Here's something curious someone emailed me via this site (anonymously too!) It's a discussion about an article I wrote back in 2004 about co-exiting with car drivers.
I'm accused of being "holier than thou". Correct. Sortof. I was a/ making a point b/ trying to be funny and c/ making a buck at the same time.
It's quite a long discussion and I kinda wish I'd known about it way back when.
"Top Gear presenter Richard Hammond was flown from Leeds General Infirmary to a hospital nearer his home on today, health officials said. Hammond, 36, was transferred from the West Yorkshire hospital by air ambulance to Leeds-Bradford International Airport only eight days after he was seriously injured in a high-speed car crash"
Those of you who use Sharepod (should be EVERYONE with an Ipod!) and Itunes may notice an error as noted below: News:
"Error #5Thanks for the bug reports about Error #5. It seems this is caused by the new iTunesDB file format. I *will* be fixing it (yay!) next week so look out for the new version. Thanks to people sending me their iTunesDB files, much appreciated ;) Jeffrey"
"Here is the first picture of Honda's 800cc MotoGP machine undergoing testing by factory rider Dani Pedrosa. The new bike has been unofficially dubbed the RC212V, and was tested by the Spanish MotoGP rookie, although team-mate and current championship leader Nicky Hayden didn't get to rider the bike, which appears to be based around a V4 engine configuration."
I think Hayden made a big mistake at this testing session- not because he didn't ride the 800, but rather because he was testing new clutch bits for the existing bike.
Waste of time.
This guy has a 12 point lead over Valntino Rossi- and hasn't shown any sign of being able to take it up to him in the last few events- finishing off the podium while Rossi is on the podium.
What Nicky should be doing is trying to get the current bike up and dancing like it can- it's a goddamn Honda MotoGP bike after all and fiddling won't save you! Hours spent refining will...
Meet our newest addition to the family: Meet Caboose!!
Thos of you who know/watch Red Vs Blue will also know Caboose is a Blue. Well, they didn't have any blue budgies, so shut the hell up. He is what he is. He's a hand-reared Australian Budgie and Rachel is almost beside herself with excitement.
The young man and I have had a day together. I'm hung over as all hell. He's not supposed to be handled for five days- a "settling in period" so to speak. Then Rachel will probably annoy him to death. *sigh*
Please note that his cage is three parts full of trinkets and ladders etc. He probably can't wait till he can come out and get away from Luna Park Cage.
"Jeremy Clarkson and James May have both visited their colleague in hospital. 'Obviously, at this time both he and his family are the most important concerns we have,' they said in a statement. 'It must be devastating for his wife Mindy and his two utterly adorable children. Both James and I are looking forward to getting our hamster back.'"
Here's hoping all is well with the Hamster. In the meantime. I'll be showing my support by getting as many people as possible to watch Top Gear!!
"Top Gear presenter Richard Hammond was critically injured on Wednesday after crashing in a jet-powered car while filming for the program, the BBC announced."
it's the best car show ever and he's one of the best things about it.
I hope he's back on deck really soon. I was concerned his injuries were grave, but the article indicates he should be ok:
"Former firefighter Dave Ogden was one of the first people at the scene of the crash.
Mr Ogden said he (Hammond) regained consciousness soon after and said he had some lower back pain."
"At Barcelona the team shared the track with Ducati's new 800cc prototype, itself impressively fast when tested alongside the current 990cc machines after the Czech Republic Grand Prix, but Ilmor claims that McCoy lapped 0.4 seconds faster than the new Italian V4.
'That was on Dunlops, so we are pretty pleased with the performance so far,' Ilmor's managing director Steve Miller told Crash.net. 'We were running six or seven lap stints and were 0.4 seconds faster than the 800 Ducati, and one second slower than the (multiple race winning) 990 Ducati.'"
Go Garry Go Go Garry GO!!!! GOooooooooooooooooooooooo GARRY!
I am so pumped about this. If he can swing a ride in 2007 on this bike- look the hell out!!
"Ilmor has confirmed that former 500cc race winner Garry McCoy will ride its new 800cc V4 MotoGP machine, fitted with Michelin tyres, in the final two rounds of the 2006 season."
There is a God!!!
I love Garry McCoy. He's a the last of the wild, smokin' sliders (though Marco Melandri's effort on the last turn of the last lap at Phillip Island was incerdible). His style is probably NOT suited to the modern bikes, but he still has that drive and determination to have a crack.
He's my age, so I absolutely want to see him do well. There's something sad about seeing people your own age retire from professional sport (go again Robert Harvey!)
Go get 'em Gaz!
Here's what Garry is capable of:
Here's a quote about this sequence:
...the bit at the end where he moves about on the bike? That's because he has to rearrange his massive balls
Great race, great weather (yes, even the rain was great), great crowds, great interviews and great greatness!
Miss Rachel meets second placed Suzuki rider Chris Vermuelen. Sadly, the rider she really wanted to meet- Colin Edwards- fell off and was unavailable for nookie. The magnificent, oft commented on ( I was even pulled over by some guys who wanted to check it out!) Suzuki M109R- V twin 1800cc monolith. It's a great bike. I really enjoyed blowing every sports bike away at the lights- from GSXR1000's to ZX10s- none had an answer to the combination of stump pulling torque and a 240 section rear tyre. Boo hoo to them!
So thats it for another year. I will be doing some other bits n bobs on 3AW this year- the V8's at The Island for one.
"Seven network personality Naomi Robson and a television crew have been stopped by Indonesian authorities after attempting to enter the troubled province of Papua on tourist visas, Indonesian foreign affairs department spokesman Desra Percaya has told AAP."
I think I speak for all Australians when I say we'll happily swap her for the Bali 9.
Nine drug mules for one wading-pool-deep current affairs host? Bargain!
Update: I've spoken to the Indonesians.
The deal is: we get the Bali 9, the authorities get to shoot Naomi nine time. (Of course the only was to make certain is to use silver bullets, a wooden stake, sever the head or fire he arse into outer space. I think all at once...?)
I don't often blog long and hard about politics. I read a lot of politics websites- and occasionally comment there- but overall I feel politics online is, well, this.
Anyhoo, sometimes I feel that I need to make a public statement: I am opposed to the death penalty. In Australia the death penalty is not legal and has not been in use since Ronald Ryan was hanged in February 1967.
Today, it's not my intent to blog about the rights and wrongs of the death penalty- I have no interest in debating it. If you think state sanctioned murder is ok, then go here and chat to other circle jerkers.
What I have an issue with is the way the Australian Federal Government and the Australian Federal Police have masterfully run the issues surrounding the "Bali 9". I've blogged previously about his issue here, but my rage continues. At every stage, the Australian Federal Government have washed their hands of these poor fools. If an Islamic country was about to whip and Australian woman for baring her shoulders, the opinion pages would be full of outraged pollies, right-wing columnists and members of the public. But when it's about drugs, these clowns would happily see them hang/shot/tortured. These so called "liberals" are fair weather friends to the rules of law, evidence and fairness. It suits them no end to bail on David Hicks. Then it doesn't suit them when Jack Thomas isn't suitably clubbed to death in public. It doesn't suit them with Schapelle Corby, but it suits them with the Bali 9.
"The policy of our party in Australia is one of no death penalty and I support our policy but I am not critical of countries who apply the death penalty in areas such as drug trafficking," he said.
Hypocrites!
Read this and tell me the AFP have acted in accordance with the spirit of Australian Law. Legal? Probably... Moral? Not within a Bull's roar...
"A Victorian traffic policeman has described as 'stupid' two men who were hanging out of their car as they drove along the Hume Freeway in the state's north-east."
"The European Space Agency will be relying on a radio telescope in Tasmania to help it monitor the crashlanding of one of its space probes on the moon. Tasmanian scientists will take a giant leap towards discovering what the moon is made of with the monitoring of the crashlanding."
Seems like an awful lot of effort and money being spent on this when they could have simply asked me about it:
