Feel free to help yourself to that humble pie on the way out...

I had the press secretary for the local RSL call my mobile today.
He left a message on my voicemail that went something like this:

"Davie (for some reason the guy calls me Davie - ugh) this is B**** C**** from the K***** RSL. Can you please call me as soon as possible. I've been trying to get in touch with you. Thanks."
*At this point he obviously thought he had hung up - but he hadn't.*
"Fucking hell... this is fucking unbelievable... *background noises* Well at least that phone call only would have cost us a couple of cents..."

Nice one mate.
So he rang the work phone a moment later - not sure why he didn't just do this in the first place, he would have gotten through to me straight away.

Anyway he booked an appointment to see me this afternoon.
When he got here I gave him a piece of my mind, and thoroughly enjoyed it.
I told him he hadn't hung his phone up properly, and that what was on my voicemail message was highly unprofessional. I also told him I wasn't happy with the way he had been playing favourites with the other local paper - giving them stories and not informing us.
And boy, did he grovel. It was great. I have a feeling he'll be a bit nicer to me in the future :)

From the email banks

Once upon a time in the kingdom of Heaven, God went missing for six days.

Eventually, Michael the archangel found him on the seventh day resting.

He enquired of God, " where have you been? "

God pointed downwards through the clouds. "Look Michael, look what I've
made," said God.

Archangel Michael looked puzzled and said, " what is it ? "

"It's a planet," replied God, "and I've put life on it. I'm going to call
it Earth and it's going to be a great place of balance."

"balance?" inquired Michael, still confused.

God explained, pointing down to different parts of the earth,
"For example, Nth America will be a place of great opportunity
and wealth while Sth America is going to be poor; the
Middle East over there will be a hot spot and Russia will be a cold spot."

"Over there I've placed a continent of white people and here I've placed a
continent of black people." God continued pointing to different countries.
"This one will be extremely hot and arid and this one will be very cold and
covered in ice."
The archangel, impressed by Gods work, then pointed to another area land
and asked,"what's that ?"

"Ah", said God. "That's Western Australia, the most glorious place on
earth. There are beautiful people, impressive towns; it is the home of the
worlds finest artists, musicians, writers, thinkers, explorers and
sportsman. The people from Western Australia are going to be modest,
intelligent and humorous and they're going to be found travelling the
world.

They'll be extremely sociable, hard working and high achieving, and they
will be known throughout the world as speakers of truth."

Michael gasped in wonder and admiration but then proclaimed, "What about
balance God, you said there will be balance!"

God replied very wisely, " Wait till you see the wankers I'm putting on the
East Coast..."

Many many moons ago...

I had the pleasure of seeing the WA Art Gallery's Ancient Egyptian Artifacts exhibition on Friday.
The artifacts on display, from the Louvre, were absolutely amazing.
At one point I was standing in front of an intricately carved piece of limestone that dated back more than 4000 years.
It's quite humbling to think of the time passed between then and now. The civilisations that have risen and fallen. The people - from leaders to peasants - that have come and gone.
The picture above is an army of individually carved statues, each about 25cm in height. There were hundreds of them, lined in rows in the one display, and they were each carved with individual markings to signify the army of a former king or pharoah.
It's amazing the effort the ancient Egyptians put into carvings, writings and paintings.
And even more amazing to think that 4000 years on, they're still around.

Adventures in Rockingham Part III

Bumper sticker seen on car window outside my office:

Single Women Can't Fart - They Don't Have Assholes Until They Get Married


Sheer class.

Old-fashioned sexist wants submissive servant

Channel Nine's latest foray into reality television is so bad it's good.
I'm talking in a similar vein to Age of Love, the Mark Phillipoussis show which had him deciding between 'kittens' and 'cougars' for the love of his life - a love that apparently didn't last six months after the show finished.
So anyway this new show, and it's Australian, is called Farmer Wants a Wife.
Yep, you read right. Farmer Wants a Wife.
And the show is exactly what it sounds like - six farmers, good-looking yet simple country boys, want a wife. The problem is there are no suitable applicants left in the country, and for the hundreds - yes, hundreds - of girls applying there are apprently no suitable bachelors left in the city.
So these women go on national TV, and we're not talking secretaries and receptionists here (not that there's anything wrong with that) but smart, professional, good-looking young women who want to become a farmer's wife. Seriously.
My highlight of the show was when one of the farmers asked one of the girls: "So, you think you can look after me? Make my breakfast, cook me dinner?" Oh, and she replied with a "yes."

My second favourite was when one of the farmers was doing a piece to camera after meeting one of the girls and said - and I am not making this up - "She looks like she'd be alright in the kitchen."

There are so many things wrong with this show I don't know where to begin. It's fantastic. Watch it.

What competition?

Most of us who work for media outlets go up against competitors from other media outlets.
In Rockingham, we have the Sound Telegraph - a West Regional newspaper - as our "competition."
However their choice of front page stories week in, week out, amazes me.
I know I'm biased because I work for the opposition, but take this week's edition for example - we're in the middle of a Federal election AND we had local government elections this weekend.
You'd think there'd be plenty of highly newsworthy material for the front page.
But no - the paper has chosen to put on it's front page a pic story about three kids who are going around to schools teaching helmet safety when riding bikes.
Now don't get me wrong - it's a great community story - but is it really, in the current context, appropriate for the front page??

It's on!

Kevin Rudd debated John Howard on TV last night - it was long, but it was worth it.
The panel of journalists chosen to ask questions of the two were some of the best in the country - and it showed.
The PM was asked a direct question three times, and three times he gave a politician's response.
Kevin Rudd seemed on the ball and the 'controversial' 'worm' signalled the audience was buying what he said more than what Howard was saying.
This means nothing in the grand scheme of things, I know.
However I was watching it with a traditional iberal supporter, who shall remain nameless to protect their identity.
By the end of the debate this person turned to me and said "John Howard just changed my vote."
That's right, this person, who has never voted Labor in their life, has now decided to vote Labor based on that debate.
And that can't be a bad thing.

Bogan Learning Curve

I've blogged before about bands, singers etc making political statements.
It's something we see more and more of today, which I think reflects on the state of the world to some extent.
In my blog, I wrote of my cynicism towards bands and celebrities who appeared to be jumping on a proverbial bandwagon in regards to bagging Bush and American foreign policy.
However now I think that viewpoint is a little too cynical, if not arrogant.
Who am I to say who can and can't make political statements?
At the end of the day, I should be grateful that there are commercial acts out there who share my viewpoint.
After all, we're all pushing for the same thing, aren't we?

I make my comments after seeing Linkin Park in concert last night.
(I know, I should be ashamed, but it was seriously awesome.)
Anyway a few songs off their latest album were blatantly critical of the Bush administration, with regards to the Iraq war and Hurricane Katrina.
Images of the war, the devastation after the hurricane and famous images from Hitler to Saddam Hussein to Martin Luther King were splashed across the screen on stage.
And yes, at first I was skeptical.
However I looked around me and thought that if the bogans around me took in some of the message, that couldn't be a bad thing.

Adventures in Rockingham II

Had a little chat with the infamous courier in our office today - I've blogged on him before.
This guy's the one that said Africa will be the economic powerhouse of the world in ten years time.
Anyway, knowing full well whatever he said would be outrageous, I instigated a political comment with him today.
According to him, the main problem with national security is that Australia needs more overseas investment (!).
He said if more companies from overseas invested in Australia, then terrorists wouldn't attack us becuase the businesses around the world who have investment interests here would dissuade them from doing so. Riiiight....
Oh, and he said we needed to watch China. Apparently, as China becomes more involved in Australia, they will send more Chinese workers here, who will be paid a mix of Australian and Chinese wages and will send the economy tumbling into chaos.

I asked him to support his arguments with evidence or, at least some economic knowledge.
But no, he couldn't of course. That's because he gets all his info from commercial AM radio stations.
The worst part is this guy has as much of a right to vote as you and I...

Food for thought

Amid the media frenzy about Cousins and, more specifically, drugs, Paul Smith writes a column on News.com.au today that should give a little perspective to the debate.
Read it here.

In other news, Today Tonight left me reeling last night with a terrible - and I do mean terrible - segue into a story about the Ben Cousins saga.
It started out with a bit of a flashback to some of the sports stars of old - Betty Cuthbert, Dawn Fraser etc - and the dialogue went something like this:

"The sports stars of yesterday were true athletes. They did not need drugs to perform - that was crystal clear. These days, it's crystal meth..."

I was speechless.

Lucky me

I get to meet our Federal Health minister today.

Aren't I lucky?

If anyone has any messages they want me to pass on to the over-zealous, blinded by his own Christianity, anti-abortion and contraception dicksnap, feel free to leave them below.

What the hell is wrong with you?

Cousins, Cousins, Cousins.
I know I should wait until you're actually charged, you know, that whole innocent until proven guilty thing...
But in this case I think you're just an idiot.
You've let everyone down. Again.
Wipe that fucking smirk off your face and grow up.
Yes you're a brilliant footballer.
But there was only so much you could do before the club's and the fans' patience snapped.
Take your smirk, take your tattoos, take your brilliant football skills and get the hell out of WA.
Coz we don't want you here anymore.

And now for something completely different...

I thought I'd talk a bit of trash after my serious (and, admittedly, heavily biased) post about the upcoming election.

First of all, I just wanted to write a quick message to Lindsay Lohan. Lindsay, I hear you're broke.
I feel for you, really I do, but that's what happens when you blow it all on, erm, fun.
Anyway my point is that if you need a place to stay, call me.
I'll be happy to put you up for free. Sure, it may not be what you're used to, but there'll be a place for you to sleep and eat and heck, a bit of normalcy might actually do you a world of good.

As for you, Hugh Grant, you are a silly silly man. Didn't you learn from picking up a hocker and getting your mugshot sprayed across the world?
Obviously not, because as it turns out the 47-year-old went back to some college dorm with a college student and was photographed schmoozing with the group of girls young enough to be his children. Ew. The man obviously cannot separate normal sexual urges from common sense decisions. Oh, and the photos got posted on Facebook. Of course.

The time has come

John Howard has called an election.
I'm excited. I'm nervous. I'm really nervous.
For me, this is the most anticipated election I have been old enough to vote in.
I'm hoping, with very cautious optimism, that the Australian people will have the courage to change Government.
I'm hoping that something doesn't go terribly wrong in the final weeks of the campaign.
It is your time to decide.
Apologies for being melodramatic, but I do honestly believe the fate of the country rests in this election outcome.
You, dear readers, need to make a tough decision.
Sure, we are experiencing "unprecedented economic growth", but changing from Liberal to Labor will not hurt that - WA's got enough resources and strong links to China to keep it going for another 20 years - regardless of what hapens at a national level.
At the end of the day, you need to decide whether you're voting for your own, personal, economic wellbeing, or the wellbeing of the country as a whole.
It's a tough choice - but if you vote for Labor you are voting for your country and your country's future.
It's your call.

I'm seriously excited

About something I'm quite sure no one else cares about at all.
You see, next Thursday, I am divulging in one of my guilty musical pleasures.
I have secured a ticket to go and see the kings of mediocre nu-metal, Linkin Park.
I'm going on my own, and I don't care.
In fact I will be jumping around like an idiot, singing and screaming at the top of my voice.
I can't wait :)

Catholics are fucked.

I should start this post with a disclaimer that I was born and raised Catholic.
Obviously I subscribe to very few tenets of the Catholic religion these days - but two newpaper articles today really irked me.
The first, the front page story on today's West, has Catholic Archibishop George Pels saying that Catholic people who use contraception or birth control are subscribing to a "Donald Duck heresy." Whatever that is.
Good work George - let's hope the Catholics living in Africa don't take too much notice - the AIDS problems on that continent don't really need any encouragement.
And another article told of a Catholic priest in a South American country who was jailed for life forbeing an accessory to murder, torture and general human rights abuses.
Basically the guy took confession from people who were trying to overthrow a dictatorial government and then passed on the information to the police, knowing full well they would torture and eventually murder them.

Seriously, some people talk about Islam being archaic but Catholicism is just as bad.
The world today is slightly different from the world we lived in 2000 years ago, people.
Time to update some of your beliefs.

Wow, didn't see THAT one coming...

Turns out Mark Philippoussis' lady love, the fitness trainer Amanda who he met on his horrifying yet fantastically enthralling reality TV show Age of Love, is not so close to The Poo anymore.


MARK Philippoussis is to make his tennis comeback alone next week without his personal cheerleader.
The Scud's reality TV romance with Tennessee cheerleader Amanda Salinas appears to have hit the rocks and the brunette is unlikely to be courtside when he competes at the Stanford Championships in Texas.
Philippoussis's agent Carlos Fleming has refused to comment for the past two weeks about whether the couple - who met on reality dating show Age of Love this year - were still together.

Read the full story here.

An open letter to the councillor who wastes my time, week in, week out.

Dear Madame,
You're a councillor. I'm a journalist. Granted, we're not always going to see eye to eye.
However I feel there are a few things I need to raise with you.
Firstly, it is not cool to call me on my mobile at 9pm. Ever. Unless someone dies a particularly horrific death for which you are responsible.
Secondly, do your research. If you actually read your agenda PROPERLY, you wouldn't ask most of the stupid, pointless, time-wasting questions that you do.
Oh, and asking those questions does not make you a) particularly diligent or b) look good to anyone who is watching.
You'll probably try and tell me that you're just trying to make the council look "open and accountable."
Well, you're not.
The only thing you're opening is yourself up to valid criticism.
And finally, you made last night's meeting 40 minutes longer than it had to be.
Expect an invoice coming your way sometime soon.
I think it only fair that you pay my wages for that 40 minutes plus compensation for that section of my life that I will never get back.

I look forward to receiving payment as promptly as you like to shoot your mouth off without thinking.
Sincerely,
Dave

Slightly below That Monkey Who Typed Shakespeare

IT guy: There's a spectrum between those who are completely illiterate and those who are completely literate, and the people who write the news are somewhere in-between.

Poached from www.overheardintheoffice.com

Thank You Pam Casellas

Pam Casellas got it right in today's West when reporting on Chris Mainwaring's funeral yesterday.
It is a devastating story.
Put aside the media hype, put aside the questions of drug abuse and the boys club etc, and what you have is a young father and well-loved human being who is no longer with us.
Seeing the big men of the AFL, Ben Cousins, John Worsfold and Andrew Embley shedding tears for Chris pretty much sums it up.
It's a horrible situation and we should remember the man, rather than getting bogged down in trash talk about what he was doing and why he was doing it.

Summer is agonisingly close...

I just found out that it's going to be 31 degrees on Saturday! 31!
What a beautiful, warm day to get over the killer hangover I will no doubt be sporting after Mark, Bea and Kate's triple party.
Nice.

She's been trying to keep it quiet

...so for those of you who don't know, it's Kate's birthday today. She has hit the quarter century mark.
Feel free to bombard her with birthday messages :)

Perth has a one-track mind

Perth is freeway-centric.

We had a train line shut-down in Perth today. In order to connect a fifth train line to our existing four (that's right, we have all of four train lines - puts living in Perth into perspective doesn't it) they had to shut down part of one line and all of the Perth to Fremantle line.

I live in Fremantle and had to work in town today.

So rather than catch the train in I drove.

I thought I'd leave early to avoid traffic jams, and drove up the coast road rather than taking the Freeway - and I had a completely stress-free run.
Meanwhile, there is reported chaos on the freeway.
The thing is, most of the people who would catch the Fremantle train to work normally would, I'd assume, live somewhere nearby the rail line.
So if the rail line's down, why go out of your way to drive up the freeway, which is already congested every morning?
I think people here in Perth seem to think that the freeway is the best way to go to get anywhere, mainly because the speed limit's 100km/h.
I guess the moral of the story is that the faster you go doesn't necessarily equate to arriving at your destination first.

Adventures in Rockingham Part I

There's a young guy who comes into our office once a week and takes our paper recycling bin away.
The bin happens to be near my desk.
Normally he comes in and says hello.
Today he came in and gave me his life story.
It went something like this (I have deleted out lines he repeated):

Him: How ya going mate?

Me: Yeah good yourself?

Him: Yeah good. Almost the weekend. Almost Saturday. Saturday means clubs. *Pause* Yeah, like, a while ago, before I put a bit of weight on, I used to do martial arts professionally. Might not look like it now, but the knuckles don't lie. *shows me his knuckles* Yeah so I'd go out to clubs, and like, not start fights but sometimes stick up for people if they couldn't themselves.
So this one time there was this guy... *insert three minute spiel about fight he got into at Rockingham nightclub* ... Oh, and then there was this other time man, when I almost got arrested hey *another three minutes* ...yeah but you should've seen that guy he was big hey but the guy he was bashing was tiny man he was nothing, you know, I had to help...

Me: ...

Him: Yeah so anyway have a good one man seeya.




Wow.

I'm in a nasty mood today

So Collingwood star Nathan Buckley has retired, huh?
Well boo-hoo.
For me, the big man will always be remembered for crying like a baby along with Mick Malthouse on the field after their 2002 Grand Final loss.
Collingwood are an almost team.
In recent years they have almost made the top eight, almost made the grand final, almost won the grand final, and so on and so forth.
Plus Eddie McGuire runs the club.
So I'm reserving my sympathy and and respect for someone a little more deserving.

What Hero?

I fucking fell asleep last night.
Right in the middle of the much-awaited return of my favourite every tv show.
Not happy.
I'm slightly concerned 7 have chosen to put it on at 9.30 - I hope this doesn't mean it's going to be pushed back further and further until it hits the 11.30 timeslot... but we'll see.

My childhood memories are ruined.

Taken from Ninemsn:
CUSTOMS OFFICERS FOIL DRUG SMUGGLERS

I had to do it.

Last night I watched a short section of Rove's new celebration of mediocrity, Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?
And it was as bad as you'd expect.
The part that I watched involved a guy who had won $50,000 so far.
He had a chance to push that up to $75,000 by answering a first grade grammar question.
The question was: "Which of these words has a 'long' a?
a) Mate
b) Hat
c) Boat

And yes, you guessed it, he couldn't answer the question.
I was shocked. I was outraged. I was lost for words.
Until Bertie reminded me that these people go through selection criteria, and they are obviously chosen on the fact that they don't know the answers to all these questions.
I promptly turned it off, but the lingering disgust has left a bad taste in my mouth.

Training to be a better person

I'm in a two day training course.
Yesterday I learnt how to write the first sentence of a news story.
Today I'm learning about punctuation, grammar and the correct use of certain words.
Despite all this, I think I am actually taking something away from these sessions.
Oh, and by the way, don't miss Heroes tonight - 9.30pm on Channel 7 - season 2 is going to be huuuge...

Everybody hurts... sometimes

I'm hurting today.
I don't know why, but when it comes to a long weekend, I have the tendency to cram three times as much stuff into them despite the fact that they're only one day longer.
I had a drink with a couple of friends on Friday night, followed by AFL Grand Final day, which despite the disappointment of the actual match was a loooong and fun day.
Sunday was spent in a relatively relaxed mode even though I did have a family dinner on Sunday night, however the real reason I'm hurting was because I chose to go to Parklife last night.
I mean, seriously, why bother planning a festival for a long weekend and then putting it on the Monday? Kinda defeats the purpose, doesn't it?
Anyway yesterday was a great way to end the long weekend.
As you do, I bumped into quite a few old friends who I hadn't seen in ages and saw some damn good sets from a range of different acts.
And to round it all off nicely, I arrive at work today to discover that Rage Against The Machine and Bjork are headlining next year's Big Day Out.
And that, dear readers, is enough to dull the pain of being back at work today.