Moving Backwards

I heard yesterday that a North Shore school is banning plastic water bottles and replacing them with...drumroll...water bubblers! Wow! I seem to recall these at school (and much high-jinks around them) over 30 years ago. Whatever next? Children walking/cycling to school?

Seriously though, all credit to them. Hopefully they'll be the start of a generation that doesn't feel compelled to walk down George St carrying a water bottle in their hand just in case, you know, you die of thirst, which obviously happens a lot on George St.

What Price Beer?

Popped into our regular haunt the other day only to find that my beer of choice has gone up from $5.60 to $6.80. That's an increase of over 20%, which confirms a mate's theory on the optimal strategy of having one's pay indexed to the price of beer!

It was an already expensive beer brand before the increase. It's not down to increased tax; it's just a straight price-hike by the supplier.

How do they justify that? It's a short-sighted price-gouging tactic though. Not only will the punters change brews but the pubs will also drop it. Our local is the second one in a month from which it is disappearing.

The beer in question? Well let's just say next time I have a beer, just like if Arnie was buying, "I won't be Becks"

Election Fever

At least that's what the papers and the pollsters would have us believe but I don't think so.

A quick look at the Top 5 articles from the 4 Fairfax papers on the Web at lunchtime only had one election story making the top 5 across all 4 of them. And that single story only came in at No. 5 in The Age.

Forget the election! Based on the Top 5 list, the scintillating topics of a 30-second boxing match, an intruder, a fake iPod t-shirt, a disappointing city in Indonesia (but sadly, not a disappointed horse), a car-crash, Jason Akermanis getting sacked and even a maid receiving an inheritance all tickled our fancy more.

Clearly everyone is finding this election pretty dull and there's still 5 more miserable weeks to go. Wouldn't it be great though if the media paid attention to their own sites and noticed just how uninterested we are in this election?

Maybe they could stop covering it for the next 5 weeks! I might even buy the paper...

So, the World Cup eh...

Well, all things considered, that was rather a disappointing final. Even the arrival of my good mate Mick (who, what with Sydney's fantasy-like, as distinct from fantastic, transport system, had to cycle into the city from Pymble to be sure to make it in time) together with strong coffee and egg and bacon rolls couldn't lift the game. That's not to say it wasn't memorable; just a memory that I won't cherish.

The Dutch are complaining about the referee. And well they might; they had far too many players still on the field when the final whistle was blown.

You always want your team to win but ultimately, you want them win in a way that allows you to hold your head up high. You don't want to have to preface or qualify your joy every time you recall it! Only one team played the game that way. Congratulations to Spain. They were deserving winners and what a party that will be!

And of course, special mention to the All Whites, the only unbeaten team of the World Cup!

On a personal note (i.e not a raucous Bb via a Vuvuzela), I'm going to have to get used to waking up and not hearing overnight football scores to ponder over my morning coffee. I fear life is going to be rather dull...

Monday And Somewhere I'd Rather Be...(2)

Where else? The World Cup of course! This picture was from the previous one in Germany 2006.

I hooked up with some Irish guys in Munich who were staying in the same hostel. Trust me, you couldn't afford better accomodation!

We had a great time there. Beer galore, football galore, girls galore! Ah, there was a lot of galore! Actually the above picture was from their backyard but features their souvenir from the tournament. The flag was a lot bigger at ground level than was first realised!

Well, good luck to Spain and Holland. Hopefully we get a great game.

There were plans to go to South Africa to watch it but life has a way of mucking those plans up. And of course, if I was there, I wouldn't have to be getting up at 4.00 am to watch it. Better get to work on the Brazil 2014 plan.

Not A Horse Of Course

Sat down last night to watch Blue Velvet, which I'd never seen before.
I was very confused though, as I thought it was another sequel to National Velvet, so I spent a fair bit of time wondering when the horses were going to come in to it.

It was a very brutal film. It really should have a disclaimer:

"No horses were filmed in the making of this injury."

Looking For The Specific Solution

This week the Government announced that they were approaching East Timor to be one of our external refugee processing sites.

How about that? All that time they were in opposition protesting about it, I never realised that the problem they had with the "Pacific Solution" was over which ocean was being used...

Job Search Results Check - 2

Well it's 3 months since the last look at the Job Search numbers. And this time, my poorly defined search criteria tell me that in the last week there were 618 jobs. This compares pretty favourably with the 413 in April; that's an increase of ooh lots of percent - almost exactly 50 by my reckoning.

It all suggests the job market is heating up again. Didn't help me negotiate a payrise, mind you!

Foregone Conclusion? Apparently So.

Ok, so NSW have already lost the series so the third game is something of an irrelevance.

It would also appear that plenty have written them off before the game even starts.

Check out the prices of the teams' jumpers at the local Rebel Sports store.

Salt with those wounds, anyone?

Damn Lies & Football Statistics!

One of the great things about the World Cup are all the statistics and history-making moments that come out of it. My favourite two:

• Italy only allowed their opponents to have 6 shots on goal in 3 matches. Unfortunately, they also allowed 5 goals to be scored from these 6 shots...
  
  
• Even more amazingly, if Spain or Germany go on to win the World Cup, the only unbeaten team in the entire tournament will be New Zealand!

New Prime Minister

So "Kevin O'Seven's" gone. Guess it was a case of "Not Again O'Ten..."

I don't know why everybody's so relaxed though. Don't they realise Australia's now a Ruddless ship?

As for the discussion over what to call her partner and the suggestions of "First Bloke" etc, while they're amusing, they're also a depressing sign of Americanisation. We haven't called previous Prime Minister's wives "The First Lady" or anything else for that matter, so who cares what Julia's partner is called.

Now on the other hand, if Hilary was to stage a similar coup, or if Sarah was to win the next American election, then indeed it would be a question worth asking. Sadly, I'm sure "First Bloke" would not be the answer.