00.001+10:00

How pretty are all the women on Eurovision this year??? They're all tall supermodels with long, gorgeous hair and beautiful voices. Well played, Europe.

In other news, I thought this article was classic.

Serbia’s World Cup preparations have been hit by a shock 46-3 loss to unfancied minnows New Zealand, after the highly-rated Balkan outfit accidentally agreed to play the All Whites at rugby union rather than the expected association football.

I remember meeting a NATO soldier from France in my town when I was a child’, recalled playmaker Milos Krasic. ‘He told me about this sport where the ball is not round and passing it forwards gets you a punishment gouging and the teams spend most of the match in interlocked, grunting packs, like homoerotic sardines.
“It is definitely my eleventh or twelfth most horrifying memory from this time.”

This article was interesting about how AFL players are chased after by women, especially in Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth. I never really got the appeal of footy players or musicians. Why do women go for them all the time?

The Big Caption adds clever captions to pics from The Big Picture blog. Like this one.

I wrote a while back about Jennifer Knapp, a Christian music singer who recently came out as gay. Anyway, she spent most of her time off in Australia... becoming a cricket tragic! Awesome.

Get on some TV

2010-05-26T17:07:00.000+10:00

I haven't done this a while, but I figured some people might like to hear about some new shows to watch.

Maybe you're at the video store or Big W or sitting at your laptop thinking "I'd like to start a new show. Which one should I pick?"

30 Rock
In case you haven't got on it yet, this is the sharpest comedy on television right now. Season 4 just finished and it's better than ever. Season one is pretty good - better than other sitcoms - but it gets better and better each season. The show has also mastered guest casting.

Community
Another sitcom, this one is really quite clever. Set at a community college, it focuses on a study group. Not entirely consistent, but laughs every episode and it gets a pass because it's season one.

Fringe
Season two just finished and it is freaking getting crazy! The mystery of the week episodes are still great, but the over-arching story is getting huge.

Glee
The show Ryan Murphy wanted to make when he made Popular in the late 90s. A bit inconsistent, and can swing from drama to farce too easily (just like Popular), but it's entertaining.

Big Bang Theory
It might sound like a stupid American sitcom with a laugh track, but it's a lot of fun. Sheldon is a great character with his neuroses, while the Penny and Leonard dynamic works well. Howard and Raj can be hilarious too. Probably helps to watch this if you have some geeky tendencies. Three seasons out so far.

And some old ones you might not have considered, but I can definitely recommend.

The Wire
Kings
Mad Men
The Sopranos
The Office

More Bill Simmons

2010-05-25T22:28:00.001+10:00

He is awesome. Here's a great piece about the Russian billionaire who just bought the New Jersey Nets.

You may remember him as the dude who got arrested on suspicion of pimping in France, but got off when he proved that all the women were there to see him of their own choice. Anyway, he's hilarious.

When the Soviet Union was collapsing in the late '80s, Prokhorov was attending the Moscow Finance Institute. He made his first wave of money producing ... (wait for it ...) stonewashed jeans, buying a ton of denim (shades of "How to Make It In America"), renting a corner of a laundromat in Moscow, processing the denim there and making incredible profits (14 rubles for every one he spent).

And a great piece about LeBron James.

No, Chicago makes more sense. Derrick Rose and Joakim Noah proved they were warriors these past two springs. They could be LeBron's Pippen/Grant or McHale/DJ. Easily. Rose could take the creative load off LeBron on nights when he doesn't have it. Rose could come through a few times in the clutch. Rose could hide some of LeBron's faults. It's the single smartest basketball move for LeBron James. It's the Michael Corleone move.

Things to miss

2010-05-24T10:12:00.000+10:00

Things I miss about Launceston

1) Burger Got Soul.
2) The $20 haircut from the snooker supply store/barbershop on York St.
3) Going home/nextdoor to watch NBA during my lunch break.
4) Living an 80-second walk from the cinema - and 60 seconds from my front door to my desk at work.
5) Burger Got Soul (sooooooo good, it had to be here twice. I miss it that much.)

Things I WON'T miss about the Midland Hwy.

1) Spending money on petrol all the damn time.
2) The fact that BP stopped selling Lemon V, so I always had to make an extra stop to get a Red Eye Platinum (a big issue, I know).
3) Listening to the same old music again and again.
4) Drivers who cannot maintain a consistent speed. If you're doing 80km/h in a 110km/h zone - that's fine. Just don't speed up to 125km/h when an overtaking lane approaches. If you can't maintain a consistent speed, I question your suitability for highway driving.
5) The freaking road works near Brighton.

I want to start a Facebook page - Bring Burger Got Soul to Hobart. If you ever go to Launceston, you have to visit BGS. Get the Ali G on Turkish bread. Pan-fried chicken with sun-dried tomato, pesto, lettuce, tomato and soul mayo... Or get one of the awesome beef burgers, like Original Sin or the Tassie Tempter. If you're a vegetarian, try the Salsa Burger. And get the chips with relish on the side. But make sure you're hungry. Otherwise you will not be able to finish your burger. I'm serious.

It really is the biz. It's on Charles Street, just down from the hospital.

Knil....linK

2010-05-21T23:07:00.000+10:00

Link link link link LIIIIIINNNK!

The 10 funniest moments in Australian politics.

A round up of the various theories about the Lost finale. How awesome has it been???

Joel McHale talks Community. It's a fun show.

Steele Sidebottom is a semi-finalist in the Name of the Year competition in America. He's been up against former cheerleader Charity Beaver. Yes. That is her name. Check the previous winners for absolute gold. UpShake is the blog supporting him.

An article detailing the various ways Facebook has tried to encroach on privacy. I recently went through and deleted a whole bunch of information on Facebook, and changed all 170 privacy settings.

The AFL's plan to find an American superstar is gathering steam. Thousands of top class junior athletes miss out on a college scholarship, or miss out on a professional career after college. They're sporting careers usually end there. Surely a couple of them could become elite footballers here. Argentina is also on the radar.

How awesome is the next Batman going to be? I was discussing it with Ben today. Will it be Catwoman, the Riddler, or someone else?

These rare Star Wars pictures are cool. A female pilot?

Things

2010-05-17T22:53:00.000+10:00

This Friday night's game between Collingwood and Geelong is huge. Garry Lyon just said it means more to the Pies than it does the Cats. I think he's right. But if Collingwood can get a win it will bring them huge confidence going into the finals.

Players Collingwood is getting improvement from:
1) Dayne Beams. Only in his second year, he is playing with the consistency of a senior player.
2) Sharrod Wellingham. Nice to see a young player wearing the long sleeves occasionally, like a new Gavin Croscisa!
3) Harry O'Brien. Already a good player, Harry has stepped up to "top defender" status this year.
4) Steele Sidebottom. Another second year player who is stepping up, Steele is learning quickly every game.
5) Brent Macaffer. Big-bodied player who is learning the game at both ends of the ground.

In other random news, is this the first Aboriginal super model? Samantha Harris:

I don't like the drugs

2010-05-16T09:38:00.000+10:00

Moving house etc has made blogging difficult. And my new job might make it even more difficult. But that's okay.

I thought this article was interesting.

As for the tragic case of Cassandra Vaicekonis, I wonder whether the anti-drug message is currently too focussed on individual choice, and not focussed enough on a sense of collective responsibility. Instead of urging young people to say no to drugs, or to think about how they can most safely say yes to drugs, taking a much stronger message to their friends might be a handy new addition to combating this scourge.

The only people somebody like Cassandra would really have listened to on this issue were her own circle of friends – the same people who (you would hope) are now looking into their souls and wondering whether they could have actually done something to avert her death on May 23 last year.

Her death will haunt their conscience forever more. It is something which no sane person would ever want to grapple with as they go through life. Getting that message out to other young people, and urging them to act when they see that a friend is screwing themself up on drugs, would do more to change a young person’s behaviour than any amount of Nancy Reagan-style lecturing that it’s as easy as saying no.

An interesting idea. Because the War on Drugs is not being won. Sometimes there are wins and high points, but the War on Drugs is a Long Defeat. I like the point that it comes down to friends taking a stand, rather than relying on people to make good decisions individually. Because people make dumb decisions. But if you have good friends, they can help you out.

If you want an example of amazing levels of reporting in detail of a huge issue, check this LA Times page out. In Mexico, 22,700 people have died since the start of 2007 as a result of drug violence. Imagine if, in the last three years, every resident of Kingston or Burnie was beheaded, shot, stabbed or burned alive. The woman who runs the grocery shop found without a head. The young men who work at the childcare centre shot to death in their homes. The journalists who report on the issue never seen again.

David Penberthy at The Punch wrote this article last year in which he said the clubbers in Melbourne and Sydney should take some blame for those Mexican deaths.

Australia’s sizeable cokehead community - even the casual users who had a discreet line in the loo last night at some groovy Sydney wine bar - should give themselves a quiet pat on the back for the role they’ve played in the deaths of these people.

The market demand is so great that the risks are worth it. And the profits are so huge that it's worth killing people to maintain or win market dominance.

Do I have a solution? No. Is legalisation an option? I don't think so. I think that would open the floodgates to even more abuse, as well as the costs to society with mental health, domestic violence, street violence, and a still-thriving black market. But is the Long Defeat worth it?

MUST. SHARE.

2010-05-07T13:46:00.001+10:00

Jay-Z's version was good... but Dan Taylor's version is better.

Picture post!

2010-05-06T13:01:00.000+10:00

German programmers know how to get the ladies.

Rudd Awakening?

2010-05-05T23:44:00.000+10:00

Want to know why our Prime Minister is struggling in the latest poll?

Have a look at the major policies Kevin Rudd promised at the 2007 election:

Sign Kyoto: Delivered.
Sorry Day: Delivered.
Both of those were symbolic acts that cost the Government nothing, but were popular with the electorate.
GroceryWatch website: Dropped.
FuelWatch website: Dropped.
Embarrassing but not terminal, they were a sign of things to come. Promises not delivered on because they proved hard to make happen.
The 2020 Summit: Lots of ideas, barely any adopted.
One that made the Government look a bit silly, but again, nothing too bad.
Softer line on asylum seekers: Rocketing numbers of illegal boats arriving in Australian waters, policy then reversed.
This was a bad look. Labor refused to acknowledge the policy change had anything to do with the massive increase in boats, but then had to change it again when the numbers proved too huge to pretend.
The Emissions Trading Scheme: Dropped.
"The greatest moral challenge of our time," Rudd said. Those who wanted to wait and see were "cowards". Dropping the ETS has not played well with Rudd's left-wing base. This was a major promise that he has gone back on.
Tax reform: Mainly ignored.
The Henry Tax review made more than 100 recommendations. The Government adopted four. It does not look like Rudd is prepared to make hard decisions that will make him unpopular with the electorate.

The stimulus spending has thrown up its share of problems too.
Insulation rebate: Expensively dropped.
The deaths of four insulation workers, the death-trap roofs across Australia, the explosion of shonky builders ripping off the system, the billions of dollars the scheme cost to set up and then dismantle... could a policy have failed worse? Peter Garrett's career is over, but he is protecting Rudd loyally. Garrett sent four letters to Rudd telling him of his concerns with the scheme but they were ignored.
School stimulus: Extensively rorted.
The Victorian and New South Wales school stimulus administrations have been negligent, but the Auditor-General said today that the Government had not allowed local schools to make decisions for themselves. Who knows how many hundreds of millions of dollars have been wasted on "management fees", "consultants' fees" and "really crap buildings schools don't need"?

You know things are bad when even The Age editoral columnists turn against you. Miranda Devine makes an interesting point:

Rudd seems to be one of those people whose self-belief never falters, even while everything is falling down around him. But he has few cheerleaders left, outside of the increasingly unhinged Crikey blog. Even the ABC's Chris Uhlmann was scathing this week: ''If you really believe that climate change is the greatest moral and economic challenge of our age, then you wouldn't retreat, would you, because if you did, people might begin to wonder what you actually believe in?''

Perhaps the best assessment of the Prime Minister this week comes from the Roman senator Tacitus, via letter writer Harry Gelber, of Hobart: ''Omnium consensu capax imperii nisi imperasset.''

Roughly, it means: everyone agrees he would have been thought capable of governing, if he had not already governed.

Shaun Carney argues a point that I tend to agree with - what does the Rudd Government stand for?

There is only one question that needs to be asked of any government: why are you there? The Rudd government right now wouldn't find it easy to come up with an answer.

Michelle Grattan's quote was interesting too:

In an interview but off-air, Abbott was overheard saying, ''If Rudd wins the election, he'll last about three months''.

Gerard Henderson is a conservative columnist, and he points out why there will be no double-dissolution election. He also asks what Rudd's agenda is:

It is too early to judge the Rudd government. Yet it is fair to say in its first term, Rudd Labor has not matched the reform determination of the governments led by Hawke, Keating and John Howard. So far Rudd Labor's one outstanding reform, which will benefit productivity and assist lower socio-economic groups, is Julia Gillard's My School initiative.

Interesting stuff, if you like politics. If not - read these instead!
- A really good article about what you'll regret doing.

As someone once said to me: "I see a woman with a tattoo and I think, OK, here's a chick who's capable of making a decision she'll regret in the future."

- And a show to look out for.

New job again

2010-05-04T20:37:00.000+10:00

I've been promoted. I'll be the chief political reporter, covering politics in Hobart. I'm really excited about it. It will probably mean this blog takes a back seat for a while. Not just yet because I don't start for a couple of weeks. But pretty soon. Anyway, here are some links.

- The disturbing whirlwind that is Justin Bieber. Something wrong with how older women are responding to him.
- Ambiguous headlines lead to interesting consequences.
- A well-written piece in praise of air tools.

Pictures!
Here is Paraguyan javelin thrower Leryn Franco

She is quite pretty.

Jon Hamm from Mad Men is awesome.

He wears suits! So do I. However, I am not quite as handsome he is.

So many random things

2010-05-02T20:22:00.001+10:00

This is awesome. A first person view of Dutch marines landing on a container ship Somali pirates had captured.

It is like watching Counter Strike, but with less terrorists charging at you with AWPs and Glocks and more terrorists surrendering.

I found this article really interesting. It looks at what the imprisonment rate of black men in America has done to the marriage rates of black women.

Between the ages of 20 and 29, one black man in nine is behind bars. For black women of the same age, the figure is about one in 150. For obvious reasons, convicts are excluded from the dating pool. And many women also steer clear of ex-cons, which makes a big difference when one young black man in three can expect to be locked up at some point. Removing so many men from the marriage market has profound consequences. As incarceration rates exploded between 1970 and 2007, the proportion of US-born black women aged 30-44 who were married plunged from 62% to 33%.

That's huge. It must have a real impact on so many lives, even indirectly.

Because most seek husbands of the same race—96% of married black women are married to black men—they are ultimately fishing in the same pool.

Lil Wayne on his way to jail.

Anyway, I ran into Bridget last night and she said I needed more pictures on my blog. So here we go!

Brynne 'Flash' Gordon doesn't do anything by halves. I have no idea why she was invited to the Logies though.

Some soldiers in Afghanistan remake Lady Gaga and Beyonce's Telephone video:

It's great!

Gabriella Cilmi is performing at the Logies at the moment. Her song is super disco. It's kinda good.

More pictures!

LeBron doing his thing

A young Bert Newton with Gra-Gra.

My two favourite morning news presenters.

Some reading for everyone

2010-04-28T20:50:00.000+10:00

Some of you may not have read Animal Farm. I myself haven't read it in many years (at least 10, I think). I pledge here and now to re-read it (thanks to Mak for giving me Orwell's Complete Works a while back:). Christopher Hitchens (he of the often ridiculous opinions) has written an excellent piece looking at it.

A group of Ukrainian and Polish socialists, living in refugee camps in post-war Europe, discovered a copy of the book in English and found it to be a near-perfect allegory of their own recent experience. ... "They were profoundly affected by such scenes as that of animals singing 'Beasts of England' on the hill . . . They very vividly reacted to the 'absolute' values of the book." ... It is affecting to imagine battle-hardened ex-soldiers and prisoners of war, having survived all the privations of the eastern front, becoming stirred by the image of British farm animals singing their own version of the discarded "Internationale", but this was an early instance of the hold the book was to take on its readership.

He makes a good point about the regimes in the world who still ban the book. Including China, Burma, Iran and other Islamic countries. It's really quite strange to think about how many places still ban ideas. It seems so natural to us to be able to read whatever we like, even if it criticises our leaders or system of government. Western democracy really is great, people!

Thus far, Animal Farm has not been legally published in China, Burma or the moral wilderness of North Korea, but one day will see its appearance in all three societies, where it is sure to be greeted with the shock of recognition that it is still capable of inspiring.

- The world's greatest con man seduces rich older women and blackmails them for millions and millions of Euros.

- I have discovered an AMAZING site called Longform, which links to the best long form journalism in the world. And it is THE BIZ. That's where I found that con man article, and ones like these:
   - The definitive account of the Mumbai bombings
   - Too weird for The Wire (I've linked to it before, it's great)
   - How the whitest man in America (and Al Sharpton) tried to stop the civil war in Liberia.
Bookmark, check back. Enjoy.

People criticise British footballers all the time for their behaviour. Most of that is justified. But here is a great speech from Frank Lampard when he won the 2005 Player of the Year Award. Chelsea had just won the title under Jose Mourinho and Lampard stepped up to a new level as a player. His speech was so surprisingly good that The Observer published it in full the next day.

A lot of the reason I am here is because of my strength, my determination and character. I would just like to talk about a girl called Lucy.
I went to her funeral today, she was 10 years old. She came to the game against Charlton where we lifted the Premiership trophy. She had a tumour on the brain - really she should have died the week before that game. But she was so desperate to come and see that game, to watch us play. The character and strength she showed made me put everything in perspective.
I would like to dedicate this whole award to her, her family, especially her mother, and I would like to say thanks to everyone tonight. Thank you.

- Seven shows that peaked in season one. Yay The OC!

- Man At The Very Top Of Food Chain Chooses Bugles.

Despite having no natural enemies and belonging to a species that completely dominates its ecosystem, local IT manager Reggie Atkinson opted to consume the processed corn snack Bugles Monday. "I was in the mood for something salty and crunchy, and it's a little early for dinner," said the ultimate predator, whose ancestors' bipedal locomotion, toolmaking abilities, and advanced spatial recognition developments allowed them to hunt animals 10 times their size.

Slinky slinky slink

2010-04-26T21:41:00.000+10:00

Slots sof slinks

- The US to build a hypersonic missile that can hit anywhere on Earth in an hour.

White House officials confirmed last week that the president, who won the Nobel peace prize last year, is considering the deployment of a new class of hypersonic guided missiles that can reach their targets at speeds of Mach 5 — about 3,600mph.
That is nearly seven times faster than the 550mph Tomahawk cruise missiles that arrived too late to kill Bin Laden at an Al-Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan in 1998.

- The Times reviews a Canadian global warming drama.

The goodies were witty, brilliant, sensitive, imaginative, attractive, sexy and great dancers - rather, I suspect, like the scriptwriters. The baddies were, well,they were all American.
...
They suffer the fatal flaw of being too smug to bear. There is a global resistance, not to the facts, but to environmentalists. It appears most of us would rather fry, drown or starve than be told what to do by a bearded git in sandals, and that’s a rather comforting and cussedly human truth.

- A religious skeptic explains why her family joined a church.

Our family just joined a church.
This may not sound like a radical statement -- not here in America, arguably the churchiest nation in the world. But hearing these words from my own mouth feels about as natural as, "I've just joined the Marines."

- Awesome Star Wars his and hers tshirts.

- An interesting quote from 1995 about the extent to which we will rely on devices like mobiles, laptops, GPS, and iPods.

“[As] machines become more and more intelligent, people will let machines make more of their decisions for them, simply because machine-made decisions will bring better results than man-made ones. Eventually a stage may be reached at which the decisions necessary to keep the system running will be so complex that human beings will be incapable of making them intelligently. At that stage the machines will be in effective control. People won’t be able to just turn the machines off, because they will be so dependent on them that turning them off would amount to suicide.”

As you may have guessed, that quote was from Ted Kaczynski. The Unabomber.

- Donald Trump's kids are in line to take over his business. Here is his daughter Ivanka, because she is much, much prettier than The Donald.

- A whole blog dedicated to the worst sci-fi fantasy book covers.

- The oldest living animal on earth? Jonathan the Tortise. He was born circa 1832.

Happy about that

2010-04-25T22:37:00.000+10:00

More searches that found my blog!

cheryl cole towel turban

Yes, the Girls Aloud singer and technically still-wife of Ashley Cole, Cheryl Cole is gorgeous. So why would he cheat on her??? I have no idea, but clearly he is stupid. Great player though. Definitely one of the top three left backs in the world (Evra and Lahm probably the other two).

As for Cheryl in a towel turban, no luck sorry. But here she is in a German peasant-style top, which I think we can all agree is lovely.

huxley "essay and novel" quote
I don't have the exact quote, but in this post I mention that Aldous Huxley wanted to find the perfect balance between essay and novel.

martine mccutcheon weight
This was one of the main things I didn't like about Love, Actually. The other thing was watching Tim from The Office constantly getting it on while I was watching the film with my parents. But I digress. I didn't like how they kept saying Martine's character (the Prime Minister's office lady) was overweight. She really wasn't. Not even close. But several characters made reference to it, and it was stupid. Google search her if you want to know how "fat" she is.

what magical skills does dane swan have

Well, first of all he has an amazing ability to get the football a lot. He uses it pretty well, despite not having the kicking range of Nathan Buckley. Swan was an absolute steal in the 2001 draft, and would have gone top 6 if people had known how he would turn out. He also has the magical ability to get lots of tattoos on one arm. I guess that's magical.

who will win sits in bradon and denison
Looking at that, I'm guessing a student has been given an assignment looking at the Tasmanian state election... and somehow found my blog. Spelling correctly would have helped. I went out to a school for a story a while back and this kid was trying to find which country Paris was in. But he kept misspelling everything he put into Google so it never showed up. And he had no idea that that was why he wasn't getting the results. I wanted to step in and say something, but it wasn't my place. Poor dude.

tim riggins damaged
He sure is. Poor Riggins. He has it rough. Except for being incredibly good looking, great at football and irresistable to women. He actually has it tough though. Poor Riggins.

yulia tymoshenko hot
No doubt. Post here confirms it.

grant birchall naked
SERIOUSLY??? Who is doing all these searches for Grant Birchall??? I mentioned him maybe twice on this blog and the girlfriend searches started showing up. Now they want him naked??? Poor dude! Leave him alone!

There was also a really icky search that I won't repeat here because I don't want anyone else who likes that kind of thing coming here.

Human rights?

2010-04-25T20:18:00.000+10:00

Good news, everyone! We're not getting a Charter of Human Rights.

Why is this good news? Well, from the research I've done, the reasons to have one are:
1) There may be some areas of human rights in Australia that aren't completely, explicitly covered in detail by the various laws, commissions, panels and conventions.
2) Other countries have them, so we should too.

The reasons against?
1) There would be a significant shift in power away from elected representatives and towards the judiciary.
2) The main beneficiaries of a human rights charter? Lawyers. Specifically, human rights lawyers.
3) A Charter takes away the Parliament's ability to make policy reflective of the will of the people.

I think it's interesting that the people campaigning hardest for a Human Rights Charter in Australia are... human rights lawyers. They've been pushing for something that will give them more work for years. I wish I could get the Government to do an inquiry into possibly creating more jobs for reporters! We should have a Charter of Better Writing that makes it illegal to write a document without getting it checked and edited by a trained journalist. More work for me! Yay! Uh, I mean... this is a completely unbiased and impartial opinion.

Anyway here are the arguments for and against the cases:
For the Charter, by Professor Sarah Joseph, director of the Castan Centre for Human Rights Law at Monash University.
Against the Charter, by former NSW Premier Bob Carr.

Can you imagine if we enshrined stuff in the Charter that we couldn't change later?? Like in America how they let everyone carry weapons. Now the culture is irrevocably broken. What kind of dumb things would we put in a charter today that would be ridiculous in 200 years?

Super tired

2010-04-22T13:59:00.000+10:00

About to finish day nine of nine days on in a row. Been super busy. My schedule is: six on, two off, nine on, two off, five on.

If you need something to read, check out Dr Harry's blog. He has some good posts and links to a great article about how gangsta rap doesn't represent the reality of living on "the streets".

Also, Kick Ass was good. Very violent and crude, yes, but a lot of fun. And with a bit of an emotional heart, surprisingly.

I guess this is a big deal in Christian music and Lesbian circles

2010-04-18T22:55:00.000+10:00

Can I give some props? I think I can.

Props to Mark Moring from Christianity Today, who interviewed Christian music singer Jennifer Knapp. I remember her name from around the place back in the day. She had that guitar-driven chick soft rock style.

She quit music for seven years, moved to Australia and lived with her girlfriend. Now she's making a comeback to music and is understandably unsure about how she will be received.

Back to the props. Moring did a great job with the interview. He asked the questions his audience would like answered, didn't push it too far, but also didn't hold back. That is a tough ask in an interview where you are acutely aware of what the sensitive issues are. It's not a lot of fun asking people questions they don't really want to answer.

My tips for asking tough questions in a sensitive interview:
1) Start with a couple of warm ups to get the interviewee comfortable. Don't let this drag on too long though.
2) If a natural opportunity presents itself, ask the tough question. As you become more practiced, you will find ways of asking questions that will lead where you want them to go.
3 Even if you're nervous, don't show it. Don't ramble on. If you're going to ask the question - ask it.
4) Keep your tone neutral. Ask the question clearly and concisely and wait for the answer.
5) If the answer isn't satisfactory, ask the question again. If the interviewee gets testy, it's time to wrap it up. This is a sensitive issue and you've given them two chances to talk about it.

Anyway, that interview was a bit different to the one in gay magazine The Advocate (not the paper I used to work for, just to clear that up). The writer was clearly asking questions for a different audience. Like the commenters at AfterEllen, who are stoked with the news. And, again, a different reaction from readers at Christianity Today.

So props to Mark Moring. Sensitive interviews aren't easy, but they are necessary. They can be emotionally draining for the interviewer, just as they can be very tough for the interviewee.

A spurious argument

2010-04-17T14:49:00.000+10:00

The Punch is a good read. Usually. Yesterday, Leo Shanahan put up a s***ful article about the Young Libs. I hesitate to use the word "retarded", as it would be offensive to retarded people. They themselves would call the article "a piece of ******* ****".

Here it is.

Now I'm no fan of the Young Libs, but I feel compelled to defend them. It hate it when someone attacks someone else in such a terrible way that you have to defend them, even if you don't agree with them. It is known in most circles as the "Michael Moore Effect" (as opposed to the Gore Effect, which is to bring snow and rain to every city he speaks about global warming in).

Have a read, but if you like, I can summarise his points:
1) A guy who is a member of the Young Liberals in Queensland called President Obama a monkey on Twitter.
2) He was expelled from the Young Libs hours later.
3) Leo reckons this means there is a culture of racism within the Young Liberals.
4) In fact, he thinks the Liberal Party as a whole should have a good hard look at itself, because it has huge issues with overindulgence and stuff and shizz.

Ohhhh geez. I mean, I don't have to point out to you how stupid this argument is. So I won't.

Actually, I will, cos maybe you're Leo or Leo's mum and I wouldn't want you to go away without learning something.

Making sweeping assumptions about an entire group of people based on the Twitter of one of them is bad enough. Making those sweeping assumptions despite knowing that the member in question had been expelled from that group of people for that remark is downright unethical. Yep - it is willfully misleading and quite a bit s***ful.

So, by Leo's standards of logic, let's have a look at a few other news stories:
1) Brendan Fevola has gambling problems. Clearly the AFL is in the grip of debt-loaded cheating drunkards.
2) Christine Nixon was negligent in her duty on Black Saturday. JUST LIKE ALL VICTORIANS.
3) Kevin Rudd works his staff too hard. Every boss in Australia is doing the same and should be beaten behind the woodshed.

(Yay for straw men?)

The vast majority of comments are calling Leo out for his terrible article. The only commenters not doing that are rabid Labor supporters attacking the stupid kid.

So let this be a lesson to you! All of you!
1) Don't post racist comments on your Twitter.
2) Better yet, don't use Twitter. It's balls.
3) Especially don't make sweeping generalisations about large groups of people based on one remark from one member. That would just be stupid.

BONUS RANT

Are the Young Libs the easiest target to bash in the world? This is what I said on that article:

Finally - can anyone think of an easier target to pile on than the Young Libs? This article has almost every cliche about those born-into-privilege, boat shoe-wearing, private school-attending, sons of rugby union players I’ve seen. Perhaps Leo should have linked wearing a blazer to school to an endemic culture of violence against women. That might have completed the set.

Hope that was helpful! And Leo, if you're reading this, I usually don't mind your articles. But yesterday must have been a slow one in the office. I understand, I get those too.

So many links it's like I'm getting linked to the max

2010-04-16T20:50:00.000+10:00

So so so many links. I hope you like links. Cos I'm about to drop some knowledge on you.

- Usain Bolt is 30 years ahead of his time.
- The Punch argues that atheists should be subject to the same logical criticisms as theists. Which makes too much sense, so surely someone has written something arguing why both sides can abide by different rules.
- NY Mag looks at the growth of table service as a way of introducing wealthy men and available women. This is how Tiger Woods met a lot of his ladies. It's an interesting article. I personally find it kinda dumb, but then I suppose if I was super rich but also ugly and a tool then I might find it useful.
- Good character development contains the all-important "F*** Yeah!" moment.
- Bill Simmons (aka the Sports Guy) does an awesome job answering people's questions. I repeat - I want his job.

Q: IS THERE A MORE ODD COUPLE THAN HAYDEN PANETTIERE AND WLADIMIR KLITSCHKO?
--Ryan, Portland, Maine
SG: Agreed. They're such an odd couple that they broke Ryan's caps lock. I'm just shocked that two people unseated Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes as "the celebrity couple that looks the strangest in all photographs."
By the way, did you ever consider the parallels between the Klitschkos destroying heavyweight boxing and the Williams sisters destroying women's tennis? Name me your favorite heavyweight fight of the last 10 years. You can't. Name me your favorite women's tennis match of the past 10 years. You can't. The Klitschkos won't fight each other; the Williams sisters refuse to go all out against each other. It sucks. The only thing that could redeem what happened here: If the Klitschkos and Williams sisters started double-dating each other and shattered the "celebrity couple that looks the strangest in all photographs" record.

Q: Doesn't your "Ten Minutes with Tiger" interview demonstrate that Michael Jordan didn't leave basketball for the stated reason, to play baseball? Why keep playing after three straight NBA championships? To quote Tiger Woods, to "Win. Keep winning." Think about it. Jordan and Tiger have similar hypercompetitive personalities. Destroy everyone, every time. We already knew Tiger was one of the greats years ago, just as we knew Jordan was one of the greats in 1994. Yet, Jordan's legacy wasn't cemented in 1994. The greatest athletes don't compete with their peers. They compete for their places in history. There's no way he walked away from basketball voluntarily.
--John S., Sacramento
SG: (Nodding vigorously.)

Q: You wrote that Tiger is one of the "five dumbest adulterers of all time." Is this an actual list? If there is, who are the other four?
--Greg E., Phoenix
SG: Sorry, Bill Clinton has to be No. 1. Doing it in the Oval Office, in the White House, where there's a log of everyone who visits you, has to be the most reckless move in adultering history. I'd make John Edwards second, Tiger third, Jim Bakker and Gary Hart tied for fourth, and Hugh Grant fifth.
The smartest adulterer ever? Brad Pitt. He upgraded from a workaholic actress who didn't want kids to the hottest/craziest/sexiest woman alive who doubles as a fetus machine … and with no real career repercussions! In fact, nothing Brad Pitt does ever seems to come back and haunt him. Not even his latest beard, when he was a few rubber bands and a ponytail away from looking like Captain Lou Albano. Everything bounces off that dude.

- Here he writes about teams who are officially tortured. It includes the conditions you need to meet in order for your sporting team to be considered tortured. I think St Kilda definitely fits the bill in the AFL.
- And here he looks at how to reinvigorate NBA teams with trades. Go Bucks!
- And here Simmons reveals some of the things he cut from his book on the NBA.

A big theme of my book is The Secret of winning basketball, something Isiah Thomas explains to me at a topless pool in Las Vegas. (The Secret, in a nutshell: Teams only win titles when their best players forget about statistics, sublimate their own games for the greater good and put their egos on hold.) Another big theme of my book: Kobe Bryant's inability to grasp The Secret. He wanted to win a title, but only on his terms. That's what made him the most fascinating player of his generation. In the book, I even spend three pages comparing him to the wolf in Teen Wolf.

I found the bit about the rigged 2001 finals series between Philadelphia and Milwaukee interesting too.There was some dodgy stuff going on in the NBA for a few years. And the bit about whether Grant Hill's career was ruined by the shoe endorsement deal he signed was good too.
- The 13 levels of losing. Reading this is a bit of a kick in the guts if you've ever supported a sporting team. Especially one that constantly underachieves.
- How Lady Gaga became the world's biggest pop star. She really is, people.
- A strange piece from an 18-year-old NY Gossip Girl type who is cheating on her boyfriend.
- Arsenal's Andrei Arshavin answers fan questions. He is a strange dude.

What's all the fuss about...

2010-04-12T17:22:00.000+10:00

...Kanye West (the producer)

You know his thoughts on George W. Bush. What he thinks about Taylor Swift winning an award instead of Beyonce. And you might have even heard a couple of his tracks (maybe Gold Digger and Stronger). But why is he so famous? For starters, there is a whole lot of talent behind those Venetian shades.

Check out a couple of these tracks and listen to the music:

Talib Kweli - Get By (Remix)(2002)
Sampling Nina Simone and featuring Jay-Z and Mos Def, this is a twinkling, bouncy beat that shows Kanye's move into more complex musicality.

Jay-Z - Encore (2003)
Samples a trumpet cover of a Beatles song, and includes Jay-Z rapping about his farewell from hip-hop. Again, great use of piano.

Kanye West - All Falls Down (2004)
The great Lauryn Hill is sampled here, with a line from her track "The Mystery of Iniquity" from her rambling unplugged album forming the chorus. Driven by an acoustic guitar refrain, it has a cruisy, slightly jazzy feel.

Kanye West - Diamonds From Sierra Leone (Remix) (2005)
Shirley Bassey's vocals are emphatic, but it's the sharp use of strings and the orchestra that make this track. Jay-Z's guest verse also took it to another level, lifting the urgency of the final third of the song.

Kanye West feat. Chris Martin - Homecoming (2008)
Martin's piano riff gives the song a bit of a gospel feel, while the bass and the drums are surprisingly slow, given how fast the song feels. And just in case you don't know by now, Kanye is talking about Chi-town (Chicago).

This guy put together a list back in 2007, which is three years of good songs ago. Still, some good ones to check out.

In my opinion, Graduation was a crowning achievement in Kanye's musical ability. Of the 13 tracks on the album, I'd say 11 were fantastic pieces of production. If you haven't listened to it, I encourage you to get it from somewhere, start from the start and let it play. Maybe skip "Barry Bonds" and "Drunk and Hot Girls" (tracks 7 and 8). All the rest show a level of vision and musical skill I haven't heard from any other producer. Try it! You might like it.

L.I.N.K.S

2010-04-12T10:18:00.000+10:00

- Le Margaret rants against guys who join "women belong in the kitchen" groups on Facebook.

- Children's drawings, reproduced by an artist.

- Using Adobe products on a Mac sounds like a real joy.

- Being a celebrity Scientologist sounds super expensive, and not a lot of fun when you don't want to be one anymore.

- By the way, here is the story of Scientology's crushing legal defeat that called into questions its validity as a religion.

- How the iPad is Steve Jobs' final victory over his former partner, who believed in making technology open and decentralised.

Ranking the rappers

2010-04-10T20:36:00.000+10:00

The First Ever Angus Ranking of Rappers

TIER ONE
Rappers very famous outside the United States
Jay-Z. Kanye West. 50 Cent. Eminem. OutKast (but only Andre 3000)... Will Smith

TIER TWO
Rappers very famous within the United States, not as much outside
Lil Wayne, T.I., Ludacris, Nelly

TIER THREE
Rappers famous within the industry, and some crossover appeal
The Game, Young Jeezy, Fabolous, Lupe Fiasco, Nas, Common, Cam'Ron, Rick Ross, Soulja Boy, Jadakiss

TIER FOUR
Rappers who are famous in rap magazines and blogs, but don't actually sell many albums these days
Jim Jones, Gucci Mane, Slim Thug, Chamillionaire, Talib Kweli, Fat Joe, Joe Budden, Bun B, Plies,

TIER FIVE
Rappers famous by association with other rappers
Beanie Siegel, Freeway, Young Buck, OJ Da Juiceman, Tony Yayo, Juelz Santana, Kid Cudi

TIER SIX
Rappers with buzz but likely to fade out
Drake, Wale, Nicky Minaj, J. Cole, Asher Roth

TIER SEVEN
Rappers with immense talent and no ceiling
B.o.B.

Hope that helps! I couldn't think of everyone off the top of my head.

"When you walk through the garden..."

2010-04-07T23:34:00.001+10:00

I love seeing actors from The Wire pop up in random places.

Right now I'm watching some show called Mercy and Marlo Stansfield is in it and it looks like he's killed someone. Annnnnnd he just got shot.

Anyway, I've seen D'Angelo Barksdale and Wallace in Friday Night Lights, Cedric Daniels, Frank Srbotka (spelling?), Prez and Chris Partlow in Fringe, Stringer Bell and Beadie Russell in The Office, the icy black Councilwoman (can't remember her name) in Kings. I saw Avon Barksdale in a clothing ad. Michael was in some Rocawear ads and in the new 90210. Daniels was also in Lost for a while.

McNulty was obviously in 300, but I haven't seen Bunk in anything else yet. I think the new David Simon series has a few of the Wire alumni in it. I'd love to see Omar in something else, and Cutty. I don't know what the hell Snoop could do though. She is barely intelligble.

Why I am completely jealous of ESPN's Bill Simmons

2010-04-04T18:43:00.000+10:00

Bill Simmons explains sporting greatness better than anyone.

If you were ever fortunate enough to have season tickets for a memorable athlete in his prime -- Gretzky, Montana, Jordan, Magic, Bird, Pedro, Koufax, whomever -- then you know exactly what this means. It's not just about the winning. It's about heading to the stadium or the park feeling like you won the lottery. It's about the buzz in the crowd, the way everyone seems like they spent just a little more time getting ready. It's about the ceiling being removed for the night. It's about the chance that, 50 years later, your grandkid or your great-grandkid will ask you, "What was it like to see HIM play every night?" ... and you'll have an answer for him. It's about the familiarity of excellence -- constant exposure to someone who's better at his job than you will ever be at anything -- and how that superiority ebbs and flows from night to night.

For me, I expect that will be like seeing Shane Warne and Roger Federer. I always make time to watch Federer. Because one day he will be gone, and I won't be able to do it anymore. And I know I will regret not seeing that level of perfection more often.

That article is about LeBron James, an American basketballer with the body of a power forward, the skills of a point guard, and the athleticism of Michael Jordan. If you don't understand how potent that is, let me put that in AFL terms. It's like a player with the body of Wayne Carey or Jonathan Brown, the skills of James Hird or Nathan Buckley, and the athleticism (running and jumping) of a younger Chris Judd. AND he's getting better. I loved this paragraph.

My friend Hirschy is adamant that we haven't seen LeBron's greatest highlight yet, but when we do, it's going to be life-altering and might get its own two-hour ESPYS show. The play will either be a hellacious follow-up dunk (the odds-on favorite) or an alley-oop like what nearly happened in Portland two Sundays ago, when Mo Williams screwed up and lofted it too high from the left side, only LeBron kept climbing and climbing -- his chin at the rim, his hand approaching the top of the backboard -- and somehow controlled the ball (behind him at this point) as his body started doing a pirouette. For a split second, it seemed like LeBron might attempt the first ever 360-degree alley-oop, then he thought better of it. I almost had a heart attack. It was the most exciting split second of my life.

That highlight is this one:
Remember, the ring is 10 feet high, or about 3 metres. LeBron's head is well above the ring.

Can I just say, I love Bill Simmons. I covet his job. Yes, I definitely do. Imagine a job where you get to watch sports, and then write about it on the internet and mix in whatever pop culture references you like??? IS THAT NOT THE DREAM JOB??? DAMNIT BILL SIMMONS!!! Seriously, Bill Simmons. I'm coming for your job.

For instance, here he is live-blogging Wrestlemania XXVI. If you have any sort of passing interest in professional wrestling, this is hilarious.

Update: three ladders now in the ring, at least 12 "Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!"s from the crowd (and counting), and Cole just used the phrase "ladder sandwich." I'm having fun. I'm not gonna lie.

He gets to write about heaps of awesome stuff, like how to fix the NBA. And he has awesome long email conversations with Malcolm Gladwell, the authorof Outliers, about sports. Super jealous? SO yes. If someone can find me a way to get this job, I would be hugely grateful.

Premature speculation

2010-04-02T10:54:00.000+11:00

Can Collingwood win a premiership without a superstar? Jake Niall at The Age asks the question.

He also asked that question about Geelong in 2005. It took them a couple more years to win a premiership, but it's an interesting comparison.

Dane Swan

I think Collingwood have, at the moment, a few players who would go to any other team in the league no problems. Alan Didak, Dane Swan, Heath Shaw and Leon Davis are top players. They would slot into St Kilda or Geelong no worries. But the key for the Pies is depth. Dayne Beams, a standout first year player in 2009, could not get a spot last weekend. Neither could Tyson Goldsack, a key defender with impressive mobility. Or Nathan Brown, a third year defender who held down some of the biggest names in 2008. Recruit Simon Buckley couldn't get a guernsey either.

Alan Didak

Depth is what wins you games during the season, but it's tempting to argue that superstars win you games in the finals. It's here where I believe Collingwood is somewhat underrated (hard to believe, I know). Didak's foot skills have no peer. Dane Swan gets his own ball and uses it well. Davis can produce game-winning magic (more and more regularly in recent seasons). Harry O'Brien is turning into the dashing rebounding defender I hoped he would become.

Harry O'Brien

And that's without even mentioning Scott Pendlebury, who looks like he has more time on the ball than anyone (except perhaps Nick Dal Santo). Or Paul Medhurst, who combines strength and goal-kicking ability. Or new recruit Luke Ball, who is ferocious in the tackle and effective in distribution.

Even the ruck division is finally going well at Collingwood. After a decade without a ruckman, we now have two. Darren Jolly was the business at Sydney, while Cameron Wood is improving. It has freed up Josh Fraser to finally play his correct position, which is wing/half forward.

This is the strongest Collingwood team I can remember. Much, much, much better than the team of 2002-2003, which made Grand Finals but lost to the ridiculously talented Brisbane Lions (the toughest, meanest, hardest team I have ever seen).

The 02 granny was a bitch

Will we win the premiership? I don't know. But the window is well and truly open for the next three to four years.

Also, fair play to Harry O'Brien, the first Brazilian born AFL player.

Harry O'Brien and foxy date

"In this time of introspection, on the eve of my election..."

2010-03-30T20:41:00.000+11:00

"I say to my reflection, "God please spare me more rejection!"."

Yes, I love elections. Love love love them. The Hare-Clark system is so much fun! Woop woop! Five-member electorates, preference counts, the uncertainty when a candidate gets excluded ("Will their votes stay within the party????"). Ahhhh, fun.

It's like the Olympics. It happens once every four years, the buildup is long and boring, but the action itself is great. You can follow all the action here.

The Final Linkdown... doo doo doo dooo!

2010-03-29T18:50:00.000+11:00

Okay, another bunch of links, but only because I've got so many and I want to get them out of the way! Seriously, I've got 99 problems but links ain't one.

So:
- A new pilot from David Milch, aka the man behind Deadwood. Still a legendary show that I think has been in the shadow of The Wire recently. This one is about horse racing.
- And a new show from David Simon, the man behind The Wire.It's about Hurricane Katrina. Should be multi-layered and critically acclaimed. Like an onion. Or a tasty parfait.
- HBO is doing a show about 1920s gangsters, with Steve Buscemi! Yus!
- Great article about what happens if you get the best violinist of his generation to busk in a Washington plaza. Really good read, and a fun idea.
- Gladwell yet again proves why he's so fantastic with this great article about jobs that you need to do before you know if you're any good at them. The ones he talks about are school teachers and NFL quarterbacks. Interesting for me in my role as education reporter.
- New York Times investigating the Church of Scientology. I have to say the allegations are remarkably similar and crop up across every branch of Scientology.
- Australia not pulling its weight in Afghanistan, with our soldiers not allowed to fight due to political pressure from our Government. I understand the desire to keep soldiers safe and keep death tolls down... but soldiers are soldiers. It's their job to wage violence when necessary.

Get dressed! For success!

2010-03-28T18:18:00.000+11:00

Links!

- Signs you may have a political ideology disorder.

The symptoms for left wing ideology disorder are:
2. You hate Israel for being Israel without appreciating the threat of terrorism and that for all Israel’s faults it’s the region’s thriving democracy.
4. You think third world poverty exists because first world Governments are stingy and not because of poor governance, corruption and weak institutions.

The symptoms of right wing ideology disorder are:
2. Tax is your nemesis. You reflexively oppose any new tax, no matter its efficiency or fairness, and you don’t think rich dead people should pay an estate-tax.

- 11 Reasons Why Some Guy Didn't Hate The Star Wars Prequels.
- Matt Stone and Trey Parker (aka the South Park guy) explain why they're not conservatives, and not liberals either.

They have certainly mocked conservative groups and people on their show, but they tend to skewer liberals more often. Why? "Ripping on Republicans is not that fun for us only because everyone else does it," Matt explained. "It's so much more fun for us to rip on liberals only because nobody else does it, and not because we think liberals are worse than Republicans but, just because..."

Fun article.

- Top 10 internet filter lies. This is embarrassing. I actually don't mind a bit of censorship, because some stuff just doesn't need to be seen. But this is ridiculous. China and Iran are NOT the countries we should be looking at for guidance on our internet policy. And the filter will not stop child abuse images being sent to Australia. Everyone who has any clue knows they get shared in peer to peer networks and secret chatrooms. I've stumbled across a lot of strange stuff in my time on the internet, but NEVER anything like that. Stephen Conroy should get a freaking clue and talk to the AFP and see what they say. Gosh he's an idiot.
- Interesting article about the "rise of atheism" in Australia. The guy makes some good points. I think the thing I don't completely understand about the push for atheism is that I don't understand what it is. Is it anti-religion? Is it anti-philosophy? Is it the establishment of a new belief system? Is it a new religion? Is it all of those things? Is it simply a statement that there is no God, and that nothing on earth has meaning except for the meaning we give it? Questions, questions, I'll find answers somewhere.
- Io9 demands better vampires, given the current crop of entertainment that has ripped out the traditional downsides to being undead.

So...essentially you just live forever, right? That's it. You live forever, are super strong, and smoking hot.

And yet these vampires mope around like this is the greatest burden ever borne by preternaturally attractive man. The moping was because of the downsides, kids. Never seeing the sun. Being unable to have sex or connect with humans. Being hideous. The whole moral compass of vampire literature is that yeah, you live forever, but it sucks. And beneath that is the Christian assumption that you stole eternal life from its proper channels (Jesus) and took it for yourself through the devil. So it's a black reflection of life in the paradaisical hereafter. (Also no hereafter for the vampire if you get staked.)

- The WWF has proposed a scam to raise $60 billion. Well, perhaps not a scam, but certainly nothing ethical. I proposed a similar idea on my old blog, except I said I would keep selling the same block of trees to different companies. Keep it up, Righteous Eco-Warriors!

- Employing a nanny may turn your son into a womaniser.
- Sam de Brito talks about people who are wrecked by success. And makes a joke about journalists (an accurate one).
- I'm actually really proud of these fake rap lyrics I made up back in the day. I read them again the other day and thought I did a good job capturing each rapper's lyrical themes. So here they are again!

"Well the Ukraine girls really knock me out..."

2010-03-23T18:30:00.000+11:00

"...they leave the West behind."

The Beatles knew what was going on. Especially when it comes to former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko.

Woah! She is a little bit gorgeous! Unfortunately for those of us who appreciate politics and beautiful women (and the combination of the two), she is now in opposition.

She was number one on Hottest Heads of State, but her spot has been taken by the Canadian Governor-General.

Earlier this week, Viktor Yanukovich narrowly defeated Tymoshenko in the Ukranian presidential election with 49% of the vote to Tymoshenko’s 45.5%. Political analysts say that it is no coincidence that exactly 45.5% of Ukrainians are hot and 49% are only good-looking. (The remaining 5.5% are bears.*) This election was a classic case of the “hots” versus the “hot-nots,”

Our very own Kevin Rudd comes in at... number 128.

Rudd looks less like a criminal or an alligator hunter than he does like a junior high social studies teacher. And not even a tough, disciplinarian teacher, but a nice one who would get taken advantage of by his students if they didn’t like him so much. Everything about him is benign, from his moon-shaped face to his glasses to his crinkling eyes to his thin blonde hair. Kevin Rudd is exactly the kind of person you would like to meet in a darkened alley. Because you’d mug him.

Random link time!
- Ill informed public searches for "Assburgers" Syndrome.
- Where Deadwood stars have gone.
- Why everyone deserves a prom, even lesbians.

This reverence for prom tradition is particularly true in suburban America, where boys still pick up their date in their dad's car, pose for photos in girls' parents' hallways and then drive off to their high school gym to dance really badly to Usher ballads. I can direct you to the Facebook photos of some of my younger relatives to prove it.
And it's worth it, making McMillen's case all the more poignant. It is very possible that I will never feel quite as happy as I did on that one evening in the mid-90s, as I wore my small silver crown and danced with my king (Alex Zimmerman. Call me!), while surrounded by my 500 or so contemporaries. Dirty Dancing's (I've Had) The Time of My Life was playing on the sound system – never was a song more appropriate.

Time to go!

Friday Night Links

2010-03-22T21:28:00.000+11:00

Clear eyes, full hearts... CAN'T LINK!

I love this examination of the technique of shooting Friday Night Lights. The directors and show runners aim for realism above all, so dialogue is loose, and all scenes are shot with three cameras, no rehearsals or blocking. No sets, no lighting either. (Spoiler free, basically. But wait til the end of season three if you're super paranoid).

Variety's review is great. And spoiler free.

As "Friday Night Lights" nears the conclusion of another winning season -- little seen, but enormously satisfying -- the parallels keep growing to another program that ranks among TV's best of the past decade, "The Wire."

And

The main frustration vis-a-vis "FNL" has been that the series has garnered scant attention for an element that should be universal: quite simply, the best marriage ever featured within a TV show. The central couple played by Kyle Chandler and Connie Britton are loving, playful and sexy, yet also not immune to sparring about everything from child-rearing to money issues. Lip service is often paid to "family values," but here's a program that genuinely captures the value of family -- frequently by bringing the Taylors and other caring adults into the lives of teens lacking such role models.

Pajiba looks at Friday Night Lights season one and declares it one of the Best 20 Seasons of the Decade. (Spoilers for season one).

After two years of persuasive arguing — it’s not really a show about football, it’s the best family drama in the history of television, Taylor Kitsch often removes his shirt — there’s nothing left we can do to convince you to watch “Friday Night Lights.” At this point, you’ve either given into the brilliance of “FNL” or you haven’t, and I doubt anything I write here will sway you otherwise.

Here's a review from Dan Carlson, who doesn't like sports. But he loves Friday Night Lights, because it's not really about sports. (Spoilers for season one).

But "Friday Night Lights" works for me because it's not just about the game, but about the people playing it. I'm not just marveling at the grace of a fourth-quarter Hail Mary pass to win the game; I'm rooting for sophomore Matt Saracen to step it up and become a leader.

And here's Connie Britton (aka Mrs Coach) speaking before the start of season three (definite spoilers).

Fun!

Random election thoughts

2010-03-22T10:32:00.000+11:00

I expect Brett Whiteley to get over the line in Braddon based on Labor's preferences. No one who voted Labor would consider voting Green too... not in Braddon, anyway.

Denison is too hard to call. Andrew Wilkie will remain an option until the final round of preferences are cut up, Helen Burnett polled poorly but is still an option, while Elise Archer and Richard Lowrie are fighting it out for supremacy for the Libs. I really can't call this one.

I think it might be in the Liberals' interest to stay out of minority Government. They can sit back, watch Labor and the Greens get in each other's way and bicker for two years, and then sweep to majority power at the next election.

Even if we go back to seven member electorates - 35 seats in Parliament - the Greens won't get more than 6, at the most 7, members. One each in Braddon, Lyons and Bass, two in Denison, and at least one, possibly two in Franklin. There is enough of a vote to get four elected at the moment, but probably not enough to turn that into 8 or 9 once Parliament is expanded.

Voters who voted for the Greens should not expect to see their policies implemented, even if they are in a power-sharing arrangement. Nick McKim promised to put all of his policies on the table, so he will be the one giving away the most.

The Greens should also watch for a backlash at the next election if the power-sharing goes poorly. Green voters are fairly fickle, and easily disenfranchised. McKim has grabbed a slice of the middle, and that might not play well with his base.

Labor has the shortest collection of elected members I have ever seen. Bryan Green would be the tallest, and he wouldn't be taller than 5'10. The other nine are all shorter than him. The Parliamentary basketball games will be quite one-sided.

When I get that feeling, I want...

2010-03-20T16:01:00.000+11:00

...electoral healing.

Yes! An election today! Finally!

My prediction is 10 Labor, 10 Liberal, 5 Green. It will depend on how well the Greens go in Denison if they get six seats, which I think would come at the expense of the Libs, rather than Labor. That said, it's hard to know just how much on the nose Labor has become. There will be a swing against Labor, but who knows if it will mean enough for the Libs to win the 13 seats they need. Remember, they're only starting with seven. And two of the sitting members are retiring at this election (Michael Hodgman in Denison and Sue Napier in Basas). So effectively the Libs has five people with the kind of name-recognition they need. My old housemate Dr Harry has been doing some polling with his year nine students, so check out what he thinks. I'm working the night shift tonight, talking to the winners and losers in Lyons. Should be interesting.
----------------
So I finally finished Friday Night Lights season 4. And yes, Wallace from the Wire shows up (and D'Angelo Barksdale!!). That show delivers quality on a nightly basis. With one final season to go, I'm intrigued as to how it's going to end. They've managed some cast transitions pretty well, which has been good. It starts on DirecTV on June 30, I think.
-----------------
Other TV news, 30 Rock is having the season of its life so far. Every new episode feels like a high water mark. If you haven't got into this show, or had a crack at it and didn't enjoy it, maybe try again.

Also, Mad Men season 3 is really good. So much of the show is about what is not being said, what is not being done. It's a bit like The Wire in that way. Anyway, I'm five episodes in. I'm a little bit spoiled about some things that happen, but I don't know details. Suffice to say, I'm looking forward to it.
------------------
And just in case you haven't seen this - the 30 Worst Album Covers Of All Time. Some of these are new ones that I haven't seen before, so that's nice.

MASH UP TIME

2010-03-19T11:12:00.000+11:00

Did I just hear Eye of the Tiger mashed with Craig David's Fill Me In????? DID I????? YES.

YES I DID.

You can hear it here.

Here you can hear Ben Folds, Regina Spektor and T.I.

50 Cent vs The Kaiser Chiefs (Fiddy Fiddy Fiddy FIDDDY!!)

BUT! How about Lil Wayne vs The freaking Lion King???? YES!

Or Lil Wayne and The Office??

Peoples, I am doing some serious chairdancing here.

For the States United

2010-03-17T10:53:00.002+11:00

I have always thought that Australian Rules Football would appeal to Americans. Here's why:

- It is extremely athletic, even more so than basketball.
- It has some of the stop-start, chess-like nature of American football, but in a more open way.
- It is hard as nails.
- It makes for extremely passionate fans.
- It is incredibly team oriented, as well as providing a platform for individual brilliance.
- It is stat driven.

Collingwood, my team, have signed American Shae McNamara on an international rookie contract. He has played professional basketball in Europe, college-level soccer, and a bit of almost every other sport. He's 6'8" and very athletic. Unlike basketball, he will use all of his athletic abilities when he plays AFL. I really hope he succeeds.

He's done a couple of interviews. I liked this quote:

"Once I got here in Melbourne in November, I had to not only soak up the footy culture and know what I'm doing on the field, but learn and know how these Aussies tick! They are very similar to us, but with the "tall poppy syndrome" you have to watch what you say and do, so you don't come off as a you-know-what. It's very different from the American culture where they hype you up and over feed your ego as opposed to here where you have to earn your stripes before you can have a swagger and even after all that they will still put you in your place if you think you're bigger or better then the rest, and rightly so. To be quite honest, no one likes a jerk."

This one:

“When I discovered footy it was the ball movement and control that drew me to the game. No set plays. Reverse psychology, make opponents think you are going to do one thing, but do something completely different, reminded me a lot of soccer. I saw the toughness of (American) football, the jumping and catching like a wide receiver, the basketball vision, defense and the footwork. It’s all accumulated into one and I absolutely fell in love with the game and knew I could do well.”

And this one:

What do you want American fans to understand about the AFL?
“The beauty of the game, it is a hard hitting game, but there is a tremendous amount of skill required. Every player on the ground has to be able to run, kick, jump, handball and defend. In baseball, it takes hand-eye coordination, but this game requires hand-eye-foot coordination. These are some of the finest athletes in the world!”

It might look like a confusing game, but so does the NFL. So does basketball sometimes. So does rugby union (I'm certain there are international players who don't fully understand all the penalties in union). I think Aussie Rules Football is a sport that could really appeal to Americans.

In which Angus expresses soppy ideas about community

2010-03-17T10:29:00.000+11:00

Friday Night Lights is about community, and that's a big part of why I love it so much.

Take this bit from a recap of the second last episode of season 3:

And here is where I die just a little bit. There are so many ways in which this show is just so smart. When Coach Taylor told J.D. that people depending on him is a freedom? And when Tyra just talked about how it feels to be on the inside, not the outside? Those sentiments are so fresh, so bracingly different from Juno indie Hollywood style celebration of being on the outside (which never feels or looks as good in real life as it does in outsider-turned-entertainment-insiders accounts of it), from misguided veneration of being "an individual" first and above all, community be damned. The show is so beautifully about being a part of something, how good that feels.

Being a part of a group that achieves something is a really rewarding experience. Leading that group is even more rewarding. The sports teams I've been part of that have won trophies and finals have been a lot of fun. I have to say, organising seven people to produce eight pages of the next day's newspaper at a professional athletics carnival that ran into the night was one of my favourite memories from my time in my old job. Sure it was stressful, and sure it was hard work. But we delivered. On time, for the first time in a decade. And we had great stories, good photos, and all got out of there on time. It was fun.

Being on the outside is okay. But being on the inside is a lot better. If you're not currently involved in something that goes beyond your usual work and home life, I encourage you to think about it. It doesn't have to be a big time commitment, or cost you a lot of mental energy. Play a sport, join some sort of group, get involved in something. You'll feel better and you'll find you have something to look forward to. Some people get involved in too much and have to cut back, sure. But if not, give it a go.

Damn I love that show.

Barry and the Gangs

2010-03-14T15:30:00.000+11:00

I wish they had Offsiders on ABC iView. It's the sister program to the ABC's Insiders, both hosted by Barry Cassidy. Insiders is the political one, with Barry and a panel of political journalists. Offsiders is the sport program, with Barry and a panel of sports journos. It's really good. Funny, insightful, and sharp.

I can catch up on Insiders on iView, but I can't see Offsiders, which is sad. Because it's a great way program. On at 10.30am on Sunday, it's a good way to find out the most interesting issues in sport.

My take on sport issues:
Bingle and Clarke: Michael Clarke has split up with Lara Bingle, and that's for the best. He is going to take over one of the two most important jobs in Australia (Prime Minister and Australian Test Cricket Captain). Clarke should not have someone like Bingle backing him up. She is a 22-year-old attention seeker. A woman willing to sell stories about her personal life just to make money. Not the kind of woman the Captain of the most important sports team in Australia should have behind him. If that seems sexist, well... I'm sorry, but Test Cricket is too important to muck around with. It's a team game, and that can extend to players' partners. Some players can handle off-field issues, some can't. I think Clarke might be one who can't, and so it's good he's taking steps to end this distraction. Settle down with a good woman and get on with the job, Clarkey.

AFL: Barry Hall has been excellent. I only hope he manages to keep it together until the finals. The Doggies deserve some success, and Barry Hall is being fantastic at the moment. The Bulldogs won the NAB Cup without Brad Johnson, against a very strong St Kilda side. Collingwood look pretty good. We're finally close to the salary cap with the recruitment of Luke Ball and Darren Jolly. Those two players have added a gloss of excellence to the list. A little bit excited.

Liverpool: They need get rid of Rafa Benitez. Because he has lost the plot.

Sometimes I forget how awesome Lil Wayne is

2010-03-13T16:38:00.000+11:00

From I'm Me:

I know the game is crazy, it's more crazy than it's ever been
I'm married to that crazy bitch, call me Kevin Federline
....
And we hold court and take your life for a settlement
Yes, I'm the best! And no, I ain't positive, I'm definite
I know the game like I'm reffing it
This is The Carter, The Carter 3, the New Testament
And I'm the god and this is what I bless 'em with
....
Lets go, n****s doubt won't see me cuz I'm better and bold
The only time I wear depends is when I'm 70 years old
Thats when I cant hold my sh** within, so I sh** on myself
Cuz I'm so sick and tired of sh***ing on errybody else

Occasionally I remember why he's so awesome. Weezy F. Baby!

Tim Riggins!

2010-03-11T21:59:00.000+11:00

Tim Riggins!

I don't mind doing it for the links...

2010-03-08T18:51:00.000+11:00

...so come on! Jump, on board!

- A really interesting article from The Punch at a Liberal Party fundraiser. The mood is optimistic. John Howard reckons Tony Abbott has the three qualities he needs to be PM. He is a straight-talker, has "genuine compassion" and is self-deprecating (aka doesn't take himself too seriously). The feel around the Liberal Party is dramatically different to what it was only five or six months ago.

- I love this - German newspaper telling Greeks to get up earlier and work harder.

- The story of a remarkable Lord of the Rings fan film. I really want to see this. Got to wait for the download limit to reset to get it. It's 75 minutes long and made for less than $40,000.

- Fun article with Josh Thomas from Talking About Your Generation.

- A man tells what it's like to change from a geeky, desperate nerd to a man who can walk into a bar and pick up the hottest woman (...or women) there. Yes, he's a pick up artist. And the story has an interesting ending.

- A woman's side of "Just good friends". Has everyone been there? I think so.

- A random list of Easter eggs in Microsoft products.

- "How my boyfriend made me appreciate Steven Seagal."

- I love that Minority Report style interfaces are getting closer to reality. That list is 7 futuristic things that movies got right.

- The 10 best soccer ads. I loved the Nike ones. The one at the airport got a LOT of play during School Magazine in year 11.

Things to do when you can't sleep

2010-03-08T04:04:00.000+11:00

1. Check Facebook for totally important information.

2. Watch Charlie's Angels on Go!, although this episode is pretty poor.

3. Catch up on the unread blog posts in Google Reader.

4. Why are Charlie's Angels skiing?

5. Wish I could sleep.

6. Consider watching Friday Night Lights, but worry it might wake me up a bit more. Too much emotion in that show.

7. Seriously, I have no idea what is going on in this Charlie's Angels episode. Some guys are doing some really pretty skiing, which is actually really impressive. It's like Figure Skiing or something. And for some reason, someone got shot out on the snow. But the Angels are barely involved. I don't understand it. Their hair does look amazing though, so that's something.

50c bag of mixed bloggies, please

2010-03-07T10:12:00.000+11:00

Thing
Simon Amstell is hilarious. He's a well gay public school boy from Britain and he used to host Popworld from 2000-2006 and Never Mind The Buzzcocks from 2007-2009. This article talks about his time on Popworld, where he used to get bland popstars in and bag the crap out of them. On NMTB he was hilarious - some quotes here. Anyway, if you get a chance to watch him, check him out.

Another thing
Goal 3 was incredibly annoying. For some unknown reason they stopped following the story of young Mexican-American player Santiago Munez and made him a bit-part character while two English players goofed around onscreen at the World Cup. It was very disappointing. We'd seen Santi make it in England, win a transfer to Real Madrid and make it big there, but at the cost of his relationship. I would have liked to see some resolution on that storyline. Instead, he gets "injured" in a car crash at the start of the film, and spends the rest cheering on his English friends. It was a complete waste of the story they built up over the first two films. Same writer, apparently, which makes it even more perplexing. To add to it all, the actual football scenes in the first two movies were top notch. They looked real - more real than any movie soccer I've seen before. For some reason they decided to poorly greenscreen the players into the games this time. It looked atrocious. Major disappointment from a fan who actually liked the first two (slightly cheesy) films.

Third thing
If you're not watching Friday Night Lights, you are doing yourself no favours. I'm a few episodes into the third season and still in love with it. I hope they show it in Teen Drama School for writers and showrunners who want to know how to give characters realistic conflicts and motivations to drive the story. Other shows often rely on characters changing completely from one episode to the next, or coincidences or misunderstandings to drive the story. But not this one. When something happens, you know instantly how someone is going to react. There is a sense of trust between the show and its audience. It's great.

Things I now say thanks to Friday Night Lights
"Damnit Riggins!"
"It'sa Smash, baybee!"
"Mrs Coach."
"Oh you know I looooove Panther Futbul."

Final thing
Today might be the last indoor soccer game I play for a while. I think the new team is disbanding after this weekend. It's sad because I love playing indoor at Kingborough. We used to dominate the Friday night league, with a physical, skillful and mentally strong team. It's different now. I fill in for this team, and while the quality is there, we haven't played enough together to really understand each other. We keep losing to teams who stack their defence and hit us on the break. It's annoying, but understandable. Anyway, hopefully we can go out with a win.

WAY TOO CUTE

2010-03-01T08:25:00.000+11:00

The Littlest Voltron

The Littlest Link

Ahhhhh!

Too busy

2010-03-01T07:47:00.000+11:00

I'm on day six of a nine-day shift, so that's why I haven't posted anything in a while.

But here are some links to keep you up to date.

- The classics we secretly hate.

- A breakdown of an incendiary blog post.

- A very depressing article about having a still born child, written by a mother.

- Fleur Audet links to Matt Corby's new song. The video clip is beautifully shot, I don't mind the song. Interesting that he went in that direction following Idol.