Hepcats

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There’s a particular event this time of year that allows the opportunity to spread my particular brand of quirkiness/insanity/instability/bizarre behaviour/genius [circle each applicable -- multiple choices are allowed].

I’ve subscribed to public radio stations for a long time but some years ago thought hey, the cats and dogs listen to far much more radio than I do every day — *they* should subscribe! And they did.

Their new membership card for RRR FM arrived today (yep, it’s addressed and delivered to them).

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RRR receives a good many animal subscribers during the radiothon so there’s nothing untoward there, but it’s always fun to talk crap with the volunteers who answer the phone:

“So, who’s paying for their subscription?”

“Um, I’ll have to as they’re too young to apply for credit.”

“They don’t have a piggybank?”

“Yes, they do, but they can’t jiggle the rubber seal out of the hole to extract the cash.”

“And which show are they subscribing to?”

“They actually sleep through most of them if truth be told, but this year they really like Systa BB’s show.”

“So a big paws-up to the sister?”

“Ha ha, yeah, I’m supposed to be the funny one.”

All the subscriptions are announced on air, however, in the two hours I hung around the radio waiting, I stepped out for a glass of water in the moment before their names were read out. Spewing. They’ll get their 15 seconds of fame again next year.

Crank-o-meter: rockin’ out

7 September 2010

The big wascally wabbit

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After however long I’ve been getting cranky here, I realised I’ve never posted a video. I just couldn’t find the right one to break into 21st-century blogging.

Finally, the best video ever appeared on the news channels, which happened to teach  me that I can’t embed videos here for love nor money nor swearing a lot. The Flash settings on this new-ish computer don’t allow anything, it seems. Anyway, the premise is that I’ve always wanted to be on the news with a whacky caption below my name. For instance, Kevin Rudd was ‘Ousted Prime Minister’ for a few days but has been demoted to the boring ‘Former Prime Minister’ when he’s on the tele. The lady in the video clip was given this caption:

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The news story is so earnest about the Giant Rabbit Owner’s plight of buying a baby bun bun and seeing it turn into a 20-kilogram, gourmet food-scoffing furbag that I can’t stop laughing. The link to the clip is below (I hope, because linking isn’t working either and I’m doing it by hand).

mofo rabbit

Crank-o-meter: craving some Tesco’s water crackers

7 August 2010

I wanna be a factional warlord

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Just a quick one as I have a brain-freezing writer’s block and shooting pains across my foot and can’t stop whinging, but I wonder who at The Age gives politicians their identifying prefixes for news stories. Bill Shorten must’ve paid a few dollars for this beauty:

Labor factional warlord Bill Shorten has admitted he urged Julia Gillard to challenge Kevin Rudd for the prime ministership last week.

The federal parliamentary secretary from the ALP’s powerful Victorian right faction said he made the approach last Wednesday.

“I did speak to the then deputy prime minister and say she should think about this,” Mr Shorten told ABC Television’s Q&A program last night.

“She gave it a great deal of serious reflection.”

I want to be a factional warlord, but I don’t want to be a Labor factional warlord who crows about playing the part in a routing well *after* the event just to grandstand and look like a master power player. I want to be a classier factional warlord than that.

Crank-o-meter: just garden variety cranky

29 June 2010

Not the 7am news

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I need to throw one out there and ask for recommendations for online news services because I swear I’m getting more ignorant by the day.

I used to have The Age‘s online news site flashed up, but today’s lead stories are something about a soccer game, the crying woman who finally got booted from Masterchef, a whinge that tropical holidays are too boring, a dead actress’s husband found dead, an AFL player escaping a penalty and, oh goody, the cast has been announced for the TV dancing show with C-grade celebrities. My brain is turning to over-boiled cauliflower with curdled cheese sauce.

And Kylie uses facial moisturiser, so make sure you bookmark that journalistic gem.

I eventually found a few paras on North Korea’s weapons program, climate change and the proposed mining tax, but I had to hunt and peck.

Oh, newsflash, fares are dropping on the Spirit of Tasmania, just in time for winter. I feel smart again. But not so smart that I’d suspect advertising masked as information because it was written by a staff writer.

What else should I be reading for a bit of world, a bit of local and a bit of analysis?

Crank-o-meter: IQ sinking by the minute

25 May 2010

Quadrant magazine will sell out today

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Hitting the news wires last night was a story that the current issue of Quadrant magazine featured a fictionalised article about genetic engineering written by an aliased wag or wags.

The angle of the news story has changed this morning that the exercise has been a big egg-in-your-face case of revenge against editor, historian Keith Windschuttle, who has previously hit at out academics’ poor fact checking and research habits. Journalist Margaret Simons called Windschuttle with the news, while claiming she had nothing to do with the article, and every newspaper in town has been ringing current and past employees for quotes on their views.

Tee he he, someone got Keith! Who was it? Was it you? Who’s in on this? OMG! OMFG!

What fun!

Oh, hang on, someone forgot about the readers. You know, those people who have handed over money for a copy of a magazine and paid for the expectation of accuracy.

I am inclined to think revenge on this scale was cooked up by more than one person – a science story written by a previously unpublished writer surely wouldn’t go straight to the acceptance pile without a bit of help along the way – and many of the references and footnotes used in the article were, indeed, genuine so the story itself wasn’t a hoax but an elaborate twisting and re-working of existing and invented research that would have required skilled hands.

Whether the trusting readers find out who’s messing with their news is another story: who’s going to ‘out’ the guilty if they’re on the payroll?

Crank-o-meter: shaking my head

7 January 2009

Put the book down, Kathy

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I’m a bit behind on who’s doing whom in celebrityland and I tend to avoid casting judgement when I know less than one side of a story, but Kathy Lette is rather less conservative.

With the whole Ramsayshag-Gate saga still selling newspapers, the author has decided to lend a hand to the family in crisis. To quote an article on infidelity she wrote for the Daily Mail newspaper:

“(My latest novel) offers advice on how to learn to stand on your own two feet and not wait to be rescued by some fictional hero.

“I’ve just sent a copy to Tana Ramsay.”

If my family life was being turned upside down and journos were calling me every minute of the day and night and photographers were camped outside my house, the first thing I’d reach for is Kathy’s book. That’s not the slightest bit presumptuous.

Please be joking.

Crank-o-meter: it’s not about you

9 December 2008

Did you know Layne Beachley is a woman?

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The people at Fairfax respect Layne Beachley almost as much as I do, and have given her blog space to write about motivation, health and success. Here’s the intro blurb:

Regarded as history’s best female surfer, Layne Beachley is a seven-time world champion. But her drive doesn’t stop at the water’s edge. She’s had success with her Beachley Athletic and in 2006, Layne staged the richest event in women’s surfing. Recently retired, Layne has turned her focus to investing in Australia’s future by inspiring young women to realise their full potential with her Aim For The Stars Foundation.

Being the minority gender in any vocation and regarded with (even unintentional) condescension rankles. Do not get me started on the media’s novelty value treatment of stories about male prostitutes, female engineers, male nurses, female politicians and male models. We in reader-land can determine people’s genders from names and pronouns because most of us aren’t brain-dead stupid.

I tried to surf and gurgled a lot of saltwater with the starfish on the ocean floor. She’s one of history’s best surfers, comma, and continue.

PS: the moderators let my comment through! (spewing I used ‘achieve’ twice in the same sentence)

Crank-o-meter: bitttttttttter and cranky

17 October 2008