">My Big World Of Crap

An attempted armed robbery near Melbourne overnight is almost too funny to be true. But the paper says it happened so it must be true, of course.

A man and woman confronted a staff member at the Cuckoo restaurant in Olinda, as he left the restaurant after closing time. They demanded he handed over a black plastic bag, which they believed held the night’s takings. However, it actually contained leftover bread rolls he was taking home to feed to his chooks. The robbers then demanded the staff members car keys, but as he handed them over, the male robber’s shotgun went off, wounding the woman accomplice in the stomach.

The staff member and restaurant manager then ran inside and locked the doors, and called the police. They could hear the woman screaming in pain as they called police. However before the police got there, the man carried the woman to the road and they escaped with the help of an accomplice. The woman later took herself to hospital - and was being treated for serious injuries. A man was later arrested and being questioned by police.

Criminal masterminds, not!

Technorati : Cuckoo restaurant, Olinda, armed robbery, bread rolls, crime

…. but I’m going to say it anyway. Rove McManus returns to TV tonight, for the first time since the death of his wife Belinda Emmett. Hence the glut of stories in the press over the last few days.

A couple of things I can confidently predict:

1. the TV Week Logie Awards are coming up soon ….nothing surer than a Gold Logie for Rove
2. Rove has, during his absence from public view, completed the “bitter-sweet” task of putting the finishing touches on Emmett’s long-awaited debut album, due for release in late April ….nothing surer than this will get a shitload more airplay and sales than it is ever likely to deserve on its musical merits.

Both will score mountains of sympathy votes.

Technorati : Belinda Emmett, Logie Awards, Rove McManus, TV Week

Saw “Mr Bean’s Holiday” at the cinema today. Amusing rather than rip roaringly funny, I thought.

Speaking of movies, I was listening to the radio yesterday, and they were interviewing the director of “Black Sheep” - naturally, being about sheep its a New Zealand movie, about some killer sheep that go on a rampage. Bizarre! The special effects people from “Lord of the Rings”, Weta Workshops, are involved with it, and it appears to be another of those schlock-horror movies like the ones Peter Jackson cut his teeth on, such as “Bad Taste” and “Braindead“. I’d say its most likely a “wait till it comes out on DVD” one rather than spend the dollars at the cinema.

Technorati : Bad Taste, Black Sheep, Braindead, Mr Bean, Mr Bean’s Holiday, Peter Jackson, Weta Workshops, movies

According to some recent market research, certain types of people are attracted to different makes of mobile phones.

In summary:

• Motorola = under 24 and fashion conscious
• Nokia = middle aged manager
• Sony Ericsson - ambitious young men
• LG = mum’s phone
• Samsung = young women focused on career.

Shit, I’ve been going out using my Samsung in public. Everyone must think I’m a girl! Better ditch it asap and get me a more manly phone.

Technorati : LG, Mobile phone, Motorola, Nokia, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, cellphone, market research

The inquiry that cleared former Aged Care minister Santo Santoro of any wrongdoing in the allocation of federally funded nursing home beds to a friend must have probed deeply and thoroughly, leaving no stone unturned in the few days it took. Amazing how fast the government and public service can move when they want to clear their own name.

The inquiry found Senator Santoro did not influence a departmental decision to give Russell Egan Jr, a Brisbane Liberal branch chairman, 94 taxpayer-funded bed licences. The new minister, Christopher Pyne, said:

“There is no evidence that’s been deduced of any wrongdoing on behalf of the former minister and this report exonerates him entirely,”

Mr Pyne said, and then went on to add:

“As far as I’m concerned, and the Government is concerned, we draw the line under this controversy, and we can now get back on with the business of governing for ageing Australians.”

Somehow, I don’t think that washes, Christopher. About as convincing as Santo Santoro’s original claims of “I forgot to declare this transaction” and then “And when I remembered, I sold the shares and donated the profits to charity” without mentioning that the “charity” was a right wing lobby group connected with his mate who put him onto the shares in the first place, and that in fact there were 70 odd share transactions he had forgotten about.

One thing I’m curious to know is how the inquiry managed to establish the facts without actually talking to the key players, Santoro and Egan. Sounds like a bunch of public servants asking each other if they did anything wrong. Another one of those, “don’t ask, don’t tell” situations where unpleasant facts are kept away from the Minister so he can quite nicely deny any knowledge …and in the public service ministers don’t actually need to give the bureaucrats explicit instructions - the ones who succeed are well attuned to their minister’s wishes and “know” what they want without actually having to be told.

Technorati : Christopher Pyne, Santo Santoro, aged care, inquiry, public service

Terrible way to go ….drowned in a tsunami of shit.

Technorati : Gaza Strip, Palestine, sewage tsunami, shit

Anthony Callea is gay. Wow, what a surprise! Good on him. Sucked in little girls who voted for him on Australian Idol, and bought his CD’s because he’s so cute.

In other amazing news, night follows day, the sky is blue, and politicians tell lies.

Technorati : Anthony Callea, coming out, gay, homosexual

Last year’s AFL premiers, the West Coast Eagles, have been flying high not just on the footy field. Rumours of illegal drug use came to a head recently with star player Ben Cousins suspended indefinitely by the club. It has been suggested that he has a $3,000 a week ice habit. Another player, Daniel Kerr, was caught on tape by a police investigation, in conversation with a (later convicted) drug dealer, and up to 8 players have admitted to their coach about having experimented with illegal drugs.

But Eagles chief executive Trevor Nisbett ruled out an independent investigation into substance use among his players. Who knows, it might reveal things the club and the AFL just don’t want to know!

Technorati : AFL, Ben Cousins, Daniel Kerr, West Coast Eagles, drug abuse, ice, methamphetamine

Not quite, but these Purity Balls that are being held in parts of the US are not too far away.

In what is becoming a trend among conservative Christians in the US, girls as young as nine are pledging to their fathers to remain virgins until they wed, in elaborate ceremonies dubbed “Purity Balls”. The gala affairs are intended to celebrate the father-daughter relationship. The highlight is when the fathers and daughters exchange vows, with dad signing a covenant to protect his daughter’s chastity by living an unblemished life and the daughter promising not to have sex until marriage.

Creepy, I reckon. Overtones of incest, paedophilia, unnatural fatherly interest in daughters’ sexuality, a view that daughters are the property of their father until handed over to their next owner, their husband. What next, hymen inspections? (by dad, or the family priest, minister etc?).

The teaching of abstinence is a big thing in the US, with the government funding such initiatives to the extent of more than $200 m. Doesn’t seem too effective either …the majority of adolescents who take purity pledges break them within a few years, often by engaging in risky and unprotected sex. One study conducted by researchers at the universities of Columbia and Yale found that 88 percent of pledgers wind up having sex before marriage. (What a surprise - I’d hardly imagine that 9, 10, 11 year old girls are reasonably placed to make particularly informed commitments about their future sexuality).

Technorati : abstinence, chastity belts, purity balls, sexuality, virginity

I’m glad I don’t live in NSW today and have to vote in the state election. The choice is extremely poor, not even as good as the one the kids in South Park had for school mascot, turd sandwich vs giant douchebag. No, the choice for NSW voters is about as appealing as whether you’d like your turd sandwich toasted or not.

Technorati : NSW election, South Park, giant douchebag, politics, turd sandwich