Wednesday, May 16, 2007

As I was casually browsing through The Age newspaper of Wednesday, May 9, I found this opinion in the 'Letters and Emails' section:

"Victoria: Short on trains, water, electricity, dentists, hospital beds and credibility but with an abundance of votes, debt and taxes: the Bracks Government."

Wednesday, May 02, 2007

The buzz word to describe the end cricket World Cup Final seems to "Farce". It was pretty much that, but surely they can come up with a few different words other than farce. Anyway, the cricket played between the common intervals of farceness was of a high quality. The final against Sri Lanka was the closet game Australia played and even that was a drubbing of 53. Four world cups to Australia, three in a row. Fortunately, they won in 2007 because of the product they were selling on channel nine boasting of the hat trick of wins before it occurred.

Jason "Dizzy" Gillespie retains a Cricket Australia contract, which is a bit odd. He's an absolute superstar but hasn't played international cricket since that quality double century against Bangladesh. I suspect he only recieved one due to his choice words he had to say about Cricket Australia and the selectors.

Carlton's win against Essendon a couple of weeks ago was good too.

Labels:

Tuesday, April 03, 2007

Get excited lads the mighty Navy Blues are 5th on the ladder after the first round, due to their come from behind heroics against Richmond. Although, Carlton did win the first game last year and finished last again so maybe that will happen again, I'm not sure. A solid NAB cup pre-season with tight wins against Essendon and Hawthorn and then a comeback, ala Paul Salmon and Tony Lockett, from 37 points down against the Kangaroos and a quality win against the Brisbane Lions in the Grand Final. To add to that I recieved 1566 points after the first round of dream team, so that was a solid start I guess.



When Homer is accused of sexual harassment, a show called "Rock Bottom" does an exposé on him that falsely portrays him as guilty. They later quickly scroll a list of apologies down the screen. Here they are:

1. "Peoples' Choice Award" is America's greatest honor.
2. Styrofoam is not made from kittens.
3. The U.F.O. was a paper plate.
4. The nerds on the internet are not geeks.
5. The word "cheese" is not funny in and of itself.
6. The older Flanders boy is Todd, not Rod.
7. Lyndon Johnson did not provide the voice of Yosemite Sam.
8. If you are reading this you have no life.
9. Roy Rogers was not buried inside his horse.
10. The other U.F.O. was an upside-down salad spinner.
11. Our universities are not "hotbeds" of anything.
12. Mr. Dershowitz did not literally have four eyes.
13. Our viewers are not pathetic, sexless food tubes.
14. Audrey Hepburn never weighed 400 pounds.
15. The "Cheers" (1982) gang is not a real gang.
16. Salt water does not "chase the thirsties away".
17. Licking an electrical outlet will not turn you into a Mighty Morphin Power Ranger.
18. Cats do not eventually turn into dogs.
19. Bullets do not bounce off of fat guys.
20. Recycling does not deplete the ozone.
21. Everything is 10% fruit juice.
22. The flesh-eating virus does not hide in ice cream.
23. Janet Reno is evil.
24. V8 juice is not 1/8 gasoline.
25. Ted Koppel is a robot.
26. Women aren't from Venus, and men aren't from Mars.
27. Fleiss does floss.
28. Quayle is familiar with common bathroom procedure.
29. Bart is bad to the bone.
30. Godfry Jones' wife is cheating on him. (note: Jones was the host of "Rock Bottom")
31. The Beatles haven't reunited to enter kick boxing contests.
32. The "Bug" on your TV screen can see into your home.
33. Everyone on TV is better than you.
34. The people who are writing this have no life.
My Top 25 albums of all time:

1. Led Zeppelin - IV
2. Beatles - Sgt Peppers lonely heart club band
3. Led Zeppelin - II
4. The Who - Tommy
5. The Mars Volta - Deloused in the comatorium
6. You am I - Hourly Daily
7. Silverchair - Neon Ballroom
8. Powderfinger - Odyssey No. 5
9. Nirvana - Nevermind
10. At the Drive In - relationship of command
11. ACDC - Back in Black
12. The Living End - THe Living End
13. Muse - Absolution
14. THe Sleepy Jackson - Lovers
15. The Darkness - permission to land
16. Magic Dirt - Tough Love
17. The Vines - Highly Evolved
18. Queens of the Stoneage - Songs for the Deaf
19. Jet - Get Born
20. Wolfmother - Wolfmother
21. The White Stripes - Elephant
22. Eskimo Joe - Black Fingernails, Red Wine
23. Crowded House - Woodface
24. Foo Fighters - The Colour and the Shape
25. Rage against the machine - rage against the machine

Thursday, February 15, 2007

Here's some classic John Safran rants from the television series 'John Safran vs. God'


John Safran: I've always wondered why rich Westerners, dismissive about religion in general, find solace in Buddhism. Well, let's talk a look at the story of Prince Siddhartha, or Buddha as he became known. Basically, it's the story of a rich kid that decided to slum it. No joke - this guy Buddha was living at home in his palace, leeching off his dad until he was 30. Then like some spoiled trust-fund baby, he decides to leave the palace and finds all this romance in self-inflicted deprivation, all the while knowing that he could ring up his dad to top off his Visa card the minute anything went wrong. Hey, Buddha, here's a spiritual insight - all these poor people you were trying to emulate would've exchanged their noble life under the bodiatry for the opulence of your dad's palace in a snap! Which brings me back to my original point - I wonder why all these rich Westerners can relate so well to Buddha? Well, maybe it's because Buddha is the prototypical spoiled rich kid acting all dirty and poor. Let's face it, if Buddha were alive today, he'd be playing bass guitar in the Strokes. Until next time, go to hell.



John Safran: [on the issue of playing Scrabble with friends] But what really annoys me is, as you can imagine, most of my friends are Left Wing pinkos and on any other issue would be falling over themselves to accommodate the richness of multicultural diversity. Yet put down Qibla and suddenly I'm playing with Pauline Hanson. I tried to explain it's an Arabic word 'but we dont speak Arabic here, we live in Australia, we speak English!'. Listen hippie, when you're breaking through the fence of Woomera Detention Centre and whip out the Scrabble board, they're going to want to put down Qibla.

Thursday, January 04, 2007

THE AUSTRALIAN MUSIC INDUSTRY or HOW I LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING AND HATE YOUR CRAPPY MUSIC

Today if you briefly cast your ears upon a commercial radio station you can hear such reputable acts as The Veronicas, Thirsty Merc and The Rogue Traders. Hearing these things weak minded people could be convinced that the Australian music industry is doing quite well. However anyone with half a brain and a pre-school education can see these bands and the many like them are in fact bad for the Australian music industry.

I am passionate about the Australian music industry because I am sick of seeing the cultural assimilation of the world. Australia and Australian bands have something special and unique to bring to the international scene but they seldom get past being known by their friends and family because of the ‘play for profit pop propaganda’ mentality of the commercial stations.

I draw your attention to that Simpson’s episode where Homer, Apu, Barney and Principal Skinner make up a barber shop quartet named the B Sharps? I particularly like that one myself, especially the scene where the B sharps win a Grammy award and Homer who is Narrating the story says “we had fame and fortune and now all we needed was the approval of record company low-lives.” These ‘play for profit pop propaganda’ bands are being created by people within the music industry and not the actual people in musical act, who are a bunch of puppets with the Australian music industry pulling their strings.

It’s annoying to have Australian Idol on television but what’s more annoying is the fact that not only the Australian Idol winner is getting a contract with a major record label, which is fair enough, but at least six others are getting contracts to major record labels, which is a grave injustice to talented musical acts such as ‘You Am I’ who struggle to get a contract with a record label. To have such rare talent should be preciously handled, instead of Australian Idol rejects who have a whole career of one song that they cover anyway, so it’s not even their own material. It’s just a ridiculous situation which shouldn’t have been created in the first place.

That’s why I’m passionate about it. The Australian music industry is going down to the sewerage and if it keeps up in time then it will have that particular musk to it.

I’m Stefan Anderson and that’s my two cents.

Wednesday, December 27, 2006

It’s a bitter, cold winter’s day in the month of July and the crowd’s mighty roar like a Formula 1 racing car warms up the showcase of the Melbourne Cricket Ground. meat pie in hand and we’re set for a great game of Australian Rules football conduced with a 70,000 plus crowd between Carlton and Collingwood.

As the club song suggests “we are the navy Blues, we are the old dark navy Blues, we’re the team that never lets you down.” This was the case up until 2002. The tremendously successful Carlton Football club has an aura of no other sporting club in the world. Hailing from inner-city Melbourne the blues have a large following with the success of sixteen premierships which is an equal record for VFL/AFL history (with Essendon).

The Carlton football club boasts a winning record over most of their opponents including the big guns Richmond, Essendon and Collingwood which is a might fine effort as they can’t say the same thing. Those communist teams from Fremantle, Brisbane and Port Adelaide can only boast a better winning record. They don’t count anyway because they are interstate teams and they have a tendency to cheat as they steal Carlton’s players as they use to be able to recruit anyone across the plains but now that luxury has been given up all for powerhouse interstate teams.

Up until 2002 Carlton rarely finished outside the finals race, they had very few stand out players as the teams need were on the agenda before any personal glory is what Geelong did with Gary Ablett. Let me get one thing straight I hate it when people who wouldn’t know football if came up and punched them right in their smug little faces tell me that Carlton are a football team of poor quality. It usually goes like this:

“LOL! Carlton suck, they’ve always sucked, LOL, I’m so original
and funny, I know heaps about football, Carlton are lame.”

Then there’s those people who actually know what they are talking about, who know their football and would know football if it came up and punched them in their smug faces. They know about the 110 years of football before hand when Carlton dominated but they choose ignorance of over the truth just to gain a couple of minutes of personal pleasure from the first type of people I mentioned. They tend to say:

“Yeah, I agree Carlton have always been a bad team. I am saying this
For personal pleasure, I like selling out; I’m the Kyle Sandilands of football supporting.”

From 2002-2006 Carlton has had a lean patch of Australian Rules football. Here are there positions on the ladder from this particular period of time:
2002: 16th
2003: 15th
2004: 11th
2005: 16th
2006: 16th

I say when you’ve had 110 years of sweet success you’re due for a bad patch. Every team has had many bad patches; they get more than once in every 100 years so really it is just evening out the Kiel. This is backed up by a long time Carlton supporter Os Burger “All teams go through down patches; it is just a development process for the team.
For me it just tests your true colours and separates the true, hardcore fans from the posers”

Off field turmoil has contributed to Carlton’s downfall in recent seasons as the finances went down to Timbuktu and former champions retired. “In 2002 the club both underwent off-field and in-field turmoil. Mounting losses and accounting irregularities finally caught up with club president John Elliot. The club was in trouble with its finances, morale was depleted, old men were taking the field, and champions from the past were all gone” Wikipedia sums it up all in these sentences, with the once mighty Blues capitulating from being a major super power like the Australian cricket team to a minnow like the Dutch cricket team.
The board of any sporting team is meant to enhance the works of a club, keep finances intact and in general help the club be in a good all round situations.
Os Burger believes that the board of the Carlton football club have too much input into the club. That they should shut their mouths and stick to the football “the board should ‘get stuffed’; they have too much say in and just complicate matters further”

Let me get one thing straight I don’t dislike the Collingwood football club, I hate them. They hail from inner-city Melbourne, they smell funny, they are poorly-educated and all in all they are gambling, drunken Yobo’s and that my friend grinds my gears. They are smug and arrogant and disregard everyone else’s feelings, they somehow slur out some incoherent words mainly swearing, they milk cows and have an average intelligence of a Rodge times pi divided by Lachie with a sprinkling of Andrew O’Keefe. Why are we talking about Collingwood in this essay of Carlton predominance? Well these two proud clubs have formed the fiercest rivalry in Australian if not the world. I refer you to the first paragraph of this writing piece as this is a typical game of Australian Rules football for these two teams and believe me there is no better feeling when you hear the final siren and the crowd erupts in a thunderous roar and you realize that the mighty Blues have taken home the bacon and you see Joffa and the rest of the Collingwood cheer squad swallowing their unworthy pride. Os Burger also has an opinion on arch nemesis Collingwood “Collingwood are scum, they are under-educated gits, they have bad teeth, gambling, drunk idiots; all that is Collingwood is personified through Joffa which is a very bad thing.”

So what’s next for this famous club? Will they break down the barriers and return to form with a finals appearance in 2007? Or will the arduous task of the interstate clubs see to the bottom rung again? According to afl.com.au (Lerner, 2006) Carlton have got another few seasons of pain before any sort of finals appearance can be heard of and should be aiming for a minimum of five wins in 2007. His reasoning is that for a club that has only won 24 games out of its last 110 outings expectations must be low.

For me I agree with that to a certain extent but I also think that coach Dennis Pagan has a point “Look at where Fremantle were three or four or five years ago. You look at St Kilda. There's only one way you're going to get forward.” (Pagan, 2006) With the aptly named ‘super draft’ Carlton has three top twenty picks including the number one pick, they have Marc Murphy who impressed many until that blasted shoulder injury ended his season and Josh Kennedy a tantalizing prospect up forward. As long as we have the 2006 Coleman Medalist, Brendan Fevola a cornerstone up forward and Koutifidies leading the midfield with the likes of Heath Scotland and Nick Stevens and up back with Brett Thornton and Lance Whitnall who can forward as well.

Despite the recent seasons of trials and tribulations no one can deny the success before hand that the Carlton football club. They are an integral part of Australian Rules football, history embedded and still boast winning records that other teams could poke a stick at. In conclusion has the Carlton Football Club is the team that never lets you down whether they win or lose no one can me persuade otherwise. Bring on 2007.

Wednesday, December 06, 2006

Finished Creek Street forever. I don't intend of going back there at all.
I hear many opinions about this particular school and the vast majority are negative. Sure, the school has many bad points, but from my perspective I saw as a school that suited me.

Being a small school it nurtured my quiet manner and the environment is generally friendly. The other advantage of a small school is that you tend to develop close friendships with your peers. This is the reason I'm a bit sad to leave Creek Street, I am very slow at all things but especially at making friends, and being there since Year 7, I only started to make really good friends with my fellow students this pass year. I feel, it's being cut short.

Oh well, I guess I'll moving on to Bendigo Senior.