The 2009 broadsheet letter writing challenge

I regret to announce that Joel W. Courtney stormed to victory in last year’s competition, squeezing out Nicholas Broadbent by 120 points, with Sue Brian running a close third.

Here are the rules for the third annual broadsheet letter writing challenge:

1. Items published in a broadsheet newspaper receive one point per word.
2. If you have two items published in the same paper on the same day, you receive a 2x multiplier. Three items receives a 3x multiplier and so on.
3. You receive 0.5 points per word in any response to your item (your name must be specifically mentioned).
4. You cannot enter if your name is Sandra K. Eckersley from Marrickville.
5. To claim points, you need to blockquote your published contribution into the comments section of this page. You should also stick it on your fridge door as proof that you didn’t just make the whole thing up.
6. New rule (“diminishing returns”): your second item published in the same section of a paper will only receive 90% of the points, then 80% for the third, and 70% for the fourth and subsequent articles. Diversify, people!

Leaderboard

Joel Courtney, Haberfield: 77 points
Phillip Brian, Newtown: 74 points

Coming up this year…

Well, I hope that all you mammalian readers had a great 2008. It certainly was an eventful one for me.

Here is a preview of this year’s major stories on marsupialmusic.net:

Inane banter: the space-filling idle commentary about uninteresting fringe issues will continue to dominate during 2009. Could this be the most tugid year ever?

K-Rudd: we will continue to follow K-Rudd’s major policy failures and rampant committee-forming fetish. Towards the end of the year, we break an exclusive story revealing the true nature of Big Kev. Man or Machine? Stay tuned to find out.

USA: I will be presenting a unique journey through the mid-west to soak up as much US culture as humanly possible, during April and May. Huntin’ and fishin’ awaits.

Stilts and Houseboats: as politicians continue to procrastinate over how much sea levels have to rise before they agree that there is a problem, I will be launching a new site to equip you with all the advice and equipment needed to get through the water-logged future.

Socceroos: there will be big celebrations as we qualify for our second consecutive World Cup. There will be even more celebrations when we are drawn in the same group as Italy. Time for revenge!

I’ll see you there!

Royal North Shore Hospital

Greetings, fellow travellers in the NSW public health system. After spending 24 hours surrounded by a variety of old people producing a variety of interesting noises, I am now 100% qualified to write a critique on the the state of play in our hospitals. The critique will be in the form of a diary.

5:30pm Monday: I leave work and make my way towards the hallowed ANZAC memorial futsal ground, where tonight’s encounter is to take place. This is a semi-final against our nemesis team The Gunners. Last time we played them, one of their number was sent off for trying overly much to incapacitiate yours truly.

6:00pm Monday: Kickoff. The next 18 hours or so are not terribly clear in my mind, so I will try to fill in some blanks with heresay, speculation and rumour.

The Combat Wombats were outplaying The Gunners all over the park, however a few lucky shots and a handful of poor refereeing decisions saw us trailing by a couple of goals late in the second half. In an attempt to inspire a resurgence, I boldly left my goal in order to effect a clearance, however unfortunately a member of the opposite team took it upon himself to recklessly slide in to the challenge, leaving me on the ground, but more importantly winning the Wombats a penalty.

Unfortunately, we couldn’t convert, and The Gunners moved through to the final. At this point, it became apparent that I couldn’t see out of one eye, and didn’t know what my name was, and so the courageous Bec Sheehan stepped up to the plate and drove me to the hospital.

7:00pm Monday: We arrive at Royal North Shore Hospital, presumably at the emergency department. After searching my pockets for wads of cash, the triage nurse dumps we on a chair and says “suck it up, princess”. Bec kindly calls Sonia for me (despite the fact that I have, unbeknownst to myself, already called her several times), and within 20 minutes or so she arrives and Bec heads off to catch up with the rest of the team.

8:00pm Monday: We are still sitting in the waiting room in the emergency department, when I realise that I don’t know Sonia’s name. It soon becomes apparently that I don’t know the name of the company where I work, and I can’t remember which birds the Queen of Hearts used as croquet mallets. I get hauled up to the neurosurgeon for a CAT scan.

9:00pm Monday: We are back in another waiting room, awaiting the results of the scan. I have pins and needles up my arms and across my face, so Sonia amuses me by making me do finger exercises. I feel tired, so I decided to go to sleep on the floor.

10:00pm Monday:

Oh, how long has he been on the floor for?

11:00pm Monday: The nurses finally find a bed for me. I think I have been throwing up by this stage. I fall asleep for the night, and Sonia fires up her laptop to catch up on some important work. Oh yeah, at some stage someone must have stuck a needle in my hand because I’m now attached to a drip, as well as a heart monitor just like in the movies. Awesome.

6:00am Tuesday: I wake up, ready to go home. I remember Sonia’s name, but still have no idea what happened on Monday night.

8:00am Tuesday: Breakfast consists of Weet-bix, toast, the worst cup of tea I have ever had, fruit salad, orange juice and a piece of bread. Not too shabby for a hospital.

9:00am Tuesday: I get transferred to a ward. I get to lie back on the bed as it goes through all these doors, ER style. Double awesome.

10:00am Tuesday: The rest of the morning is spent doing these stupid post trauma amnesia tests, once an hour. In between, we go and sit in the sun and plan the USA trip next year. I take some phone calls from clients, but I can’t remember what they said any more.

12:00 noon Tuesday: Lunch consists of steamed silverside with parsley sauce. Ranksville.

2:00pm Tuesday: A new occupational therapists tries to restart all the PTA tests. Luckily I see what’s happening, and manage to move her along before I get trapped for another 4 hours in this hell-hole. I finally get discharged from the hospital, and Sonia drives me home.

It is now almost 48 hours later, and I’m still not sure what happened on Monday night. Also, I can’t remember details of any conversations I had today or yesterday. This is going to make catching up on work interesting. Anyway, thus endeth my first experience of being admitted to the emergency department. It was as pleasant as it was memorable.

Jumping ship: your options

NSW is done for. Tax hikes, plummeting growth, the prospect of a crappy credit rating and two and a half more years of Nathan Rees mean that it’s time to get out. Let’s have a look at the other states and territories, in no particular order.

Australian Capital Territory

Pros: Decriminalised mull, cheap fireworks and sex stores that make Bunnings look like a shoebox.
Cons: Politicians, public servants and zero night life.

The nation’s capital isn’t really an attractive option. More a country town than a city, it suffers from the dual ignominy of firstly being completely surrounded by NSW, and secondly having its best suburb (Quenbeyan) in NSW. Cold in winter, too far from the beach in summer, the only advantage to be obtained from moving here is that Central Coast bogans won’t often be motoring down the highway for a visit.

Rating: One titanic

Victoria

Pros: Trams, cafes, bars and music.
Cons: Having to admit that Melbourne is better than Sydney, realising that Melbourne is a lot uglier than Sydney.

South of the border, down Mexico way offers the most obvious choice for a disgruntled New South Welshman. Of course, you’ll have to start supporting Collingwood and drinking Carlton Draught, but Victoria’s economy is strong, and Melbourne will soon once again be Australia’s biggest city. Sydneysiders will fit right in with the fast-paced lifestyle, but be warned; no one is ever on time here. You can also enjoy paying exorbitant tolls for the privilege of sitting in traffic. It’s like you never left home!

Rating: Three titanics

Queensland

Pros: Relaxed lifestyle, great steak and the best devonshire tea in the country (thanks Flo!).
Cons: The heat, the bogans and the cane toads.

Beautiful one day, stinking hot and humid the next. Sunny Brisbane is situated on the bank of the Brisbane River, however it seems to be immune to any form of breeze and so summer days are long and sweaty. Thanks to the relaxed Brisbane lifestyle, you can beat the heat by having a couple of XXXX Golds at lunch, followed by a XXXX Gold at afternoon tea, and a couple of quick XXX Golds after work. People are friendly, the girls are good looking and thanks to the mining boom, business is on the up. If city life in Brisbane is still too hectic for you, you can always head up the coast to unwind. Plus, if you’re a political type, you’ve got a great chance of reaching the dizzying heights from up here – you would be alongside the PM, the treasurer and the G-G.

Rating: Four titanics

South Australia

Pros: Coopers, fine wines, amusing palindromes.
Cons: Abundance of upper class twits, sharks.

Second only to Canberra in terms of boringness, I haven’t spent any time in Adelaide so can’t really comment too far. The climate is mild, they seem to produce some good bevoirs, and if you want to have a good time you just need to don a pair of fishnets and hit the town. Give it a whirl, if you’re that way inclined.

Rating: Two titanics

Western Australia

Pros: Mining boom, great pubs, nice city.
Cons: Distance.

The final frontier, Perth is the most isolated city in the entire world. If you want to leave, it’s at least a five hour flight to anywhere decent. That said, the city is picking up as more and more money flows in thanks to the mining boom, and they seem to know how to have a good time. The pace is slow, and they are 2 hours behind, so if you’re dealing with the rest of the country you can knock off at 3pm every day. Better still, you’re a really *really* long way from the Central Coast, so you’ll almost never see a sub-human from Umina driving around your city. Speaking of the city, it is quite pretty, especially along the Swan.

Rating: Four titanics

Northern Territory

Pros: Beer.
Cons: Heat.

This is the only capital I haven’t visited, so I really don’t have much to say at all. They drink a lot of beer (twice the national average), but it’s also bloody hot. You also have a very high chance of being eaten by a crocodile while performing such everyday tasks as crossing the road. Only for the very adventurous.

Rating: Two titanics

Tasmania

Pros: Cool climate, beautiful city, excellent seafood.
Cons: No jobs.

Hobart is a fantastic city. Relaxed, friendly, no traffic, and best of all, you can’t even drive there from the Central Coast without catching a ferry. It could be a bit chilly in the winter, but the energy is mostly sourced from the hydro scheme, so turn those heaters up! If you can find a job down here, it’s definitely the place to be – especially as climate change kicks in and it gets a couple of degrees warmer. The locals all seem to exhibit mild signs of inbreeding; if you’re planning on procreating, send your kids to the mainland so they can meet someone from outside the family.

Rating: Three titanics

New Zealand

Pros: Russell Crowe
Cons: Russell Crowe

The seventh and final state, New Zealand is still maintaining a façade of independence by retaining its own currency and stamping passports whenever mainlanders visit. Importantly, if you do decide to move to New Zealand, your national cricket captain won’t be Ricky Ponting. The snow is great, the beers are cold, and the accents are hilarious. What more could you want?

Rating: Three titanics

That’s all from me. Good luck with your decision.

The slippery slide continues

Around a year ago, I stopped reading the Sydney Morning Herald’s online service, due to plummeting language standards in their content, and their general all-round slovenly attitude to journalism.

I switched over to the ABC, and since then have noticed a substantial decline in the quality of this publication as well. I have stuck with it for a year and tried to ignore the occasional typo, grammatical error, unsubstaniated information and blatant bias. Now however, I think we are reaching the end.

Senator Obama is expected to win, with pollsters giving him an average lead of seven points.

If omens are anything to go by he might look to the small New Hampshire town of Dixville Notch.

Voting has already finished there with residents casting 15 ballots for Barack Obama and six for John McCain.

Votes have already been counted in the small New Hampshire town of Dixville Notch.

The remote town traditionally opens its polls at midnight on election day, hours before the rest of the east coast heads to the polls.

For the record, voters in the town cast 15 ballots for Barack Obama and six for John McCain.

Did I mention that Barack Obama received 15 ballots in Dixville Notch? Time to stop laying off those subeditors, Aunty.

Maybe it’s time I switched to Al Jazeera permanently.

Another missive for Middle Australia

This one is dedicated to everyone who has ever purchased a bumper sticker bearing the legend “Fuck off, we’re full”.

There were some interesting studies released on the weekend. Let’s start with the findings of Kevin Dunn’s work Challenging Racism: The Anti-Racism Research Project.

40 per cent of Australians believe some ethnic groups do not belong in the country … one in 10 has outwardly racist views.

Fuck you, you inbred rednecked meat-and-three-veg-eating worthless steaming piles of shit. You know your second-favourite bumper sticker: “love it or leave it”? Guess what? People come to Australia because they love it. If you’ve got a problem with that, you should be the ones leaving. Fuck off back to the central coast with all the rest of the lowlife morons having sex with their 14-year-old cousins in the back seat of their mum’s Cortina, in the carpark of the local Eagle Boys.

Fuck you, residents of Camden. Fuck your combined intelligence which is barely high enough to spell “town meeting”. Fuck your anglo-centric attitudes and your McDonald’s diet which has rendered you so fat that you have to buy a Landcruiser just to haul your wife’s arse to the supermarket, to buy your weekly supply of Black and Gold instant coffee. Getting some decent lebanese cuisine in town is probably the best thing that could happen to you, short of being quietly put to death to raise the acumen of our collective unconscious.

Fuck you, white Australian flag-wavers. Fuck you for showing the world how fucking stupid we are. Fuck you, fuck your deadshit surfie haircuts, fuck your dead-end 9-to-5 jobs, fuck your fake-tanned, bleached-blonde girlfriends, fuck your chicken-burger-and-chips world outlook, and fuck your pathetic football team – 42 years without a premiership.

Ashfield … came out positively in nearly every aspect of the study, thanks to long-term encounters with diverse cultures.

“It could be one of the most tolerant areas in Sydney,” [Professor Dunn] said.

Fuck yeah. Inner west for life, motherfuckers.

Tricks with photography

Let me preface this by saying that I’m not a big fan of Mahmood Ahmadinejad, however I have noticed a trend in the western media that I would like to talk about.

Firstly, let us consider the standard file photographs of some major world leaders (plus K-Rudd, just to keep up my quota of local content).

Now, let me bore you with a little bit of data analysis.

You don’t have to be Alfred Einstein to notice the trend here; the more “evil” a world leader, the smaller he appears in his file photo. It’s not too overt for Kim and Fidel, but the mugshot of Ahmadinejad is truly ridiculous. All the media is missing is a caption: “Small man syndrome”.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. The true beauty of this is that noone will ever pick the media up on selecting photos which reflect the way they wish their subject to be portrayed in the subconscious minds of their readers. Notice how our beloved western leaders are all deep in thought of making an eloquent point, while the “crazy dictators” all look like they are either on a disjointed rant, or addressing some kind of fascist rally.

I’m going to have to ditch my beloved ABC and start reading Al Jazeera.

T minus 2

We are now less than two hours away from one of the most exciting events in the history of quantum chromodynamics – the flipping of the big switch marked “LHC ON”.

In order to prepare for the highly improbable event of a catastrophe, I ducked out at lunch and consumed three schooners. Apparently alcohol can cushion your system from the effects of:

1. Micro black holes
2. Rifts in the space-time continuum
3. Beings from another universe invading through aforementioned rifts
4. Concerned technophobes

If you require any further information, please visit this website.

Step aside, CERN

In five days time, European scientists will fire up the greatest penis extension ever constructed – the 27 km Large Hadron Collider. The aim? To prove once and for all the existence of the Higgs boson, otherwise known as the God particle.

Preempting the results and moving forward a little, I would like to present my latest research paper on the Next Big Thing. No doubt, once the hullabaloo surrounding discovery of the God particle has died down, scientists will start to get bored again, and mankind will long for an even bigger penis extension. I dub this construction the Mega Large Hadron Collider. It will be 42,000 kms long, and constucted in orbit, in the shape of a Klein bottle.

After being cooled to 1/π th of a degree kelvin, the Mega Large Hadron Collider will be switched on. The purpose of this experiment? To split the God particle, of course! My predicted outcomes of this particular project are presented below.

As you can see, the neutral God (Higgs) particle created from the two colliding quarks is hit by an ultrafast χ beam. The God particle is then split into its three component Auld-Higgs particles, designated G^f, G^s and G^h. In layman’s terms, I like to call these the father, son and holy ghost particles.

Unfortunately, it will be at least 100 years before the technology exists to build the Mega Large Hadron Collider, but when it happens, don’t be too surprised if I receive a posthumous Nobel prize.

A room with a view

With my work in Bundaberg complete on schedule, I spent the morning at Bargara beach with my laptop. There’s nothing quite like answering your emails while staring out at the Pacific Ocean.

Off to Brisvegas now for a night out with Messrs. Karbowiak and Wilson, before heading back to Old Sydney Town on Wednesday. Photos may follow.