I’m not complaining

Certainly not at the Bon Mua restaurant in Abbotsford (Melbourne).

A patron upset at slow service was stabbed to death by the restaurant owner.

Entrecard = Bloglotto

I’ve been using Entrecard lately to promote my blog.  Its quite an interesting way to discover new blogs.  Basically it works by bloggers creating an entrecard (a 125 x 125 graphic) which they can then put on their site, and use to advertise on other sites.  Everytime you visit an entrecard enabled site, you can drop your card, and likewise visitors to your site can drop theirs, earning credits in the process.  You can use these credits to buy advertising on other sites, which display your entrecard, hopefully attracting visitors to your site.

Some bloggers have been holding contests to attract traffic, and I won one today.  Thanks to Jamaipanese, from who I won 250 entrecard credits.

Hey boys, keep your f@#%#’g mouths shut

It seems to me that the fairly obvious solution to the row going on over the 2nd cricket test in Sydney last week is to tell the players to keep their mounths shut on the field.  If they say nothing, they will offend nobody.  If they don’t sledge at all, they won’t cross the line into racist insults.  Why not just make a rule that says no talking to the opponents on the field (about anything apart from the game in play)?  Simple.

And why not give the umpires the power to enforce this and impose penalties?  Maybe something like this:

• first time - 5 runs deducted from batsman’s score or added as extras (where the bowling team is guilty)
• second time - 20 runs
• third time - if its a batsman, they are out, if a bowler they are removed from the attack for the rest of the innings, if a fielder, their side loses its best bowler of the innings for the rest of the innings,

This would only need to be applied a handful of times … unless of course the players are very dumb … and the problem would go away.

I really can’t understand why cricketers, and the Australians in particular, feel the need to behave like schoolboys and swear at and abuse their opponents.  They don’t need to, they are plenty good enough without it.   Cut it out of the game, its just rubbish.

And I think the Australian team needs to take a good, hard look at itself.  I don’t think it has dawned on anyone in it that “mmm, everyone else seems to be pissed off at us, wonder if we’re doing something to cause that?”  Certainly not captain Ricky Ponting.  Not Mike Hussey either.  I’m certain the prevailing thought within the team is “we’re ok, everyone else has the problem”.  Until there is some acknowledgement in the team that some things do need to be toned down, nothing is going to change …and it needs to, otherwise the Australians will only have themselves to play with.

While I’m on the subject, why do cricketers carry on like they’re having an orgasm whenever they take a wicket?  Umm, at least at the professional level, its their job, taking wickets is part of it, indeed it happens 10 times each innings.  Its not like at my work we carry on with exaggerated celebrations every time we finish a project or achieve a milestone …. we do celebrate major achievements, but not every single one in the way they do in cricket (and plenty of other sports).

10 year old Brazilians?

A while back I noted that “10 year old pussy” was a popular search term from which people arrived at my blog.  Well, I’m going to cater for that demand now.  Sort of.  Actually, I’m writing about sexualisation of young children, in this case, 10 year old girls being encouraged to wax whatever body hair they have off, including getting a brazilian wax

.Last year Nair, makers of hair-removal products, released their Pretty range, aimed at 10 to 15-year-olds, or, as they call them, “first-time hair removers”. Yes, you heard right. Ten-year-olds. Girls — children — in grades 5 and 6, encouraged to wax and chemically remove hair from their barely pubescent bodies.

The Australian arm of the company has claimed its target audience is slightly older, in an attempt to distance itself from the US campaign, which involves phrases such as “Pretty isn’t a look. It’s a feeling,” “Nair will leave your skin smooth and totally touchable!” and this pearler from Stacey Feldman, vice-president for marketing at Nair’s parent company, Church & Dwight: “When a girl removes hair for the first time, it’s a life-changing moment.”.

And then we have website girl.com.au, supposedly with a target audience of 9-14 year old girls, having a feature about brazilians, which includes this gem:

“So why does it appeal. Nobody really likes hair in their private regions and this removes it.”

According to the article in The Age, this site also had “and it has a childlike appeal” - but that is nowhere to be seen now.

It just strikes me as wrong to be encouraging prepubescent chlidren and teenagers that this is some sort of desirable thing to do.  I just don’t see these as things kids should be worrying about at these ages.  It is foisting adult concepts and images of sexual desirabilty onto them at too young an age.  Why?  So some company can sell some pointless product that no-one actually needs and add to their bottom line?  Are the marketers who thought of this shit some sort of uber-paedophiles …. is 10-12 not young enough for them?  Do they prefer them to even younger?

What sort of adults would encourage children to wax their body hair off?  What sort of parents would allow their children to do it?

Celebrity wackiness

Tom Cruise’s daughter Suri is not actually his, but was conceived using Scientology founder, L Ron Hubbard’s sperm.   Thats one claim made in a new book by Andrew Morton:  “Tom Cruise: An Unauthorised Biography“.  He also claims that Scientology played a large part in the breakdown of Cruise’s marriage to Nicole Kidman, and that Kidman has not been able to speak out against the pseudo-religion because of threats of blackmail over the release of details of the couple’s sex life and also access to their two adopted children.  The pseudo-church has denied these claims of blackmail.

Another claim in the book is that Cruise has since risen to No. 2 in the church, according to Morton, and his next mission is to recruit David and Victoria Beckham …. a task which I’m sure will take convincing philosophical and intellectual argument to achieve.

Enough of that.  Next, Terri Irwin.  She claims to have had contact with dead husband Steve through American television medium John Edward.  Hours before the psychic performed for 4500 people at the Irwins’ Australia Zoo Crocoseum , Mrs Irwin and Steve’s father, Bob,had private “readings” to contact the late wildlife champion.  Mr Irwin said his daughter-in-law was overjoyed by the outcome. He said both “had contact with Steve”.

“There’s no doubt that Steve was with us,” Mr Irwin said. “It’s not black and white, it’s grey, but there was a definite, unmistakable Steve energy.”

If the rest of the crowd at the public $90-a-head show were hoping to “see” Steve Irwin yesterday, they left disappointed. He did not make his presence felt and Edward did not address any Irwin family member during his two-hour show.

Strange that?  Nothing on the big stage but success when there were only 2 others around - all equally voracious publicity whores.  Message to Terri Irwin - shut up, all this crap you are going on with recently is destroying whatever credibility you might have had.  Just run the zoo, will you?

Enough of Terri …but by the way, its rather disturbing that 4,500 people were fool enough to part with $90 to see this garbage.  Mmmm, Queensland …. probably explains why Nigerian email scams have a better than average success rate there.   Hey that reminds me, I have an uncle in Lagos who has just died and left me $5m - but I need help getting it out of the country.  Please contact me if you can help me with this ….I’m sure we can cut a deal.

Britney Spears train wreck I posted about separately the other day, so I won’t repeat it all here.

Who are your googlegangers?

I heard this on the radio this morning and laughed.

The American Dialect Society selected “subprime” as its word of the year for 2007.

But the one I liked was its choice for “most creative” word of 2007 - “googleganger”.  a googleganger is “a person with your name who shows up when you Google yourself,”.

So, having heard this term for the first time, I couldn’t resist a good old vanity google to find my googlegangers.  I’ve got to say there are stacks of us …. journalists, CEOs, sportsmen, academics, all sorts of people, even the actual real me is on the net.  Wow, I’m impressed with how much we get around …. and its not like my name is Smith, or something that common.

So, do you have any interesting/famous googlegangers?

News from the Trailer Park

Britney Spears is in the news almost every day, and for just about everything except her music.  She is clearly a very troubled individual, and yesterday’s episode is stark evidence of that.

Police were called to Spears’ home  on Thursday  over a family custodial argument that they tried to resolve “peacefully by court order”, police officer Jason Lee said.  After nearly three hours, Spears reportedly handed over her children and was taken away on a stretcher.   It is reported that police found the singer under the influence of an unknown substance, and she was taken to hospital for medical evaluation.  Spears was not arrested, and “there was no actual crime”, a police spokeswoman said.

Sure, I bet if she was a normal member of the public, somewhere in that standoff with the police, and given she was affected by some, no doubt, illegal drug or other, the police would have found some criminal charges somewhere.

Spears “needs an enormous amount of help to find out why the erratic behavior,” said Ruth Schreibman, a marriage and family therapist who does not treat the pop star.

“Is she bipolar? Is she depressed? Is it postpartum depression? Is it drugs and alcohol?” she said. “There’s just so much attention and it’s such an accelerated speed of life that how can there be any normalcy?”

More likely too much spoilt brat unable to cope with reality.  Too many hangers on telling her how wonderful she is?

And then we have younger sister, Jamie Lynn.  My kids sometimes watch “Zoey 101” in which she appears, and we’ve often joked that we hoped she turns out better than Britney (no doubt being Britney Spears’ sister played more of a role in her getting the part than anything like actual talent).  Well, the answer to that seems to be, no, its very likely she’s heading down the same path.  16 year old Jamie Lynn is pregnant.

Spears’ mother, Lynne, added:

 “I didn’t believe it because Jamie Lynn’s always been so conscientious. She’s never late for her curfew. I was in shock. I mean, this is my 16-year-old baby.”

Not conscientious enough it seems.  Nor was Mum Spears in knowing what her daughter was up to.  But clearly she wasn’t too upset by her 16 year old’s pregnancy …. she sold the story to a magazine for a reputed $1m.  Nice one Mum - I can just picture the conversation in the family trailer (JL:  Mum, I’m pregnant.  Mum:  Oh shit, now how can we cash in on that?)

I shouldn’t really joke about Britney and Jamie Lynn Spears, Britney clearly has serious mental health issues, and I’m sure being a 16/17 year old mother is more than challenging … but the family seems to be such a train wreck (not to mention being publicity whores) that they make themselves a joke already.  I actually find it rather sad that there are people who don’t see Britney in particular as a joke, but as some sort of role model.  (Same goes for Paris Hilton).

My remedy for these girls.  Attention/publicity deprivation. Ignore them until such time as they actually do something worthwhile, like make good music, or become a quality actor, and don’t reward their other antics with any publicity at all.    Starve them of attention, hopefully they’ll vanish into obscurity.

Ha, ha!  As if thats going to happen!

Update (!3/01/2008):  Jamie Lynn Spears’ boyfriend, Casey Aldridge, is denying responsibiity for impregnating her.  Rumours have swirled that Jamie Lynn is in fact pregnant by an older TV producer.  Chances are she was auditioning for a new part ….acting ability wouldn’t have got her the job.

Excellent blogging resource

The Aussie Bloggers forum has only been going about a week and already has over 100 members.  It is well worth a look and joining in, if you’re interested in participating in a community of bloggers, and getting help/helping others out with your/their blogging.  Many thanks to those who have done all the hard work in setting up this excellent new forum - Meg lists them here.

There is also a blog to go with the new forum - Aussie Bloggers - it launches on 21 January, so keep an eye out for it.

The Underworld

Spent the day underground at Jenolan Caves. Caves are something I’ve had a longtime interest in, since I was a kid. I was for a while quite an active caver, but unfortunately work, and things like meeting my wife, and moving to Canberra, led me to drift away from it. That, plus really being too tall for it, and wide (the best, most agile cavers are small and thin, not big solid guys like me).

My daughter has a new camera (she got it for her birthday a couple of months ago) so her and I were into it with the competing photos, which is fun. We are yet to compare each others’ pictures …. something for tomorrow I think.