AFL round 10 (2012) ‘expert’ tips
It’s no-name Richmond are ‘premiership favourites’ round
I have no idea (yet) what to call this round … but if something springs to mind later today I’ll give it one. In the meantime, here are the ‘expert’ tips:
Update: As you can see, I’ve named the round in hindsight
A Seinfeld post Open Thread
(A post about nothing)
When a blog owner puts up an open thread like I have here you can usually conclude one of three things:
- There is absolutely no blogworthy news out there.
- The blog owner has hit the wall and run out of ideas.
- The blog owner is just plain lazy.
Or, in my case … all three. So, this is an ‘open thread’ where you can say whatever you like while Leanne and I head into town to sign some documents, buy a present, go to the chemist for my asthma medication and … pick up the local paper where, hopefully, I might find something worth blogging about. Or not. I’ll check in later … what are you waiting for?
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A new “Premiership Favourite”
It’s official. According to this reader poll running on The Age website, lowly placed
Richmond are the new ‘Premiership Favourites’
Currently in 12th position on the ladder with a negative win/loss ratio of 4 wins from 9 games, Richmond have polled 29% of reader votes putting them ahead of top-placed teams West Coast & Essendon (both with 8 wins). The sudden surge followed the Tigers’ 62 pt thrashing of Hawthorn, the previous favourites, who have now dropped to 2%.
So what does this poll mean, apart from the fact Richmond supporters might be getting a little bit ahead of themselves? Not much, although here are some ‘highlights’ as I see them:
- I have to agree with Carlton’s 0% support – they’ve got no hope.
- I’m not sure how Adelaide and Geelong rank so low at only 2% and 1% respectively.
- Collingwood is definitely being under-rated, even by their own supporters it seems.
- You gotta love the fact that 5% of people thought some team outside the 10 listed ones had a better chance of winning the flag. Someone like Freo, Gold Coast or maybe even GWS?
So what’s your opinion? Let’s have our own vote. Which team deserves the title of ‘Premiership Favourite’ ?
Sweden wins Eurovision
Not that I give a shit but this is for those of you staying away from the traditional media today so you can watch the final on TV tonight without knowing the result beforehand:
Sweden’s Loreen has taken out the Eurovision Song Contest in Azerbaijan
The Russian grannies were second. And – surprise, surprise – host nation Azerbaijan was 4th, while England’s entry (poor old Englebert) didn’t even make the Top Ten.
Yawn ……………………..
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Eternal no more
The eternal flame that burns at Melbourne’s Shrine of Remembrance has been snuffed out. Police have released this cctv footage of the ‘culprit’ who jumped the fence at about 8 am today armed with a fire extinguisher.
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So … has this guy committed a crime or not and, if so, what is it? I dunno.
Maybe just relight the flame and get over it.
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Eurovision
The Greek entry Aphrodisiak should have been called Buddy can you spare a dime.
It’s on again. Make of it what you will but I reckon the Eurovision Song Festival is a tribute to everything that’s wrong, cheesy and just plain dorky in pop music. It’s been called many things but this definition I read somewhere pretty much sums it up for me:
Badly-choreographed popsters lurching around wailing off-key, all fake smiles and cheap spandex… and that’s just the winners…
The final will be shown tomorrow night (Sunday) on SBS TV @ 7.30 pm. It’s a delayed telecast and I know that many of you will be staying away from the news just so you don’t know the winner before you sit down to watch. Don’t worry … I’ll be doing my best to announce it much earlier. Enjoy (dorks).
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Indonesia’s mind-blowing logic
Who’s worse – Bashir, Suharto or Corby?
You have to wonder about the mindset of Indonesians, particularly those in authority. And, more particularly, their Judges. According to this Age report, just in, the chief justice of Indonesia’s powerful Constitutional Court has hit out at the decision to grant Schapelle Corby clemency, saying drug crimes are worse than terrorism:
“Drug crime is worse than corruption and terrorism,” he said.
“In corruption and terrorism cases, if the perpetrators are sanctioned to death, the case ends with their death. But drugs destroy life. It doesn’t only kill the life of one person, but it destroys the life of the next generations.”
AFL round 9 (2012) ‘expert’ tips
From Italy with love
It’s Italian Heritage round
How appropriate it is that on the weekend of Myrtleford’s La Fiera Italian Festival I should dedicate this round to our great Italian heritage. To those wonderful post-war immigrants who have given us so much in the way of culture, food, Cathlocism, Alfa Romeos and concrete balustrades. Not forgetting, of course, their valuable contribution to the underworld:
Pasquale “Pat” Barbaro, the boss of Griffiths’ Calabrian Mafia known as ‘Ndrangheta, has been sentenced to life imprisonment for the attempted importation of 15 million ecstasy pills (the world’s largest ecstasy haul) hidden in 3,000 tomato cans in a shipping container brought in from Calabria, Italy.
Yes, this weekend we salute La Dolce Vita - the ‘sweet life’ - now available at your local supermarket. In tins. Maybe we should serve them to a few footy teams? Or to our ‘experts’?: (more…)
Budget delay unexplained
Update Friday 12 noon: It’s still not up. Although I’ve just received a hard copy of the budget in the mail. It pays to “whinge”.
Update Friday 12.45 pm: The budget is now available here.
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Ratepayers upset with the draft budget are whingers … according to Alpine Mayor Peter Roper.
“A fair budget” (for farmers & Mt Beauty) – don’t “whinge”,
… says Mayor (a Mt Beauty farmer)
As I reported earlier, the Alpine council’s controversial (*) 2012/13 budget was presented at a special council meeting held yesterday (Tuesday) at the unusually early time of 5 pm. I didn’t attend the meeting because (a) the timing didn’t suit me (or most others, I reckon), (b) the meeting was merely a formality of putting the draft budget out for comment before finally adopting it, and (c) I was told that the draft budget would be put up on council’s website this morning so I thought, what’s the point of going to a meeting without knowing the content beforehand?
However, the promised download has failed to appear on the council’s website. Furthermore, I’ve now been advised (by an “executive assistant”) that The Draft 2012/13 Budget will not be on the website until Friday. No other explanation was provided, even though hard copies are apparently available if you want to go down to the Shire offices and ask for one. Why then does it take another 2 days+ to get it up on the website, is it written in longhand or something?
Anyway - and to explain the * I put next to “controversial” above – it seems our Mayor, beef farmer Peter Roper from Mt Beauty, is a little worried about the reaction. Maybe this excerpt from today’s Border Mail explains the delay in releasing the document for scrutiny?: (more…)
Bean-bag bullets beat ‘Badness’ Binse
‘Badness’ saved. But if he’d been ‘Madness’, he’d probably have been shot dead.
He’s just lucky he wasn’t a ‘schizo’ with a knife, I guess
The news that Victoria Police have ended the 44-hour siege capturing the career criminal Christopher Dean ‘Badness’ Binse by the use of non-lethal bullets - when he emerged from the Keilor East home early this morning brandishing a gun and refusing to put it down - deserves praise.
It is certainly a credit to Police that they managed to take him into custody without inflicting any serious injuries to him or his girlfriend/hostage, despite the tense standoff lasting so long and despite the fact Binse had been sporadically firing shots. He was indeed a real threat … well done.
However, the success of this operation raises a very serious question about the way police handle other such standoffs and threatening situations, especially when it involves mentally ill people having psychotic episodes. (more…)
It’s Budget Day for Alpine
No show on budget day?
But where’s the CEO?
Today is Budget Day down @ Churchill Avenue. The Alpine council’s draft budget for 2012/13 will be presented at a special council meeting @ 5pm but guess what? Council CEO Ian Nicholls won’t be there to answer any queries on what is essentially his budget.
A copy of the agenda is here but the council has refused to give out advance copies of the actual budget meaning any of us attending the meeting will have very little opportunity to digest it and ask relevant questions. The agenda is pretty light on for details but what’s there is rather misleading and alarming. First of all it says: (more…)
What do people like to do on holidays?
I just had a bit of an argument with another accommodation owner over what we need to attract (and retain) more tourists:
He said: We need more attractions like gondolas going up hills - “People like to do things.”
I said: We need to get government funding for major improvements to the CBD. “People mainly like to sit around, relax, drink coffee, eat and shop.”
He said: There’s no benefit in doing up the main street of Bright – “It won’t make any difference and won’t bring extra people.”
I said: Of course it will bring more people – “If we make the town centre a more pleasant place to be for those we do get then they’ll stay longer, spend more money, come back more often and tell more people about it.”
He said: We need to pull down the pine plantations around the town – “The threat of bushfires is what is keeping people away.”
I said: We shouldn’t destroy the scenery as it’s our major asset and, besides, the plantations are privately owned – “We should focus on what we have control over and do what we already do better.”
To summarise: He thinks the only way is to add more big attractions to attract more tourists and that town improvements are not needed and wouldn’t work anyway … although, when asked, he wasn’t able to explain why not. Whereas I say this area already has plenty of natural attractions but needs to understand that the market has changed and now wants better facilities in both the private and public realms and … because we haven’t upgraded … we’ve fallen behind.
So who’s right, red or blue ? What do you look for in a holiday destination, man-made rides and touristy type attractions, or natural beauty and an attractive, modern & clean ambience in the town. And what do you like to do in holiday destinations, go to man-made attractions like a gondola or a rollercoaster, or go into the town to enjoy the atmosphere, the food & coffee and shopping?
The joke’s not on him
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The death of the Bee Gee’s other twin, Robin Gibb, at the not-really-old age of 62 ironically means only Barry, the oldest of the three brothers (or four if you include Andy, the youngest and first to die), is left. He must be shattered.
While many people deride the Bee Gees over their disco era music (which wasn’t their fault – you can blame John ‘Oh no, Im not gay’ Travolta for that), the reality is they had a massive volume of work and rank not that far behind The Beatles in both musical ability and songwriting.
And they were far more versatile than given credit for – for instance, it’s not widely known that the hit song To love somebody was originally written by the Bee Gees exclusively for Otis Redding, the greatest soul singer of all time. Unfortunately Otis was killed in a plane crash in 1967 just before he was due to record it, which is a shame because I reckon it would have been as much a classic as Redding’s Try a little tenderness.
And, while Barry Gibb is generally regarded as the strength of the group, Robin Gibb was equally talented (Maurice not so), and had an amazing voice that no one could imitate. It’s best demonstrated in this early video of him singing I started a joke with the now very appropriate line:
“Till I finally died, which started the whole world living” . It’s a real tear-jerker.
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Myrtleford’s new (waste of) open space
A path that meanders from one street to the other … with hardly anywhere to sit ! ~ click on image to enlarge.
The square with no name
It might be little more than a wide concrete path that merely connects the Great Alpine Road to Myrtleford’s main shopping street (and it may only function as that too), but at least the Alpine council has completed – at great public expense - Myrtleford’s new and, as yet, un-named public ‘open space’ in time for Noel Stone’s Italian-themed La Fiera Festival to be held this coming weekend.
I can’t say I find it very inspiring or well designed. There’s a bit of grass to the left, a bit to the right, a lot of concrete in the middle (including the polished chess board), very little seating and … absolutely no tables.
And then there’s those ‘lawn lounges’ … WTF? Memo to the designers: Form should follow function.
Anyway, yesterday was beautiful & sunny, so Leanne and I decided to venture on over to the town where all our rates money gets spent … just to show you what we’re not getting done in Bright. More pics ‘over the fold’ – click on images to enlarge: (more…)
Ray Dyer’s new campaign
Ray Dyer’s car (and goat) parked by the Great Alpine Road @ Ovens yesterday. The inset photo is of Dyer and the goat’s the one on the surfboard, in case you were wondering ~ click to enlarge.
With the council elections due later this year – and having already saved the Mt Buffalo Chalet all by himself - it was only a matter of time before local legend Ray Dyer came up with a new gimmick cause to head up his campaign. I have no idea on what grounds (if any) Dyer is demanding that the Alpine council CEO Ian Nicholls be sacked, but I guess he’s not one to let a minor detail like that get in the way of some good publicity.
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Promoting 'Beautiful Bright'.
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