Just over a month ago I wrote that I was going to log all the future occasions that I was stuffed around the pay office at work. I had noted that there was usually some mix up at least every six weeks with my pay. That was on August 14th. It is now September 23rd and yep, you guessed it, there has been another mix up. Sigh!!! I take the time to fill in my time sheet and it rarely varies at all, yet I constantly have to contact the pay office because they’ve made a mistake with my pay.
Archive for September, 2009
I hate Geelong but after tonight’s performance I think I hate Collingwood even more!
I hate St Kilda!!! I hope that whoever wins tomorrow night between Collingwood and Geelong smashes the Saints next week!
I have a backlog of posts that I must get through. I haven’t made a post for 9-10 days, and I have a few things that I wanted to talk about.
Whatthefuckiswrongwithyou Kyle Sandilands? Are you such a buffoon that you don’t know when you should shut your mouth? I really refuse to believe that you don’t know what you say is offensive and that everything that you say is calculated to enhance your ‘bad boy’ image. In wrestling parlance it is called playing the heel. Maybe I’m just cynical and think that you subscribe to the ‘any publicity is good publicity’ credo to enhance your ‘controversial’ reputation, but you just end up looking like nothing but a clown.
Here are just a few of your indiscretions Kyle, which I think only enhances my point of view…
- As a judge on Australian Idol you said that Bobby Flynn looked ‘fully mong’. ‘Mong’ is slang for the term ‘mongoloid’ which is a very derogatory term for someone with Downs Syndrome. You cannot honestly think that nobody would be offended by this?!
- You intimated that both Jessica Mauboy and Kate DeAraugo were fat whilst a judge on Idol. Classy!!!
- You taunted a Cambodian refugee on air, as well as her 19 year old niece. Classy X2!!!
- You took offence when Dave Hughes called you a ‘dickhead’. Obviously the truth hurts, but it is slightly juvenile to threaten to ‘punch someone in the throat’ over this.
- You conducted the lie detector stunt with a 14 year old girl in which she said that she was raped at 12. Sure the Mum who subjected her daughter to this just to get Pink tickets was despicable, but your follow up, “Was this the only time you ever had sex…” was just stupid.
- The final straw would have to be when you criticized Magda Szubanski’s latest efforts to lose weight (you really have a problem with overweight women yet you are so fat yourself) by saying that she would do better if she was in a concentration camp. Yep, this is a new low even for you to trivialise the holocaust. The fact that Magda’s father was Polish and fought the Nazi’s in WWII makes this an even lower act and suggests to me that it was calculated.
Kyle, you try so hard to be Australia’s answer to Howard Stern yet you do not have even a 10th of his talent or discipline. Stern has a team of writers and lawyers to make sure that he does not say anything that can be construed as too offensive or libellous, yet I notice that 2DayFM has only just put your show on 7 second delay so that they can censor anything offensive before it gets to air.
Of course we know that you have had such a hard life Kyle. Your parents divorced when you were young and you grew up in Brisbane and blah, blah, blah… To quote John Butler…
I really got a good excuse to complain
My parents got divorced
Can’t heal the pain
What I have been listening to this week!
Posted: September 7, 2009 in Music, What I’m Listening ToTags: Music
I haven’t done this for a while but here are the 15 or so songs that I have been listening to most on my iPod. While I don’t claim that the songs that I listen to are the greatest ever made, they are sure a darn lot better than anything that is played on commercial FM radio here in Melbourne, especially Fox FM and NOVA.
You’ll probably recognise the names of most of these groups but perhaps not the songs listed.
- Give The People What They Want – The Kinks
- Happy – The Rolling Stones
- Dolly Dagger – Jimi Hendrix
- Hey Joe – Jimi Hendrix
- Comin’ Home – Delaney & Bonnie & Friends
- Piece Of Crap – Neil Young
- Three Button Hand Me Down – The Faces
- Redemption Song – Bob Marley
- Ain’t Too Proud To Beg – The Temptations
- Hush – Deep Purple
- Motherless Children – Eric Clapton
- Love The One You’re With – Stephen Stills
- The Seeker – The Who
- Long Live Rock – The Who
- Hurt – Johnny Cash
I know that most of these songs are ancient and most people will think I’m an old fart for listening to them, but remember that I grew up in the 80s, a time when most music was horrible. A bit like today, really, where awful crap by totally derivative singers as Lady Ga-Ga can reach the top of the charts. The only thing original about Lady Ga-Ga is that she started a rumour about her having a penis, I don’t think that Madonna ever did that!
Speaking of music, the other day I was watching MAX on Foxtel when they played Janis Joplin’s Mercedes Benz. This originally was a song that Janis sang acapalla to show the strength of her incredible voice. Unfortunately some producer or DJ has discovered this song and decided to remix it with synthesizers and drum machine beats, ala Elvis’s A Little Less Conversation a few years ago. Yes, it is as horrible as it sounds and poor Janis must be turning over in her grave at the way her song has been ruined. Then again last year some talentless DJ thought they’d be creative by merging The Doors’ Riders On The Storm with Blondie’s Rapture. Arrrrggghhhh!
I am resigned to the fact that Collingwood will not win this year’s AFL Premiership. A couple of weeks ago I was confident but after successive losses to the Bulldogs and St Kilda, I concede that they have no hope. Today’s loss to St Kilda showed that the Magpies still have a long way to go if they want to be able to compete against the top teams. Now we have to play a semi-final against the Adelaide Crows at the MCG and while we always do well against the two South Australian teams, especially in finals matches, I don’t think that we will be the in-form Crows. As I said in an earlier post Collingwood don’t have any really great players, but do have a lot of good and potentially great players, but this is not good enough in the finals month, especially when playing against super-star studded teams such as St Kilda, Geelong and Adelaide. A lot of Collingwood’s highly rated players often go missing during big matches, especially finals games. Sadly I think our season will end next week.
Just cleaning up my hard drive…Oswald The Lucky Rabbit
Posted: September 4, 2009 in Animation, Disney, Walter LantzTags: Disney, Oswald The Lucky Rabbit, Walter Lantz
It is interesting to look at the development of a cartoon character as it ages over the years, not just from a design standpoint, but also how it becomes a more rounded character. I think that this is perhaps the case when you look at characters such as Mickey Mouse or Bugs Bunny, but perhaps not so much when you look at Oswald The Lucky Rabbit. For those of you who don’t know, Oswald was created by Walt Disney in 1928 but was stolen from him by Charles Mintz (along with some of Disney’s top animators). In 1929 Walter Lantz convinced his bosses at Universal, who were distributing Mintz’s cartoons, that he could produce the Oswald cartoons in house a lot cheaper than Mintz could, which is how Lantz/Universal acquired the character. In 2006, among great fanfare, Disney reacquired Oswald and put out a great DVD of his earliest adventures, whilst Universal have released some of their Oswald’s on their recent Woody Woodpecker and Friends DVDS.
I’ve noticed that their really is very little consistency with Oswald’s characterisation. I cannot judge the Mintz cartoons as I have not seen any of them, but the Lantz ones in particular are very inconsistent. Tex Avery worked on many of the early Lantz Oswald’s before heading to WB.
From the Disney era (1927/28) – Trolley Troubles
(This had the soundtrack added when it was reissued in the early 1930s)
Great Guns
From the Walter Lantz/Universal era (1929 – 38)
Alaska
Confidence
Beachcombers
Egg Cracker Suite (1943)
The final Oswald made by Lantz 5 years after the series finished. This was also the third colour Oswald and only one done in three strip Technicolor.
Whilst all the existing Disney Oswald’s are on DVD thanks to Walt Disney Treasures, it would be great to see the remaining Lantz cartoons on DVD. This may occur, as it is rumoured that Universal will continue releasing their Woody Woodpecker and Friends DVDs, however this has been delayed due to the recent fire at Universal and the Global Financial Crisis.
Belgian Grand Prix Results
Posted: September 4, 2009 in Ferrari, Formula 1, SportTags: Belgian Grand Prix, Ferrari, Formula 1
I should have done this earlier in the week but I have been very busy. On Sunday the Belgian GP was run and won by the Ferrari of Kimi Raikkonen. It was the first Ferrari victory of 2009 and Kimi’s first for 25 races, but he did not have everything all his own way for the unlikely Force India of Giancarlo Fisichella shadowed the scarlet machine all the way to the chequered flag. Fisi would have won the race if Kimi’s car was not equipped with the magic KERS button which enabled the Finn to overtake the Italian. Third place was taken by Sebastian Vettel who now moves a little bit closer to title leader Jenson Button in the World Driver’s Championship.
The main talking points of the race would be the first lap shunts which claimed the cars of both Lewis Hamilton and championship leader Jenson Button, who were taken out by rookies Jaime Alguersuari and Romain Grosjean respectively. Mark Webber’s race was ruined by a pit error when the Red Bull lollypop man released him into the path of BMW’s Nick Heidfeld, and the Australian had to serve a stop and go penalty. He eventually finished ninth, one place out of the points.
The other talking point is the lack of pace of Ferrari’s Luca Badoer, who again was the final finisher. Badoer qualified last after crashing at the end of Q1 at Spa, a track that he wrongly predicted he would do well at because he knew it so well. His qualifying time was 1.5 seconds slower in Q1 than his teammates. He finished the race 1 minute 42 seconds behind the victorious Kimi, and 48 seconds behind the 13th placed Williams of Kazuki Nakajima. It seems that Ferrari though have finally seen the light and have replaced the hapless (hopeless) Badoer with Fisichella until the end of the 2009 season.
In the championship title race Button leads Barrichello by 16 points, with Vettel a further three points back with five races remaining. Webber too still has a chance of becoming world champion as he is just 1.5 points behind Vettel.
Button – 72
Barrichello – 56
Vettel – 53
Webber – 51.5
Hey, I predicted that the Bulldogs were going to be the biggest challenge to Collingwood winning the premiership this year and my prediction could be seen as correct. On Sunday the Dogs beat the Pies by 26 points, allowing them to take third place off Collingwood as we enter the finals and set up an intriguing qualifying final against Geelong, whom they beat just two weeks ago.
Collingwood now have to face the all conquering St Kilda in the other qualifying final. Up until a month ago the Saints were undefeated but have recently suffered loses to Essendon and North Melbourne, whilst they were less than impressive in their win on the weekend against bottom placed Melbourne. While I feel that Collingwood can beat St Kilda if they play to their full potential, I am not going to tip them to win for fear of being disappointed once again.
