Do you collude?

I don't think anymore needs to be said about this cartoon really.



cheers

Harry

ps because my crappy blog is too narrow you really need to click on the cartoon so you get all three panels.

A great game of footy...

I'll come right out and say it now.  I'm an Essendon supporter.  "Go the Dons!"

That being said, Essendon kind of suck a bit at the moment, having to tried to import some of Richmond's winning culture to give them an edge and help create their next premiership.

Anyway, not coming from a traditional football family I've never really gotten into the whole tribalism of AFL, even with the "traditional" rivals for Essendon.  I actually quite like Collingwood, I enjoy watching them play and like their team first structure.  I don't mind Carlton, especially this year and last year, never had much time for them before that.  I don't really like St Kilda (supposedly everybody's second team) and don't really care if they have to wait another 43 years until they actually get a premiership.  

I don't like Port but I do like Adelaide (this year anyway, not really before now).  I don't like the Weagles but I do like Fremantle (don't know why, they suck.  Maybe because the Pav is the best forward in the competition but nobody knows about it because he's always playing in the midfield).  I don't particularly like the Lions, but it's got nothing to do with the 2001 Grand Final, I can't explain it.  I also don't like the Hawks very much.  I don't really like the Bulldogs, although I do like Jason Akermanis.

Anyway, I just saw the Essendon/Adelaide semi final.  What a great game of football!  The second half was fantastic.  As outlined above, I actually like both teams.  Andrew McLeod is one of my favourite players and I really like how both teams play the game.  At first I was thinking I'd like Adelaide to win but with Collingwood close so they weren't disgraced.  Then I decided I didn't care.  I'd be happy for either team to win, I was just there to enjoy the contest.  So I did.  If you want to explain Aussie Rules to someone, show them the second half of that match of football.  No more explanation will be needed.

As for the grannie, obviously the smart money is on Geelong and St Kilda to be there.  Personally I think St Kilda will probably win.  I'd kind of prefer Geelong to win because they're in the position of 1 premiership from 3 years of dominance and I feel sorry for them.

Let's hope it rains so we have a mud fest and something interesting to talk about.

Oh, and a big congratulations to the Pies, great victory!

cheers

harry

One of the funniest things I've ever read...

Most people have heard of Craigslist.  We even have it here, although the Tasmanian one has hardly anything on it.

I just read a list of 20 bizarre ads place on Craigslist that made me laugh out loud.  Repeatedly.

One sample:

13) Do you have a small, incontinent dog? 
"Or perhaps you work for a small dog rescue of some sort. Either way, I have a package of small doggy diapers. I don't want to throw them out coz they are pretty expensive. (as someone with a small, incontnent dog would already know). Please don't try to put them on a cat. It won't work. Trust me."

Check out the rest of the list here, although probably not at work.

cheers

Harry

LAWman

Steven Seagal, coming soon to a reality TV show near you.  That's right, Steven Seagal.  Read the following paragraph and try and deny that you won't want to watch the train wreck that will be this TV show.

Until now, Seagal has never sought publicity for his work with the Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office. However, over a span of almost two decades, he has regularly gone out on patrol and worked major cases. The series will allow fans to ride shotgun with Seagal as he and his hand-selected elite team of deputies respond to crimes-in-progress. Then, when Seagal goes off-duty, the cameras will continue following him as he pursues his many ventures - including musical performances and philanthropic efforts - in Jefferson Parish and New Orleans.

Another article about the show here, definitely rather "enthusiastic".

Steven Seagal has been fighting actual crime in Louisiana as an actual police officer (”under most people’s radar”) and now someone is going to point a camera at him and let him spew hot chunks of action madness all over my television screen. He’s above-the-law, and out for justice on deadly ground. He’s a hard-to-kill, pistol-whipping, executive-decision-making mercenary for urban justice, a one man attack force, and there’s a fire down below… in my pants! I can’t fucking wait for this show.

And while looking for a picture to accompany this post, I found Steve's IMDB page with the accompanying description:

Steven Seagal is a striking and somewhat boyishly handsome looking (often with ponytail) and usually impeccably dressed action star who burst onto the martial arts film scene in 1988...

I guess I can see where the author was coming from.  

cheers

Harry

The evolution of language

As we all know, language changes and evolves over the years.  The most extreme example of this is Dutch.  Apparently a few hundred years ago they changed the language so much (I believe officially) that a modern Dutch speaker is completely unable to understand Dutch writing from four hundred years ago.  An English speaker would have trouble with English from the same era, but at least would be able to gain some limited understanding.

As anyone who has ever used the internet, especially to play online games, a whole range of new languages has emerged, designed to baffle and confuse.  One of these is L33t speak (elite speak), where, as in the title, numbers and symbols are used to make up the written words.  This language is particularly useful for proclaiming one's awesomeness (I'm sure that word is wrong, it just looks wrong) while simultaneously bagging out or attacking your opponents. Unfortunately, I don't speak it.

The whole texting language is another such one.  While entirely appropriate, (although not always entirely legible) when used to compose a message of 160 characters or less, is it really needed when writing emails, posting to internet forums or writing blogs?  There is only one good thing to say about texting language.  If you ever look on an internet dating site, you can immediately pick out the retards by the fact that have no grammar, punctuation, capitols and in some cases, no real words!

Anyway, the point of this post was that I was thinking about some of the language I use which differs from the traditional meaning.  Some of these I have made up myself, some have come from pop culture or god knows where else.  But they all work.  Examples:

Bat shit insane:  As in "Those Colombian kayakers are bat shit insane.  They apparently just run drops completely blind, no idea what's at the bottom."

I think I made that one up, not sure.  It's for people who consciously do crazy things with no real idea of consequences.

Shocked and appalled.  As in "You ate my last yoplait out of the fridge.  I'm shocked and appalled."

This is used to indicate that you don't approve of someone's behaviour, but is used in an over the top way.  You wouldn't use it if someone told you they'd just killed their family with a hammer, for example.

Chunky.  As in "That rapid looks really chunky, there's lots of holes and rocks and a massive stopper at the bottom".

Again a kayaking reference.  Think I made this one up as well, but it's perfectly apt at describing a rapid that is big, scary and doesn't have a particularly clean line.

Shiny. As in "You give me the money you owe me and everything will be shiny."  This is actually stolen from Firefly and Serenity.  But it's still good.  

20/20 hindsight.  As in "Yeah, I have perfect 20/20 hindsight."

I think this is one of mine.  I like it, whether it is or not.

Interweb.  As in "I'll do a search on the interweb for that."

I definitely didn't make this one up, it's a tongue in cheek reference which annoys nerds.

I wish I could think of a few more, but they're just not coming at the moment.  Still, you get the idea.  And just to finish it off, thanks to the power of the interweb, here's the perfect illustration for this post. I actually cut this out of the newspaper many years ago and I still have it somewhere, taped into the front of a binder.  Of course I have no idea where exactly that binder is, but it doesn't matter.

Oh sweet irony...

Angus recently wrote a post describing the joys of post-modern irony.  Just as in southpark, you "can have your cake and eat it too".

So today I read this great little article (opinion piece) in the Age about Facebook and it's supposed evils.  It was good enough for me to go and find it to share with you.  Yes, Facebook enables you to stay at home and not talk to real people, but if you want to stay at home you'll find plenty of excuses, whether it's reading a book, playing computer games, cataloguing your stamp collection or planning to take over the world.

Here's one line I liked, talking about someone refusing to sign up to Facebook...

I met one such person at a party the other week. Every component of her outfit was ironic: the red kimono, the Audrey Hepburn-style kitten heels and the oversized pink-rimmed glasses. I'd put money on her belonging to a craft group in an inner-northern suburb. Had I rifled through her bag, I'm sure I would have found a tatty paperback novel by a mid-century beat poet and some rollie cigarettes.

What's being described above is not joyful irony, watching WWF and listening to Bon Jovi.  It's consciously being different, for the sake of being different.  To borrow another Southpark quote, everyone is non-conforming in the same way.

Facebook is just a website.  It's not the best thing in the world, but it's not exactly evil.  I think some people need to get a life.

cheers

Dr Harry

to bump or not to bump, that is the question...

So Matthew Lloyd laid a bump on the weekend.  Of course anyone who has seen any media that relates to football at all would know this.

It now seems he has been offered a 6 week ban (4 with an early plea) and has accepted the 4 week ban.  Essendon are apparently choosing not to fight the charge.

While the consequences of the bump are quite obvious for all to see, I believe that it was not an illegal bump and therefore he shouldn't be suspended for it.  He was going for the ball.  However, someone who can make the case much more clearly than me is Greg Baum, who actually gets paid to do such things.  Read his article on the whole case here.

Personally, for me the much more worrying situation is that Chance Bateman got offered a one week suspension for his attempted coathanger on Lloyd.  The coat hanger is a true blight on the game of AFL, much different to the front on bump.  For many years the coat hanger was employed with brutal effect and the league spent a lot of time removing it from the game.  You still see it occasionally in country football, but generally it seems to have died off.  So Bateman launched a full coat hanger at Lloyd, with obvious intent, and collected him in the throat.  It didn't do what he wanted but that's not the point, he still attempted it.

And then he gets offered one week?  For me personally, I think that the two crimes are similar.  One is last minute, unplanned and with high consequences.  One is measured, planned and has low consequences.  Give them both equal time I say.

One quick point.  I am an Essendon supporter.  That being said, I don't believe that my vision is being impaired in this matter, I think that Lloyd deserves to play next week.

cheers

Harry

ps If you look at the bump from a different angle, so that Matthew Lloyd is facing the camera, you can see how fast the whole thing happens and that Lloyd is actually going for the ball.  The view that is being shown most commonly puts him in a much worse light.