Tuesday, November 3, 2009

Computer Says No

Melbourne cup run. Spin Around still running. Told you it was a stupid race.

Abouuuuuuuuut Face!

So yesterday's post was perhaps a tad mean spirited. I mean what harm is there really in a horse race that gets office workers on the turps from midday without using up public holidays? I blame my own work situation for my ebaneezer attitude. Don't get me wrong - I love being my own boss - but the office sweep loses something when there are only two of us. So I'll be sitting behind my desk (for yet another year) while the rest of Australia bonds at the local.

For what it is worth I'm putting my money on Spin Around for a place. Long long odds and not trained by Bart. I don't think I have ever won on the cup but the good people at RMIT in Melbourne apparently plugged all the data into their super computers, ran the race 60,000 times and came up with this nine year old roughie. Who am I to argue with the computer?

You heard it here first. (unless you listened to 702 this morning in which case...you didn't hear it here first.)

Monday, November 2, 2009

Baby Wants a Pony

Ok ok...for the two of you reading this I know - I have committed the biggest sin of the start-up blogger: silence. But I have an excuse...really...I do. Last week we welcomed another girl into the family, little Harper Lucy Macdonald. All I'll say is she's a peach but as my wife is far more eloquent on such matters I will defer to her for all the details.

So back to reality and something that has been bugging me recently are the seemingly incesscent plaudits being heaped on the grand daddy of horse racing, Bart Cummings. I realise that it is the Spring Racing carnival and that the "race that stops a nation" the Melbourne Cup is on tomorrow but seriously the carry-on in the press about he of the bushy eyebrows is bordering on the absurd.

Sure, the guy has trained about a gazillion winners in his time, is pushing, what 120, 130 years old, and I realise that due to the fact we seem to be losing everything else in the world of sport at the moment we are looking for a sporting hero but really - is it Bart? Let's break it down.

For starters, please can we stop calling Horse Racing a "sport". It isn't. It is gambling. No different to pokies, blackjack or buying a scratchie. It's just that horse racing gives an excuse for 18 year-olds to put on their older brother/sister's ill fitting suit/dress and drink cheap bubbly, get stone motherless drunk, pash their best friend's partner and lose their shoes.

Next, does Bart really deserve the amount of praise he gets? It's not like he runs the race himself. There's a big difference between winning 100 group ones and training the winner of 100 group ones. Isn't there? Granted, the guy has an eye for horse flesh. He is no doubt the top of his profession. But what does he really do? Get up early and watch horses run in circles. No one cares who trains Usain Bolt do they? I might be being a tad unfair but if there wasn't so much money on the line would anyone even know who he is? In the list of great Australian sporting heroes, I'm sorry - he's no Warnie.

Perhaps the last word on the matter should go to the man himself. When asked recently by a journo what his secret to winning was, Bart casually replied "Good Horses".

'nough said.

(By the way, Usain Bolt's coach is Glen Mills but who really cares? Exactly.)

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

The Derek Zoolander Center For Kids Who Can't Read Good

So, I began this post yesterday before I got side tracked at work and never posted it... but in the meantime my wife put me on to site meter. For those who don't know, site meter tracks the people who log on to your blog. Well, that's what the claim is. It clearly doesn't work as it seems to be telling me that the only people looking at my blog are my wife and I. While I am sure this can't be the case, in an effort to test things out I figured I would talk about some hot internet topics in an attempt to drive traffic to my site.

What better place to start than merging the two biggest trending topics on twitter (technophobe, me? Ha!). So here goes - IT IS OFFICIAL: BALLOON BOY KILLED KANYE WEST RIP. You heard it here first.

So back to my original post...

Channel 9 here in Aus ran the other night what, on the surface, may seem to be a perfectly acceptable, one might even say interesting, programming choice. 9pm: The Seinfeld Reunion show.

One problem: it wasn't. Rather it was the episode from Curb Your Enthusiasm where Larry tries to do a Seinfeld Reunion special. Splitting hairs you say? Well, no. They are two very different shows. Sure, the show had all the Seinfeld players in it. Sure they talked about doing a Seinfeld reunion special. But that doesn't make it a Seinfeld Reunion Special!!! Don't get me wrong - I happen to love both shows but for very different reasons.

The frustration comes from the fact that CH 9 has never shown either show before. While the audience no doubt knows Seinfeld, as Curb has only ever been a cable show here in Australia it's audience is fairly limited. So why kill it for the masses by pretending it is something it ain't? By dropping in an episode on it's own without any understanding of who the hell the people in Curb actually are does no one any favours. So why do it?

It makes me wonder what programmers do all day. Their job is to watch television and pick the good stuff. How hard can it be? Sometimes I wonder if they actually watch any television at all. Same as sports journos on TV here. They have one job to do - watch sport - so why does it seem as though if you get outside the AFL, League or Cricket that everything else is a novelty sport played by strange people with strange, funny, unpronouncable names? It is baffling to me...

What is this? A Center for Ants? Indeed...

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

My Blog Exposed!

OK - so let me clarify something. I can stop swearing.

Sure I swear but it's not like I'm known for it. My friends don't call me sweary-swear-alot or anything (but why would they? That would be, like, the worst nickname anyone could come up with in the history of ever). And sure there are times I swear out loud too. Like when either part of Speidhi do ANYTHING in public (BLOG etiquette question: too early in the relationship to divulge an almost pathological addiction to The Hills... in fact to all bad television? Possibly...). I mean what the fuck is with that bum fluff beard? (see I can't help myself). Look I guess the point is that while I do swear I can stop...

So why the title of the blog?

Simple really. It is the title of my debut novel and a bit of shameless self-promotion.

It's a comedic tale charting a year in the life of a mid 30's advertising copywriter who is desperately trying to reinvent himself as a... well that's just it - he doesn't know what he wants to be. So he decides to have a crack at a whole lot of things. It's the story of when someone grows tired of their own arrested development. I guess it is the moment Peter Pan grows up. It's funny, moving, witty...and will never be written. In my own way I think I realised that at this point I have neither the capacity or inclination to sit down and write it and I'm certain that by the time I do I would have grown bored of it and moved on... But I loved the title.

So fuck it - why not use it?

Monday, October 19, 2009

Welcome, Doogie.

The first blog entry. The pressure.

Having read the odd blog and being the husband to a prolific blogger I reckon that I have a handle on what makes a compelling blog... well, compelling. While the topics of discussion are paramount to engaging the reader it really is the ability of the blogger to find their own internal voice that distinguishes the wheat from the chaff. You know, the tone, the choice of words, the rythym of the language, that helps you get a handle on them as a person beyond the words on the screen.

Unfortunately, as I sit here trying to find my internal voice all I hear is Doogie Howser's. Hmm... perhaps that explains my use of the phrase "Wheat from the Chaff"? What the fuck?

But in saying that maybe that isn't such a bad thing? Doogie was a trailblazer when it comes to blogging. He was doing it way before it was something to do. I mean sure, his computer journal entires were often overly simplistic sentimental observations but at least they were pithy. In fact, now that I come to think of it, D. Howser MD was so pithy he was probably Twittering... Now I'm not sure where that leaves me? Confused already - this can't be good.

Anyway, I guess what I'm trying to say is that, while I may never be a teenage doctor genius person, I hope to at least be pithy.

I hope we've all learnt something today.

(note: I did say "may never be a teenage doctor genius person...". The door remains ajar...)