Brocky Makes a Hat-Trick

Well, rounding out the hat-trick of famous deaths this week is Peter Brock, possibly Oz's most famous racecar driver. For those who don't know what a hat-trick is, it's a term from the game of cricket where 3 people get out in a row (and for the really dumb, 'cricket' is that game where a bunch of over-paunched men stand in a paddock getting suntans and very, very occasionally throwing a ball at one man in the middle). Peter Brock's former partner, Beverley, says she had a premonition last week that he'd die in a car accident by running into a tree. Interestingly, the stingray who killed Steve Irwin during the week may also have had a premonition about Steve's death, but we'll never know because stingrays are too smart to spout crap like that to the media or anyone else.

You may have gathered I don't believe her. And the reason I don't is that she is just too specific, as well as the fact that she didn't tell anyone before the event. Any fan of Nostradamus knows one of the fundamentals of having convincing premonitions is to hide the message in completely unrelated gibberish so that no sane person could ever see a link between the the original prediction and the event. The secret is not to say, after the crash, 'I predicted that last week', but instead to ring the papers before the event and say something like 'Blossoms of the springtime cut in twain, the tree of life weeps'. Now that would have convinced me absolutely that she knew he was going to die.

Ex-Partner Spouts Crap
Nostadamus on snopes.com

Optical Illusion

One of the better optical illusions I've seen, click on the link below and have a look at the full version of the Spanish castle. Stare at the dot for 20 or 30 seconds, then move the cursor into the picture area and it will be replaced by a BLACK & WHITE copy of the same image - but you'll see it in full colour!

False Colour Optical Illusion

To Boldly… er… Stay

William Shatner, better known to the world as Captain Kirk of the Starship Enterprise, won't be boldly going into space aboard Virgin's commercial spaceliners. Shatner, who rose to fame on some pretty dodgy acting ability, has often been criticised for his "pay me or I won't play ball" attitude, and this time is no exception. Despite being offered his ticket, worth £114 000, free, Shatner wants to be paid for the trip as well! Read the whole article at the link below.

Shatner Won't 'Boldly Go'

Uncle John Needs You!

Australia's Defence Forces are having a hard time getting people to join up, and have just embarked on a multi-million dollar recruitment drive. The crew from Chaser's War on Everything decided to take to the streets to drum up a few more recruits to help our nation out! Maybe if we can get a few people to join, we might be able to fix some of these planes, ships, submarines and tanks of ours that fall apart whenever they're started up!

Tasmanian History

Ancient Aboriginal handprints stencilled on the rocks of a cave, colonial convicts’ chisel marks in the stones of a cottage wall - Tasmanians treasure their heritage and wherever you go you’ll find evidence of times past but not forgotten.

Walk along a beach and come upon a midden of shells left by Aborigines thousands of years ago. Look down from your window under the eaves to a courtyard where colonial stagecoaches changed their weary horses. Step into a colonial prison cell and experience a few terrible moments of pitchdark solitary confinement. Comfort yourself in a country tavern that’s been welcoming travellers for 150 years or more. There’s history wherever you look - the buildings and boats, the tales and traditions that form our heritage.

Some important dates in Tasmanian History:

1642 - Abel Janszoon Tasman, the Dutch explorer, sailed passed the west coast of our island. He named it Van Diemen’s Land after the governor of Batavia.

1772 - The first Europeans to land on the island, the company from the expedition of the French explorer Marion du Fresne, came ashore at Marion Bay on the east coast.

1803 - Lieutenant John Bowen, a British soldier, chose Risdon Cove on the eastern shore of the River Derwent in the south-east for the first settlement of Europeans. In 1804 Lieutenant-governor David Collins moved the settlement across the river and Hobart was founded.

1804 - Europeans settled near the mouth of the River Tamar on the north coast. In 1806 the settlement was moved upriver and Launceston was founded.

1815 - Governor Davey proclaimed martial law against bushrangers - criminals who lived ’rough’ in the bush, terrorised settlers, stole farm stock and held up travellers.

1822 - The Sarah Island penal settlement was established in Macquarie Harbour on the west coast.

1825 - Van Diemen’s Land, which had been part of the colony of New South Wales, became a colony in its own right.

1829 - Europeans settled what later became Burnie, on the north coast.

1830 - The Black Line, a military plan to round up Aborigines, was started. George Augustus Robinson started his mission to protect Aborigines and take them to a settlement on Flinders Island. Both plans failed miserably. Henry Savery’s ’Quintus Servinton’, Australia’s first novel, was published in Hobart.

1833 - The Sarah Island penal settlement (see 1822) was closed.

1834 - John Batman sailed from Launceston to Port Phillip in Victoria - he and his associates founded the city of Melbourne.

1842 - Hobart Town became a city. Convict transportation reached its peak - 5,329 in one year.

1852 - Payable gold was found near Fingal, near the east coast. Elections were held for the first municipal councils in Hobart and Launceston.

1853 - The last shipment of convicts arrived.

1854 - The two houses of Parliament (upper and lower) were established.

1856 - Van Diemen’s Land’s name was changed to Tasmania. The title ’governor’ was conferred on the representative of the English crown.

1864 - Salmon and trout eggs brought from Europe were successfully hatched.

1868 - Primary education became compulsory.

1871 - Tin was discovered at Mount Bischoff near the west coast.

1876 - The Elwick racecourse opened north of Hobart.

1877 - The penal settlement at Port Arthur was closed.

1880 - The first telephone was installed, with a line from Hobart to the Mount Nelson Signal Station, just south of the city.

1883 - The ’Iron Blow’ was discovered at Mount Lyell, near Queenstown in the west.

1884 - Fears of a Russian invasion led to the island’s defences being strengthened.

1890 - The University of Tasmania was founded.

1900 - Tasmanian forces left to fight in the Boer War in South Africa.

1901 - The Commonwealth of Australia was proclaimed - Tasmania became a state of Australia.

1907 - The public library, previously in temporary accommodation, moved into the Carnegie Building (Hobart) - a gift of Andrew Carnegie of New York, USA.

1914 - The first aeroplane flight in Tasmania. Tasmanian forces left to fight in the first world war.

1920 - The chocolate factory north of Hobart was built for Cadbury’s, an English company.

1940 - Tasmanians forces left to fight in the second world war.

1973 - The first legal casino in Australia opened at Wrest Point, Hobart.

1974 - Tasmania’s State Wages Board awarded women equal pay.

1975 - The ’Lake Illawarra’, a bulk ore carrier, crashed into the Tasman Bridge in Hobart,causing part of it to collapse. Twelve people, from the bridge and the ship, died. The ship sank and has never been raised. The bridge was rebuilt and reopened in 1977.

1978 - Passenger train services stopped in Tasmania.

1979 - Tasmania’s first ombudsman was appointed.

1983 - The High Court of Australia ruled against the building of the Gordon-below-Franklin dam, planned for the Gordon River in the south-west.

1986 - Archaeologists working in the south-west discovered Aboriginal rock paintings thought to be 20,000 years old. In 1987 they found Aboriginal stencils of handprints dating back to the last Ice Age.

1993 - The $53 million Henty Gold Mine opened near the west coast. Speed cameras were introduced on Tasmania’s roads.

1994 - Freedom-of-information legislation came into force.

1995 - The Aboriginal Land Act was passed and 12 significant historic and cultural sites were returned to Aboriginal Tasmanians.

1996 - David Boon’s 12-year career in first-class cricket ended. He had played in 107 matches and scored 7,422 runs.

Crikey! First Don, now Steve!

Aussie personality and Crocodile Hunter, Steve Irwin, has been killed in a freak accident while filming a documentary on the Great Barrier Reef, by a stingray barb. His wife, Terri, is currently trekking the magnificent Cradle Mountain area in Tasmania and has been notified by police of his death.

Steve achieved notoriety a couple of years ago for feeding crocodiles while holding his young baby, attracting the most criticism since Michael Jackson dangled his own baby from a balcony. The media, and the public, got stuck into Steve quite a bit over that incident. An all-round good guy, fun and happy, adventurous and caring, he took the criticism to heart and was greatly hurt by it. I hope, in the time between those dark days and his death, he came to realise that those who jumped so hard on him at the time were just shocked and held no malice.

NineMSN News Story
Some Steve Irwin Cartoons

Barnes & Diesel

I can't say where I got this from yet, but the absolutely 100% reliable word is that rock legends Jimmy Barnes and Diesel will be live in concert in January next year (although possibly February - date has yet to be fixed), at Launceston's Aurora Stadium. This is a charity concert for a cause which is very close to Diesel's heart, although again, I can't go into those details other than to say for very close family reasons, the concert will happen. Keep your eyes open for the first official announcements in a month or two...

RIP Pluto & Don

Sadly, this week marked the passing of two Great Bodies of the Universe - Australian Democrat's Founder, Don Chipp, and the planet Pluto. Don Chipp was one of the brightest lights in the Australian political scene throughout his career, with his catch-phrase "Let's keep the bastards honest". In fact, as the tributes flowed at his funeral, it's fairly certain that never before has St Paul's Cathedral heard so much laughter. Comedian Andrew Denton apologised in advance before reading a bawdy poem that Mr Chipp wrote for his 80th birthday last year, then described Mr Chipp's impression of government censors and what they might do with pornography magazines, his lust for the Queen and the similarities between former prime minister Malcolm Fraser and an Easter Island statue "with a poker up its a%s".

A more solemn reaction around the world, though, for Pluto, now demoted officially from "planet" to "dirty annoying spot on the lens". Poor Pluto, always bullied for being so small and deftly kept out of the inner solar system by the big bully Gas Giants, has now had to suffer the ultimate shunning by a group of scientists who said years ago they had discovered every single planet and there was no possiblity of more being found; only to now say they have found hundreds, including a bunch bigger than Puny Pluto. These are the professionals who can't find where most of the matter in the universe is hiding, and who see a big area of nothing at all, and call it an object with the unlikely name of "Black Hole". Not so many years ago these same so-called learned men were seeing great big animals floating around the sky, and men with bows and arrows.

We can't do anything for Don Chipp now, but we can certainly "Protest for Pluto". I urge you to write to your Parliamentary Member today.

Honey, I shrunk the solar system

Lies & Statistics

"There are lies, damn lies, and statistics" said Mark Twain. The world is littered with statistics, and statistically, the average person is bombarded with five statistics a day. Statistics are usually misleading and deliberately distorting, as they are used to demonstrate not random samplings of truth, but trends among a specific area of the population on a specific topic. According to a website on statistics, though, this quote from Mark Twain is accurate: "statistics are often used to lie to the public because most people do not understand how statistics work. The aim of this entry is to acquaint the reader with the basics of statistical analysis and to help them determine when someone is trying to pull a fast one." But then, you must always remember the sage advice of George Carlin, too: "Think about how stupid the average person is; now realise half of them are dumber than that."

In today's News, figures have shown that Tassie has the highest rate of fatal air crashes in the country. Between 1990 and 2004, Tasmania recorded 1.8 fatal accidents per 100,000 landings, above the national average of 0.7 fatalities. The guy in charge of these statistics warns that it should be a wake-up call to all light plane pilots.

Except that Tasmania only has a population of half a million or so people, and the rest of Australia has 20 million. Where a busy Sydney airport might have 100,000 lands per year, we'd be lucky to have 100,000 landings per decade! As everything in Tassie is so easily within driving distance (maximum 4 hour drive from one end of the state to the other) that small planes aren't a big thing here. Even our major airports, like Devonport, only have 3 or 4 small planes hanging around. Ask any Tasmanian when the last air fatality in Tasmania was and the answer will probably be, "Have we ever had one?"

But of course we have had one or two tragic accidents. And those have blown out our statistical bubble so that for the next 20 years at least, we'll be higher than the National Average, even assuming no-one else gets killed.

The lesson? Statistics can say anything at all. Use your brain.

ABC News Tasmanian Air Crashes

Microsoft Does it Again

Microsoft does it again, another on-stage demo which goes completely wrong:



How pathetic is Microsoft anyway? Does anything they produce work!? I'm not being platformist here, but c'mon - Apple's Steve Jobs comes on stage doing a jig and looks like the cover guy of Playgirl Magazine, Microsoft's Steve Balmer comes on stage and looks like a hippo having a heart attack, and takes 2 or 3 minutes to recover his breathing. On-stage their voice recognition does an atrocious job and they blame 'ambient noise' like there wouldn't be any in a normal office, while Apple have had voice recognition that works for over 10 years. Various Microsoft on-stage shows have crashes, remote controls that don't work, programs that show the Blue Screen of Death. I don't think there's ever been an Apple demo which didn't work, and they were showing off more impressive stuff!

And the daily grind for the average user - I boot Messenger and it asks me every two minutes to allow a different port number than the one I just authorised it for. After ten minutes of chatting whatever the person at the other end types just comes up as a blank line at my end. It tells me I have Hotmail and when I try to access it, it gets into a complex loop of self-forwarded web pages which never get to Hotmail. Which is fine, because I can't use it any more anyway - I lost my password and when I clicked on 'Lost Password' it tells me that it sent instructions on how to change my Hotmail password to... guess where? My Hotmail account. The one I can't access. I install a Microsoft product and the installer progress bar ends after 10 items, then stays at 100% for another 10,000 items after that. Or breaks right through the right-hand-side of the dialog and keeps going... right off the screen. Or the installer says it's finished and when I click 'Finished' it then starts installing another component of the same installation. Dialogs that use 'Yes' or 'Cancel' to questions like "Installer will now finish" Video's using MediaPlayer that take 5 minutes just to buffer when YouTube or Google Video finish playing the whole thing inside a minute. And having buffered it, when I rewind it to play it again it has to rebuffer it all over again before it plays! I fast-forward a bit and then watch 3 minutes of black screen with audio only, because there are no keyframes or else they're not implemented well. I install Word and it won't open half the files I created with previous versions. And keeps second-guessing me (wrongly) about everything I want to do. And oh, don't I look so, so professional to the client with those stupid boingy sound effects and animated helper characters running around the screen!

Nothing this dinosaur of the company produces works properly, or indeed even halfway properly. There are never any new ideas of concepts, only second-rate clones of products from others. Their operating systems are full of thousands of holes and vulnerabilities, viruses run rampant, and all because everything they ever do isn't the result of dynamic, intelligent programmers, but instead the results of a bunch of outdated suit-men cobbling together something, then instead of taking the time to get it from concept to marketable product, they just release it as a finished product anyway.

The staggering thing about it all is this - wouldn't you think the men that produce this crap would just say, "Damn it, what a loser of a job I've got. I don't know why I even bother coming to work to produce this crud. Surely I could get a job with a real company that produces things that work?"

Pathetic. Absolutely, completely, mind-numbingly pathetic.

Wonder-Dad

With Fathers' Day coming up this weekend, spare a few moments to ring your Dad and your Mum, because if you don't do it on Fathers' and Mothers' Days, then when will you? And if you don't get on with your Dad any more, think how fortunate you are to have him when compared to this Aussie Genius, and be 'Glad and Prad of yer Dad':

Jail for Tumble-Drying Kid

Who Watches the Watchers?

What do you call a judge, a prostitute, a lawyer and a dead American academic? No, the answer isn't "A good start", because this isn't a joke.

Police are investigating claims that retired Federal court judge Marcus Enfield lied to a court (a crime, perjury) so he didn't have to pay a $77 speeding ticket. It's only 2 or 3 months ago police across Australia were warning drivers not to take the blame for a mate or spouse by pretending you were driving, not them, when the speed camera caught the car. It's a crime, and you could end up paying a lot more than a few dollars - your protecting your friend can get you both jailed. Nonetheless, the judge, who of all people should know better, told the Court he wasn't driving that day, that the car was loaned to an old friend - American academic Professor Teresa Brennan. The trouble is, Teresa has been dead for 3 years. There have also been claims that the judge blamed an entirely different US-based academic for two other traffic infringements in 1999 and 2000, but the judge says they're not true. The prostitute had a falling out with a Sydney solictor, Michael Ryan, and ransacked his rubbish bin, finding drafts of the judge's public statements on the whole issue, so now solicitor Ryan has resigned, or been sacked, from the case.

It seems the judge doesn't think the law applies to him - now he's been charged with disobeying a no-parking sign in January this year. He claims he can't walk far because of a previous leg injury, and he had his frail, elderly mother with him that day. It seems he thinks it's ok to break laws as long as you have a good personal excuse. I wonder how many people who came through his Courts over the years he accepted that defense from!

The Australian

Gunns Unlimited Ego

Poor old John Gay had a bit of a knock today when the Victorian Supreme Court rejected out of hand Gunns Ltd's claim for almost $7 million damages against 19 or so environmentalists, plus The Wilderness Society. The Court ruled that the claim was too general, against too many people. Which is hardly surprising, after all, those 20 respondents are just scapegoats meant to represent the Tasmanian population at large and it's attitudes. Tasmanians outside of Launceston, the only area which will significantly benefit from the proposed new pulp mill development at the heart of all this protest, are overwhelmingly against the idea. Gunns Ltd has consistently lied about the project, claiming it would not hurt old-growth or protected areas of forest. Other views suggest up to 85% of the trees the mill pulps will be old-growth. And Gunns has lied all the way along the line about the pollution which would be produced, the number of jobs, the amount of water the mill would demand (Launceston already faces a shortage of water)… in fact, you name it, Gunns have lied about it. The latest Court submission is version 3 of their claim - version 2 was laughed out of Court last year, the Court describing it as "embarrassing" and "at best ambiguous and at worst misleading", and ordering Gunns to pay the costs of the defendants.

Like most Tasmanians, I'm pretty sick of hearing about Forestry. I'm sick and tired of the Greenies who can't protest sanely and take everything to ridiculous extremes, and I'm sick of companies like Gunns whose management have no moral code at all other than the Holy Dollar. I'm sick of hearing the lies on both sides of the fence.

The punchline to the joke is that most of the Reserved and World Heritage areas are "set aside for future generations to enjoy" but who is this mythical future generation? When does the present stop and the future begin? Using the accepted definition of "generation", there have been 3 or 4 generations since some of these Reserves were "set aside" - but apparently they're not the "future generations" that the Reserves were set aside for.

Whose forests are they? Who gave anyone who doesn't own the land the right to decide who does what in them? Don't chop them down, and don't tell me I'm not allowed to ride a horse through them or have a picnic. Stop treating them like Holy Mother Gaia's Revered Children and start seeing them for what they are - dirt and trees.

The Australian - $7 Million Bid Rejected

Maps Update

I'm running a bit behind with my new map for Lux this week. Last week, after talking it over with the Map Lab, I decided to change the name from 'Space Invaders', which may still be copyrighted, to 'Lux Invaders'. Because the name itself was changed, that meant the new map upload completely took the place of the first one and that put me 2 days behind normal schedule, so I can't upload 'USS Lionhart', which a lot of players are waiting anxiously for, until tomorrow or the next day, because only 1 upload per week is allowed. So be patient, folks, it's not far away. Meanwhile, here are a few more I've been working on which you'll be seeing in the Map Manager in the next few weeks:

Driving Us Mad

Our roads have been in the News a lot this last week - specifically, that people are driving too damn fast on them. The Advocate this week published a list of the worst offenders of recent months, such as the guy doing 152 kmph in an 80 zone, a P-plater (Provisional driver) with an 80 limit clocked at 135, the motorcycle doing 175 in an 80 zone, to name just a few. To be fair, a lot of these worst incidents happen on open highway areas which have only recently had their speed limits reduced, such as the Bass Highway near Latrobe, which for no sane reason anyone can think of has had an 80 limit placed on one 200 metre long section of it. It would be unfair of me to suggest that the stretch in question is an ideal one for speed cameras, with much natural cover. To even contemplate the idea that speed cameras are nothing more than a callous money-making scheme, or that the Department of Roads and Transport would arbitrarily assign speed limits based not on safety concerns but solely on expected revenue-raising potential, would be a terrible thing to do. We all know that the Department is professional and thorough, despite this week's revelations that the Department's official manual for those learning to drive, the Learner-Drivers' Bible if you will, contains at least 185 errors, 65 of which could cause accident or death if followed as stated (such as telling the learner to drive on the wrong side of the road when turning right!) The dedication of our police force, too, to responsible and safe driving, should never be questioned, and our sympathies go out to the six police officers hurt in this week's unfortunate collision between two unmarked police cars, around midnight on a lonely stretch of highway near Brisbane. Don't think for a moment that a game of 'Chicken' was in progress.

Six Police Officers Hurt
Clocked at 205 kmph - 125 Over His 80 Limit


Still, it obviously doesn't happen only in Australia - this English cop has been given a discharge (but no fine or jail) for doing 159 miles per hour (that's 254!! kmph - about 40 kmph faster than the maximum speed I ever did on my Yamaha XS-1100), caught by his own onboard camera:

Police Officer Discharged

Another Century

I just realised that today's post is another century. My first was 100 visitors, of course, and now I've reached that amazing milestone (kilometre-stone?), 100 articles. Yes folks, this is Post #100 for World Wierd Web. And what better way of celebrating the fact than with a 'Top 100' list. But what of? What else, but the…

Top 100 List of Top 100 Lists!

100. Top 100 "Cigarette Burn" Moments
99. Top 100 Films Where The Earth Is Destroyed
98. Top 100 Key Grips
97. Top 100 Movies Based On Television Shows
96. Top 100 Performances By Actors Or Actresses Who Worked Despite An Injury On The Set
95. Top 100 Films That Never Made It To The Theater And Ended Up With Just One Copy In Someone's Vault For Decades
94. Top 100 Most Impressive Mustaches
93. Top 100 Outrageous Accents
92. Top 100 Shots Of The World Trade Center
91. Top 100 Dogfights
90. Top 100 Characters That Are 180 Degrees Politically From The Person Portraying Them, But They Do It Anyway For The Paycheck
89. Top 100 Performances By A Midget
88. Top 100 Decapitations
87. Top 100 Movies Entirely Ruined By Giving Away A Single Spoiler From The Plot
86. Top 100 Smoking Moments With Stars Who Eventually Died From Lung Cancer Or Emphysema
85. Top 100 Scenes Where A Character Has A Bad Experience With Crazy Glue
84. Top 100 Intermissions
83. Top 100 Most Amusing Portrayals Of Zero Gravity
82. Top 100 Drunks
81. Top 100 Great Horror Movies Followed By Crappy Sequels
80. Top 100 Fruit Stands Demolished In Car Chases
79. Top 100 Portrayals Of Executions
78. Top 100 Winces By A Hero While His Wounds Are Treated By A Hot Chick
77. Top 100 Re-enactments Of The United Nations As Something Other Than An Irrelevant Anti-American Dictator's Fantasy
76. Top 100 Computer Geeks
75. Top 100 Pimps
74. Top 100 Performances By A Smoke Alarm
73. Top 100 References To What's Under A Scotsman's Kilt
72. Top 100 Dramatic Sports Events Ending In A Tie
71. Top 100 Scenes In Elevators Where They Leave Through The Hatch
70. Top 100 Fights Where Someone Breaks A Bottle On A Bar
69. Top 100 Spontaneous Musical Numbers Without Any Explanation Whatsoever
68. Top 100 Lightning Strikes
67. Top 100 Weirdest Uses For Matrix-like Bullet-Time
66. Top 100 Films Where Route 66 Is Featured, But It's Obviously Not The Real Route 66
65. Top 100 Improper Uses Of A Fire Extinguisher
64. Top 100 Deliberately Altered Product Labels
63. Top 100 Appearances Of The Devil
62. Top 100 Assistants To Mad Scientists
61. Top 100 Performances By Actors Or Actresses In Wheelchairs
60. Top 100 Sequences Of Blinking Lights On Machinery
59. Top 100 Sneezes
58. Top 100 Locations Where The Actors Appear To Park Where No Parking Places Actually Exist
57. Top 100 Attempts To Make Vancouver Look Like Another City Because It's Cheaper To Film In Vancouver
56. Top 100 Things In A Car's Trunk
55. Top 100 Robots
54. Top 100 Performances By An Actor Or Actress With Their Mouth Full
53. Top 100 Eskimos
52. Top 100 Portrayals Of A Union Laborer As Anything Other Than Unhelpful Or Grouchy
51. Top 100 Coin Tosses
50. Top 100 Performances By A Shadow
49. Top 100 Uses Of A Crutch For Something Other Than Assisting In Walking
48. Top 100 Scenes At A Gas Station
47. Top 100 Tattoos
46. Top 100 Science Fiction Movies Not Based On A Philip K. Dick Novel Or Short Story
45. Top 100 French Maids
44. Top 100 Moments When A Brief Appearance By Batman Probably Could Have Helped Settle Matters A Lot Quicker
43. Top 100 Arrows-Splitting-Arrows-In-The-Bullseye Moments
42. Top 100 Doorbell Chimes
41. Top 100 Comatose Characters
40. Top 100 Uses Of A Musical Instrument By An Actor Or Actress That Can Actually Play The Thing
39. Top 100 Really Obvious Blatant Product Placements
38. Top 100 Trailers Provided To Actors And Actresses During Filming
37. Top 100 Vanity License Plates In Film
36. Top 100 Films Where A Character Is Shown At Different Ages But Different Actors Are Used To "Age" The Character And The Actors Actually Somewhat Resemble Each Other
35. Top 100 Scenes Where A Character Can't See Because They Lost Or Broke Their Glasses, Or They Lost A Contact Lens
34. Top 100 Flying Cars
33. Top 100 "I've never driven a car before/I've never had sex before/I've never drank beer before" Moment, And They Turn Out To Be Great At It
32. Top 100 Marathons Where Someone Other Than A Kenyan Or Tanzanian Wins
31. Top 100 Really Big Afros
30. Top 100 Funny Moments That Aren't Really Funny 20 Years Later When Nobody Gets The Reference
29. Top 100 Strategic Placements Of Bubbles In A Bathtub
28. Top 100 Makeup Artists Who Used Nothing Other Than A Felt-Tipped Marker And A Meat Tenderizer
27. Top 100 Arrests On The Set
26. Top 100 Cooking Performances By An Actress Who Has Probably Never Used A Kitchen In Her Life
25. Top 100 Performances By A Dog
24. Top 100 Fades To Black
23. Top 100 Reviews By Film Critics
22. Top 100 Stunt Performances By Midgets In Place Of A Child Star
21. Top 100 Movies That Start Off Really Good But Totally Lose It At Some Point
20. Top 100 Uses Of A Waterslide To Simulate Careening Through Caverns Or Down A Hill
19. Top 100 Jibber Jabber That Passes For A Foreign Language
18. Top 100 Sources For Really, Really Good Drugs
17. Top 100 Portrayals Of A Historical Figure By Someone Who Looks And Sounds Nothing Like Them
16. Top 100 Most Impressive Reactions To Briefcases Containing A Lot Of Money Being Opened
15. Top 100 Epic Journeys Summarized By A Montage
14. Top 100 Announcements Run In the Theater To Remind People To Silence Their Cell Phones
13. Top 100 Ending Credits
12. Top 100 Performances By A Ninja
11. Top 100 Incredibly Dramatic Crossings Of An International Border
10. Top 100 Dramatic References To The 555 Telephone Exchange
9. Top 100 Movies Where It Was All Just A Dream
8. Top 100 Balcony Views
7. Top 100 Performances By Actors Or Actresses Who Died During Filming
6. Top 100 Earthquakes Or Space Vehicle Flight Disruptions Where Just The Camera Shakes And The Actors Stumble Around
5. Top 100 Performances By A Really, Really Fat Person
4. Top 100 Portrayals of Nazis
3. Top 100 Transformations Into Werewolves Or Aliens
2. Top 100 Shots Of An Actress' Bare Back, But You Never See Her Tatas

…and the number 1 Top 100 List of all time:
1. Top 100 Countdowns On An Explosive Device Which Never Reach Zero

Dame Edna Honoured

Comedy can be hard to define. Usually, people find the unexpected funny, and essentially that's what a joke is - an anecdote with a twist at the end, an unexpected finish. Years ago just saying 'Bum!' on stage would have brought riotous laughter, because it's precisely that "you can't say that in public" act which causes people to laugh. The trouble is, society changes, and as things which would have been taboo years ago become part of mainstream conversation, then they no longer make you laugh. And different societies find things funny which others don't, because every society has different moral standards. Take, for example, the study over the last few years which tried to find the funniest joke ever, and ended up concluding that every nation had a different funniest joke. The end result was to declare Spike Milligan the funniest man ever, and yet the joke which Spike tells as the funniest one he ever heard ('Is he dead?… He is now!'), didn't even raise a smile amongst the people I talked to about it.

Things change. Comedians need new, updated, socially-relevant now-not-then, material all the time, and that's precisely why Barry Humphries isn't funny, and hasn't been for most of his career. Barry has played the part of a number of characters - Aussie bloke Bazza Mackenzie, the grandfatherly Sandy Stone, unionist Lance Boyle, the horrific cultural attaché Sir Les Patterson, and of course, Dame Edna Everage. Dame Edna started off as an ordinary suburban housewife, but somewhere along the way, as Barry Humphries failed to get the stardom he wanted, Dame Edna became his alternate ego, began declaring him/herself as a gigastar, and all but dropped all the other characters. To be sure, some of the early Dame Edna stuff was amusing, but there's only one thing more pathetic than a comedian who never comes up with new material, and that's one who drops all of his old stuff and sticks to the one joke forever more. That's Barry Humphies in a nutshell. I'm no prude - I find a lot of comedians funny, from Billy Connelly to Paul Hogan and even the Chaser himself - but Barry Humphries just makes me sad, because beneath the cross-dressing megastar image of Dame Edna is the very unfulfilled life of a no-one who never went anywhere. Forget the Keys to the City of Melbourne, give him a season pass to the nearest suicide booth - and thank God our kids will never have to put up with him.

BBC News Story
Dame Edna Official Website
Barry Humphries Bigraphy

Some employer's have taken advantage of Australia's new industrial relations legislation to change of few of the existing workplace practices which annoy them the most.

Sick Days
We will no longer accept a doctor's statement as proof of sickness. If you are able to go to the doctor, you are able to come to work.

Personal Days
Each employee will receive 104 personal days a year. They are called Saturday & Sunday.

Death (Own)
Any worker found dead at their desk will be promptly fired. All deaths will need to be applied for in advance and will only be approved if your can show that your death will not affect productivity.

Death (Others)
This is no excuse for missing work. There is nothing you can do for dead friends, relatives or co-workers. Every effort should be made to have non-employees attend to the arrangements instead. In rare cases where employee involvement is necessary, the funeral should be scheduled for late afternoon so that you can work through your lunch hour and leave one hour early.

Toilet Use
Entirely too much time is being spent in the toilet. There is now a strict three-minute time limit in the stalls, and at the end of three minutes, an alarm will sound, the toilet paper roll will retract, and the toilet will flush upwards. The stall door will open, and a picture will be taken which will be posted on the company bulletin board.

Lunch Break
Skinny people get 30 minutes for lunch, as they need to eat more, so that they can look healthy. Normal size people get 15 minutes for lunch to get a balanced meal to maintain their average figure. Chubby people get 5 minutes for lunch, and even that may be too much.

Launch of USS Lionhart

In a few days my latest Lux map, USS Lionhart, will be uploaded. This is possibly my favourite map so far, and definitely the hardest to do, entailing some 4 or 5 hours of high-zoom detailed architectural drawing in Adobe InDesign. Even though all I needed for the final output was a 72 dpi (screen resolution) image, in order to get it looking right when transparency layers were made, I needed good resolution originals to work from. There are many sets of deck plans available on the web for ships such as USS Enterprise, but these are copyrighted to Paramount Pictures - in order to be able to use the idea in Lux it needed to be a totally original creation. The end result? Pretty good I think. Click on the pictures below for better look at the final product, and some of the detailed work that went into it!

Shed Stand-Off

A 46-year-old man has been charged after a stand-off with police in north Queensland. Police declared an emergency situation after the man allegedly barricaded himself in a shed armed with a gun about midnight (AEST) in the Townsville suburb of Garbutt. Police allege he voluntarily came out about 9 am today and was taken to hospital for a minor injury sustained inside the shed. The man was charged with serious obstruction, unlicensed possession of a weapon, dangerous conduct with a weapon and possession of a weapon under the influence of liquor. He will appear in Townsville Magistrates Court tomorrow.

What is it with these standoffs and sieges? A man can stay inside his house for a month and no-one even notices, but as soon as he actually refuses to come out, its a siege situation and the house, or shed in this case, is surrounded by a hundred bored SWAT guys playing 'pin the hollowpoint on the perp'. What a sight it must have been to see a small backyard shed surrounded. Well, allegedly surrounded, perhaps. After all, the man only allegedly barricaded himself in the shed, but definitely with a gun. He may or may not have come out about 9 am, but was definitely taken to hospital. Could be a bit of a problem if it turns out he was still inside the shed when they took him to the hospital… but it would explain the 'minor' injury - accidentally melding atoms with the shed to produce a sort of man/shed hybrid would have to hurt a little bit. That would explain why he was charged with [being a] serious obstruction, unlicensed possession of a weapon (the government refuses all applications from buildings of any sort to own a gun), and dangerous conduct (he opened his door into the face of a police officer, perhaps?) But come on, the charge of possessing a weapon under the influence of liquor is just plain ridiculous - what will become of Australia's hunter-heroes and weekend warriors if they can't partake of both hobbies simultaneously!? What sort of weekend will it be when all those legend-in-their-own-mind gun-toting maniacs with big inferiority complexes and small… er… cars are no longer allowed to, in the words of Weird Al Yankovic, “get all liquored up and shoot at anything that moves”?

Man Charged After Stand-Off