Monday, January 29, 2007

Time to get all patriotic

Well, last friday was Australia Day. It's turned into more than a day off in recent memory. When I was a kid, Australia Day was a day off school, and you spent the day before maybe making a flag or concentrating a little more on Australian history.

But now it's growing. The celebration of Australians as a day of national identity. Partiotism as opposed to Nationalism, as someone recently put it. A day that we should all take a look around think 'this is a great place to be'. Naturally, it has its flip side.

The day the First Fleet landed and took what they wanted from the original inhabitants. The beginning of the end for the Aborigine and his way of life. No learning from the Aborigine by the new Europeans about how to work and live in such a place of desolation, isolation, disparate climates, and tremendous dry. The current drought brings to mind the changes that farming should have undergone 219 years ago to adapt to this place. Overpopulation began right then and there. Britain has a lot to answer for, but she has her own problems.

Not without other incidents though. A major event decided to ban people from wearing the Australian flag. Concern over Cronulla, and the 'gang colour' ethic that the flg took on for a while, led them to make the decision. Of course, it amplified the appearance of the flag. Now, if only we could get a good flag. I realise the argument of past wars for the flag, and the history, but Britain does not own Australia. Republic or not is another matter, one I'm not versed in. Remove the Union Jack, leave the Southern Cross, maybe change the colours. Avoid all confusion about our place as a toddler nation.

A good day for Andy Roddick to recover from the absolute spanking that he received from Roger Federer on thursday night at the Australian Open tennis. Roddick's first ever 6-0 grand slam set loss. I'm sure everyone thought Roddick would be closer, after all, he'd beaten Roger two weeks ago in a final. But that wasnt a grand slam, and Roger amped it up a whole lot. Federers stat in grand slam tennis is 110-4 matches won when he takes the first. That's a whole lot of go.

A day to visit friends, have a swim, lunch, and sit around in the sun and cook my european-descended skin.

Insert tagline here...

Friday, January 19, 2007

Praise the Lord, pass the ammunition

Oh, how I enjoy nutbags like this:
TimeCube

The internet opens up the forum for anyone to espouse their views, however narrow-minded, egotistical, incorrect, or just downright loopy they may be. This page takes some wading through, but contains several 'gems' of thought and claim that will make you laugh out loud.

Consipracy theorists are much in the same vein, and I'll collect a few of my favourites and post them up soon for your enlightenment.

Insert tagline here...

Tuesday, January 16, 2007

An update for the sake of updating

Two weeks without a post? Whats going on?!

Whats not...

Insert tagline here...

Wednesday, January 03, 2007

Save it for when you've won something, monkey-boy

A disturbing trend of late, amongst the professional tennis playing fraternity. One that needs to stop.

The winner, once retiring to their chair, perhaps taking a drink, or putting their racket away, returns to mid-court and waves to the crowd. This is not the problem in itself. A fine display of thanks popularised by Andre Agassi, who is one of the genuine nice-guy players on the pro circuit.

But when people like Maria Sharapova, Rafael Nadal, Lleyton Hewitt, and David Nalbandian do it, it loses some of its belief. These people have shown themselves, off-court, to be nowhere near as personable as Andre.

Let's just take Lleyton Hewitt as an example. Wins a game, walks to mid court and gives the old high handclap around the audience. And I'm supposed to believe that this guy is thanking me for coming to watch him play? When he whines that the Australian Open organisers haven't done enough to assist him in winning? If you're good enough, you'll win. It's not that hard an equation. When he does an exclusive deal with a magazine for pictures of his daughter, and then spends the first year of her life covering her up and not going out in public in case some snapped a 'non-exclusive' picture? When he comes into a Grand Slam tournament with 6 months off and says people write him off?

OK, maybe this is turning into a Lleyton rant, well...back on track.

James Blake was deserving of his mid-court adulation for his Medicare International win last week.

Why should the worlds no.4 player, Andy Roddick, do it when he's struggled to beat some nuffy and barely scraped through?

Insert tagline here...

Monday, January 01, 2007

Those wacky christians!

Creationism at its finest!

The story behind christmas candy canes!

Insert tagline here...

The Somnambulant High-seas Tyrant

A quick tool over to my oft-vistited 'sister' blog, if you will, reveals that a certain EB has been busily posting over the last two weeks, unlike my good self.

Go!

With my limited artistic appreciation skills and understanding of what drives artists, I find it a combination of thought-provoking, nepotistic, wildly amusing, varied and intelligent.

I suppose somnambulant isn't quite the right word, but hey, verbosity is fun.

Insert tagline here...

Well, that's it for another year

Christmas and New Year are over for another year. Only 358 days till Christmas 2007...how depressing.

Not depressing in the sense that I'm a 'bah humbug' kinda guy when it comes to christmas. Two kids has renewed the christmas gift giving spirit a little, and with one birthday on christmas eve, it only adds to the season. What I cant help but notice is that a great many "retailers" didnt seem to pay even the remote lip-service to the catholicism of the event, as they've done in past years. This in turn caught a LOT of people up in the brouhaha of shopping and such.

Yes, I am a catholic. No, I didnt go to mass. I havent been for quite a few years. But that doesnt mean that quiet reflection cannot take place. You worship your way, I'll do it mine. But more on the church and state in future, I think.

I did my shopping on wednesday evening, right before christmas. Crowds were down on daytimes, and I got what I wanted. Well, I looked, liked the look of a few things, and bought them. Going in with a pre-determined idea of "this person is getting that gift" was not the thing to do I discovered, after about five seconds of shopping.

So, we all had some fun, big lunches all round, four birthday parties within a week of christmas, and two more next week, and time to get back to work tomorrow so I can relax a little.

Insert tagline here...