Proof! Mancurians Don't Speak English!

Ha Ha!

http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=92011

Lying Thru His Gappy Teeth

Big news day!  Ray Martin “STORMS” out of Channel Nein!

Yee Gods!  Stop the Press!  Call the Government to an emergency sitting of Parliament!  Ray Martin has QUIT!

Of course I am being sarcastic.  Ray Martin has long lost his credibility as a journalist and is now considered the male version of a talking head that suits the commercial needs of attracting the older demographic.  Compared to current and previous news men such as Ian Ross and Brian Henderson, Martin is the “Richard Wilkins” of news media.  By this I mean he is everywhere, always talking but ultimately irrelevant.

But there was a time when Ray Martin was respected and I am struggling to think back to when he lost it.  I think when A Current Affair turned into a serial on stories about “back pain” and “angry neighbours” as opposed to in depth 60 Minutes style coverage his reputation took a hammering.  Also, I personally couldn’t stand it when he went to Indonesia after the Boxing Day Tsunami and spent 4 weeks or so standing in his Country Road gear with one foot up on some rubble shaking his head and “tsk tsking” through his gap toothed smile and doing inane stories about it, that really killed him off in my opinion.

So, again, the news media loses one of their own and act like we all give a toss.  Front page spreads… mmm… remember the Interest Rates guys?  Remember the Iraq War and the impending US elections??  You know, the things that really do matter….

ShittyRail

Its been a while, but here goes…


CityRail is the most fucktard service in which 100 or so years of work, design and planning can be washed away with the simplest and most expected issues.

Hey CityRail engineers… it does occasionally RAIN. Don’t listen to what the Greenies say, despite the drought and El Nino, it does rain from time to time. Therefore design a system that can cope with that.


And when you have a truck crossing railway tracks, there is a possibility for a bingle. Last night a truck was struck on the tracks. Thankfully no-one was hurt, but guess what ShittyRail did? They stopped trains at Penrith – some 50kms or 1+hr away. So in the pouring rain, people had to get out, get on crappy buses and be driven all stations all the way to Katoomba.

This morning, the trains were running 35mins late because of the same problem and the accompanying signal failures from “lightning strikes” and the rain. Incompetence. Lets hike fares some more hey!

/rant off

Interest Rates

Well, the Interest Rates are going up… never mind the fact some banks raised them anyway last month, the Reserve Bank raised the official interest rates by 25 basis points which lead the Commonwealth Bank to raise its lending rates by 30 today.

Whilst the interest rates are one thing, I want to make 2 comments.

1.      This is not a result of a Labor Govt.  Do NOT listen to the likes of Malcolm Turnbull that may (will) come out and say that Labor is “mismanaging” the economy.  This is a load of rubbish and is pure out and out politicking point scoring.  The real reasons stem from a Liberal govt coveting the US foreign policy whilst at the same time providing tax cuts whilst maintaining a massive budgetary surplus.  Perhaps if they had invested in infrastructure rather than our back pockets we wouldn’t be this flush with cash.

2.      Second, there is another way to relieve the inflation in the market.  What about income and GST tax increases?  Would that be political suicide?  At the moment our increased interest rates means we are relieved of dollars via our mortgage payments and other investments and that money goes into the banks for the benefit of shareholders.  We spend less as a result and inflation subsides.  But what if we lost our dollars via increased taxes and then those dollars were then shipped into the Governments coffers for the benefit of all via hospitals, education et al?  Again, we wouldn’t be able to spend as much but at least the dollars would be put to the general good.

I presume this makes me a Communist as well, but maybe they were on to something!

Super Bowl

As an Australian, I am very much in the minority when it comes to following the NFL or American Football.  For some reason, the game has appealed to me from the perspective of its tactical variables and the use of players for specialist roles as opposed to a free flowing game like all other codes of football.  I am not saying one code is better than the other, but I do not understand how some people seem to have such a narrow view of the game.  Case in point yesterday when discussing the Super Bowl yesterday with a work colleague… “its just a game when one guy throws the ball down the field and they hope to catch it”… this degenerated into a ‘discussion’ on tactics vs free range instinctive play.  She is an Aussie Rules fan and that for a start gets my goat up… damning “point for missing” crowd!

Then last night when watching the end of the game on repeat on Fox Sports, I tell Niki that there is 2 minutes to go and the Giants were driving to win.  Of course 2 minutes of game time is not 2 minutes of real time, so Niki proceeded to say things like “come on! Hurry up!”…. all while the teams, particularly the Giants were trying to make the right play call.

Gridiron is a game of nuances and calculated risk.  Its pretty much a human game of chess.  It has moments of athletic brilliance – such as the classic 3^rd & 5 play yesterday when the receiver took the catch on his helmet, but it is the mental side of the game that is to me what makes it a good spectacle.  To see the “God Like” Tom Brady falter in the last 30 seconds when I thought the most likely option would be to go for comparatively short yardage for the field goal and to see Eli Manning, younger brother of the respected Peyton Manning beat his older brothers rival is a classic reason why the NFL is a game within a game.

Well done to the Giants as well… beating the previously 17-0 Patriots and causing a great upset… was a good thing to see.  Whilst I am a Redskin fan and hence the Giants are a rival team, it was good to see the NFC come out on top.

To add to the sporting spectacular this week, Australia plays a World Cup Qualifier against Qatar tomorrow night! Cant wait for that one either!

Weekend - Documenting Not Much At All

Pretty tame weekend this weekend hampered by the weather and also Niki’s mum still staying with us.  Did play cricket on the Saturday and we turned up and the grass was very long and we had a heavy downpour about half an hour before play was to start.

We gave it half an hour to dry a bit and we promptly lost the toss and were sent in… with a wet, long outfield we struggled and batted for 60 odd overs to be all out for just 86.  Yes a run rate just over 1!  Yours truly opened and faced a dozen balls before I middled an on-drive and short leg stuck his hand out and it stuck… great catch, but sucks to be on the end of that!  We have the opposition at 1/2 at stumps after 4 overs.

Sunday was wet but Niki’s brother and sister-in-law relieved us and we took the kids to see the Water Horse.  Not a bad movie considering it’s a kids movie.  The girls loved it and it was nice to see a kids movie that wasn’t the usual American clap-trap.

So other than that, not much happened.  Brookie registered this year for netball like her big sister and we bought the girls a netball hoop – that remains inside given the weather and we’ve come to the realisation that the girls are just doing waaay too much this year.  Brooke has added Gymnastics and Netball to her already busy schedule.

I was so tired and flat yesterday that I went to bed at a bit past 9:30… must be getting old!

Wild Weather...

Its Friday! Where has the time gone! Today I am very busy at work and will be out and about today but I am very keen to get out the door closer to 5pm rather than 7-8pm. Last night I left the office around 7ish and was driving home rather than training it… and I was absolutely pelted with the largest storm I have ever experienced! It was torrential rain and the wind was blowing but what was freaky was that the lightning was almost solid. The bolts would come down from the clouds and instead of being instant flashes they would sit there and hold their position for a good 4-5 seconds. Whilst this happened the cloud looked like it was being heated by a laser beam rather than it throwing bolts down from the sky. I have to say it was very surreal.

This story from the smh.com.au shows a picture taken where I was driving last night – exiting the Lane Cove Tunnel and onto the M2. As you can see the lightning is very solid. But when I drove through the storm and out the other side, the clouds were the most weird looking... we had high clouds sitting up still whilst underneath, almost horizontal tornado looking clouds were whooshing by at a very low altitude. Then as I approached the M7/M4 junction, I snapped the picture below...



It doesnt do it justice, but that horizontal cloud above the exit sign was moving very quickly and rolling on itself and then when I went up the M7 off ramp (at the Lighthorse interchange) I was probably above it looking down.

Very weird...