In today/yesterday's Age, the government takes a more radical approach to kangaroo population control.

I have to say, it's pretty satisfying finally getting to read good press about your football team. In a petty stupid way it's an endorsement of your own beliefs, much in the same way talkback radio hosts berate their callers just for having a slightly different opinion, or how religious zealots keep insisting we non believers are all going to hell so that they feel better about their own conflicted existence. Okay, that may have been off topic somewhat but the feeling still stands. To an extent you could argue supporting a sporting team is a lot like choosing a religion - it feels pretty good for the most part but in the end it probably counts for very little. Collingwood supporters are certainly not the chosen ones, that's for sure. Heaven for one thing would certainly have more stringent dental and personal hygiene requirements, that's all I'm trying to say. Here endeth the lesson.

Regardless, all blasphemy aside this bout of press is quite fun to read and reread. While I certainly know how much maligned people see our chances in September and how we're just making up the numbers, this is all old hat material I have come to expect to read in the media. At least with this Monday's post mortem editorials the bigwigs Sheahan and Connelly have taken a small portion of their spiels to let everyone know that we're not as bad as we used to be, certainly better than last year at the very least. Though really everyone knows that at the end of September chances are one team of a felinesque moniker will hold that flag up high, no one really seems to mind as they go about preparing for their own finals campaigns. Having said that, I'm not sure how much finals experience we need to make more than two weeks of finals. Clearly the year before we were outclassed by sides more experienced at this kind of action. Hopefully we can go a bit further this time round.

In other football related news, I was watching Seven News for some reason and heard that Nathan Buckley's tips for the year to date totalled 101 or so. Well I am pleased to say I am tipping better than Nathan-freaking-Buckley right now on 109, so where's my personal football tipping segment on the evening news? Introducing Justin's tips for the round... "Who?"

Just a quick note to say that semester one is over. Thank freak for that... you know something isn't right when it's 2 in the morning and you don't need sleep and instead feel compelled to work on your project a little more. I had final presentation today, I'll post more on that a little later once I reacquaint myself with the sleeping patterns of a regular person. Strangely that involves me adapting the sleeping patterns of Mike Goldman, who only emerges twice a year to host Big Brother and Meerkat Manor. (I am convinced that the only reason he remains on BB is to prevent him from making any further seasons of Meerkat Manor. Time will tell.)

Or conversely if you happen to be running the Australian national football (soccer for locals) team, "People want Dutch!" (Thanks to Get This for that gag). It's certainly an odd sight when a team/flush/raft of ducks (as opposed to a load or stumble of drunks) have a sit in not far off your front door. Maybe they were out looking for food on garbage day.


People Want Cricket!

On a completely non duck related topic, my Sunday was spent playing cricket with the guys from BH/Uni. The days leading up to Sunday were kind of worrying when buckets of water were being dumped on us from the skies for two days in a row, but when the day came everything seemed to be just fine. Sure it was a bit on the cooler side but there wasn't as much sun to burn us to crisps of our former selves.

Marcus and I rocked up fashionably late due to church commitments on his behalf, but that wasn't all too bad. Showing up slightly more refreshed than everyone else who had been there for about an hour before us, we took this chance to rip apart the tired and weakened opposition for about 40 minutes before we too began to realise that we needed more exercise more often. Oh well, it was good while it lasted.

Highlights for the show reel included several run outs due to the harsh uncompromising nature of Tippity rules cricket and the near regulation artificial pitch we managed to commandeer for the day's proceedings. The ground wasn't too damp save for the odd bog and quicksand death trap so play was fairly smooth. As per usual Ken and Darren got their eyes in after some uneasy moments and sent deliveries from us pie throwers all over the ground. On a personal note, I managed to snare four or five wickets bowling the usual medium paced pies which I was happy to celebrate Brett Lee Chainsaw Massacre style.


People Want Cards!

The day's play ended at about half past five once all of us had built up enough lactic acid to create the most disgusting and exhausting health drink ever made. It seemed a bit too early to call it quits for the day, the sun was still in full view and we were a truckin' convoy up to no good. For the next twenty minutes we sat in the back of our cars pondering our options while slamming down soft drink in some sort of dodgy looking Coke dealing operation. I'm not one for highlighting subtle gags or puns but I'm really hoping you at least pretended to get that one... it is the charitable season after all, why not spare a laugh for an earnest journeyman of a blogger this Christmas?

We finally decided on trying to hold a draft between the remaining six of us before anyone realised boosters are fairly difficult to acquire when it's six in the afternoon on a Sunday. Chadstone held very little joy for us as most places were out of stock or had the wrong product. We might try and hold something like that later on in the week providing people can be bothered showing up. It should be good fun though.


People Want Shane Watson! (Well, not everyone...)

In slightly tangential news, the week before I was running about the park in circles while trying to attain match fitness in my ongoing battle against childhood obesity which ended a long time ago, but my side obviously hasn't heard the news yet like that Japanese soldier hiding on a Pacific island not knowing the war had been over for 60 years. However I am doing my part for the youth of today in the hope of setting up some sort of carbon credit trading system but substituting simple carbon for more complex hydrocarbons so just remember you could be walking down the street with my arse.

Anywho, the run itself was all well and fine with little incident. It was only after I got home where I was lying on the couch several hours later stretching and relaxing when I went and pulled a hamstring. Imagine the supreme irony of it all, me writhing in pain while laughing in full acknowledgement of what the Ironator had done to me, in a case of what I like to call the Shane Watson Effect or Syndrome, whichever you find funnier.

For all of you who are not familiar with the man with the eponymous Effect in question, Shane Watson is a cricketer who plays for the state of Queensland and occasionally for our national team, providing he doesn't succumb to an injury or minor misfortune of which are many and well documented. When he's not playing, he attempts to get back into the team by casting curses on his fellow team mates so that they may know his pain. Don't believe me? Then how about the time Brad Hogg almost clipped himself out of contention when he got an infection from a rogue nail clipper gone totally mad? And how could Brad Hodge dislocate a disc in his back while putting his pants on? Stuart MacGill being an out of shape spinner with a wine dependency problem? Such weird misfortunes cannot happen to the entire team ala Mr Burns' Nuclear Plant Baseball team style without a catalyst, and I submit to the judge and jury that the man sitting in this court today with the voodoo doll is responsible.

On the other hand, the Shane Watson Effect sounds a lot like that recent annoying advert campaign for none other than the Lynx Effect. I think you all know where this is heading... imagine Watson passing people in the street spraying them with an aerosol can while exclaiming the catchphrase "Boom Chicka Wah-Wah" and dancing toolishly. He waltzes off into the distance, and you think nothing of it until you suddenly develop cramps out of nowhere or materialise on the top floor of the Eureka building only to fall down the numerous flights of stairs within.


So in conclusion - People Want Things! (Unless it's Shane Watson or a muscle cramp)

The other night I had the horror of watching Four Corners (there was nothing else on and I like the left leaning bias) and witnessing the idiocy of a group of undecided swinging voters diddle doddle over who to throw their vote away to. For those who don't live in these parts, there is an election campaign between two parties whenever there is a slow news day: the Labour Party led by ear wax aficionado Kevin Rudd of the "New Left" and the incumbent Decepticons led by the evil Megatron, ahem... John Howard.

For about half an hour the reporters followed these people who would possibly have difficulty deciding between watching paint dry and subscribing to the Paint Watching Network on Foxtel (with a government rebate of course). The reporters took their voting intentions and opinions week by week as the campaign went on, and to no one's surprise the result was about break even. Some remained unimpressed by either side while others began to swing one way or another. The worst part of it all was watching some bogans on TV forming their opinions based on policies that did not exist anymore, in this case the private school hitlist as well as repeating the Liberal slogan of interest rate doom. I imagine it must be real hard to read a paper or two to try and look a little further than the propaganda (not that papers are completely free of it, but it's still better than just listening to campaign catchphrases).

With the weather here in Melbourne going out of whack every single day of the week, things really do get thrown into chaos. Crazy heatwaves followed by torrential downpours sounds like something out of an overproduced Jerry Bruckheimer film but the reality is not so far off. Luckily for us, this year being an election year we have a solution to the problem of these winds gone wild. Under a Rudd government, wind speed would be reduced by 40%, and rainfall would be increased to levels unseen since the 70s. Everyone knows rainfall has always been higher under Labour anyway, and now that Peter Garrett is on the scene he can perform some sort of rain dance to rob the heavens of that sweet sweet water.

While it may be pretty clear by now whom I intend to vote for this coming Saturday, I guess even if I thought otherwise there'd be no real point as I live in the safest Labour seat in Victoria, Batman. Did I also mention it has the coolest name? Up yours, Eden-Monaro. You can't really beat the electorate where Stately Wayne Manor is located. No one quite knows where the entrance to the Batcave is, but I'm sure there's a no go barrier painted in red and white to stop you in your tracks. Watch out for Martin Ferguson and think about why you've never seen him and Batman in the same room. Busy schedules for both involved or something more sinister? Ferguson has said that come each election someone managed to come along and draw a cowl and bat ears on his campaign poster in his office... an alert member of the public is obviously trying to tell us something here.

Hmm, one more Batman joke then. If Batman was caught street racing a bunch of teens after hours, would the Batmobile be impounded, confiscated, used as a crash test then returned to him in cuboid form as part of the anti hoon legislation? Alright, I'll level with you - I'm withholding my A-Grade material as part of the Writer's Guild strike. Even bloggers with heads filled to the brim with pickled molasses deserve residuals from online media. Even if I have to miss my favourite episodes of Letterman, it'll be worth it.

Oh, and one more thing... Costello would make an excellent Starscream. I can see him dumping Howard's body into deep space before proceeding to throw himself a kickarse coronation ceremony. That brings our obscure Transformers reference count to three... thank you, good night and may you throw away your vote wisely.

So I'm reading the paper like I always do right, and then suddenly I come across this.

To most people reading the paper this may seem to be another interesting looking set of apartments. But to students like myself, this triggers certain memories worthy of a wavy flashback effect. Let's start with the next picture. Notice anything similar?


This was a giant model Kavi and I did as an assignment a couple of years ago to basically teach us about commercial scale construction by reading off plans and reproducing a portion of the building at scale. We spent about six weeks or so making this and it really took a lot out of everyone there. It's only at times like these when you realise how much work it takes to finish work of this magnitude, and all notions of time management are thrown out the window. In other words, there is never enough time. If only real buildings could be put together using UHU, Blu Tack and superglue. You can see how big the model is from the photo below.


We were kind of lucky in that there wasn't as much structure to show so we could get away with doing more flashy finishes like the external concrete façade feature and the swimming pool. Even then that still meant we were working on it all throughout the mid semester break and towards the end, every night until about nine or ten. Caffeine, skipping classes and the strangely soothing smell of glue were our new friends, and good ones they were too.

As time went by, the cumulative effect of blood caffeine content and the lack of sleep drove us to do some weird things. Games were brought into uni to pass the time and take the stress off if only for a little while. Dinner and supply runs were made to keep everyone going. And slowly around us, the madness set in. What am I talking about? Perhaps the next photo will explain the state of things by the time it was all over.


No he's not drunk ladies and gents. He's just another building student like you and me. Apologies to Kavi... I bet you weren't betting on seeing this again any time soon... though I still love that time when we made Ave think we superglued her scarf inside our model. Awesome times folks, dizzy stuff indeed.

Join me next time when my fingers come out of their plaster casts in time for me to type about the wonderfully addictive game that is Guitar Hero III for Wii. Typing with one hand and a straw stuck to the other was very fun though.

And now for the most superfluous segment to hit publication since the "Rudds v Howards" segment in The Age, which polls the electorate for indecisive people who share the names of our political leaders on who will win the upcoming election. It's a wonder why they didn't come up with this sooner... cos everyone knows people with similar names are more in touch with each other... right? Last week the Rudds and Howards were in Rudd's favour 5 - 3. With bated breath, I wonder what will happen this week. You can smell the enthusiasm from my feet a mile away. What do you say to that, Mister Rudd?

Well that was uncalled for... how rude!


Anyway, I was promising a segment of sorts for all you loyal readers out there, and I shall not renege on said promise like a politician flipping the bird. It's now time for another of my random photos from the life of such and such and the weird world I view them from. Before I begin, firstly I have to ask the following question: how do you know you've become dependant on caffeine in your daily existence?


Originally I was hoping to have the cups fill up to the top of the bin, but then recycling day hit two days later so alas it was not to be. That exposes a harsh reality that us photobloggers face from time to time, do we bother doctoring the photo or not? I mean it'd definitely look funnier if it was completely full... so do I go and line the bottom with chunks of polystyrene spray painted to look like coffee cups? Do I go and steal used cups from other people so it fills up quicker? Or do I go out and get a life?

Speaking of a life, don't go about judging me about that Diet Coke in the bin. It was being given away at the station or something, plus I was performing my very own Coke test where I compared Diet Coke, Coke Zero and that weird drink from Singapore I got in a show bag at Uni open day 4 years ago (Go Sursi!). It can only get better with age, right? I find it odd how they can market two lines of product that are effectively the same thing but in different packaging. It's like one is targeted towards women who are health conscious and the other is orientated towards guys who want to drink Diet Coke but are scared their mates will accuse them of being so very in touch with their feminine side. I bet they both come out of the same pipe too...

So stop badgering me about the Diet Coke. This isn't the segment where you go and critique the contents of my workplace bin, though that post will be coming along later when I go raid the trash of the rich and famous on bin night. First stop: Mel and Kochie. They can't look that happy all the time without some sort of illicit drug or the essence of several small children before each broadcast. After all the children are our future, and then breakfast, lunch and tea.


I may have missed my train to work and was subsequently ten minutes late for work, but it was all worth it in my opinion. Clever (or funny) graffiti is hard to come by these days and this piece of work made me smile for some odd reason. As usual I take the wording down to its literal level and imagine some guy just loitering about (that's illegal too mind you) on the staircase staring you down, hurling abuse from above as you try and make the train for that urgent appointment. There may as well have been someone standing there heckling me after missing that train, but luckily no one else was there to celebrate my idiocy.

At this point I may as well go and take another pot shot at the state of public transport in this city. When that new fancy timetable of theirs was put into place last month the people running the joint were so out of sync that they apparently didn't know what to do and everyone was left stranded in stationary carriages in the rail yards outside Flinders Street for minutes on end. They eventually worked things out after a week or so, but really if they can't handle a few additional trains here and there, what makes them think they'll be able to handle the new trains due to show up in the next few years? For shame. I'm Alan Jones.**



*May not be real headline. Though I did say it was from the Sun, so you would've been well within your rights to believe it was true. The Rudds and Howards out there would not have been impressed.
**May not be real name. For the record I have no interest in coaching a rugby side or cavorting about in public toilets. I will take sponsorships any day though, for I am a sellout and would like a shiny new car to avoid the public transport I so sorely deride.

That may be a crude and inappropriate metaphor for what is happening to me at the moment, but I'll try and make it work somehow. Yes audience, this week the goons at Triple M decided to drop a metaphorical anvil onto my plums with the announcement that the brilliant 'Get This' program hosted by Tony Martin, Ed Kavalee and panel operator adept Richard Marsland will not be returning in the new year.

The reason given by management is that they want to devote more resources to a new breakfast combination featuring Peter Helliar and Myf Warhurst. While I have no real problem with Myf, I can only imagine what Helliar is being paid to churn out his Bryan Strauchan character every other day on air, given that the joke will run out after the first segment. Plus who wants to listen to a station whose core demographic consists of dentally impaired Collingwood supporters? On second thought it is Triple M after all, which is full of great ideas such as M-One and Barry the record playing monkey, so no real harm done.

While we wait in hope that some other network will pick up the show, for now we have a little over a month to enjoy what is the best show on our airwaves. When that time comes, it will be time for us to say goodbye to talk of dizzy stuff like the lack of quality British imports on the ABC, talk of the film Shortbus and Ed's numerous "I'm Richard" jokes.

Get This has the effect on dwindling my productivity for two hours each workday with entire sketches built around cockney accents (if you love/hate My Chemical Romance click this) and soundbites of John Howard put way out of context. One of my favourites is when Ed gets electrocuted live on air while trying to wield a remote controlled helicopter inside the studio... let that be a public service announcement for the kiddies out there.

Being a show I love to bits, naturally you can assume it'll be too niche and cult for the rest of you unenlightened people out there. Therefore the best I can do is show everyone how excellent Get This is while I belittle you along the way. The best bits of the show are available on the Triple M website and via the podcasts (XML feed here) which may not remain up for too long, so get them while you can.

Ratings are not a problem at all for Get This, as shown by reports like these, so you would hope they wouldn't have too much trouble finding a new home. If all else fails, the guys could try and do what Ricky Gervais has been doing with his podcasts. With the help of sponsors and subscription fees, Gervais has been running a fairly successful podcast and people don't seem to mind paying for them. I don't know how much they cost but I'm sure for each one who pays, there'll be 20 others who will get it off BitTorrent several hours later.

I wasn't planning on writing so soon again after last night's post, but this is something that simply cannot wait. Writing about certain topics requires a certain amount of passion which can diminish with the passing of time, and this certainly ticks the box and meets all requirements head on.

Hopefully by now you've been fooled into clicking this link based on the first paragraph alone. In which case the joke's on you, but don't worry cos the joke is a moderately okay one if you follow my randomist ramblings to any sort of detail... it's all in the forward sell really. A few moments ago I was browsing hundreds of sites at once no thanks to Google Reader (Wonderful for keeping track of news and allied blogs) and I stumbled upon the following headline.

"Make everything taste like bacon"

Upon reading this my jaw dropped to the floor, which was awkward to say the least... all that unnecessary drooling. This sounds a lot like my favourite "invention" from the brains trust at Illogical Enterprises - the Bacon Spray. It turns out this is some sort of bacon flavoured salt which you can sprinkle on your dull tasting rice or milkshake to transform it into the arch enemy of arteries everywhere.

It seems like a joke at first, but then I clicked on the official website link and there is some sort of professionalism going on that the team at IE cannot possibly muster at this point in time. They even have a blog to tell the world about Bacon Salt. Heck, they even have a MySpace and Facebook page. That at first makes me think this is some sort of joke, and for all our sakes I hope it is... I feel our marketing department has really been left wanting on this occasion.

I don't know what to say, but my dreams of an early retirement have certainly taken a huge blow. The only real advantage the spray has over these little granules of goodness is that it will deep fry the food for you regardless of what that matter may be. They really have shot the cash cow for me right now and it hurts. I don't know, perhaps it actually will hurt sometime in the future when they're rolling around in their mountains of cash next to their hills of bacon salt. That'll learn me to BS with an idea.

Speaking of food related matters, it's been around two weeks and the Pumpkin story is still being thrown about in the news. It's a sad story no doubt, but apparently it's too much to ask for some media outlets to use her real name lest they have to learn how to spell and pronounce it. At least not every publication is referring to her as a vegetable, but you have to wonder how bad it could get. Not that I'm much better... before I read about the brand of clothing she was dressed in, I just assumed they called her that cos of some sort of physical resemblance...

Being Asian, I can't help but think what would happen... I guess I'd better make sure my name gets out there in case I go missing and everyone starts referring to me by some sort of delicious treat. For the record, my preference for now is the starchy wonder that is the potato. In the meantime, come up with a fancy nickname for yourself like "Little Mars Bar" or "Little Double Whopper with Fries"... it's strangely fun coming up with a food that best represents you. Oh, and look out in the news for any mention of "Little Potato"...

Normally I don't prefer to generate blog material from stuff I read in the papers or online, as any old hack could just take pull something out of their arse they read on Digg or something. But this little story was far too weird and wonderful to pass up. This may be a first for this author, but it doesn't mean I won't be putting my own irreverent/irrelevant spin on things. Before I knew what irreverent meant, I always thought that was just some weird spelling error the editors failed to pick up. Slightly irrelevant piece of information there, but that's OK, onto the story.

That's right, dear readers - an arm wrestling machine from Japan. I'd say I was surprised, but by now I should know a lot better about expecting normal things from the country that invented the portable armrest and the butter stick. That stick is in a very similar vein to that of my bacon spray... I don't like the sound of that, I don't like that one bit...

I was wondering what this machine might look like so I jumped online with the phrase 'arm wrestling machine' into Google and found you a picture. How nice am I? I love how the machine is just a regular looking box with a fully real looking arm sticking out of it. It must be the beginning of the rise of the machines, taking human form limb by limb in the guise of challenging humans to arm wrestles and boxing matches. Don't say I didn't warn you when we're all being hunted down by a DDR machine. "Everybody dance, NOW!"

What remains one of the best parts of the story is the part where the Atlus spokesman tries to explain the injuries by saying the foreigners couldn't understand the instructions as it was all in Japanese. Don't ask me why, but I have an odd feeling that alcohol could have been involved. I mean, if you walked up and played a few round with the fantastic hydraulic arm, after a while you would figure out that it would get more difficult as time passed by. The flashing red lights and the crushing pain of sinew snapping might also be a good indicator.

One more tidbit before I run off to lunch. While Googling for that nice picture of the machine, I looked up the headlines the professionals use to create the cutthrough that attracts readers. My mini edition of Media Watch has gathered a couple of interesting lines. You could go with the standard 'Arm-Wrestling Game Recalled for Breaking Arms' (PC World) which gives you everything you need, but comes across slightly dry when compared to Arcade game goes on a rampage, breaks the arms of three people (SlashGear) or Oh Snap! (Wired). My personal favourite is A farewell to arms (CBC). Classy and witty all at once, wonderfully done.