More questions

- are North Queensland a two man team? And if so, isn’t this a flagrant breach of the requirement to field 13 players?
- Can the Bulldogs generate enough momentum to have one last shot at raising people’s expectations, before they return to the mean of a mediocre season?
- Why the heck are the third place team giving up a 6.5 pt start at home to the equal seventh place team?
- Can the Magpies besquirt the Knights? And if they do, how long will they stay in the top eight for?
- Will Souths choke against the Roosters? In recent years, the Bunnies have been crap, except against the Roosters. Their thinking seems to have been – it’s ok to lose 25 games, so long as we’re undefeated against the Roosters. Now that the tables have been turned upside down and around, will the Roosters empty their cloacas all over the Rabbits?
- Can anybody find me someone to care about the Sharks-Raiders game? Thing is, this will probably be an entertaining game. Sharks and Raiders are both teams on the rise, you would think, but who is going to fall next year to accommodate them? Not my Bulldogs, never!
- Now that the Panthers have finally found some form, can they conjure down a last minute loss to the Warriors?
- I don’t think the Dragons are playing well enough to fall into the Panthers’ trap – hence I see them pushing Manly all the way, possibly to 80 minutes.
- Eels and Broncos. This is the match of the round. Perhaps even the greatest game in the history of the rugby league. So much to play for. Will fear win? Who will choke first? Will Wayne Bennett punch a whole through the wall and get Michael Hagan in the head? Will Hages refuse to allow the Broncos to use the toilets in their dressing room, forcing the players to suffer severe urinomytosis? When the Eels win, will people rub it (their failure to even make the eight, let alone defend their title) in the Broncos’ faces enough? I hope so. I want to see everyone rubbing, people!
- Hopefully Melbourne will win in a tight one, so that people doubt them early in the semis, so they respond by absolutely pummeling someone in the late semis, so they will have a let down and lose the grand final.
- Will I listen to the commentary on Channel 9, ABC, or neither?

We can all do our part

Capturing & recycling most of the vapours from petrol stations across the Sydney Basin is equivalent to taking 370,000 cars off the road.
My car broke down on the weekend. This is the equivalent of taking one car off the road.

Agent Provocateur

When were you last provoked? And I don’t mean physically, I mean mentally, intellectually.

I like provocative ideas. Tell me where to find them!

I am not talking about ideas I already disagree with – I can find these anywhere! [Although if you can show them to me in a coherent, clear and well-argued form, I may take another look.] There’s a good chance I’ll disagree with the provocative ideas once I’ve found them…but the benefit comes from knowing them.

Where are the new ideas, the revolutionary ideas? The ideas no one’s talking about? The ideas we all know about but take for granted? The elephants (it’s a big room) in the room? The personal theories on life, the universe and everything?

Is there a book? A person? A theory? A brog? A mentor?

Maybe you were provoked by some incisive, insighful, incisor – I mean comment from a person that cut through to the very core of your being. It’s possible, right?

I’m talking about the ideas that are so provocative, so foreign, so jarring that they drag me so far away from my mind’s home that I am blessed with some sweet, sweet perspective on my and my society's and my species' beliefs.

Sometimes I wonder what I’ll do with all these ideas, and then I remember – nothing.

~~~

I best not introduce the topic without a recently encountered idea which I found provocative. It is, That children should have the same rights as adults.

Read Robert Fisk

Here he writes about Iraq. And yes, I know it's 'heavy', but it's worth it because Fisk is a good writer.

Questions (mostly)

This is the best time of the NRL season, because there are the most questions, and the least answers.

· Will the Storm atone for last year? Will Inglis and Slater break out of their slumps? (yes, slumps). What will defeat do to the Storm? My prediction: mental disintegration.
· Does Manly have the venom and past heartbreak necessary to win a GF? Note that ‘03 Panthers and ’05 Tigers somewhat mitigate this requirement. If the Storm crack, Manly could be the ones to pick up the goods. Will Jamie Lyon do anything in the finals except kick a couple of goals?
· Will the Cowboys get knocked out in the first or second week?
· Can the Dogs rediscover their mojo? Can they find the skill to match the arrogance? Who will Sonny Bill flatten with his shoulder and which one will it be – his left or right?
· At what point will the Eels fall apart? Because if they don’t (which they will) they could win the whole thing. Will Nathan Hindmarsh and Dallas Johnson combine for 200 tackles in a match?
· Are the Warriors really the dark horse/s? Will Steve Price crack 1000m in hitups in a single match?

I’d better reserve my next set of burgeoning questions for when the top eight is actually settled.

I really should read some Bertrand Russell

"I wish to propose ... a doctrine which may, I fear, appear wildly paradoxical and subversive. The doctrine in question is this: that it is undesirable to believe in a proposition when there is no ground whatsoever for supposing it true."

Amen to that!

Givin' my props to cracked

I've already linked 'em once in the form of 'Nilla Hail, but I'll out and out mention 'em now: the folk over at Cracked put together some funny lists.

Ever since I acquired the Book of Lists as a curious child, I've had a fascination and respect for good lists. [Incidentally, this book had a companion piece, whose name eludes me. The Book of Questions? Or was it the Book of Lists #2? At any rate, I believe it was the predecessor of this]

I've spoken before about my enjoyment of The Sports Guy, and my desire to emulate / imitate / jubilate him (Turns out my emulation was a one-off after all, but I still think A Sports Guy will return). What he and Cracked have in common is their ability to write about things we all think, but most writers ignore. That Seinfeldian world of day to day daydreaming, odd hypotheticals, subjunctive replays and pointless but amusing things. They tend to write in quite an informal, spoken style and are happy to coin words.

Cracked misses as often as it hits, but this is a trademark of any good comedy, or indeed art or any other creative venture. Some may get the hit to miss ratio higher than others, but you can never completely remove the lame joke gristle from the comedy steak, to paraphrase Douglas Hofstadter.

Recent Cracked lists I've enjoyed:
The ten most awesome movies Hollywood ever killed
The five biggest mismatches in movie fight history (for some reason, that picture of John Lithgow kills me)
The MILFiest 80s sitcom mums (ok, this one's a little crass)

You needn't actually agree with their lists, but they're still pretty entertaining.

What the hey

OK, so I'm probably the last to see these, but here's 'Nilla Hail, which I watched first and then realised was a response to Chocolate Rain.

In case you're unawares, they're riding the crest of Web 2.0 - the electronic tidal wave (not a tsunami mind you) of user-generated content. By the way, I am also riding this crest.

Last night I saw the shins

They were bony and easily bruised. Last night I saw The Shins. They were good. Perhaps sadly, they met expectations.

I was wondering whether they would be any different to their recordings. Turns out they’re not. The singer sings well – he has a great voice. The band played well. They’re very much into swapping instruments. Aside from the drummer and singer (who also played mostly rhythm guitar), the other three band members swapped roles as keyboardist, bassist, lead guitarist and other rhythm guitarist during the show.

Their slower songs were nice, although they played New Slang a little too slow for my liking. Their faster songs went down well. They played most of my favourite songs. My fellow attendees noted the Enmore often has poor sound quality. What’s up with that?

For me the highlight was the encore, during which they played Pink Floyd’s Bicycle. Such a surprising choice. Wait, sorry – they played Pink Floyd’s Breathe (slow intro - be patient). If only they’d added the 7 minute interlude of buzzing noises, clocks, mad laughter and alarms, they really could have made an impression. It was good to hear the Shins singing “Run, rabbit run.” Come to think of it, that could easily be a Shins lyric. Actually, the more I think of it, if the pace and melody were changed, the words of Breathe fit astonishingly (you heard me, astonishingly) well with known Shinsian output.

All of this a reminder of the Studio vs Stage Divide. It’s generally disappointing when the live performance echoes the recording. The important exception is when the performer/s are so damn good that you’d pay good money just to see someones do that in person. But if they’re that good, they’re probably going to make some changes anyway.

The other exception seems to be classical music, although my untrained ears may be missing something (incidentally, why do we lavish respect to musicians who note for note play something someone else has written, but ignore translators who have taken one masterpiece and faithfully converted it into an entirely new medium?).

Otherwise, you want your live performances to add something. It may be high quality banter, 45 costume changes, chaos or improvisation. I dunno, maybe if the lead singer’s really hot, it’s just worth it to see them in person. Last night there were plenty of frenzied fans, but I can’t find their reason, unless they were physically attracted to the band members. I just don’t understand them.

I wonder what it would take for me to frenzy… Maybe the older and smarter I get, the more likely I’ll be to frenzy.