Category: Uncategorized

Yes, that’s right, The Herald Sun, the fact that you, living in a free country with a democratically elected government, might have to pay slightly more for your electricity is exactly the same as living under an oppressive dictatorial regime in the Middle East.

There’s been some unfortunate sporting endorsements on the airwaves here in Australia during our big summer of sport. Inevitably England’s domination of the Ashes was never going to be entirely compatible with all those ads featuring Aussie cricketers that popped up in between overs.

Just how many multivitamins does Ricky Ponting need to take, one wonders, to feel better after once more leaving the field with just a handful of runs to his name. And I can only assume that when VB filmed the ad for their “If They Get The Score, You Get The Cash” promotion, in which an off-screen interviewer asks Shane Watson how he feels about picking up a big score of 3, that they didn’t expect it would be quite so close to the truth.

And don’t get me started on Mitchell Johnson being loudly berated by the Barmy Army for his erratic bowling one minute (“he bowls to the leeeeeft… he bowls to the riiiiiiight… that Mitchell Johnson, his bowling is ….”) and then popping up to sell us Gatorade the next.

But by far the worst sporting endorsement on the Australian airwaves at the moment is the following rather disturbing insight into the rather sad life of Aussie tennis hope Sam Stosur.

Really, is this supposed to be aspirational? If being one of your country’s best female tennis players means going home alone to your sterile, depressing, lonely apartment with only a fridge packed with microwave ready meals to look forward to and a phonecall from your dad while you eat your meal-for-one out of its plastic container, then frankly it’s no wonder Australia is struggling to find their next tennis great.

I think McAfee must be getting a bit desperate. Seems they *really* want me to renew my anti-virus:

Subject: Subscription Renewal Price Enclosed
From: subscriptions@mcafee.com
Date: Wed, Oct 13, 2010 at 1:06 AM

Subscription length: 1 Year(s) Renew Subscription(Auto Renew)

Base price (pre-tax): £ 64.99(GBP)

Subject: Alert: 1 Month Remains
From: subscriptions@mcafee.com
Date: Fri, Nov 12, 2010 at 4:39 AM

Renew Now
Save 15%

1 Year Total Protection
£55.19 SAVE 15%

Subject: Alert: 2 Weeks Remain
From: subscriptions@mcafee.com
Date: Sat, Nov 27, 2010 at 4:55 AM

25% Off Plus 25 Music
Downloads* When You Renew Today

RENEW YOUR SUBSCRIPTION NOW
1yr Total Protection – plus 25 downloads*
Was £64.99 Now £48.69

Subject: Save 50% On Internet Security Renewal
From: subscriptions@mcafee.com
Date: Wed, Dec 1, 2010 at 11:16 AM

Save 50% On Internet Security Renewal
£24.99 – 1 Year

If I wait long enough they’ll probably give it to me for free eventually…

I think they normally play these things on a cricket oval. Can’t help thinking that this radical new direction by Cricket Australia is going to result in a lot of balls lost in Sydney harbour.

Guardian:

Australia announced their Ashes squad for the first Test on Circular Quay in Sydney this morning…

Hey. So you know when you receive an email that isn’t spam as such but is from a real person who meant to send it to another real person that isn’t you but is probably someone with the same name as you and a very similar email address, and you read the message and think “this is sufficiently weird that it would make a great easy blog post to just stick the whole message up verbatim and invite people to wonder what it all means”?

Well, that.

From: Angus Mcleod
To: Me
Subject: Excercises

Hey mate,

Great to see you at the weekend. Was cool to hang out and lovely for me that
my little babies thought you rock.Thanks also for the chat about that
weirdness on Monday night. Its a headfuck but nice to talk to someone else
about it as sharing lessens its power. Hey also can you get me some more
english lesson resources from the school like discussed. That would be
wicked. Hope youre well. Will try and get into field to check the score.
Big love Angx

Just what was that weirdness on Monday night? We can never know.

This genius business idea is free to anyone who wants it: someone really needs to make a little tool for cleaning out the headphone socket on the iPhone.

As I carry mine around in my pocket typically without the headphones plugged in, I find I’m constantly having to use the end of a paperclip to remove all the fluff and lint and crap that somehow finds its way into the headphone jack.

Given that Apple already provide a custom tool for opening the SIM compartment, I can’t believe they didn’t think of this one too.

It can’t be just me, can it?

File this one under #firstworldproblems…

I’m all for social network integration and everything, but I can’t help thinking that there might be some occasions when that Facebook “like” button isn’t actually an appropriate thing to have on a news story:

Really, NME?

46 people “like” the fact that a former member of ELO was killed in a freak road accident? That’s just great.

In other news, 295 people just love the fact that Charles Haddon jumped to his death at a music festival in Belgium.

Nice.

So I was just booking tickets to see Brett Easton Ellis speak when he’s in town next month, and I was having a look around the other events that are happening as part of the Melbourne Writers Festival.

I was thinking about The Davitt Awards, but it looks like I’ll have to brush up on my Latin…