">My Big World Of Crap

Seen on Saturday in Suzhou.

I’m in Shanghai now.  This is approximately what I can see out the window of my hotel room.

I’m staying on the Pudong side of the Huangpu River, and looking straight over to The Bund.

We went for a walk along the Pudong side of the river this afternoon, and then had a look at the City God temple in the Old City part of Shanghai.  Planning to go for a walk along the river one night, and tossing up between a trip to Suzhou or Hangzhou on Saturday.

Oh yeah, there’s work to be done tomorrow and Friday.

I’m in Beijing now, for the next few days.  Checked into the hotel early this morning to shower, change, grab a couple of hours sleep etc, before going out this afternoon to do some tourist stuff, and meet up with one of my Chinese colleagues for some dinner.  Normally I have showers, but in this hotel I’m definitely having a bath at some time, just so I can watch TV while relaxing in the bathtub.

Mind you, the glass wall between the bathroom and the bedroom will take a bit of getting used to, especially the fact that I can sit on the toilet and look out the window of my room … hope no-one in the apartments over the road is looking in.

I think this is very much a case of that.  3 families are preparing to sue the Victorian government and its roads department for allegedly failing to prevent the deaths of loved ones who jumped from a bridge, in these cases Melbourne’s Westgate bridge. On February 5 2009, 17-year-old Allem Halkic took his own life by jumping from the bridge after being bullied on a social networking website.  His family and two others are preparing joint lawsuits against [...] Continue Reading…

This is the sort of thing you think has got to be a joke, surely it couldn’t happen in real life? Doctors in Peru amputated the healthy leg of an 86-year-old man, then amputated the other leg when they realised their mistake.  He went in to have his right leg removed as it had an ulcer, but the doctors cut off his left leg, then upon realising it was the wrong one, cut off the right one too. [...] Continue Reading…

I’m in Kuala Lumpur for work at the moment, till the end of the week, having arrived last Tuesday night.  So that means we had the weekend to do some sightseeing.   On Sunday, we spent the day at the Kuala Gandah elephant sanctuary, and fed, rode on, and swam with, the elephants.

Here’s some of what I did at the sanctuary.

First of all the keepers washed the elephants in the river.

Then we got to feed them, and ride on them, [...] Continue Reading…

I used to think Lindsay Lohan was pretty good in some of her earlier movies, like “Mean Girls” - the ones she did before she decided her mission in life was to outskank the likes of Britney Spears and Paris Hilton.  Seems she’s gone through a rough patch, and according to someone associated with her, looking to clean up her act in 2010.

However her efforts look to be about to be undone by the release onto the internet of [...] Continue Reading…

Apparently some people are so taken by the planet Pandora in the movie “Avatar” that they are getting depressed and having suicidal feelings about not being able to go there. All I can say to them is “get a life”!

I’ve just been watching Battlestar Galactica, with all its Cylons, the machines that evolved into human form.  It seems that we are closer to that fictional universe than you might think.  Meet Roxxxy the rootable robot – a sex robot which was introduced at the AVN Adult Entertainment Expo in Las Vegas this week, a life-size robotic girlfriend complete with artificial intelligence and flesh-like synthetic skin.

According to her inventor:
“She can’t vacuum, she can’t cook but she can do almost [...] Continue Reading…

Fascinating to read what some of our school teachers get up to in their spare time.   Nepean High School teacher’s assistant Sharron Anne Lee, 40, was involved in a threesome at a drunken New Year’s Eve sex party which later descended into a brawl.  Her bail hearing was told Lee, had fought with her girlfriend of three years, Carlie-Anne Bell, from Glenmore Park, in her bedroom while the man they had picked up at the Penrith Panthers [...] Continue Reading…

There was a terrible road smash near Batemans Bay a few days ago.  A petrol tanker ran out of control and crashed into some cars, then burst into flames.  2 young girls in one of the cars, and the truck driver were killed.  Others were injured, including the parents of the dead girls who are now in a critical condition in hospital.  Terrible tragedy, no doubt about it. However, what takes the cake for me is the Daily [...] Continue Reading…

There is some sort of debate going on among the locals around The Gap in Sydney’s eastern suburbs.  The Gap is a scenic ocean cliff, and a well known suicide spot – some 50 people kill themselves each year by jumping off the cliff onto the rocks below.

The local council is lobbying the Federal Government to support its $3.5 million suicide prevention plan, which includes security cameras, lighting, a safety phone and a new fence stretching for more than [...] Continue Reading…