Footy's Night Of Nights: The Winner's Interview

I hate Carlton.

I enjoy watching Judd play but I hate him because he plays for Carlton.

Quarterbrain doesn't ask questions. He just makes statements. He just talks and hopes. Lucky Judd knows what to do by now. Judd says footy is just make believe. He quotes Jim Stynes. Oh no, maybe I should be commentating this interview in verse. Judd is a smart bloke and a nice bloke. A very nice bloke.

But he plays for Carlton.

Dane Swan Needs Two BOGs To Tie. But He Still Gets To Dance At The Big Dance

R21 Here we go. Here we go. There's no way this is going to happen. I do like Dane's shirt. He looks over it. He wants to go home. Pendles steals the 3 votes. Judd wins the Brownlow.

Eddie LOOKS FURIOUS.

R22 and Swan gets 1 vote. Ablett comes second in the Brownlow with 26. Judd wins on 30.

Rigged.

I'm furious too.

Footy's Night Of Nights: The Two Horse War Continues

R19. Judd is ahead by 2 votes in the "two horse war" with Dane Swan. Pendles gets two. Wellingham Sandwich gets 3. Swan is going to lose this war. Judd gets 3 votes. He's on 26.

R20 is another game where Swan was easily the BOG but there's other selfish players who will steal votes off him. Swan needs 3. Judd needs to do his hammy. At least I didn't bet on Swan this year. Ablett now on 22. Swan on 23. Not enough. Here we go. Judd to win. 3 votes. 6 ahead. Swan needs two BOGs.

Judd and Twigley leave the room before the ad break. Use your imagination as to what they're doing.

The Brownlow is A TWO HORSE WAR

No, really.

According to Andy Maher in his betting ad shill.

Footy's Night Of Nights: We're Almost There

R17 and Jobe Watson has come out of nowhere to 16. Judd moves onto 23. Ablett onto 17. Swan onto 21! Here he comes!

R18 Alan will get some votes. he's on 10. Played a ridiculous game. Matthew Boyd from Footscray is on 18. As usual you hear of Footscray players the first time on Brownlow night. Alan 1 vote. D Beams 2 votes................... Pendles 3 votes!

Steve Quarterbrain points out that Demetrio has done a good job, "maintaining the suspension".

Good, and while you're at it, Andrew can you have a look at me spark plugs?

Jack's Votes For Hot Footballers

When it comes to awesome manliness, my mate Jack is an authority.

Jack's votes for hot footballers?

C. Judd 1 vote
J. Bartel 2 votes
A. Didak 3 votes

I'm surprised Harry O'Brien didn't get a vote.

Footy's Night Of Nights: The Filler Doesn't End

The ads are long. The interviews are long. The montages are long. The sponsored betting interview touts are long. And then Demetrio speeds through reading the votes. There's no wonder we, the people, have complete and utter contempt for commercial tv stations.

R15 and Band of Horses do the montage music. There was a time I would've given a toss. Ah, Ben Cousins has his tongue out. He looks smashed. Well, no he doesn't. That's what you would expect a 'blogger' to say. Swan got votes.

R16 was the week when we, Collingwood killed St Kilda. I will be looking at the tapes later this week. Demetrio said Johncock. Daisy gets his third vote. Alan moves to 8 and Swan to 18. Demetrio is stalling for dramatic effect. How droll. More ads. I'm sure Channel Ten are teetering on the edge of plaing too many ads. Nothing happens if they do though.

Meanwhile On The Collingwood Table

Moments before they had to sit through the Tim Lane/Jim Stynes interview.

Footy's Night Of Nights: A Jim Stynes Montage Expressed In Verse

Yes they do it,
People will cry,
Voiceover man talks deep,
On Football's Night Of Nights,
His light has never dimmed,
To know Jim Stynes,
Is to expect,
Nothing less.

I don't think Jim,
Has any fear,
And if he does,
He can overcome it.
The Melbourne Football Club,
Had no idea,
What they had on,
Their hands.

Gary Lyon speaks humbly,
We know it's humble,
Because he's not wearing,
A suit.
Black hair tufts on a fellow champion's chest.

Jules Lund,
TV Presenter,
Knows Jim Stynes,
Eye,
For Potential,
And appreciates,
In his case,
It was fostered.

Depth,
Compassion,
What a good man,
What a great bloke,
What a giant,
Of,
Our Game.

Footy's Night Of Nights: Judd Will Win

In a canter. By ten lengths, by eight furlongs and any other betting cliches you can think of. Because tonight isn't about the ladies. It's about the betting ads. And about Dane Swan looking bored. Swan's coming back according to Quarterbrain but he would say that because he wants the twitterers to stay away from #qanda.

R11 Ablett hasn't had a vote for awhile. Swan moves onto 11. He's still behind by six.

R12. Ah remember the Geelong St Kilda fights game. I liked all that. There's not enough score updates. Everything's so fast. Still. Swan moves to 13. Ablett moves to 14. Judd pulls away to 19. Nobody in the crowd acting drunk. this is the worst Brownlow ever. Bruce McAvaney, I miss you

R13 Lots of StKilda players in double figures. Swan only one vote. Alan Didak moves to 5 votes. Nobody likes Alan. It's just not fair. Ablett gets nowt. Judd moves to 22. Leading by 8. Rigged.

Another montage. Really.

Footy's Night Of Nights: We're Back For Some Speed Reading and Another Montage

After 3 montages, an interview with an old bloke who talked about another old bloke calling him a poof we're back to the votes.

R10. I wasn't listening to round 9. During this round's montage we see the footage of the Richmond player getting his kenardleys crunched on the goalpost. Very entertaining. Judd is a long way ahead. Daisy Thomas just gets his first two votes. If he comes third I win $2,500. I don't think it's going to happen.

R11 and Judd is on 17 votes. This is rigged. Pendles is beating Swan. Ridiculous. Just because he looks relaxed in close doesn't mean he's put in a better game than Swan. Gawd, it's Jason McCartney's montage. Not a dry eye in the house. "Enough of the montages already," they cry.

My Thoughts On The Nick Davis Montage And Nick Davis As A Player And A Man

Can't stand the bloke.

Footy's Night Of Nights: All The Ads Are For Betting

If I was a ten year old watching this I would be stealing my parents' credit cards to open an online betting account. How do you feel about that, Demetrio? You've just made the child in me a gambling addict. With all these witty and compelling ads on, me, Glenn Jr is destined to cost my dad his house and retirement. Happy now? And now you're doing a montage on a Pies losing grand final. I'm depressed now and I want a bet. Lucky I've lost all my cash buying a Grand Final ticket.

Footy's Night Of Nights: The Brownlow Montage 17-19

There's a lot of wise arsing going on Twitter. Most of the jokes are about Brynne, Fev and after looking at it for a couple minutes didn't come close to a LOL. Twitter is all about the LOLs.

Now for a montage of little kids saying cute things apparently. I hate that stuff.

R6 and I'll listen carefully to the political voice over man. Dane Swan equal third with Barlow and a few others. Already the lack of beer in the room is making tonight a little stale to watch.

R7 Alan Didak just got 3 votes. Swan and Ablett are equal second. No, Judd has just hit the lead. Chris Judd, the man the AFL love. And so do the umpires. He gets so much time to get rid of the ball. So does Ablett. The umpires favor these two blokes. Dane won't win.

R8 Pendles just stole some votes off Swan. A Swallow got two votes. I didn't know that birds could play footy. They have no thumbs. Judd clear ahead on 15 votes. Five best on grounds in a row. Rigged. He's clear by 6 votes. Judd in a dud team could win this. Now to the montage machine.

Footy's Night Of Nights: The Brownlow Round 1-5

R1 and Demetrio is reading really fast. He sounds like how your mother would sound if she rang you on the set of The Muppets. Real fast. It was all a blur. I think Harry O'Brien got a vote and Garry Gary Ablett got a vote or something. I don't know but slow the fark down Mr Demmy Demmy Demetrio.

R2 and he's not getting any slower. He's got faster. I think Pendlebury got two votes. It's ridiculous. He talks so fast and then we get a montage. Well, we haven't got one yet but I think we'll have at least 90.

The betting ads and updates are skating close to the ethical edge.

R3 I missed. It was all a blur.

R4 Dane Swan onto 5 votes and so is GG Ablett. They're both behind someone on 9 votes. I'd tell you who it was but I couldn't understand a word.

R5 and he won't slow down. Pendles onto 7 votes. Sandilands on 12 and leading by a long way. The next is Jonathon Brown. Quarterbrain just made a joke apparently. And now for montage #1. Soemhting about best moments of the decade or some.ajfskkkkkkkkkkkk ....

I fell asleep at the keybored.

Footy's Night Of Nights: The Brownlow Intro

Here we go. It's Dane Swan's night. Ball magnet with lots of tatts. Every year I put money on him to win or place and every year I lose my cash. They've singled him out for his own entry onto stage with Gary Garry Ablett. JINX. Who could forget when they talked up Luke Darcy crazy like a few weeks ago. He barely got a vote.

The world was embarrassed.

Almost as embarrassed as we're going to be for the rest of our lives for when Edelsten's broad walks in with her breasts akimbo.

Steve Quarterbrain is hosting. That's going to be entertaining for youse reading this because I don't like him much. Not much at all.

Did I watch the "Blue Carpet"? No, it was boring because Footy's Night Of Nights isn't about the bad dresses and tits. It's about the players. It's about Dane Swan. I hope.

How Do You Make A Hormone?

It's difficult and involves science.

A Modern Parable About Popularity And Stature

A bucket of sawdust, yesterday.

In primary school, the Top Dog of Class was Michael Prizmic. Everyone wanted to be his friend and, against what the pundits predicted, he chose me as his official Best Friend.

One day Michael Prizmic vomited during the teacher’s reading of The Hobbit. Because I was official Best Friend I had to go to the school handyman’s lair and get the bucket of sawdust.

Everyone envied me.

Later I will relate this to the current election campaign at my election blog, Drover's Dog 10.

The Chopper Squad Already Have Too Much On Their Plate

Yesterday at a corporate meeting I was at someone talked about a "helicopter view document" which "helicopters" the other documents.

Surely not. With blades and gravity and shit, helicopters have a hard enough job flying.

Ironically, the meeting was about the corporation's new clear language policy.

My Complete No Technology For A Week Diary

I was famous last weekend.

Me and these other two tech tragics fasted from our fancy phones, Twitter, Facebook etc for a whole week and keep a diary of our inconveniences for this story in The Age. In the printed version they reprinted excerpts of our diaries.

Here's my complete, unedited diary.

This challenge is harder because I got a new replacement ipod the day before the challenge started. I love toys but the ipod is something that is always in my pocket.

Lucy taking my new Ipod from me this morning wasn’t fun. In fact I was begging to keep it. It was like the scene in Trainspotting when Renton’s parents lock him in his room to go cold turkey. Seriously.

This morning I spent an hour reading about ipads. It’s interesting because I can’t have one and can’t even turn on my iphone.

Listening to a cool band from the 1990’s I had completely forgotten about. I want to remind my mates about them but I can’t. (It was the shoegaze band, Medicine btw)

Lunch in a café. Watching two people on their laptops. One is downloading emojis for his iphone. Now he’s trying to get it to work. I know what he’s going through. Installing that stuff was hard. I have an urge to send a mate a text message made up entirely of emojis but I cant. 

Riding my bike and hear the ding of my iphone go off in my bag. Somehow I feel good that I’m not allowed to look at it.

Lunch in café. I’m reading a JB catalogue. I need another new gadget for next week.

It’s not that I feel like I have to be “connected”. It’s just that I’ve over the years of blogging, facebook etc is that when I see something I now have an impulse to “share” it with everyone.

Today I bought a digital radio to listen to after my time away.

For me, everyday all day is like a primary school’s Show and Tell session.

I had to go shopping. I’ve realised that for the past 20 years, whenever I’ve been out alone at places like shopping centres I’ve always had my walkman on. This is the hardest part of the challenge. I don’t like the outside noise of rubbish FM radio, PA announcements and small talk chatter.

I feel like I need music or a podcast to ride above all this noise.

In Ikea it was amazing seeing how much people use their phones. Everyone is talking on their phones, taking photos and making notes. There’s even a guy having a video conference on his phone with his wife arguing about a tv cabinet. “You’re not showing me all the cabinets!” she screams down the line. “I am, I swear!” he pleads.

I would usually be one of them, taking photos of things to take home and talk about whether the blue bookshelf would look good in the lounge room. Today I’m just using a notepad and pen and really, that’s more than good enough.

I got a call from a friend on the home phone saying that my mates are missing me on the twitter and facebooks. They say they are thinking of starting up a facebook event celebrating my return.

At a comedy show. The comedian is talking about his iphone. Everyone talks about their iphone everywhere I go. Not having it makes you notice that everyone is obsessed with their little toys. At intermission, the crowd is lit up from people catching up with what has happened while their phones were off.

I’m with friends at a pub. My mates are showing camera phone photos to each other. I love showing off my stupid photos on my phone but I can’t.

It's nice not having to charge up a battery this morning before work.

There’s over 1000 tweets that I have missed. I won’t be catching up with them.

I’m getting used to this.

Broke. All I did was play a little game on my iphone. Does this make me a bad person? Also my girlfriend hid my ipod and Nintendo DS. I searched for them. Found them but resisted turning them on.

My no technology diary is full of self portraits that I have drawn when I would have usually been playing with apps or my Nintendo DS.

Going to a wedding with some friends tonight. This is the biggest challenge. Some friends are picking us up from a bar in the taxi on the way to the wedding. Seems easy enough.  We go to the bar at a certain time and they drive by. End of story. But no. They are confused about where the bar is. The taxi driver hasn’t got a clue but it should be simple. My mates call my girlfriend ASKING FOR US TO CHECKIN ON FOURSQUARE SO THEY CAN FIND US OR AT LEAST GIVE US A GPS REFERENCE.

On the subject of Foursquare. I hope when I come back from my time away I’m still “Mayor of the MCG”.

At the wedding with my mates they spend a lot of time looking down at their iphones. Apparently they’re tweeting everything that is happening at the wedding when they’re not tweeting.

The week is over. I’m relieved. I just want to listen to my ipod. It’s not that I missed not having my phone. It was the music I missed most. I had a month without a iphone earlier this year when I was on an overseas trip. That wasn’t too bad but being home with all the technology, social media rubbish etc around me the temptation really annoyed me. Also I miss telling people on my blogs/twitter/facebook etc about funny stuff I see on the street or hear on the news.

I really missed my chance to Show and Tell.

Chinatown KL Style

 










Just got back from a trip on what one of my good mates slyly calls "The Glitter Trail", Kuala Lumpur then train via some lovely Thai islands to Bangkok, to Vientiane Laos, Luang Prabang and finally up to Hanoi.
I'll write about street food I ate at my food blog, Om Nom Nom Nom Nom, but in the meantime, here's me being Jack Nicholson's Jake Gittes to my diary one night staying in Kuala Lumpur's own Chinatown.

The only fly I saw in KL was at the KFC leaving the place. Nobody swore either. I swear lots but they don’t. Even when touts want to show me their pirate dvds even when the teksi drivers lane change into the bloodstream like traffic, nobody swears.

We meet Sam a man from not far away who’s been in KL for 5 years. Cheeky yet wise eyed Sam fixes windows. Work’s slow in KL when everyone’s so behaved. He was welcomed to his turf, Chinatown by stand over kids wanting 5 ringit a week for protection. He pays. "We all pay. It’s how we work here. Move somewhere else and there’s a new bunch of kids demanding cash."

The market sales kids all work for the same sort of, probably the same, mobs. 50 ringit a day and bigtime pressure to sell. One tried a “You don’t know what dey do to me if I don’t sell. I like you man. You break my heart.” But I look at the fucker’s shark tooth necklace and slick gangsta threadlines. Yeah, I think. You’re a player. You’re here to play. And that doesn’t wash with me.

The stalls are rented for 3000 a week and they make cash selling to humidity hassled foreigners. Shit shirts, watches and leather from pallets loaded weekly from Far East China. All the same gear. Only a handful of owners run everything. All stalls linked by CB radio. Power Without Glory style cockee scouts spread quick word on cops (big cop fear here), and stock shortage.

It’s desperate because it’s a game.

For players.

A Warning To All Gingerbread Dwelling Owner Builders

A gingerbread house yesterday.

An important safety reminder for those who are building gingerbread houses this Christmas.

What starts as a delightful Christmas project for all the family could end in tears and havoc due to shoddy and amateurish gingerbread house construction.

While you’re not required to get a permit or have a Registered Building Surveyor inspect your gingerbread dwelling before occupancy, we recommend you consult with a Registered Sugar Rendering and Plastering Specialist (RSRPS) beforehand.

Understandably RSRPS’s are very busy at this time of the year so you might be able to secure the services of a know-it-all uncle or expert cake-maker grandmother.

These warnings come close after tragedy was averted in Glen Waverley last night when a mother and grandmother (who prefer to remain anonymous), were carefully placing the roof on their three storey candy Cape Cod inspired creation.

“Someone opened the backdoor and the dog dived for some dropped icing on the floor under our feet,” the daughter explained. “One thing led to another and before we knew it, the mezzanine level was running out the door!”

Last night’s accident is a timely reminder to all Victorian ginger building owner builders to take responsibility for the ongoing maintenance of their worksites to ensure that they are safe.

Research for the Building Commission’s recently launched “Check your ginger deck” campaign showed that three people in Victoria are inflicted with serious injuries of credibility and ego annually as the result of gingerbread home accidents.

This was a media release I wrote when nobody was looking when I was working for the Building Commission.