This was the Week that Was, Vol. 2

This has been an interesting week, for sure. I've rediscovered my passion for "driving in circles". The story is certainly an interesting one, and somewhat of a long one. Check back later this week for something about that. :)

Mainly because of that, along with finishing the whole second half of the 5th season of The West Wing (which features one of my favorite lines, spoken by Josh, about the space program - "It's all low-earth orbits. It like if, 30 years after Columbus, Spain expected people to get hot and bothered about a trip to Mallorca.", and generally not having much time in front of the computer this weekend, the update's going to be somewhat short this week.

Posts I liked this week -

• Computerworld highlights some great ads over the last forty years of their magazine (via Neatorama)
• mrbrown shared a video he found of Bill O'Reilly getting taken to school by a 16-year-old who was defending his school's seminar on drug use and other "risky" behaviors
• deanpence bought an iPhone and gave it a very thorough review; the phone's definitely not for me, but it's good to see that it does live up to the hype
• Allie at Memoirs of a Gouda has found a way to stop Jehovah's Witnesses from visiting - put a Buddha statue in the front garden; that works most of the time. However, I find that living in a hard-to find place helps too :)
• Directions, 1937 style, can be found at Shorpy (a great photo blog featuring old photos from at least 50-60 years ago.
• I know that y'all may have seen this already, but Craig Harper says that if you want something, you actually have to do something to get it. Take that, "the secret"! (By the way, if you haven't seen it, the Chaser's War on Everything tried out the secret and it didn't go as planned.....I'll put the video at the end of the post ;))
• How would you react to getting a Lexus for your birthday? You'd be over the moon, right? Well, Matt at Fireflies in the Cloud found a video showing how a kid reacted to getting a Lexus...
• Thiru's How to Live Online has a very interesting graph showing what people do online by age group. Not surprisingly, the younger you are, the more likely you are to participate in various aspects of internet life.
• Ray at FreshBlogger has a quick how-to on finding your blogging voice. It's something that I think can help almost any blogger be better. :)
• Lastly, cars are being delivered all over Australia, but two really nice cars are going to my friend Snoskred, one for her parents, and one for herself ;)

Only one blog on the new blogs list: The BenSpark. If you're willing to put your face out there to be seen, you can enter his contest to win an "xshot" which makes self-portraits much easier.

It has been a bumper week for the US Blogs community at BumpZEE. These are the new blogs -

• Declaration Photos
• Advertising For Success
• CoolAdzine for Marketers
• Endangered Spaces
• Texas RV Travel Blog
• Homeschooling In The Ozarks
• ITheTwilight
• n E o A u T e U r
• Principled Discovery
• Life With Heathens

Around here, something happened on Tuesday. I forget what it is. Oh yeah, that's it! I bought a domain! I also discussed my Fear of Failure and the movies I've watched (I'm open for suggestions).

Traffic was about average for the week, until Sunday night after someone submitted the site to StumbleUpon, which caused over 100 people to show up, for a total of 147 unique visitors yesterday, making the total number for the week 236.

This week, it's the 4th of July, so that means there will be a "war" of sorts outside. I'll explain that later. I'm also up to episode 5 of The West Wing season 6 - it's been eventful so far, and I expect it to keep going. I'll also have a post for the Hump Day Hmm about Karma, and more :)

Lastly, here is the Chaser video, as promised :) -

This was the Week that Was, Vol. 1

Last Monday, I had mentioned that I was "gonna do a weekly update thing from now on". And that has now manifested itself into This was the Week that Was, TW3 for short. It's basically a round-up of blog posts that I found interesting, some new blogs that I've started reading, and a bit of an update on what's gone on here. There'll also be a mention of news from time to time. I hope y'all enjoy it :)

Some blog posts that I really liked -

• Duncan's TV Ad Land featured some great ads that have been blocked from reairing on British TV because back in the 50s, eggs and toast was seen to be a balanced breakfast. Now you have to have juice.
• Andrew G (formerly of Channel [V] and currently of Australian Idol) discussed a great insight that he got from emceeing an event featuring the Dalai Lama in Sydney
• One of my favorite blogs is The Food Pornographer, where tfp, as she is known, photographs many of the meals she has. This week, a couple of the posts caught my eye -
  
  • Tuesday night dinner with friends - featuring a picture of a version of an Aussie burger, using chicken instead of the regular hamburger. It looks really delicious!
  • Monday work food - guilty! - Obviously we *do* have KFC here, but it's always interesting to see how other countries serve the same kinds of food in the same restaurant. Of note are three things - 1) the soda in a can - here, it's served in a cup like any other fast food restaurant, and the last time I've seen a can with a narrow opening was maybe 10 years ago; 2) No coleslaw - if it were me, I'd have that instead of the chips (fries). ;) 3) The bun. I had a look on the Aussie KFC website, and they don't have the biscuits. Seriously, y'all are missing out on some goodness there.
• Sky High Cork City from inphotos.org, with a great picture of Cork City in Ireland from the top of a parking ramp/garage/structure/deck.
• Google held a Press Day in Paris this week, and released a bunch of facts and figures about their operations, highlighted at unofficial Google blog Google Operating System. The most interesting stat is that 20-25% of queries are brand new ones.
• Anaglyph mentioned a story about the Royal Australian Navy preventing a boarding of one of their ships by Iranian forces. How, you might ask did they do this? Simple - by using some colourful language ;)

Some of the new blogs I've started reading recently -

• Memoirs of a Gouda, who I mentioned the other day for being willing to embrace swearing.
• Alyndabear. She just bought herself a new domain, something that I am seriously considering doing at some time in the near future. She also received a bum blog review a couple weeks back, which is when I started reading - I have to say that their review was totally off-base.
• A Byootaful Life; I know it was mentioned in Snos' round up, but the post that got me was the one about the Digg Cake; specifically the words "boob cake". ;) Yeah, I'm a perv :p
• A Taste of Home. It was linked off of byootaful life, and is another foodie blog. You can't get enough of those :)

New blogs in the US Blogs Community:

• ourmonmouthblog
• TallFreak.com
• Everybody Loves Tana!
• Jericho Monster
• Nate Balcom..that is..NateBal.com....Come On In..The Web Is Fine..
• One Step Forward

I'll be honest, while I'd love to invite every single blog in the US personally, there are only so many hours in the day, and so many blogs that I can comment on before I go a bit, well, silly. My goal, as I said last Monday, is to double the number of blogs by the end of the month. Right now, we're at 46, so that means there's quite a way to go. If you know of some blogs that are in the US, feel free to invite them to the community, and if you're a blogger and haven't signed up yet, why not? It's free, easy, and you'll get yourself on the US Blogs Blogroll.

Speaking of the blogroll, I've found a way to make it scroll without losing the value of the links. I'm sure you can probably hide links using that method as well.

On Bleeps and other Onomatopoeia..

As an American, I've been brought up in a culture where swearing is considered almost a mortal sin. You never see anyone swearing on TV, and if you so much as utter a curse word in public, you're looked upon as some kind of pariah who has no decency or intelligence. Either that or, depending on how foul your language is, a sailor.

Naturally, you would expect that I might be offended at someone who would swear, and would almost come to expect the words to be edited out, or bleeped, or somehow adjusted to take away the shock. And you'd be right. About a year ago, Snoskred gave me a link to an article (I don't remember where it is, or much about it) which didn't censor the word "fu*k", and this offended me. So, I said something to her about my offense to it, and basically the discussion led me to understanding that it isn't a mortal sin to swear, and that there are times when you can definitely do it. Though of course, there are times to not practice the art.

In fact, by the end of that day, I had built up the courage (yes, I know it sounds funny to think that someone has to build courage to swear, but I did have to) to actually say "fu*k", albeit somewhat quietly and without much confidence. Slowly, I did start integrating the word into my mental vocabulary and also in some conversations; though I do still use "fill" words at times around my mother even though the times that I've let one slip nothing has happened. It's probably because she swears every once in a while, most often on the road.

More recently, another word hit my radar screen - it's one that you'll hear from time to time down under, most likely in a pub when a group of mates get together. Now, if you are easily offended, I'll add here that this word is Robin Williams' least favorite swear word, and is one that is part of the original list of "seven dirty words" made famous by George Carlin. That word is "c*nt". I have to admit that I'm still not 100% confident in the use of the word, but it's coming to me quickly.

Recently, I've seen a couple of bloggers mentioning their use of swearing in their lives. One's at Oh For Fun and the other at Memoirs of a Gouda. What's in common with both of these posts is that they're simply admitting to something we all do - use swear words from time to time.

Quite honestly, if you were like I was - offended by swear words - I have a couple of suggestions. First, don't get offended, just let it go (unless it really *is* a place where you shouldn't swear).

The second tip is to find yourself an Aussie friend. They'll tell you that swearing is acceptable and something that is done all the time there, even on TV where people aren't punished for using language on TV. Sometimes, during a racing broadcast, it'll slip through and the announcer will say something totally obvious like "Well, that's the heat of the battle there" and not outright apologize for the use of language. Here, if the same thing happens, generally the driver or person responsible will be fined by the sanctioning body.

I'll let you go with two video clips here. The first comes from the first V8 Supercar race at Winton in Benalla VIC. Mark Skaife had just spun off the track and was chatting on his radio with his crew. I think the language is pretty clear, yet note the silence afterwards ;)

Next, is this clip from the NASCAR Nextel Cup race at Bristol in March, 2006. It's a bit longer cos I can't clip the file as I used the wrong audio type. Note how quickly the announcer (Mike Joy) jumped in to apologize for the language. However, I believe that there were no fines leveed because this was broadcast over the team's radio and intercepted by Fox.

So that's how they do it....

It seems that once you have someone or something figured out, another little curve ball gets tossed/bowled/etc. at you.

In this case, a writer in the Sydney Morning Herald's "Stay in touch" blog wrote this interesting description of how TV ratings are calculated Down Under. Here's a little taste -

At 2am each day, all Diary recordings over the past 24 hours are sent to the central Taminondas computer, from which the ratings figures are calculated and sent to TV networks at 8am.

I managed to get that far believing everything that was written. Of course, it was around that point that I started to see the comments correcting this "history" of Aussie TV Ratings. If you want the straight dope, read up over here.

In other news, I've gone and done something quite stupid - allowed myself to get sunburnt. I am aware of the risks of this, and I'm happy to report that I do have some sunscreen, and I also have an umbrella that I can use while outside. I also have the advantage that there is partial shade where I go outside; at least until about 10 am.

I see you watching me watching you

This story in the SMH caught my eye yesterday; you wouldn't really know what it was about from the title, though it is a hint - "Obese, gun-happy and violent; but that's half the story". The point is that Fairfax sent Michael Gawenda over here a couple of years ago to be their Washington Correspondent, and in that time, he's seen both the stereotypical America along with the country that most of us know.

It's items like this that make me glad for being able to access newspapers and news from around the world, as one point that he makes is very prescient -

It is not surprising that so many Americans consider America to be a world unto itself, which partly at least, explains American provincialism and why many Americans are so apparently incurious about the rest of the world.

If I have failed to convey the complexity of America, I am not alone. Much of the reporting of the place by most foreign correspondents - British, European and Australian - fails the complexity test.

The truth of the matter is that most of the my fellow citizens really only pay attention to what is happening in their area, along with the areas that get coverage from the major news programs and channels. I will disagree with his point about the homelands of the journos who cover this country being complex. If I were sent to, say Australia, with just basic information, or maybe info that I'd culled from a travel guide, there would be a lot of nuance that I'd miss - for example, the split in football codes - Rugby League in NSW, the ACT and QLD, Aussie rules in the other states and territories; Rugby a quiet third, soccer lurking there, and gridiron completely nonexistant.

Nevertheless, it is refreshing to see someone who comes to the country go around and visit the parts of our vast land that don't get media coverage (read: anywhere other than the Northeast Corridor (that's Boston to Washington and down into Northern Virginia), Los Angeles, and to a very very much lesser extent, Chicago) to find what I guess you would call the quintessential American.

I have to say that I'd be very interested if they did decide to market his upcoming book here, but I do know that the chances of this happening are likely very small, but you never know.

200th post

Well, this is something that I should have hit a long time ago, but like I had said a while ago, I've been busy with a few other things, so the blog's been on the back burner for a while. Actually, if I had kept myself to the one post a day theme, I would have hit this mark in March, but it's May and I've made it! :)

I'd like to take a look back for the benefit of those of you who haven't been reading since the beginning, with some of my favourite posts over the last few months.

When I started, the main posts on here were my Tuesday & Wednesday posts about Rockstar Supernova, with my unique insights into the performances of the show. One such post that sticks out is my commentary on the 10th week's results show, where I got, shall we say, a little annoyed at the constant plugs:

And we see the rockers coming into Television City in a bunch of H***a E*****t S*s, surrounded by throngs of people there for the show, including one person who had their hands in the shape of a heart. I guess I missed that memo ;) Back in the studio and Brooke announces that the encore performer gets the car they came in! Whoa! Free pub baby!

Of those people, how many do you think were there for this show, and how many were there for The Price is Right?

3 mentions of the name of the car so far before the break, then we see the adboard for it, then we see the AD for it

After Rockstar was over, I had to search for stuff to post about. So I discussed some of the more interesting things that I have been doing. I also discussed some of the things that I've discovered in my continuing quest to make it down under.

Something that I haven't done for a while is watch some movies. I'd intended on actually getting a list of the movies I haven't watched but need to watch, but that's gone to the far back burner, especially since I've discovered The West Wing. ;) I would definitely encourage you to go through my posts labeled movies for some reviews I did in the past. I think you'll like them :)

You'll also notice that I've changed the look of some things here, including adding a widget for BUMPzee, which I joined a little while ago, and don't really have much of an idea of how to get things going there. I'm also thinking of putting a thing for MyBlogLog on here as well.



This is my current settings for my site feed. I used to have it as a full feed, but after discovering that there may be sites out there (aside from legitimate feed readers such as Bloglines and Google Reader) which take your content without your permission and make money off of it, I switched to a partial feed.

The other day, I read in a list of tips to become a better blogger that you should have a full site feed to become better. They don't exactly explain why it's better to have a full feed, though there are some good arguements towards publishing a full feed, and I'm inclined to agree with their viewpoint - I know that I prefer to have a full post in my Google Reader - it makes things easier for me because I'm not juggling tabs to view different posts with it all there for me to see. I've turned the full feeds back on for the blog now and restored the little message I had on the bottom of my posts (you'll see it only if you subscribe via RSS).

So, here's to the next 200 posts coming quite a bit faster than the first 200, and for those that keep looking, here's a picture of Dilana's nude face

Let's see Fox or ESPN do this...

Granted that this is from 1991, but it's something that isn't done enough (or if they do it, like ESPN have for the last couple of weeks in their Busch coverage, they hardly ever use the option and then overhype it). What would happen if you put a live microphone with a driver and let him have discussions with your commentary crew live on air.

(You'll note that I didn't mention TNT - that's because they are going to do something like this for at least one race)

Anyway, back when they had the rights to broadcast these races, Network 7 in Australia would hook up a driver and let them be their (as ESPN put it now) "in-race reporter". In 1991, it wound up being the Neil Crompton/Brad Jones Telecom Mobilenet Holden. Here are a couple of clips ;) -

By the way, both drivers are involved in racing media - Cromley as the colour commentator for 7 (after a stint with ten) and Jones co-hosting a show with Crompton available on broadband from Bigpond.

A bus trip across the desert...

It's been a while since I've been on a bus, but this isn't about me. It's about a movie based on this concept - Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. Basically, it's a story of two drag queens and a transvestite who are summoned from their base in Sydney to Alice Springs to perform at a hotel/casino. Now, anyone familiar with even the basics of transport in Australia will know that it it's a long, hard slog to get from one city to the other, involving long periods of (for the lack of a better term) lonliness, even when travelling with mates.

In fact, during the movie, there are two journeys going on - the one at the centre of the movie, and the running gag - the "Philips Coast-to-Coast Classic", and somehow, the two paths meet up a couple of times during the movie. Clearly, she is a fast runner. ;)

However, the main journey does encounter some delays, most notably when it is decided to take the shortcut (essentially an unimproved track through the desert) instead of staying on the sealed roads while heading toward Port Augusta. Thus, they are led through the outback (the filming of which featured many of the creatures that are native to the desert lands) and the result is predictable - the dust clogs up the engine and they wind up stranded. Bernadette (the transvestite) heads off for help, finds it, but once they come upon the scene of the bus, now painted purple (or lavender, but it looked pink), they run off quite quickly. Eventually help is found, a pink kite (which later ends up somewhere else in Southeast Asia) is used to locate them, and they hobble their way to a small roadhouse, then onwards to Coober Pedy and to Alice Springs.

One of the recurring themes is that of tolerance. It all starts out well in Sydney where the type of show that they do is generally well-received. However, in Broken Hill, they receive a harsh lesson in how intolerant people can be when after they finish their stay in the hotel, they find their bus adorned with the phrase "AIDS Fuckers Go Home". At the roadhouse (where they were suggested to perform by the mechanic who helped them out of being stranded), they were essentially booed off of the stage, preferring to be entertained by the wife of the mechanic who did this amazing trick with some pingpong balls. Interestingly, the only people in the country who really tolerated them (aside from some folks in Alice Springs) were a group of Aboriginals who asked them to attend their camp and they put on a show that ended up in the two groups essentially merging their music.

It's a movie that discusses (indirectly) some interesting aspects of modern society - particularly the acceptance of people who choose to live their lives differently than the rest of us. I personally do accept the fact that there are people who do choose to live this way; if that's what they think is the right way of living for them, then they should go for it.

Fake Plane Usurped by Real ones

So Google's great plan to take photographs of Sydney didn't quite go off as planned, thanks to the fact that there were planes that *didn't* have Photoshopped logos on them taking off towards the City, pretty much into the planned flightpath of the Google flight.

The only downside is that people who decided to take a punt on getting themselves publicity or to repair a broken marriage may or may not have been photographed to possibly (depending on the outcome of the pictures) be included in Google Earth or Google Maps (where you can now actually find Aussie street addresses, but still not get directions).

Just a thought for the bloke who thought he'd have been able to save his marriage - first, it would have taken 4 to 6 weeks to get the photos online. Also, you'd have to make sure that she actually *saw* the photo. Then again, being mentioned in two stories in a variety of papers probably would help your case...good luck!

Christmas Shopping

Well, I haven't actually done any shopping (and probably won't do much of it this year, as is the norm for me anyway; except for the one year I went shopping with my one brother and wound up wrapping my own gift [which, incidentially was a video cassette, a blank one :)]).

However, in these final days before Christmas, the stores tend to stay open longer - some as late as midnight, but the majority of stores close around 9 or 10 pm; which I think is sufficiently late for most people to be out shopping, aside from those who might work second or third shift thus would be awake at those times.

I'm surprised that there aren't stores over here that are following the lead of the Chadstone Shopping Centre near Melbourne. I will grant that it is summer there, and personally, if I were down there, I would be out shopping at night considering that the current temperature is approaching 95°F (or more precisely, 36.7°C), I would be very welcome to shopping at night, considering that they are open both on Thursday and Friday until midnight. However, on Saturday, they are planning on opening at 8:00 AM and won't close until 6 PM on Sunday.

It might not sound too significant, but you don't see malls here open for 34 straight hours, though you will see grocery stores, and some "big-box" stores such as Wal-Mart or Target open from (in general) 6 AM on December 26th to 5 or 6 PM on December 24th. Nowadays, for many retailers, Christmas is the only day that they will not open, but I saw that there is one local grocery chain that will have a single store open on Monday, but they are having limited hours. Interestingly, one store advertises that they are your "Home Improvement Superstore, 362 days a year!" In other words, they close on Christmas, and two other days that most stores used to be closed on, but are opening up for with increasing frequency - Thanksgiving and New Year's Day.

I have this feeling that one day soon, you will be seeing more businesses open on Christmas day, not so much to earn more money, but there is always someone needing something that day (and someone who forgot presents). For them, I'd suggest visiting the Walgreens and picking up Sterno gel, as was done as a gag on a TV show once, but I can't remember which one it was. :)

Year-End Lists

This is always a fun time of the year for someone who, like me, is a fan of lists; especially those lists that chronicle the year that has passed. Some lists of this type are the ones that Yahoo have put out with the top searches of the year. What's interesting is that all ten of the top searches here are somehow celebrity-related, while in the other ones that they provide internationally (Australia, Germany, Spain, Canada, Italy, UK/Ireland, France) there are only one or two celebrity searches listed.

Some tidbits from these searches -

• Rockstar Supernova wound up on the Canadian list - number 4 overall, number 2 in entertainment. It didn't appear in any other list


• Of all the sports figures, the only racers that made the list were: Michael Schumacher (Germany - #4 Male Star), Fernando Alonso (Spain - #2 Athlete) and the late Peter Brock (Australia - #1 Sport, #2 Male Celebrity). Honourable mention for this goes to the Bathurst 1000, which wound up as the #10 Sport search Down Under.


• Germans love porn. The number three search overall for 2006 there was "Erotik". Shockingly, it doesn't appear anywhere else in the world.


• The UK are just about as celebrity-obsessed as we are, with the number 1 search overall being Heather Mills (McCartney), and numbers 2 and three are Big Brother and this year's winner, Pete Burns.

Don't be surprised to pop in here one day (or if you're using RSS, for an item to appear in your feed list) and find me fleshing out the significance of some of these search terms around the world. If anything, it will be a way for me to find out who "Chris Brown" is (#8 overall, USA). Also, maybe an insight into the habits of non-english users of the web (considering that the number 1 search in Germany is Weather, this should be interesting) ;)

Do they know something we don't?

From time to time I like to take a peek at Aussie TV listings, mostly the sports channels, and I noted this in the description of a game that's going to be airing on Fox Sports 1 from 11.30 AM my time (4.30 AM Friday there) -

It hasn't been a vintage season for the Packers but expect a big one as they face their old foes the 49ers. One more chance to see the great Brett Favre in action before his expected retirement at season's end.

I know that the Favre retirement question is a popular one in the offseason, but nobody here is expecting him to retire until the day that he actually says he's going to retire; of course then everyone here will be shocked and dismayed at the retirement of the legend. For a lot of Packer fans, he is the only quarterback that they have known; I kinda fall into that group because I can barely remember much about the days of Don Majkowski. The only thing that I can somewhat envision is the infamous Instant Replay game of 1989, but that's only mainly through radio calls. However, when you think of what Favre has done - starting every single game for 15 years or so even when injured - you have to appreciate what he has done.

Another interesting tidbit about the Fox Sports schedule is that I think that the game on the NFL Network tonight might be available to more Australians than it is here in the States since most cable companies don't offer the NFL channel citing the fact that the league are demanding 75-80¢ per customer, so the cable companies simply do not carry the channel. However, since the airing of NFL games internationally is separate (and the fact is that there are somewhat limited international options), it's available on more widely-distributed channels overseas (i.e. Fox Sports in Australia {though I think I've seen the Monday night games that air on ESPN here airing on ESPN there}, Sky Sports in the UK, etc.).

What if...

This is a hypothetical idea, but it's actually a serious suggestion from a committee in the Australian Parliament. They proposed the idea of linking the Aussie and the Kiwi Dollars, their markets, or even going all the way to merge the countries (a la the European Union). To me, it's not the story that's the most interesting, it's the resultant (and long) discussion casued when a blog posting was made about it on the Sydney Morning Herald's site.

I gotta say that my favourite ones are the folks who say that the only reason that this has been proposed is so that the Aussies could claim the All Blacks as their own - thusly being able to win the Bledisloe Cup every single year...

One thing mentioned as a way that the two nations are already very close is the fact that citizens of either country can work in the other without requiring a visa to work there, also, the fact that it is so easy to go back and forth which I find very ironic since here in the States, new rules go into effect shortly that will require everyone crossing our border to show their passport..

Late Night TV

I have been up late the last couple of nights so I've had the pleasure(?) of being able to watch something that really should have stayed where it started - the late night quizshow. I believe that it first started in the UK, then spread to Australia with the Big Brother Uplate franchise, but then it expanded to all year last year, so all three of the commercial TV networks there have shows.

Here, we're fortunate as only three cable networks - Superstation WGN, TBS and Game Show Network show versions of these shows - usually for an hour or two and not every night of the week.

Last night, the WGN show Play to Win, where you can text or call at a cost of $1.50, or use their website to enter for free, had this puzzle for a word unscramble -

LA CINPAO

Hmm...I wonder what that could mean? I mean, seriously, if you don't get it in about 15 seconds (and that's being generous I think, even though it took me about a minute to figure out Dentist earlier in the show), you have to be kinda "not with it".

Now, if that wasn't easy enough, the other night, they had another shuffle puzzle "shuzzle" -

EPNGUNI

I mean..come on people! Hey, it's an animal that might wear a tux ;)

If you mightn't have figured out by now, I really like the Chaser's work, and they did a piece about the Aussie quizshows during their War on Everything. Here it is for your viewing pleasure:

Where the bloody hell are you?

If you're somewhat aware of the ads, you'll know that this is really a rhetorical question, as the intent is to get you to get your arse in gear and get down to the land of the Big Thing, Australia. The only reason I mention it tonight is that there was just a show on the Discovery Channel about the "Great Australian Outback Cattle Drive", which is acutally a recreation of an outback tradition intended for tourists who are willing to make the trip out to the area of the Oodnadatta Track in Outback SA, some 800kms from Adelaide.

Naturally, the main sponsor of the show were Tourism Australia who made a splash earlier this year with the introduction of "Where the bloody hell are you?" as the new catchphrase for their tourism spots. This is one of the longer editions of the adverts; the version shown here is a 30-second version, and is shown in fullscreen.

Now, the good folks at The Chaser decided to see if they could come up with some better slogans to sell the country to foreigners. I think some of them might fly, but of course there are some government-types who might not think the same...judge for yourself ;)

This is so Aussie

I just heard this mentioned on the radio and I have to say that I'm not surprised something like this would be invented, especially considering it was an Aussie who's done it. ;)

Story from the SMH

Now they're budgie smudgers

Penis envy will take on a new meaning with the release of the men's equivalent to the Wonderbra.

Australian underwear company aussieBum has released its Patriot range of undies for men wanting to make their package look bigger.

"It basically lifts, separates and extends," said aussieBum founder Sean Ashby.

Click for the full story...

Update - the creator of this product has been given the runner-up for the award of "Today's Worst Person in the World" by Keith Olbermann of MSNBC.

Australia Revealed

I just got done watching Discovery Atlas - Australia Revealed (Discovery Asia site)

Narrated by Russell Crowe, the program features stories of various Aussies told by the actual people, with the story of a linking of two Aboriginal tribes (one in the Northern deserts, and another in the rainforests of Far North Queensland) being the common thread among all of the stories. It also featured things that shows about Aussie culture usually have - footy and the opal mines of Coober Pedy.

One line, which I should have taken note of when it was said, involved the feeling that there is a mystique about terra australis that, once you catch onto it, you fall hard. I have to admit that I've fallen for the mystique.

There really isn't much way to say what it is that gets you hooked - for some it's the fact that the land is so isolated yet integrated; for others it's the chance to get yourself a new start in a new land that is still young enough to not have had the problems that others have. Yet others are attracted by the great surfing that there is off the coasts.

For those who haven't seen it, the program reairs in a little over an hour at 9 pm Pacific, and you can consult your local guide to see when it airs in your specific area if you're not here in the States (but if I'm remembering correctly, the Discovery Atlas series is airing on a two-week delay in Australia at least).

Oh by the way, they do mention some of the "giant objects" around the country ;)

Dear Australian Idol viewers

What the fuck are you thinking? Why is this guy still around, and why is such a shitty arrangement of a disco song getting such good reviews?

Watch and decide for yourselves (beware, however, you might need a new keyboard if you're drinking anything)

When you don't have AAA

Or in the case of this guy, the RAC WA.

Story on news.com.au and Reuters

A MAN has been charged over reversing his car at speed on a West Australian highway.

Traffic police were surprised to clock the 22-year-old's car travelling at just 56km/h in a 110km/h zone yesterday on the Great Eastern Highway outside Coolgardie, 546km east of Perth.

Covering the News from 9,000 Miles Away

At the beginning of the week, the news of the death of Steve Irwin shocked the world. The week would end in the same way with Peter Brock, another famous Aussie losing his life on Friday in the TargaWest, outside of Perth, hitting a tree after going through a hairpin turn in the second stage of the all-tarmac event.

While Irwin first made his name known here in the US with his Crocodile Hunter programs on the Discovery Channel and Animal Planet, which led to him becoming somewhat popular "back home". However, there were many people who did not like him as he seemed to be a mockery of the stereotypical Australian, with his very noticeable "broad" accent, and his trademark line "Crikey!" Others were critical of the way he treated the Alligators and other wild animals with seemingly reckless abandon for his own safety. I was watching an episode of "Crocodile Hunter Diaries" a couple of months ago, and one thing that he had said during the filming of him doing a demonstration at his Australia Zoo was that the reason he would treat the animals in the way that he did was that so they could keep their natural instincts.

Brocky, on the other hand, was a man who was only really well-known within Australia and New Zealand. The easiest way to prove this is by taking a look at major sports and news websites. Of course, things have changed throughout the day, so the situation overnight may have been different.

We start with ESPN. The major story right now is the matchup tomorrow between the #1 and #2 teams (by a vote of coaches, not necessarily by any objective means) in College Football. To find the story about Brock, you have to go to the Other Series section of the "NASCAR+" area of their site.

Next up is Fox Sports. They're not especially well-known for their sports news operation, but they do a respectable job of reporting the stories. The Brock story is buried under the all headlines portion of the Motorsports section (again, like ESPN, marked as NASCAR - as if to say there is nothing else).

In fact, of the non-Antipodean sports news sites I canvassed, the only one that had the story on the front page was Sports Illustrated. Honourable mention goes to MSNBC, who have the story available from their front page, but you have to drill through two levels of menus to find it.

However, there is one site that should be mentioned for their total ignorance of the story. Speed Channel, a channel dedicated to motor racing, doesn't have the story listed at all on their news page. You'd think that a site who has a story about a karting event in Rock Island, IL (written by "News Wire") would at least mention Brock - especially when you add in the fact that in the past few years they've shown the V8 Supercar series (most rounds except Adelaide, Sandown and Bathurst I believe, though I seem to remember seeing some footage of the Clipsal 500 a few years back). I would predict that there might be a mention of it on Sunday during their news program or during the Wind Tunnel talkback program.

Obviously, the take of the news sites in Oz is one of full coverage. Just about every major newspaper has the story on the front page of the Saturday editions. Also, the Sydney Morning Herald sent out a "Breaking News" email about it (interestingly enough, it was The Age that sent out the "Flash Update" about Irwin). Also, the news.com.au network has full coverage, including video from Sky News. Bizarrely, Network Ten's motorsport page RPM doesn't have the story on that page, but both Nine and Seven have it as the main feature on their respective co-branded sites.

One final note about the media coverage of the Irwin death, all three commercial networks had footage air here in the States. Seven's footage mainly aired on NBC. A report from Nine was featured on CBS - it was in widescreen, and instead of cropping the picture to make it look decent or showing it with letterboxing, CBS decided to air it in the "stretched" mode. The only work from Ten that I saw was on CNN, who spoke to their News Director in Brisbane in the first hours of the story.

Update: During the coverage of Qualifying for the Italian Grand Prix, Bob Varsha did mention what had happened. Bob is one of the most knowledgeable racing commentators in this country; kudos to him (now, if we could send the whole crew to more races other than just Indy). Also, the BBC's story has appeared in its RSS feed, which is included in Firefox by default.