Some Pics

Salamander Bay, NSW, August 2006

Vega$

Mondrian's Church

Small Child hit by Lightning

More photos below the fold...

Note: Does not have 'Resort' in title; okay for work function

Lawnmower-powered Bicycle

Accident Ahead

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Dog Bites Man

The business lobby is against Labor's proposed IR changes.

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Cool Stolen Graphic

By Paul Sabre, stolen from an op-ed by Ronald D. Moore in the New York Times

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Misc 060918

Pope Nazinger's problem is that whether or not the words were from an ancient text, he still decided to use them in his little speech. (Even if he didn't write it, I'm pretty sure he would have veto power over its contents.)

I'm sick of reading debates about "Australian Values". There is only one Australian value: Australians value being able to do, say and think whatever the hell we like. Thus by definition, nothing is "unAustralian", although I could still probably try to make a case that the word "unAustralian" is, in fact, unAustralian.

And the problem with this "Values debate" is that the media is talking about it and they're not talking about whatever it is the government didn't want talked about. That is, this is just an orchestrated distraction. I'm not sure what from, though - Jack Thomas? Something callous Ruddock said or did? Something stupid Vanstone said or did - because the distraction has worked and the media isn't covering whatever it is that they're not covering.

Queensland beat New Zealand 5 - 0 on Friday night. We were originally going to go to the game, but we both ended up too sick to go. (Boycat's Mum was off sick for 4 days.) That's the first sporting event I've ever watched where I was spewing I wasn't at the game.

Queensland won on Friday night, yet there was not one word about it in the newpaper the next day. I know that the "Home Delivery" edition of the paper is printed first, so that it can get into the trucks and out to the newsagents so it can slam into our garage at 3.30am, but seriously, what time do they put the paper to bed? The game finished at 9.53pm.

Sydney F.C.'s Steve Corrica learns the Gorden Tallis Rule. You just can't call the ref a "fucking cheat".

What do you reckon about old Star Treks with new special effects?

Apparently they're trying to blame Peter Brock's death on an inexperienced navigator. If that's the case, don't you think Brock would have said something when his navigator told him to drive through the tree?

Misc 060903

Here's something else I lost in "Drafts".


Qld Roar 3 - Newcastle Jets 2
Weird Game. We still seem to be giving the ball away far too much; need to tighten up our passes. I thought Seo looked better this week, but Miron thinks he didn't have a good game, and people - like whoever votes for those 3-2-1 awards they list in the paper each week - thought he had a good game the first week, so what do I know?

New Zealand look good with Buari and Richter up front.

Melbourne look impressive. A little less writhing around on the ground would be nice, though.

[END]

The musical education of Boycat's Mum

I was playing Start! by the Jam the other day, the first time she'd heard it (to my knowledge - I've never had it on CD - or MP3 - until last weekend). And she says "Taxman."

(I can't find my copy of Revolver... I'm sad.)

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The weirdest spam I ever got

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I'm not usually one to get excited about things that get emailed around...

...that is, I figure that if Boycat's Mum was sent the following thing by email, everyone else has already seen it (my work keeps stuff like this out, so the fact that I haven't seen it means nothing). But just in case you haven't, these are really good, because the songs are cool as well as the videos:

Ok Go, "Here it Goes Again" ['Treadmill Dance']

This one wasn't sent around, but it is a more-immediately-catchy song:

Ok Go, "A Million Ways".

But both songs have been in my head since I first heard them.

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So that's what's been going on for the past 20 years

Ha, ha, ha; apparently I have asthma.

Not 100% sure because I've got to go back next week for the full work-up, but close enough. Darn, I guess I really will have to give up smoking now.

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Drug Sniffing Dogs - wrong two-thirds of the time

Boycat's mum told me about a drug dog operation at Brunswick Street station last week.

I didn't like those things because I don't like the police being able to arbitrarily pull people up and search them. I mean, I agree to be searched going onto an aeroplane or going into Lang Park, because those are the rules I agreed to abide by when purchasing my ticket. But just walking along?

Anyway, it seems that the 'reasonable suspicion' that causes the cops to search you is a reaction from a drug dog. However, it's instructive to read the Police PR release in its entirety:

Drug operation, Brunswick Street Railway Station: Police have arrested 26 people following a policing operation at the Brunswick Street Railway Station on Friday night and early Saturday morning. The operation involved a passive drug detection dog team as well as police from the Railway Squad, Public Safety Response Team, and the City Tactical Crime Squad. During the operation 80 people were detained and searched after the drug detection dog indicated that they had been in contact with dangerous drugs. Police arrested 26 people for 28 drug related offences as well as two other people for public nuisance and stealing. Those arrested will face court at a later date.

Get that? 80 people searched, 26 had something on them - that's a 32.5% success rate.

I saw a documentary about drug sniffing dogs once - they said that a single false positive meant the dog was fired from the drug squad. Obviously not in Queensland.

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Atlantic Hurricane Watch

Florida Panhandle on Alert

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Weekend Update 060827

Queensland Roar 3 - Perth Glory 0
Phew! It was looking grim for a while there. Like last season, but worse. And Queensland gives up possession again.

All that time spent looking for strikers and none of them looked that hot in the first half; Milicic was fiddling around with it and never getting a clean shot in, Reinaldo looks more like a mid-fielder. And Queensland gives up possession again.

Seo didn't have a good night, we didn't control the ball in the mid-field at all; Wedau was invisible - so much for the "push button tempo controller" or whatever it was that Miron the Mouth called him in an interview I saw on Total Football the other day when I was away: Murdocca should be in the run-on side instead of him. And Queensland gives up possession again.

Although that might mean Massimo wouldn't be so fresh and able to slice through them at the end of the game like he did. Because until the fresh legs came on it looked like being another really bad night for the Roar. No one should really fail to beat Perth, given what's going on with them. Then we scored three goals in six minutes and all was forgiven.

Except by me: as you might have guessed, I thought we gave up possession far too easily, far too often.

Still, the Roar might end up at the top of the table after today's games, if no one else wins 3-0 or better. We were on top after the first round last year. Eventual position: 6th.


Taringa Rovers Falls at the Final Hurdle
There was an article in Saturday's paper about Taringa Rovers. Well, it was about the final weekend of the Premier League and how there were five teams going for four spots and all the permutations of what would happen if particular teams won or lost, but the headline was Last-ditch bid for Rovers, so I'm going to say it was about my old team, Taringa.

"Taringa, on 39 points, must beat third-placed Palm Beach today to cement its finals spot while Pine Rivers can also jump into finals contention witha win over Brisbane City. "

Pine Rivers did (2-0), Taringa didn't (0-3), so they ended up fifth, one place better than last year, according to the Wiki.

The Premier League Reserves team won 2-0, but also ended up in 5th place.


Manchester United Top of the Table (after three games)
...though Chelsea haven't played their third, yet.

Still, they've got a goal difference of +8 (10 for, 2 against) and only one of those three games was played at home, so things are looking good.

I know it's early in the season; but, it's never bad to go out to a commanding lead early.

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Darwin Police look freaky

Judging by the footage I saw on tv this morning, they dress like soliders and act like Nazis.

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Farmers' Almanack

2006.

Fire season started six weeks early this year.

This would be tied into the fact that we got our usual September heat starting around mid-August.

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Update to Misc Week ending 060813

I'm not sure how Taringa Rovers went against the Strikers, but they drew 1-1 with Rochedale Rovers yesterday. Unfortunately, they've slipped into 4th place. (My cousin's team, the Premier League reserves lost 8-0.)

Souths-Logan were the TV game, but I didn't see it. We lost 60-10, so that's probably a good thing.

Queensland Roar beat NZ 2-1 in the 7th place-play-off in the pre-season cup. Back to our usual position on the table.

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Misc Week ending 060813

Damn 'drafts' folder. I lose stuff in there. Here's something I wrote last weekend...

Queensland Roar lost to Melbourne in their pre-season match 4-2 on penalties after a 0-0 draw.

Bojinka! Imagine if this had happened 11 years ago... Oh, it did?

Taringa Rovers plays the Brisbane Strikers tomorrow.

People analysing those search terms that AOL released have found some interesting patterns.

The Souths-Logan Magpies play Toowoomba today, but the score isn't up on the QRL's website yet. It looks like we're going to be the TV game next week - there's only ever one game played at 2pm on a Saturday. Yep, a troll through the ABC program guide confirms it.

White guys on the Down Low?

The results are on QRL.com.au now: Souths-Logan got thumped by Toowoomba 48-22. Mind you, Toowoomba are the Broncos' reserve team, so I didn't expect any different.

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Those darn inventive Kiwis

Porn plus pot for thirty-five bucks.

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I used to produce songs this bad

Jennie Pearl: "Maybe in Another Year"

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Misc 060803

I've been slack and have not yet mailed that DVD.

Here's a story that's been happening for a while, but which might be of interest to any reader who used to live near Narangba. The link is to Google news, so I have no idea what will be on it when you look at it, but there should be something toxic still there.

The Catholic Education dude wrote a letter to the editor denying they'd ever thought about the value of the Rosalie land when working out whether to close the school. (This was on July 18, but I hadn't read it when I did the Rosalie thing below.)

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Rosalie Update

Thursday, July 13, Courier Mail page 4. "Final bell tolls for embattled school"
This is the story about the decision to close. Catholic Education Council Chair Sister Mary McDonald says "it would be unfair to [the students] and the staff to continue to run the College with such a low number of children."

Old Boys' president Joe Nowak describes the decision as a 'disgrace' and the Our Rosa Committee people get a few paragraphs.

Friday, July 14, Courier Mail page 4. "School vows to fight"
"Angry parents of Marist College Rosalie boys have accused the Catholic Church of closing the school to sell the land — prime Brisbane real estate worth tens of millions of dollars."

"[The Catholic Education Council] cited a steady decline in student enrolments during the past five years for the closure.

"But incensed parents say the Catholic Church is compromising their children's education for money."

"The school site at Rosalie, in Brisbane's west, is estimated to be worth $35 million."

**both the above stories had several colour photos.**

Saturday, July 15, Courier Mail page 10. "Parents say they are losing options"
"The days of affordable Catholic secondary education near home were over for many families, parents of Marist Brothers Rosalie students said yesterday."

Small article about how parents would have to send their kids to — shock, horror — State School or pay double the fees to send 'em to a posher Catholic school, and for some of them "schools like Terrace are out of our reach".

Monday, July 17, Courier Mail page 9. "Tears run as Rosa closes"
Poor old Harry Mitchell, 11, won't get to go to Rosalie "in the footsteps" of his two older brothers.

"[Executive director of Brisbane Catholic Education, David] Hutton, a former old boy of the school himself, has denied parents' accusations the school is being sold for the land worth tens of millions of dollars."

Monday, July 17, Courier Mail letters to the editor. "Closure just doesn't add up"
There are four letters in the block on the right-hand page under the cartoon. All are negative, but it wouldn't be hard to find four negative letters on any issue if that's the angle they wanted to play. One of the letters points out that "land in the Pine Rivers area is being made available for a primary to Year 12 Catholic school at North Lakes. One wonders where the money for this will come from."

La Valla
There were also a couple of nights' worth of stories on the local news. The first night both of these had a bit about some old boy ex-international football player whose ashes are scattered at La Valla and they mentioned it would be sold as well (hence the tearful widow.) But the newspaper didn't mention it anywhere.

I took a drive out there a couple of months ago — yes, along part of the walk-a-thon route — and it's a little more developed now out in that part of Fig Tree Pocket. Most notably, the side of the road directly across from the fields has massive houses on it. It's not hard to see that development expanding very quickly. And remember, the fields go on forever: I'm not sure where the property line is but if you've ever been forced to run the cross-country (and I think we all have) you'll know it's a big big piece of land.

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This month's Air Show Disaster

Air show jet crashes in Hillsboro neighborhood

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Weekend Football Update

The Queensland Roar lost 2-1 to Sydney in a pre-season cup match at Carrara. We didn't see the winning goal because we were walking back to our car to avoid the rush that would come 5 minutes later. Still, as Boycat's Mum said, at least we didn't stay to watch Queensland lose the match and then get trapped in the carpark for half an hour. You don't really see the perpetual drizzle in the photo above, but we don't complain about rain here in South-East Queensland.

Taringa Rovers beat Brisbane City 3-0 to go back up to fourth in the Brisbane Premier League.

The Souths-Logan Magpies lost a close one to Easts, 20-16, putting them in seventh place in the Qld Cup but they're two-and-a-half wins (5 points) out of the five. This is about the best they've ever done, though.

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Bye Bye Rosa

Rosalie is closing at the end of 2008.

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World Cup Wrap

The Guardian has printed an article where about 10 people gave their opinions on some topics (best this, worst that, Jericho this, crucify that, etc.)

Here - after a bit of mathematical manipulation - are their findings:

(They're British/English, so that explains some of the results in the 'worst' categories.)

Best Player: Cannavaro by a landslide.

Worst Player: 1. Frank Lampard, 2. Ronaldinho - obviously most of them took this to mean 'biggest let down', although Zeljko Kalac got a nomination.

Biggest Joy: 1. Cambiasso's Goal, 2. Ghana.

Best Match: 1. Portugal - Holland, 2. Australia - Croatia, 3. Argentina - Mexico, 4. Italy - Germany

Worst Match: 1. Switzerland - Ukraine, 2. Anything with England playing

Team of the Cup (4-4-2):
Starting Eleven:

Buffon (GC)
Zambrotta
Lahm
Cannavaro (Capt.)
Marquez
Pirlo
Rodriguez
Riquelme
Zidane
Klose
Torres

Substitutes:
Lehmann (GC)
Edwards
Grosso
Ferdinand
Miguel
Kaka
Ribery
C Ronaldo
Ronaldo
Henry
Crespo
Ricardo (GC)

I had to make some choices here about who to use as a substitute. There were so many votes for the run on full-backs that I had to use players who had only received one vote for the subs. So Rio Ferdinand gets the gig by virtue of playing for Man U. If I didn't have to stick to people nominated by the writers, I'd pick Lucas Neill.

It was the same with the strikers: Klose, Torres and Henry got most of the votes, leaving a few single votes.

Ricardo only got one vote, too, but you have three keepers in your squad of 23. I'm not sure of the proportions of the other players you'd have in a squad, though.

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The Last Rights of Syd Barrett*

Syd's Dead.

*title of a Slaughterhouse Joe song, circa 1988.

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Tips for Time Lords' assistants.

Sophie Aldred has written a piece for the Guardian

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Rosalie

The fight to save Rosalie has hit the papers.

Actually, there was a small story a week or so ago - I think they've found someone to do P.R. - that I didn't mention because I didn't think it would be online, but this one is fairly big and on a right-hand page.

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Bring on the Asian Cup!

We didn't really ever look like we would win, but for a time there it looked like we wouldn't lose.

Still, the Asian Cup finals are on next year, and we've already beaten the Asian Champion Japan, so we've got a pretty got shot at that.

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Misc 060625

• Boycat's Mum has a theory about something that causes cancer. Let's just say it involves the phrase "eating away at you".
  
• The Schonell Theatre has closed. It lost its subsidy from the University Union. The Union claims it couldn't afford to fund the Schonell since the voluntary student union legislation cut the amount of funding they received.
• Story on Al Jazeera - "Football on the up Down Under", about how soccer is gaining in profile because of the world cup. It describes the fact that here, football is "largely drawn up along state lines" - NRL in Qld and NSW, "while in the rest of the land" it's the "bizarre code" of AFL. Good to have an outsider's perspective.
• Can Australia only play really well when they're behind? Apart from the last few minutes against Japan, they haven't been ahead.
  
• The Souths-Logan Magpies won over Ipswich 44 - 34 in the Queensland Cup rugby league.
• Who ate all the Bratwurst lists Neill and Viduka as subs in their 'team of the first round', with Guus as coach.
  

[END]

They think it's all over... It is now!

What a scrappy game, and we were so outplayed in the second half, I don't know what went on at half-time because we finished the first half like we would score four.

But we're through. And as a poster to the New York Times' blog points out, Bruce Arena, coach of the just-eliminated U.S. team called us 'easybeats'.

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Misc 060615

The Atlantic hurricane season began on June 1. I meant to say something about it at the time, because if there's two things I like, they're journalists getting pummelled reporting from the storms' paths, and American cities being destroyed. Anyway, the first storm of the season, Alberto, hit Florida yesterday, and if the winds were 8km/h greater, it would have been the first hurricane of the season.

In other news, Woodduck wants to get the Triplets back together. Looks like I'm going to have to re-learn how to play the guitar.

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I'm not the only one who thinks the camera is too far away from the game

The BBC agrees with me.

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Ahhh, doesn't matter.

All's well that ends well.

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What a bunch of bullshit

All my years playing and watching football, I didn't know you could charge the 'keeper out of the way.

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Oh, the things I've seen

You aren't the only one with those things, you know

Buck and Dirt

Construction next door

The one with the waggly tail

Dinner

After Dinner

Artificial fur, keep away from fire

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Here we go, here we go, here we go...

World Cup thoughts.

Cranberry sauce. (I'm very tired.)

I've watched all the games so far, apart from this morning's 5am game, most of them the next day. Some of them on x2 speed, because Boycat's Mum isn't that big a football fan. I've explained to her that there's only about a week and a half of three games a day and then it will settle down a little.

Other thoughts:

• I don't like the main camera angle... well, it's more the framing I don't like. The angle is the standard camera-on-halfway angle, but the framing shows too much of the field - sideline to sideline - and it makes me feel a little disconnected from the action, it needs to be zoomed about 10%.
• The second half of the England game was terrible. I'm so glad I stayed up until 1am for that.
• Go Trinidad and Tobago! We'll forgive you for playing for the wrong team, Dwight.
  
• The fourth German goal is the goal of the tournament so far, but I agree: the ball does move around a bit too much. No keeper should be able to hit the videoscreens like the England keeper did.

But what can I say? Nine hours to go until something I've waited my whole life to see. (I was alive, but too young in 1974.)

Photo by Skywalker1403, stolen from flickr.

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Al-Zarqawi

The Americans have announced* that they've killed Al-Zarqawi. Are they sure they didn't get Fedele Crisci by mistake?

*A. It was the Iraqis, but there isn't much difference. B. Keep in mind the veracity of the source.

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King Pest update

An anonymous commenter informs me and anyone who reads my comments (i.e., still just me, I think) that the King Pest free gig on Saturday (referred to below) has moved to the Kauri Hotel, Glebe.

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Misc 06.06.06

• FREE GIG: For those of you in Syd-en-ee, there is a free King Pest gig this Saturday (10.06.06) at the St Petersburg Nightclub, 21 May St, St Peters. King Pest contains Carl from Slaughterhouse Joe and Gary from the Sanity Assassins. The Password is "nyet". (BYO Stollies)
  
• Peeboo gets a camera credit in the new Dirt Petty DVD.
• The Souths-Logan Magpies haven't been winning to often recently, leaving them in about 6th place.
• In the Brisbane Premier League football, my old team, Taringa Rovers, is in 3rd place after a draw at Taringa on Saturday.

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Boycat's Self

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What was wrong with Tracy Grimshaw's lips?

I only saw a few clips from the Miners thing on the news this morning, but I won't be watching the program itself — I taped it for Boycat's Mum ('BM') — because Tracy Grimshaw's horrible puffy mis-shapen lips just freaked me out. BM says it's probably "plumping" lipstick, which is apparently all the rage these days.

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Scrubs

Season Five ended in the U.S. last week.

This is a story about the season finale. It's full of spoilers, and you'll have to click through an advertisement to see it. This is how it begins:

Being a "Scrubs" fan is a little like being a Neil Diamond fan. It's the kind of thing that originally seemed so cheesy you didn't want to admit it, but somehow over the years gained its own warped credibility.

Discuss.

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Insert Go-Betweens lyric here

So, what does Grant McLennan's death mean to me? Not a lot, to be honest; after all I never met the man, I can't claim to be a friend or in anyway connected to him. (Actually, I lie, I'm two degrees of musical separation from him: I was in a band with Ross MacLennan who was in the Far Out Corporation.) And as I said to someone at work the other day, I haven't heard anything the Go-Betweens put out since they got back together.

But someone dying at 48 is sad, even if you think their best years were 15 years ago. Boycat's Mum's Dad died at 48.

But what do the Go-Betweens mean to me? As a former wannabe rock star from Brisbane, a heck of a lot. There really were very few bands from Brisbane back when I was in a band. Not like today where Powderfinger are the biggest band in the country and Regurgitator get an entire digital tv channel to themselves for a couple of weeks; when I was learning to play the guitar, there was pretty much only The Go-Betweens and The Saints. (Note that the music writer from the Courier Mail, Noel Mengel's blog is called "Know Your Product", named after The Saints' second best known song.) If they could make it - and even minor-league-popular-in-England success like the Gobies was making it - so might we be able to. (If, y'know, we were actually any good, which we weren't.)

And the songs. I haven't heard People Say or Don't Let Him Come Back in years (my sister had an original Able Label single before it got stolen) but they still go through my head occasionally. Since last weekend, Cattle and Cane and Streets of Your Town haven't left my head.

I feel that the worth of a band is measured by how good a "Greatest Hits" record they've got in them. And if they didn't have 'hits' then a "Best of". Gee, I wish there was a Godfathers best of. I think - although I don't have it - yet - that the Go-Betweens would have a very good best of. And that is the true mark of a band.

>>>Why the hell isn't Right Here on Bellavista Terrace? (Double-Ls, I get it.)

[END]

I went to school with the Mad Bomber!

My mother has passed on the word from my brother that, yes, I did go to the same school as Brisbane's mad bomber John Amundsen. He was in my brother's class. Another success for Marist Brothers' Rosalie! They don't just turn out bitter public servants. That'll give them something to talk about at the Old Boys' Dinner in a fortnight.

I was talking to a friend this evening - before I got the above news - and he said that Amundsen went to uni with his sister. He was a nutjob then, he's a nutjob now. Allegedly.

I'll wait to see if we find out the contents of the email threat he sent, but if he wasn't threatening to blow stuff up unless the government changed some policy or another, he's not a terrorist. He's just a mad bomber. Allegedly.

[END]

And in the sky a rain of falling cinders

More GW stories:

The Australian Senate remembers GW. See page 19 (of 139) of this .pdf file of Hansard.

89.3 KCUR-FM in Kansas City will have a two-hour tribute show on Saturday (U.S. time). There's a link to listen live from the KCUR homepage.

Obituary/Tribute in the U.K Herald.

Story from the SMH about the tributes received.

And a story about the TV coverage of the rescue of the miners that includes complaints similar to my first words on the GW subject:

"The coverage given to Carleton was far greater than that afforded another heart-attack victim from the weekend - Australian musician Grant McLennan, formerly of the band the Go-Betweens ... I, for one, have been touched much more by McLennan's music than Carleton's reporting."

[END]

Whatever I have is yours, but it's not much

Today's only mention in the paper was in a downloads column with links to things Go-Betweens fans have probably already got:

A site with links to snippets of songs, plus the video for Here Comes A City.

A site with the video for Bye Bye Pride

And from Google News:

Funeral for Go-Betweens frontman. I assume this will be in the paper tomorrow. [It was, but in a cut-down version in a newsbriefs column.]

NME story about Forster's reaction to tributes on go-betweens.net (Although the article actually links to gobetweens.net, which is a different site altogether.)

Found in a post on go-betweens.net:

Photos from an instore performance 12 May, 2005. (In fact, for those with no time to search, here's a link to the page for the flikr tag for 'gobetweens'.)

"I can't believe it. He was very sweet and generous to me when I asked to paint him." - Anne Wallace.

And where are those paintings now?

Finally: "The Go-Betweens' success was a source of great pride for Brisbane-ites." - from a post on the Go-Betweens messageboard by Robyn E. How true. Remember, this band started when the joke "What's the difference between Brisbane and yoghurt? There's culture in yoghurt" was still around. To quote Hüsker Dü: it's not funny anymore.

(Photo at the top by borolad259; stolen from flikr.)

[END]

I love Lee Remick, she's a darling

(Updated Tuesday PM)

I was going to predict, in my comments on another blog, that Richard Carleton's death was going to completely overshadow that of G.W. McLennan (but I figured that wasn't the place for cynicism.) But, unfortunately, on TV at least I was right - not a mention.

But not in the newspaper. Grant is honoured with page three with a colour photo (a different one than the one on the website; one of him and Forster). Richard Carleton gets page 5, in black and white (although if they had a picture of him lying on the ground dying, I'm sure Carleton would have been bumped up...)

And there is a comment/tribute piece "Brisbane arts scene loses its heart of gold"; but I can't find that online.

Also, the headline to the page three story in the paper is slightly different to the online version - "World-beating band founder dead at 48". The story is the same one that will probably have been printed in all News Ltd newspapers.

Google News has at least a couple of pages of articles, so I won't provide links to any apart from this and this.


UPDATE ~ TUESDAY: Here's the link to the "Heart of Gold" tribute.

Today there was a story about the funeral on page 5, two letters in the centre of the 'letters to the editor' section with a bold headline (neither of which were the ones on this page - use 'find' to find "McLennan" on the page*) and the original "Vale Grant McLennan" post and a couple of comments from Noel Mengel's blog.

Google News has loads of stories, probably most of them are the same UPI story- but what is interesting is the sort of publications it appears in, the LA Times, the Washington Post. Probably only on the web edition, with its unlimited space and not the print edition, but who cares. There's also a big story in Rolling Stone, with an interesting tid-bit about how the producer of 24 was a fan and wrote their names into the show.

Hey, were either of McLennan or Forster in Cow, or was that just Dave from Custard? Which one of them was in the Far Corporation with Ross MacLennan (of Dirt Petty and the Hideous Debacle)?

*Ironically, considering the letter about using Streets of Your Town for the newspaper's TV commercials, that commercial was just on as I typed this.

[END]

By the time they said "I do" their expenses totalled $19,000 (US$)

There's an interesting article in the Christian Science Monitor about the cost of weddings in the US these days. I know I say "interesting article" a lot, but this time, Boycat's Mum read the whole thing when I showed it to her; and that was two and a half A4 pages of 10 point text, so I figure it might actually be interesting to someone other than me.

I think our wedding cost $3000 (in 1993). We paid for it ourselves although Boycat's Mum's Dad slipped us $1500 after it was over. We did the flowers in the church ourselves (that was when I learned you don't cut 6 inches off the end of long-stemmed roses to make them fit), my sister made the wedding dress, our reception was at our favourite indian restaurant — we'd been paying it off for the previous six months — and the entertainment was a couple of mix tapes I put together plus a belly-dancer.

Some of my friends had posher weddings, like the one in the botanical gardens, and some had traditional Italian weddings, but I'm pretty sure no one spent anything like $19,000 U.S dollars.

[END]

Plagiarism Update

From the New York Times:

Fresh passages in the novel by a Harvard sophomore, whose book was pulled from stores last week after she acknowledged plagiarizing portions of it, appear to be copied from a second author.

[END]

He's still Dirt and he don't care!

So, I got my invite in the mail this week: Saturday June 3rd is the World Premiere of the new DVD Beneath the Dirt, Dirt Petty 1985-2005.

It's also Dirt's 40th birthday, and of course the DVD will be on sale for $15 (although I'm hoping I can get a discount...). This year's ultimate A-list red-carpet event will be held at the Taylor Range Country Club at Ashgrove.

Dirt interviewed me about a year ago for the film.

This is Dirt's second video, but unfortunately, my brother-in-law taped over the master of the A $2300 Memory video years ago — the first time we loaned it to him — so I haven't seen it for a while.

[END]

Do not get into fights with other drivers

From one of the booklets that came with my bike.

[END]

She should have said it was a homage... (updated)

Harvard Novelist Says Copying Was Unintentional

Actually, I'm serious. While the 'mirroring' in the quoted portion goes on for just a little too long, it would only need to be slightly re-written (maybe find something that doesn't include the words 'ha', 'uh' or 'yeah') to make a claim that it was a homage to Megan McCafferty reasonably plausible.

But there's nothing wrong with the "(a), (b)" stuff - after I read The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test I used Tom Wolfe's triple-colons ( ::: ) loads. So a little bit of trying someone else's techniques on for effect is fine, I reckon.

Followed by: a bit of discussion in the comments of this post.

LATER: Here's a link to the article that broke the story, from the Harvard Crimson

Here's a big list of similarities, also from the Crimson.

[END]

Gonna form my own Moped Gang!

Scooter riders of the world, unite!

I'm glad to see that non-fatal accidents are down, too. That's reassuring. Now, if we can just get frickin' car drivers to see us.

Meanwhile Krustophenia sits on the shelf...

[END]

What I was looking at this month...

Here's some pictures of stuff, since I got my phone/camera repaired.

This includes stuff shot on lots of days, except none from April 20, strangely enough.

Although some things look familiar.

Doesn't my pergola look nice and clean? It'll stay like this for about a month...

More pictures below the fold...


[END]

Miscellany 060423

The Souths Logan Magpies extended the winning streak to four games, putting us in fourth place - equal on points with a group holding second to fifth.

I really like this: This Is My Last Entry: Why I shut down my blog by Sarah Hepola. A lot of what she says seems familiar.

Also, the New York Times has an article with some stuff on the whole 'Google doing evil in China' issue that I hadn't known or hadn't thought about; interesting background on how Chinese censorship works. Unfortunately, this article will disappear behind the Times' own Great Paywall fairly soon.

[END]

April 20 wrap

Everyone's photos from 'Pril Twennie are now on Flikr at

http://www.flickr.com/photos/63999942@N00/

And how was it? I got to see bits of Darwin, and more Kamberry and Syd-en-ee. Everyone got to see what a godforsaken wasteland I work in... It was good pointless fun.

[END]

Happy 20th of April!

Woke up, got out of bed... didn't realise the camera was set to macro mode for 12 hours...

More 20th of April action over at Paul and Suzanne's and Syme's blogs.

6.00am - What bloody time do you call this?


7.00am - Coffee!

8.00am - I'd better put the rego sticker on my NEW BIKE!


9.00am - At the Logan River


10.00am - Outside for a cigarette


11.00am - On a phone hook-up


12.00pm - Phone hook-up is finally over, back out for a cigarette


1.00pm - Four hours later and it hasn’t been nicked!


2.00pm - The shadow is moving


3.00pm - Welcome to the smokers' ghetto


4.00pm - The shadow is still moving


5.00pm - Home again, home again, jiggedy-jig


6.00pm - Leave me alone, I'm off the clock

[END]

The camera is by the alarm clock...

I'm all ready to take a photo an hour tomorrow for the inaugural 'April 20 Day', which this year is being held on the twentieth of April.

[END]

For the record

The Souths Logan Magpies have won their last three games.

Giving them a total of three wins...

[END]

It's been over 20 years now...

...and I still can't remember which '80s act was Yazz and which was Yazoo.

And speaking of old, I got my hair cut this week. There's just more grey every time.

[END]

C'est moi

Here's me doing my Ambassador Kosh impression.

[END]

Quiz

Who is this? Where can he be found?

This picture is circa 2001? (Stolen from here)

I guess I could try this mobile number that's been programmed into my phone for at least the last seven years, lazy bugger that I am... Last I saw him he did some free design work for us because we were going to be getting a regular newsletter printed through him, and then our business went bankrupt.

Hope he didn't think I stopped calling to avoid paying him or anything, because, as I mentioned, I'm a just lazy bugger.

He's here: http://www.gasolinegroup.net

This has got to be fake, doesn't it?

Bizarre baby born in Dolakha

A link to information about a hoax referred to in the comments is here.

[END]

Blog or have a life? Blog or have a life?

Hmmm...

[END]

Frickin' 36 year-old Smiths fans...

There's an article in The Guardian about the Smiths. From the intro:

The songs that saved my life

Twenty years ago, Mark Taylor was a 16-year-old with few friends and an obsession with the Smiths. To mark a new album from the band's former lead singer Morrissey, he recalls how a scrappy fanzine made in his bedroom led to an unexpected friendship...

For the record, I liked The Smiths for Johnny Marr. He played a Rickenbacker for god's sake. Who had time for Morrissey?

But what I find most interesting is the age of all the people who contribute at the bottom...

[END]

Making the Freeway, Chapter II

Here, again (mostly) below the fold, is chapter two of the piece of writing I was mentioning before.

II: George

Curious George — Capt. Logan explores, climbs mountains — George, the map freak, before the accident — a riverboat ride — "...the finest tract of land..." — a parent's dream comes true — non-danger signs — The accident.

George was a psycho nutjob with a serious drug habit and an acquired brain injury. He lived with his mother in Loganholme. He spoke his mind — constantly — but his mind was crazy...

George was not always like this, of course. Before the injury was acquired, he was an active, inquisitive boy with an interest in cricket and cars and the world around him and, basically, in doing what boys do. And he also had a developing interest in Logan City — where he lived — and Captain Logan.


Captain Patrick Logan was the commandant of the Moreton Bay Penal Colony from 1826 until the time of his unsolved, but undeniably unpleasant, death in 1830. He was an avid explorer who discovered the river than now bears his name — although in the custom of the time, he named it the 'Darling' after the Governor of New South Wales (which is where the river would be for another two decades) — and thus gave his name to the area.

Logan liked watercourses and climbing things, once trekking along Oxley Creek with Cunningham, another explorer now with his name on things around South-East Queensland. On one of his inland excursions, Logan became the first white man to climb Mt. Barney. By the accounts, it was a difficult — possibly even dumb — climb. Other experienced climbers in the party gave up and waited the five hours it took for Logan to return.


George was immediately interested in Logan from the first time he heard about him, at age 12, before the accident. By that time, George already referred to himself as a 'map freak'. So did his friends and family. He liked to know where he was; he liked to relate it to the pocket street map he always carried.

George especially liked travelling on trains while tracking his course on his map. Roads and buses went past the front of people's houses; trains often went past their backs. It wasn't that George wanted to see people's sordid secrets; he just liked the new perspective on things this back-to-front view gave to his world. Trains also went through empty ground and farmland that roads didn't reach. Another chance for a new vista.


It was on a riverboat ride he had received for his twelfth birthday that George first saw the view from the river.

The riverboat was sailing in commemoration of the boats of times past which used to ply their trade up and down the Logan River. George's parents, who, having been pestered for maps as Christmas and birthday presents for years, were well aware of George's passion for seeing things from new viewpoints, had saved for the trip ever since they read in the Albert and Logan that such an opportunity was upcoming.

George was inspired. The river gave him the chance to see things he hadn't seen before; notice details obscured by the speeds of the vehicles — even the trains — in which he'd previously been travelling. He saw how the features of the land, like the Tanah Merah hill he'd trudged to the top of many times, affected the course of the river. And he listened intently to the knowledgeable lady from the local library who provided commentary on the journey.


George had been brought up in an era when road transport ruled. It never occurred to him that the river; that flash of water seen between the railings of the concrete cattle-run of the freeway bridge at 100km/h—that river; could once have been at the heart of everything. But on the riverboat ride, George heard about local history and about how the river had once been at the centre of it all; transporting timber, sugarcane and, of course, passengers and everything else it took to sustain a nineteenth century frontier community in the midst of what its European discoverer, Logan, had once called "...the finest tract of land I have seen in this or any other country..."

And, on that day on the river, George finally heard about Logan himself: the commandant, the explorer, the mountain-climber. It was when he heard about Logan's (probably incorrect) claim to have seen the river from Mt. French that George realised height provided the opportunity to see his world from yet another angle.


Not long after, George's social studies class at school began looking at the history of the Logan. This had two effects: first, it reinforced George's interest in the subject, almost to the point of obsession; second, he aced that exam at school.

So, his parents were happy. They had always encouraged George, providing gifts or matching funding for his map and street directory purchases. They were pleased when his interest in knowing where he was developed into an interest in knowing where other things were and then into knowing how those things and places came to be there in the first place. And when it helped George's grades at school, his parents were ecstatic.

To George's parents, the fact that the interest continued after its utility for grades at school ended was no problem: this was how people found out what they wanted to do for a living. That the interest escalated into requests for funding for 'topographical' maps — aerial photos with little lines drawn over them indicating the height of the land — was harmless enough. It seemed to George's parents that knowing the history of an area and knowing its landforms were related disciplines.

And teenage boys can always use a little discipline.


George's parents didn't see any danger when their son made it his mission to walk to the tops of all of the high points in the local area. He was 13 by then and he had been going to the top of the rock at Tanah Merah since he'd been given a (secondhand) bike at age ten, but mostly just to ride back down really fast. His parents listened with some pride, but mostly boredom, as he described the view from Eden's Landing, North Hill in Cornubia or the Kingston reservoir.

On George's part, he hoped his parents didn't know the reservoir too well, or they'd know he'd had to break-in to see what he had described. Maybe 'break-in' was too strong: there was a two foot gap in the wire security fence where it joined the fence of the house next door. And to see some of the other sights he'd had to trespass in some pretty posh places, too.

To George's parents, it was a natural extension when he wanted to travel further afield to see what he could see— Daisy Hill, Springwood, Wineglass Park at Hillcrest...


By the age of 16, George had an intimate firsthand knowledge of the place of his birth. He knew where everything was and every way to get there. He knew the history and the people. But he also knew that Captain Logan had done things he had not, besides order all the floggings. Such as to follow Oxley Creek overland, or to climb Mt. Barney.

So, it was on Mt. Barney a year later that George's accident occurred. He had taken along photocopies of books containing information about Logan's climb. He had already once insisted on a more dangerous route based on what he considered to be Logan's "true path" that he had discerned from his reading.

He was walking along a narrow ledge, apparently reading a map, when he stumbled and fell.

This was the accident in which George acquired his brain injury. Along with his overwhelming interest in Captain Patrick Logan, the injury caused two more effects: a need to know exactly where he was at all times, and a pathological obsession with safety.

© 2006

[END]

Voting

Well, apparently candidate for Mayor of Logan City, Councillor Lutton has admitted to sending a threatening text message to Councillor Darren 'Supertool' Power: "ur dead meat arsehole" during the election campaing, which ends today.

He's got my vote.

But then again, Lutton did put "landscaping" as his second dot point... and I just think we have to accept it that plants have to be left to die when we're likely to run out of water in two years.

While not running, Darren has apparently endorsed two people. I must find out who they are and put them last. One of them will be that Jessica Rowe-looking woman, because she's listed that she tried to stop the Daisy Hill Rd development...

[END]

Travel stuff

I was travelling on Tuesday, doing the usual "It's bloody 4am, bloody daylight-savings, early flight" thing. Here's some things...

Brisbane airport doesn't think birds are animals, judging from its 'No animals or birds' signs.

Airport Security (you know, the metal detector, put your bags on the belt, walk through the archway people) told me to take a cigarette lighter out of my carry-on bag and put it in my pocket. After I'd passed security. They didn't take it away from me, they didn't say I couldn't have it. After I got through security, I walked around the corner and put it back in my bag.

We flew on JetStar's flying pizza - a plane totally decked-out (apart from the tail) with an ad for Domino's puff pastry pizza. There were ads on all the seat backs and a lot of the overhead lockers.

It looks like the Green Leaf party (who support legalising it) didn't win a seat in the Israeli Knesset, as was suggested in an article I read the other day.

I read an article — I've tried but I can't find it online — talking about how the usefulness of the green belt that stretches from (at least) southern Brisbane to Flinders Peak is in jeopardy, due to current and proposed subdivisions around Camira and the Larapinta Motorway Business Park. Well, I saw the latter from the air yesterday and it really is a massive scar on the landscape.

[END]

Downing Street cat dies

I bet his full name was 'Sir Humphrey'.

[END]

You've come a long way, baby

What appears 'below the fold' is chapter one of one of the things I'm writing. By "I'm writing", I mean "that I've started in the past six years"... It was to be called Making the freeway safe for the Free Way: Living in Logan City. Or something like that, since that's a little long.

I started it a couple of years ago and then lost it when my computer at work decided to do one of its weekly random reversions to an earlier copy of my desktop and whoosh! it wasn't there any more. But luckily, I had been obsessed with formatting it and proof-reading it, so I had lots of printed copies to look at as I typed it back in today.

I've written a big three chapters of Freeway (the title comes from a song by fIREHOSE, by the way, and fIREHOSE is where the title of the Slaughterhouse Joe song gARDENHOSE comes from,) and I haven't tried to integrate chapter three into my "story" yet, it's still a stand alone article about Christmas. I haven't really started the story in the chapter below: the actual characters (apart from the first-person narrator) start in chapter two.

It's the most plotted thing I've ever planned, In fact, it's one of the first things I've ever planned, or plotted. Seriously, I've got a cork-board downstairs filled with different coloured three-by-five cards with major plot points outlined on it. I might type them up sometime and post them, since I'm using the internet as a great big archive to make sure I only have to ever frickin' type something once from here on in and there'll always be a copy somewhere.

A lot of the 'plot' was going to be a suburban story about, among other things, a coup in the management committee of a local community centre; interwoven with pretty much everything I know about Logan City, hence the introductory history lesson reproduced — for the very first time! — when you click on the time, just below...

I: You've come a long way, baby

Boomtown — Making the freeway — Beaudesert — Ratepayer-rebellion — Borders — Council — Kuraby — Farewell to Albert

In the boom after WWII, the Brisbane City Council had strict planning regulations for the new sub-divisions popping up in previously-rural outlying areas. The still-rural Shires to the south, however, had laxer laws; only requiring the developer to pay for lightly-sealed roads and minimal drainage. So, given the choice, the developers did what developers always do, and simply built where the costs were lower.

Sub-divisions were built along the popular road between Brisbane and the Gold Coast, just south of the border with Brisbane. The Housing Commission got into the act in the 60s and 70s, knocking up low-cost homes; even though the Shire Council planning rules were toughened up in 1967.


South-East Queensland — like most regions in Australia containing the State capitals — has always been profoundly affected by decisions made at the state level. And so it was with Albert Shire, that place just south of Brisbane on the road to the Gold Coast, in 1965 when a plan was announced by the State to build a freeway to link to the highway to the coast by 1970. As it turned out, only phase one was completed by '70. The whole project wasn't completed until 1985, 15 years late.

Still, freeway fervour was enough to sustain the pace of development, even after the change in the building laws. Land along the proposed route was bought and built on as the cost-benefit ratio swung firmly in favour of the property developers. Areas to the south of the post-war Housing Commission satellite suburbs, areas with proud rural histories and famous pioneer families, whose names now only dotted the landscape as the names of suburbs and streets and in pioneer graveyards, these areas were sub-divided and exploited for the sake of the non-stop unplanned boom that is South-East Queensland.


And what of the other rural Shire to the south of Brisbane City; Beaudesert Shire, inland from Albert?

Like Albert, Beaudesert had lax post-war planning regs and a major thoroughfare tapping directly into — and draining directly out of — the arteries of Brisbane. Unlike in Albert, Beaudesert's road was a transportation rather than tourist trail. Commercial developments sprung up along with the suburbs on the border Beaudesert shared with Brisbane.

Roads with origins as aboriginal tracks or simple paths linking isolated settlements became busy routes linking Beaudesert Road with the Gold Coast Highway, and Brisbane with points further south.


And so it was that the northern Divisions of the Albert and Beaudesert Shires became densely-populated, vigorous, vibrant, productive, rate-paying commuter communities jacked into the veins of the Capital while the southern portion remained undeveloped rural land dozing in God's bounteous Queensland sun.

Or so it seemed to the residents in the north. By the 70s most of them lived in 50s houses with crappy roads and shitty sewerage and they were beginning to raise a stink. Why, they asked, was less than a quarter of the rate-money collected in Division 1, (northern) Albert Shire actually spent there? Why did our vote count so much less in Council? And, for that matter, why were the council seats so far away?

So, yea and verily, did Albert and Beaudesert Shires play their part in the never-ending cycle of history by taking a leaf out of the property developer handbook: when you have a problem (like the expense of the provision of proper kerbed and channelled roads and reticulated water) just shift the cost onto someone else. But Brisbane didn't want the cost and the State Government didn't want Brisbane (already large and powerful) to get the people, so the Shires cut the north adrift and left it to fend for itself.

People say there were reasons for the decision beyond the undeniable pain-relief felt by the southerners of the Shires. The State Government of the time was the party for country folk: farmers; while the rebellious residents of the ramshackle northern region weren't sons of ther soil. They were probably socialists, communists, God-knows-what-else-ists. Likely to be L... Lab... Labor Party voters.

So, in 1970s Queensland, you did the traditional thing — what you always did — when your natural God-given majority was threatened by evil ideologues: draw upon Governor Gerry's Salamander and draw a new, separate but equal, local government area into existence.


Thus was the creation of Logan Shire, a place named after a river named after a commandant of the Moreton Bay colony who, at one time, held the record in the Australian colonies for the most lashes administered to convicts in a single year.

While not a salamander, Logan was indeed a curious shape. Even in the 21st Century, 'Logan Central', the suburb housing the administration centre — which had been carved out of the Woodridge and Kingston, two of the original Housing Commission house clusters — borders onto the City of Brisbane. From my house in the east, I can see south into the City of Gold Coast. The next hill further east not only affords a view into Redland Shire, to the east of both Logan and Brisbane; and which is only now having its red earth encased in concrete construction; but, because it is a high hill, the view probably extends all the way west to the City of Ipswich.

It is a seven minute drive north from my house to the frontier of the City of Brisbane. Once I get onto the freeway, of course.

Since its tumultuous birth, Logan has always been in the middle of nowhere, on the road halfway to somewhere. And the road is always a freeway.

Drivers heading for the Gold Coast on the three-year-old überautobahn can drive through Logan in 15 minutes flat. And in the summer, with the air-conditioning blowing recirculated air and their radios blasting their favourite Brisbane FM station, they neither have to smell nor hear Logan as they go through. The sights, kept away from travellers as they are by concrete or wood noise baffles, can be safely ignored in favour of the white lines and arrows indicating the fastest way thehell outta town.


But, back to 8 June 1978, when the foundation legislation, which had been introduced into State parliament only nine days earlier, was approved. Hey, Rocky! Watch me pull a rabbit out of my butt! Or back to 18 April 1979, when the woefully inexperienced, probably technically insolvent Council had its first official meeting. Or 1 July 1979, the new financial year, when the Logan Shire Council formally assumed full responsibility for its fledgling community.

Or maybe just cut a long and, I'm sure, colourful story (which I don't happen to know) short and go back to 1 January 1981, when Logan became a city. Just a few years ealier a new Shire had winked into existence and now it was a City.

The official history on the Council website doesn't dwell much on the time since 1981 (beyond a few teething troubles) and jumps forward to the present day. And since it is on the official website, phrases like 'a success story' are to be expected. But Logan has come a long way. After all, I moved there in 1993.

But the biggest symbol and the most potent metaphor for the distance Logan has come and the distances people have travelled to come to Logan are its freeways.


I came to Logan on the freeway in 1992. I was driving a friend to her father's business premises in Loganholme where she was to live and work. She is now my wife; we bought a house on the hill above the business in February 1993.

Of course, I had driven or been driven through it lots of times. I have childhood recollections of the family driving home from the coast. When you passed the Big W on Logan Rd at Kuraby, you knew that the great expanse of nothing between the Gold Coast and Brisbane had ended and you were back in Brissie.

Except part of that expanse of 'nothing' was Logan, and the Big W was on Logan Rd in Underwood, a Logan suburb, not Kuraby in Brisbane City.

And it's not like I was totally unaware at the time of things going on in Logan. When I drove my Nana back home to her place down the coast in those heady days in 1987-88 before I lost my licence, I dimly remember being annoyed by delays caused by construction — perhaps of the Logan Hyperdome (but perhaps not: it seems something was always being constructed in Logan in those days) — and I definitely remember trying to drop her off as early as possible so I could get back to the Loganholme McDonald's before breakfast finished at 10:30.


There is one more thing: some time in the 1980s, 'efficiency' became the be-all and end-all. So it didn't take long for someone to say that smaller Shire Councils in Queensland weren't as efficient as the larger Shires, Towns and Cities. From little seeds do the big oaks of "amalgamation" grow. (Oaks are, of course, an introduced species in Australia which out-compete the native plants and choke the waterways. Technically, they are weeds.)

The rump of the Albert Shire was amalgamated into the richer Gold Coast City Council in the mid-90s, a process repeated with many small Shires across the state. The council seat was moved onto the coast itself; but, to be fair, it moved from a location that was already quite a ways away from the city's northern suburbs.

By the end of the 90s, it was the residents of the northern Gold Coast who were complaining they were underserviced, neglected and remote from the seat of government.

© 2006

[END]

Saturday Evening

>>>>Happy Birthday to Boycat's Aunt.

>>>>My Bombay Express correspondent reports seeing some of the formerly-G.C.-Bulletin-reading commuters now reading the new tabloid Courier Mail on the train in the mornings.

We get the paper home delivered (I figure that since I already spend hours online collecting overseas news, should let the local stuff come to me) and it's been harder to get my chance to read the paper since it got rid of all the separate sections. Once I get my hands on it, though, it is easier to read; mostly because you don't have to keep track of whether or not you've read all the separate sections.

>>>>The Souths Logan Magpies are almost ready to go out and lose to the North Queensland Young Guns in the Qld Cup.

>>>>Surprise, surprise. Alan Moore apparently doesn't like the movie of V for Vendetta either.

>>>>More on JT Leroy.

[END]

Chef quits South Park

link.

[END]

Sunday Morning

It looks like the Queensland Reds might not be the worst rugby union Super 14 team in Australia.

Devo re-record their songs to be sung by kids. The jerky 'new wave' rhythms are great for kids to jump up and down to, apparently. Watch out for kids singing Go-Gos songs; coming soon.

In round one of the Queensland Cup rugby league competition, the Souths Logan Magpies give it a red hot go, but lose as usual.

Someone's finally printed a map of where the Wolffdene dam was supposed to go. I've been looking for info on this since I moved to Logan. I was only talking about it a couple of weeks ago with a person who was looking for land in the '80s. She was telling me that every map of land in the area had a big warning on it about the dam. (The dam wall is pretty much where I guessed it would be.)

And Australia lost all three group games and is out of the World Baseball Classic.

Oh, yeah, and I forgot to say- we bought a new DVD recorder yesterday. Same brand as the last one; all our old discs seem to work okay. The last one worked for 2 years and 11 days. It cost $1000. The new one cost $329, and it's better. It's weird though, our last one was in the '50' series - you know, model number DMR50a or something like that - the new one is in the '10' series. The 50s still exist, but they're the 200Mb hard drive jobbies. So it's like the average unit in the cheaper model of recorder is now better than the 2nd best model in the more expensive series was two years ago. (There was an 80Meg HD version out when we bought our HD-less version. That's why it was on special.)

[END]

Priceless...

From the Asian Champions League website, with my bolding added -

Group F
Arema Malang (IDN), Ulsan Horang-i (KOR), Tokyo Verdy (JPN), Thai Tobacco Monopoly (THA)

Group G
Shanghai Shenhua (CHN), Persipura Jayapura (IDN), Provincial Electricity Authority (THA), Dong Tam Long An (VIE)

Arema Malang and Persipura Jayapura of Indonesia and Thai Tobacco Monopoly and Provincial Electricity Authority of Thailand were later disqualified from the competition for failure to submit their squad lists by the deadline. That left Group F and Group G with only two teams each.

These were the only two Osaka Orangeaid Concern-type teams in the entire competition and now they're not playing.

Although, now that I look at it, Shanghai Shenhua sounds like a company team, and when you think about it, I don't really know what many of the team names mean.

But, hey, it tickled my fancy.

[END]

R.I.P., Kirby Puckett

Kirby Puckett was a baseballer for the Minnesota Twins. That's the team I support.

Seriously - I went to see them play at the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome* once, and I haven't really ever been to that many live sporting events that I wasn't playing in myself.

And some people may recall I was once in a band called The Minnesota Triplets. (It was a four-piece.)

I support the Twins because Hüsker Dü formed in Minneapolis. (In NFL, I support the Minnesota Vikings for the same reason.)

Kirby played in the first World Series I ever watched all of. That's the series that inspired my song "Series MVP".

Kirby's dead at the age of 45.

* a three-H dome in a 3M town.

[END]

Police brutality on Brisbane train

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 8

Three Queensland police officers brutalised a teenage girl on a Brisbane train and on Beenleigh station, according to witnesses.

It has been alledged that the three officers boarded a Brisbane to Beenleigh train at Woodridge station at approximately 1.50pm on March 8 and began checking passenger tickets.

They moved forward towards the front of the train.

Try to "break your thumb off"

A witness descibed the events which followed after the train arrived at Beenleigh: "I got off the train and was on the platform and then this screaming starts from the front carriage where the cops were."

"They dragged this young girl off the train and started dragging her down the ramp. She was crying and screaming and basically begging with them to stop hurting her."

"They had her in some kind of 'twist your arm, squeeze your hand and try to break your thumb off' hold. One cop on each side. It looked really cruel."

"When they dragged her past me her hands were really white, like they'd squeezed all the blood out. It looked like they'd rotated her wrists around, like, 360 degrees."

"It was traumatic. Her friend was in tears."

Missing persons

The arrested girl was travelling with a female companion.

"We're missing persons" she said.

It is understood that both girls had been reported missing after running away from their foster homes.

"I was right there beside them [on the train]," another witness reported, "She didn't do anything. It's police brutality."

"They'd believe the foster parents over the girl? Who knows what goes on in foster houses?"

"I'm going right now to make a complaint to my local member."

It is understood that a complaint has already been made to the Crime and Misconduct Commission over the matter.

Queensland Police were not contacted for comment.

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Sydney win. Yawn.

Sydney won. 1-0. The Central Coast looked good in the first half, with no success. Then they got the the wind knocked out of their sails by Sydney's goal in the 61st minute and they never really looked like scoring after that.

Record crowd of 41,689; lots of away fans in yellow. Now for next year.

>>>Sydney FC's Alex Brosque won player of the year (3-2-1 voting each week) for his play with Queensland, before he left us.

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Cat story

Sydney cat found in Melbourne

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Give me back my Malden. Have a Gin and Tonic instead.

Feb 20, 2006; 2:39pm: So apparently kiddies today aren't getting enough iodine in their diets, possibly leading to "mental and growth retardation". The study has "prompted calls" for all edible salt to be iodised.

Does that mean uniodised salt would be banned? What about uniodised Malden Sea Salt, the best cooking salt in the world?

There's iodine in tonic water. Give the kiddies a daily G&T instead.

LATER: When I mentioned the above issue and my solution, Boycat's Mum pointed out that the kids can just drink the tonic. D'oh!

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Some Thoughts

It's three weeks into the Super 14, and Queensland haven't won a game. Is the season over? Well they won't make the four, but if that was the sole criterion on whether or not the season was over, then the season was over before the start of the first game.

I hear that people are saying (there's some thin sourcing for you) that they could've sold out the A-League grand final twice over. Be that as it may, I was so pleased to read that people were scalping tickets on eBay. You know you've arrived when they're scalping your tickets on eBay.

Isn't it great how the British are still managing to keep the great old tradition of the 'heist' alive and kicking? Not boring old smash and grab robberies, but full-on intricately planned heists.

Here's something for your diaries, (ha!) March 7 - 20, the Australian Baseball Team are playing in the World Baseball Classic, baseball's attempt at a world competition, styled on the World Cup.

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