Note: Temporary Name Change

After being nominated as inductees to the Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame, Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five have temporarily changed their name to Grandmaster Flash & the Quite Pleased, Actually Five.

Baby You Can Drive My Car

This kind of thing happened to The Flintstones all the time.

Found it on my alltime favorite Swedish/Australian blog, Ett Liv I Exil.

A Dud Root (Vegetable)

Grown by a proud Mrs Hilary Nellist of Bedford, this parsnip is Britain's ugliest vegetable.

Via Boing Boing again.

A Loyal Reader Writes

People often write to me for a little bit o' my wisdom. I do my best. Here's something I received earlier today.

Dear Nightwatchman,

My ipod shuffle keeps choosing a Roots Manuva song every second song for around 200 songs when I only have 2 albums and 5 or so extra songs by him.

Kind Regards,

Miss Nonplussed, Carlton North

Thanks for writing, Miss Nonplussed. The shuffle is an interesting and important topic for our times. Not a weekend bbq goes by these days without a discussion on the strange behaviors of our shuffles.

Is the shuffle really random?

Does the shuffle know more than it lets on to know?

If you're thinking of a certain someone and their fave song pops up, does it mean you're both bound to make thousands of babies together?

Geez, I hope not.

As I ponder your query, Miss Nonplussed, a jazzy number from Lalo Schifrin's Dirty Harry soundtrack pops up, followed by the lovely My Morning Jacket ode, Evelyn Is Not Real. Does that mean something? What does it mean? Evelyn? Are you there? Evelyn, are you really real?

The Complete Stax Volt Singles dominates my shuffle. Fair enough, it's a huge box set and I'm not complaining. That's what you get when you put boxes on your ipod.

But there is one record that really gives me the da-dits. The Tiger Lillies & The Kronos Quartet's tribute to Ed Gorey, The Gorey End. The guy's kooky falsetto voice in the Tiger Lillies gives me piles. Sat through a whole song just then.

It hurt.

So my answer to your question, Miss Nonplussed, if it was indeed a question is....

That in these lean times, it's better to be getting lots of Roots than no Roots at all.

Nurse!

A Warning

A Warning, originally uploaded by glennpeters.

Insightful political comment found last year on the fence of my favorite place on earth, Victoria Park.

It Seemed A Good Idea At The Time: Five Bogan Business Ventures To Quit Your Day Job For And Start Watching The Money Roll In!

Give a bogan an ABN number and what do you get?

Another fast cash scheme and further in debt!

Jumping Castles R Us!
Buy a jumping castle like this one on Ebay for a few hundred dollars, put an ad in the local papers and watch the money roll in. In only six months you will know the sunny streets of Narre Warren like you grew up there. But watch you don't bounce in on someone else's turf. I've heard the jumping castle runners in Hoppers Crossing will kneecap you and afterwards, politely send you an invoice for their kind efforts.

Sports Memorabilia Franchise
A wise woman from New York once said that men will leave you and so will women but always put your trust in Broadway memorabilia to keep its value. A wise man from Wantirna South also said that framed, autographed photos of Peter Brock are going through the roof, even though Brocky signed, "bloody everything" put in front of him.

Selling Baby Clothes on Ebay
It starts innocently. You put a couple of Country Road blouses on Ebay to see how they go. The pink one sells and the green bombs. Then a sister-in-law says she's going to throw some 'only slightly soiled', size 000 jumpsuits out. You salvage and wack 'em on Ebay. BINGO. 17 bids! You could make some serious money doing this (if you have 17 more sister-in-laws).

Virtual World Real Estate Baron
Move back home, buy a few clunky computers, lock yourself in the shed and survey the lands of Second Life for prime real estate where you can sub-divide and sell off to light deprived, Mum's pizza fed dweebs like yourself. Make sure you put aside a big block of land for your own home...oops, I meant CASTLE, where you can chill out, party or do business.

Imports/Wholesale
Go to China. Buy a pallet of tiger print mobile phone skins, prawn peelers, orgasmatrons, fake Gucci sunglasses or Nintaus brand mp3 players and set up a stall at Carribean Gardens. No need to get up early Sunday mornings to tend to the stall. Backpackers will do anything for cash in hand work.

Cash in hand = most bogan phrase ever.

Me Page Three In B&T

More gloating.

Click image for a readable version.

On So Many Levels...

Yum!

Anvil Workers Face Prosecution Over War Crimes

You may remember my postings (here and here) about West Australian mining company, Anvil's connection to a massacre in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Great news. According to Reuters:

A Congolese military court has called for three former employees of Australian mining company Anvil Mining to be tried for complicity in war crimes committed by government soldiers in 2004.

A court document, seen by Reuters, calls for the men to stand trial for facilitating crimes, including summary executions, rape and looting, alleged to have been committed by nine Congolese soldiers when they put down a small rebellion in Katanga province.

Anvil runs a nearby silver and copper mine and the company's trucks and airplanes were used by the army during the operation.

I hope this speeds up the Federal Police's Anvil investigation.

Here's some links.

The Four Corners' report, The Kilwa Incident first revealed Anvil's role in the massacre.

The NGO which employed Slater & Gordon to go after Anvil in Australia, Rights & Accountablity in Development (RAID) have a really good summary of what's happened since the Four Corners report.

A brief summary can be found at US legal news blog, Jurist.

Anvil have a website.

Celebrities Celebrities Celebrities

Scarlett Johansson is recording an album of Tom Waits covers.

Christopher Walken likes to cook, read magazines and watch television.

Chuck Norris doesn't read books. He stares them down until he gets the information he wants.

And Chuck Norris' tears cure cancer. Too bad he has never cried.

This blogger bloke spent 24 hours locked up behind a shop window listening to Starship's We Built This City on repeat.

Specs Are Lit!

Oh my fricken 'ell, Kevin Tiell's pinball photos are the most beautiful things I've seen in hours. That's including a visit to the NGV!

Only days ago I was reminiscing with Alex from the wonderfully named, The Sensational Alex Jarvis Band on how too much of our time at university was spent playing Firepower, Bride of Pinbot and The Addams Family.

The time wasn't wasted. I've got pretty good at it. Two dollars can keep me occupied at a dud gig in a dud pub waiting for a dud mate to arrive for at least 20 minutes!

Well done again to Boing Boing for pointing Tiell's work out to us.

The Snappers Are Back In Town

The Snappers Are Back In Town, originally uploaded by glennpeters.

Big night on Mordialloc Pier last night.

These are what I took home. Caught about five more of them, a huge banjo shark which I threw back and had a half hour fight with a manta ray.

Also lost line to a five kilo snapper.

Two nights ago a bloke pulled in a 6 kilo snapper there. Crazy stuff.

Big big night!

I can't wait to go back.

To Cut A Long Story Short I Lost My Mind

Juan Rodriguez has spent the past 16 years writing over 50,000 questions for the new versions of Trivial Pursuit.

In an incredibly written, gonzo piece for The The Montreal Mirror, he tells us about his pain.

Once you finish a Trivial Pursuit edition, massive relief descends. You want to clear the deck--the desk, tables, floor of scribbled paper, print-outs, books, magazines, newspapers and photocopies. Purge the brain of factoids and start real life again, get with some real writing, read a real book. Exit TP mode. Fini! Never again! No mas! (What two Spanish words did Roberto Duran utter when he quit his second fight with Sugar Ray Leonard? There you go again, not so easy to junk this monkey off your back.) Having cleansed yourself of trivial detritus, something strange and perverse happens (like the hand rising from the grave in Carrie). You see something in a magazine or on TV and say, "That would make a good question." But you're finished, you mutter, you don't need another damned question. At least not now. But what about later? No, you say, let it go, there are oodles of questions where that one came from. Give it a rest. But, but... this might be the right one! You'll forget it, it might not pop up again six or eight months down the long and winding road. (Meanwhile, during this inner agonized Q&A, you fear the question is disappearing into vapour right there in your demented mind.)

There's no escape. Throwing out magazines is bad luck, you never know when you're gonna need 'em. And I can't stop buying them anyway. (I try, but I can't. I'm always "on" for trivia.) The piles grow silently, inexorably. And: Calista Flockhart sez: "I am not anorexic" (sorta like Nixon's "I am not a crook"). Is it tabloid fodder, or Trivial Pursuit grist? (Calista's skinny today, Jennifer Lopez's butt tomorrow.) There's Cameron Diaz: what organic substance gave Cameron's coif that "look" in There's Something About Mary? Heh-heh. Well, lookee here: George Michael fined $910 for performing one-man "lewd act" in public rest room in Will Rogers Park in Beverly Hills. Too good to be true. Think: who was arrested for wanting his own sex? Hmm... There's Leonard Di Caprio: whose club-crawling entourage was dubbed "The Pussy Posse"? Wish there was an X-Rated Edition.

Wow.

Australia Nobbled In Nobel Prize Shame

In a hopeless effort by our scientists, physicists and doctors, not one Aussie has won either of the three Nobel Prizes awarded so far this week.

It would be Un-Australian to tell you about the winners because they are all Americans.

I'll leave that boring work to The New York Times.

Books For Looks

Penguin - The Case Of The Caretaker's Cat, originally uploaded by joe_kral_tpc.

A fellow named Joe Kral has a flicker set of the coolest Penguin book covers he could find.

Unfortunately no covers of Graham Greene's 1960's novels, so I've decided to scan one and send it to him.

I've always loved those covers. Most were illustrated by Paul Hogarth but I'm sure there was one done by Sidney Nolan.

Graham Greene would get cranky if his publisher stuffed up his book covers. After a few stuff ups, Penguin mostly employed Greene's fave illustrator, Paul Hogarth to do the covers at £35 a drawing.

Here's a nice little piece on Hogarth and Greene's long partnership.

Eagles Aren't My Favorite Bird Of Prey: I Prefer The Kestral.

Here's a few highlights from brilliant WCE blogger, Corkintheocean's grand final wrap.

"As we walk through the city, we discuss the finer points of how to pronounce Tadhg. I think it's either "Ty" or "Tarrrrrgh", which sounds very piratical. The sister-in-law (who's Irish and once went out with a Tadhg back in Ireland) says it's "Tyg". My brother says it's pronounced "cunt". This pronunciation is accepted by a 2-1 majority vote.

I'm surprised to discover that Irene Cara is still alive. And how much I hate Australian Idol. The missus texts from Perth to ask if she really saw Brian Mannix just then. I'm afraid so, love.

The last ten minutes were a blur. I recall a great Armstrong goal, a brilliant Chick smother and HuntAAA goal, and an arsey O’Keefe effort to bring the margin back to a point, but that’s about it. The clock hits 30min, someone says there’s under a minute left. I’m chewing sizeable wads of paper out of the top of my $13 AFL Record. My brother tells me after the game that at this point, he was seriously fighting the urge to throw up."