Police brutality - US style

Suck on this, NSW Police. You have a lot to learn.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

US Constitution, First Amendment

Aaaargh

Big fat meeting with a whole pile of clients. They’re ten minutes early. Everyone else attending the meeting has come up with some whizz-bang excuse. PANIC!!!!

Boogle

Why Google it when you can Boogle it?

Menner N Men 5 - CombatWombats 2

The futsal season kicked off last night, and the mighty Combat Wombats were in action at North Sydney. I arrive first, shortly followed by another three members who promptly vetoed a pre-match drink, and I was forced to head towards the field in a complete state of sobriety.

After a quick kick-around, the lagging two members of the team showed up - in work gear. With only five minutes to go until kick-off, they headed off to get changed, and then disaster struck! Duncan, our star midfielder, sustained what could be a crippling injury to the foot.

Luckily for us, Dunc managed to walk it off, and we headed on to the field where the other team and referee were assembled ready for the start. Unfortunately, out two late arrivals had decided they needed to apply mascara before the game, and so the start was delayed, which, combined with my aforementioned sobriety, made the team a little nervous before kickoff.

And a nervous start it was - we conceded four goals in the first half, and could only reply with an inspired MJ Dean shot, 1 yard from the goal. The keeper had no chance. Going into the break 4-1 down, we resolved to keep possession in the second half and try to peg back some goals.

It was a different team that took the field in the second half, as, calm and composed, we took control of the game. Shot after shot went nowhere near the goal, but still we persisted. Chuck caught the referee’s attention with a nasty slide tackle, but no card was presented. Finally our persistence paid off with another MJ Dean special, this time from at least 1.2 yards out.

Alas, it wasn’t to be, and to add insult to injury Menner N Men slotted home a final goal from the sideline, despite a valiant effort by yours truly yelling at all and sundry.

It wasn’t all bad news though - the two other games ended up 5-0 and 10-1, putting us in fourth position on the table, thus poised in semi-final contention. I was nominated “Man of the Match” with 4 votes, ahead of Mike (on 1.5) and Chuck (on 0.5), while Mike goes to the top of the Golden Boot competition. Keep up to date on all the stats at the CombatWombats page.

Next week sees Combat Wombats take on our avowed arch-rivals the Mullets, at 9pm Monday night, ANZAC Stadium, Nth Sydney. Be there.

Perth: a tale of ham steaks, leaky irons and stoned cabbies

Headed over to Perth on business last Thursday night. Virgin flight, free Foxtel, and sub-chilled (read: warm) beers started off a very long experience.

Five hours later, I was standing outside Perth Airport waiting for a cab. The driver was of Carribean origin, and he whisked me away towards the city. He took me to the Travelodge Hotel, informing me that the Comfort Hotel had changed his name. I politely reminded him that the Comfort Hotel was located at 200 Hay St, while he was attempting to drop me off at number 487.

We then circled the city a couple of times, with the cabbie looking over his shoulder the whole time. Strains of Bob Marley wafted through the streets of Perth, and for some strange reason I started to crave BBQ ribs. Thankfully I spotted the hotel out of the corner of my eye, and managed to escape from the cab in one piece. The cabbie zoomed off at around 15 kph.

The name “Comfort Hotel” can at best be described as 50% accurate. It was, in fact, a hotel. Unfortunately, I had a booking for the previous Thursday night, and they were out of normal rooms, so I was forced to accept a room with three single beds. Being ready to crash, this wasn’t too concerning, however another ten minutes elapsed before the Asian girl behind the counter was convinced that I didn’t have some kind of “voucher”, and she would just have to accept my credit card details.

Up in the room the problems compounded. There was no mini bar. The A/C remote control was conveniently bolted to the wall, with all the buttons hidden by a bracket bearing the legend “Remote cannot be removed from the wall”.

After removing the remote from the wall, I managed to operate the heater, close the curtains, and fall asleep.

Waking up at 6:30am was no problem, since in Sydney it would have been 8:30am. I pulled on some pants and started to iron my shirt. The iron had a gaping hole in the water reservoir, and I was forced to iron my shirt dry before heading down to breakfast.

Breakfast presented a choice of buffet or a la carte. The buffet itself could be taken as a continental breakfast ($14), cooked breakfast ($14), or both ($25). A confusing price structure indeed, since I’m guessing that you don’t eat any extra food just by virtue of choosing frombot cooked and cold foods. Instead, I ordered my personal favourite, eggs benedict.

Smoked salmon is the perfect topping for eggs benedict, with a little spinach as well. The Comfort Hotel serves a big, juicy ham steak, squatting atop a sad english muffin. Sub-prime.

The rest of the day passed relatively painlessly. Perth is quite picturesque on the surface, but underneath it’s about as interesting as Adelaide. It is also impossible to find a cab there.

The flight home was much better than the flight across, as I managed to secure an emergency exit seat. Also, all three Fox Sports channels were working (only the cricket worked onthe way over). I had purchased Nabakov’s Lolita at Dymocks, and settled in for a quiet read.

The competition hots up

Mr Nicholas Broadbent made his foray into the today, with a paltry 6 word epistle in the SMH:

Jeremy’s Espresso Bistro

Up in Brisvegas for the day - just stopped by for a coffee. Good coffee + free biscuit + free internet access = choice bro!

It’s time to go… Firefox

With the incredible success of last week’s boning of the SMH, I’ve decided to follow it up with another of those things which I use every day, but hate.

Firefox.

Why this stupid software package feels compelled to chew up 178MB of RAM, I will never understand. I have switched over to K-Meleon, which is sitting at a much more sensible, but still overweight 30MB. If anyone finds a more efficient browser, please let me know.

Anyhow, I feel somewhat liberated. I can also get more work done now, as it takes less than 5 minutes for me to open a Word document.

APEC Weekend

Well, suckers, I’m back from a relaxing weekend in the Victorian countryside. I hope APEC weekend passed as swiftly and painlessly as the hundred years war.

Let’s see if this Google Map thing works:

View Larger Map

Guns for all!

The benevolent George W. Bush has agreed to allow Australia access to US defence technology equal to that enjoyed by the brits.

Not good enough! Those fair-weather friends of ours over in England deserve to be demoted for their cowardly withdrawals from Iraq. Johnny should be demanding that we be given immediate access to all top secret US technology, while the Poms can only get the rejected technology from the Collins Class submarine project.

Speaking of submarines, it seems there will be a little bit of a fuss over Indonesia’s purchase of two Kilo class subs. And no wonder: check out the impressive roll-call of world naval powers already in possession of these machines:

• Algeria - 2
• China - 12
• India - 10
• Iran - 3
• Poland - 1
• Romania - 1

I’m not sure that these 25-year-old submarines are going to be a big problem for our navy, especially once the UFO technology starts flowing from the US. Besides, after APEC is over we can simply expand the security fence to encompass the whole of Australia, and then we don’t need to worry about Indonesia, or anyone else for that matter.

Freedom!