jamisonprawn.net

Look at that, I’m writing something again.

I think I’m becoming a political nerd. Is that a sign of old age? I’d like to think it’s just a sign of being wise and educated.

I followed the leadership #spill very closely on Wednesday/Thursday last week. (Look at that, I’ve become so entrenched in twitter that everytime I write ’spill’, I have to preface it with a hash.) I’ll admit that I followed it most closely on Twitter, and that’s where I saw it begin to break. But I stayed up on Wednesday night to watch the late news as TV stations began to air the rumours as quickly as they surfaced on Twitter. And I went to bed on Wednesday night with the feeling that Thursday would be a pretty big day in Australia’s history.

(It’s interesting – I love twitter a lot, but I felt a little frustrated when most of TV’s breaking news bits were just things that had surfaced on Twitter. I kinda felt like, ‘yeah, I know all that, I can get all that news… I was hoping you’d have something more for me…’ But I guess that’s the habit that twitter is breeding – instant information and news.)

Our office has a 40-something cm TV hanging from the ceiling. And on Thursday, it came in handy. I got into the office around 8am, turned the TV onto channel 9 (originally ABC, but the majority wanted channel nine), and on it stayed until everyone got bored with Question Time at 2pm, and it went off. Not a whole lot of work got done on Thursday morning. And it was especially cool to see almost everyone in our office stop (and not a single phone rang either) and watch while KRudd gave his goodbye speech.

I’ll reserve my opinion about the leadership change and Julia. Not because I don’t want to share it… it’s just that I don’t think I can write it down in a succinct way here. But most people that know me know that I am a Labour man, and I did love KRudd.

And my second moment of political nerdiness comes from being very excited about this movie hitting channel 10 next month…

The media activity and hype surrouding the parole release of Phillip Lim (one of Victor Chang’s convicted murderers) has been really frustrating me.

Please don’t get me wrong – Victor Chang was a brilliant man; incredibly intelligent, and has done a great wonder of things to do with the heart, and it sucks that he was killed.

However, it very much seems like Phillip Lim’s parole is being opposed by so many people (according to media, anyway) because of the “gravity” of the crime – the gravity being that his victim was Victor Chang. And even though he’s served his 18 years, behaved in prison, he shouldn’t be elligible for release?

Let’s look at this the opposite way – are we saying that if a human murders another human who is known to only 5 or 10 people in this world, and hasn’t done anything widely known with their life, that they are worth any less than a surgeon who’s saved thousands of lives through incredible procedures? Or are they worth any less than a scientist who created a vaccine saving millions of lives?

Essentially, all the thoughts that I have about this situation have been put to publication in an opinion piece over at smh. And I whole-heartedly agree with every word written in the article.

If you are someone who’s been upset or annoyed by the pending parole release of Phillip Lim, please take the time to read this article, understand all the facts of the case, and then rethink why you’re upset or annoyed - is it because Victor Chang was well known?

Should a criminal pay more for his crime because of the notoriety of the person they murdered or harmed?

Parole for Lim, all bar the shouting – [smh link]

It is often quite hilarious to see how tabloid media handle stories in order to gain the audience.

The NSW Police put out a media release yesterday that brought The Daily Telegraph to the ground with a story they published saying that the NSW Police is censoring crime information and pictures in order to make the public feel safer.

I loved this response from the NSW Police:

Unfortunately, not one word of a very detailed response provided to the Daily Telegraph last week on this issue was used in this morning’s article. Censorship in reverse, it could be argued.

Take that!

Each and every day, The Daily Telegraph, or at least one of the news.com.au subsets, gives new meaning, and further proof, the the phrase “never let the truth get in the way of a good story.”

Ok, maybe this is me being offended by a newspaper when it’s convenient for me, and perhaps I should be a bit more uniform in my frustrations at newspapers… but…

I am really annoyed by this headline:

“Aussie blokes make the worst husbands: study”

The annoying bit is that the headline pretty much has nothing to do with the story. The article talks about a study across many countries and continents. And actually, it focuses a lot on cultural differences.

But for some loser editor down at the smh, something like, “Cross cultural husband differences” just wasn’t punchy enough. So let’s make it seem like a study has shown that Australian men are the worst at being husbands. Yeah, good idea.

Freaking Today Tonight is taking over the world.

Why do 2DayFM feel the need to speed up songs that they play?

I know there may be multiple answers to that, and without working within the station, we may only be able to guess: to make the songs more “listenable”, to make them fit a certain timeframe… others?

What makes me very annoyed is essentially their arrogance – what right do they think they have to alter an artist’s song just to meet their own criteria?

“Oh, this song is about 24 seconds too long… we’ll need to increase the BPM by about 2 or so to make it fit then.”

No! A musician or band has slaved over that song for days, hours, weeks, months! And 2DayFM reckon they know better?! Ultimately, I guess, in the name of more listeners, and thus, more money. People may argue that it’s such a minor speed increase that you don’t notice it (and I’ve heard it said that the speed increases are so minor, and so to most, just subliminal, but make you want to listen more, or something like that).

But it’s still a speed increase. Anyone who has listened to the song a few times as it was intended to be played should be able to notice it. I certainly did this evening when I heard it yet again. (I’ve heard it the very few times I’ve listened to 2DayFM, which worries me that it happens with nearly every second song.)

I guess for 2DayFM being a radio station isn’t about playing music anymore; it’s solely about making money and doing whatever is required to make that happen… no matter what.

You, 2DayFM, are arrogant, heartless, money-hungry scabs.

I’ve pretty much had enough of Optus’ iPhone coverage. Each has their own opinion I guess, but in my mind, the coverage is crap, and it definitely isn’t getting any better.

The only reason I went with Optus when the iPhone came out was because Telstra’s data plans were still ridiculously expensive in my opinion ($29/80MB at the time), and I couldn’t justify spending that much on my personal mobile. And I just thought, ‘well, their coverage can’t be that bad, can it?’ The answer was yes, it can be that bad. The CBD is especially hopeless.

And now that Telstra has better data pricing ($29/300MB or $10 for 150MB), I would be keen to go there with my iPhone, and take advantage of distinctly better coverage.

So I’ve started the process of getting out of my contract. Don’t know how successful I’ll be, but I’m giving it a go based on my amount of complaints about coverage and usability that I’ve got noted on my account in their systems. I spoke to some people at Optus, and the lady was actually really nice and upfront. Basically there was nothing she could do about waiving my contract termination fee, and she just suggested I write to their Customer Relations Group who would look into it. But warned me that it can take up to a month for them to reply.

I was fine with that, wrote them a letter, and have waited. It was mid-April when I wrote.

So now I’ve started to wonder where my reply is. I called Optus today to check, and the lady put me on hold, and then came back and said that her manager said it was actually a minimum of 14 weeks before I should expect a reply.

14 weeks?! They expect people to think it’s reasonable for them to take nearly 4 months to respond to a simple complaint letter? That is utterly ridiculous!

Even more annoying, if you want to escalate something to the Telecommunications Ombudsman, they won’t really be willing to look into your case until you’ve got documented attempts to resolve the complaint within your telecommunications provider… which you have to wait 14 weeks for.

Pathetic.

Let’s be clear: this is all personal opinion and frustration about my mobile provider. And my goodness, they suck on so many levels.

You may have heard about the ABC’s decision to not let a part of The Gruen Transfer go to air last night. Turns out that the ABC let the segment be screened online with a bunch of warnings. Good decision I think. Yes, the ad is very offensive, and should not have been screened on TV, but screening it online has meant that the debate it intended to create can still be had. And it is being had; both online, and in person. It’s created a whole lot of chat around our office this afternoon.

I think there’s two debates to be had here (or I’ve found there’s two debates from conversation with my colleagues this afternoon): Firstly, should the ad have been screened, or was having it as a special webisode a better idea? And secondly, is discrimination against overweight people on the same level as racism etc. I didn’t think the latter was a debate – I agreed with it whole-heartedly – but as it turns out, some people don’t agree.

As I said, personally, I do very much agree with the ad’s point – it is offensive, but with good reason and good motive. But I guess the question has to be asked – is such offense necessary? I also agree that perhaps the shock value is a little too high and that the point it was trying to create may be missed. In the end, the ad as it was made would never be screened on TV anyway. But as a hypothetical ad, it’s done well.

If you want to watch, head to antiprejudicad.net and check it out. Don’t just watch the ad in the first 30 seconds; take the time to listen to the 14 minutes of discussion afterwards – well worth it.

I might add, that I’m confused about how different media outlets work - SMH have published all the quotes from the ad with no censorship, warnings or anything. Whereas the site provides great warning about possible offense before watching the ad. And ABC wouldn’t screen it at all. Can anyone offer some explination?

And lastly, the discussion that followed the ad on The Gruen Transfer did highlight a previous anti-racism ad from the UK that was just plain awesome.

edit: Jenny pointed me to this ad by the UN. Similarly themed as the above.

I remember growing up that my Dad used to get so cranky when a sci-fi program that he loved (Star Trek or Babylon 5, or something like that), which was shown late at night, used to get regularly bumped, or changed to a different time slot with no warning from the networks. I haven’t ever really experienced this frustration. Until now.

Thursday night is Scrubs night. Channel 7 have been showing season 8 (only a couple of months behind the US!) on Thursday evenings for the past few weeks. I usually record it so I don’t have to stay up til 11:30. So last Friday morning, I sit down with my bowl of cereal to watch the previous night’s episode… and a few short seconds into the episode, I realise it’s a repeat! No worries… maybe the second episode is the new one. Nope. Both repeats. So I jump onto Channel 7’s website to check out the tv guide for next week and see what’s doing – this Thursday’s two episodes are both repeats as well!!

What the hell? So we’re about 5 or 6 episodes (out of 22 or 23) into season 8, and they just stop playing it, with no warning, and we have absolutely no idea on when the rest will be played.

That’s grrrr #1.

#2 resides with the ever-changing 24. I won’t even go into how frustrating it was when the season started back in Feburary – the time slot changed (according to Ch 7’s website and according to the EPG) multiple times each week for the first couple of weeks! But what was frustrating was last night.

24 has been on at 10:30pm Sunday night consistently for weeks now. But last night, Ch 7 clearly decided that was getting boring, and they put some random British murder mystery doco thing on for half an hour before 24! No reason at all; no special broadcast; it wasn’t some premiere thing… it was just crap on for half an hour that pushed back 24 half an hour.

Thankfully, I had learnt from earlier in the year, and I actually record about a 3 hour block on Sunday night to make sure I capture all the shows I want, and to compensate for Channel 7’s idiocy.

I’m well and truly over channel 7. They seemingly do not care about their viewers at all.

My challenge now comes with how do I make my frustration effective – I can’t really stop watching, cos that would defeat the purpose. And I’m pretty confident that writing a letter would be just as effective as throwing said letter in the recycling bin.

I remember reading on a forum earlier in the year (when chasing the earlier 24 frustrations) that a good idea was to get in touch with the advertisers during that time slot and let them know of your frustrations and that what Channel 7 is doing is likely costing them viewers and loyalty, and thus, advertising for them.

Might be worth a try.

edit: maybe my blog post worked. Scrubs is back… now on Monday nights at 8pm. Although the advertised episode at the moment is one that played 2 weeks ago, but it’s still progress.

Have been meaning to blog this all week… Did anyone catch Domestic Blitz last Sunday evening?

A lady from Thornleigh, Jan Retford, was being Domestic Blitz-ed, so we all watched it after church on Sunday evening. Jan is an amazing woman who’s been through a whole lot of stuff in her life; divorce, horrible car accident, two forms of cancer… And yet she has stayed solid and steadfast in her faith in God, and remained her true self, caring more about others than herself. So you can imagine that this just exudes warm fuzzy feelings and makes you smile, especially when a TV producer packages it up for the small screen.

But as we were watching it, I was left a bit confused by the use of background music to go with the show as they were building and making-over the house. Two songs that stood out were Fall Out Boy’s I Don’t Care and The All-American Rejects’ Gives You Hell. Let me quote some of the lyrics to better explain why I’m confused. These are from the chorus of each song, and it’s the chorus of each that went to air…

Fall Out Boy – I Don’t Care:

I don’t care what you think as long as it’s about me, 
The rest of us can find happiness in misery. 

The All-American Rejects – Gives You Hell:

When you see my face,
Hope it gives you hell.
When you walk my way,
Hope it gives you hell, hope it gives you hell. 

Seriously, is the producer on the show not paying attention to the music that goes to air… or do they just pluck any current top 50 song and not even consider the lyrics and the meaning of the songs? And if they’re keen to use current top 50 hits, I’m pretty confident that I could find way better songs in the current top 50 to be used in Domestic Blitz than the above two.

Telstra is likely to deploy its own fibre network into metropolitan areas, although Senator Conroy would not rule out legislation against such a move…
[australianit]

So just to make sure I understand this clearly… no one wants Telstra to be a “monopoly”, least of all, Stephen Conroy (who I’m loving just about as much as Helen Coonan, by the way). But when Telstra suggest plans to build their own FTTN network in competition with the one the government wants to roll out, in order to stimulate price and access and give greater broadband access to most of Australia, Stephen Conroy wants to put legistlation in to stop that? So that he can have the monopoly?

Surely there’s something I’m missing there about the sheer hypocrisy of that. Surely.

How awesome would it be if we had two FTTN networks in Australia! Why would you want to stop that?!

I don’t mind reading articles in various media outlets about Telstra… some of them bag Telstra out a bit, but generally they’re not too personal about. And more and more often, they’re becoming very educated in their writings, and not just ignorantly writing untruths about Telstra. Most journos are finally starting to understand that yeah, Telstra is expensive, but if you want the best quality, then you need to pay more for it. Simple.

But with online news publishers having the ability for any random PEBKAC (look it up) user with a keyboard and to comment on the story… far out, there’s some ignorance and arrogance in there. So many people just throwing opinions around and just having absolutely no idea what they’re talking about! Some of the comments are just full-on stabs at another user who’s put forward a positive comment about Telstra, calling them all sorts of names. And AustralianIT publishes the comments because they’re in the spirit of the story or debate (I can’t find the exact quote that they give you when you submit a comment). I struggle to sit there and read some of them because I just feel myself getting so very angry!

Anyway, AustralianIT published a story yesterday about Telstra’s bid… or rather, it was about Optus having a whinge at someone else’s bid. If I was Optus, I’d just be worried about my own bid, and wondering if I’m gonna have any of my mates left to help me pay for the costs to build it.

But I reckon people should stop whinging about Telstra’s bid. It doesn’t meet the bid requirements – so what. If it doesn’t meet them, then Stephen Conroy won’t give the tender to Telstra. Not that complicated. It certainly doesn’t require every other bidder to have their say on how Telstra are “a joke”, etc. Telstra were pretty much damned if they did, and damned if they didn’t – when they weren’t going to submit a bit, everyone was having a go at them about that. And when they did submit something, albeit short, they were slammed about that.

I still don’t understand why people are so up in arms about Telstra wanting the government to confirm they won’t be separated – if Telstra were to be awarded the tender for the NBN, and then separated again, it would severely affect the capability to rollout the tender! Not overly hard to understand. Yet the government didn’t want to talk.

In the end, if Telstra, or any other company, get the tender, it will be because they have the capability to provide the best broadband network in Australia for Australians. That’s what the whole bid is about, in case anyone had forgotten.

I’m still a Labour supporter at heart… but seeing Michael Costa get dumped as the treasurer and then Morris Iemma resign as Premier makes this a great day for NSW :) What a crazy 24 hours in NSW politics!

Don’t know if it’s a particularly annoying news day, or if I’m just feeling more annoyed at things in general in the last 24 hours, but driving home tonight listening to Channel 9’s news (thanks to the simulcast on God Station), I just found myself being very, very frustrated with the world and how arrogant and ignorant some people can be. Perhaps it was just Channel 9 though. An example include lots of whinging about the teachers’ stop-work meeting tomorrow (despite it being advertised a week ago) and the brilliant quote that the Premier didn’t know why the meeting was going ahead – yeah, a summary of our Premier in a sentence.

Today didn’t help with the frustration at society thing much either – got a good dose of a customer who doesn’t seem to want to take responsibility for their staff’s actions, and somehow thinks it’s Telstra’s fault that his staff decided to rack up a $3000 mobile data bill. Seriously, act like an adult and take some responsibility!

Gah.

Looking forward to one day having my own place. Debbie and I were talking about it last night, and I just spent times during the day thinking about all the things I will look forward to. Sharing a place has been pretty tops… but I guess everything has its stage in life, and I’m looking forward to the next one.

We watched Scorched last night. A very brief overview – set in 2012 in Sydney, 250 days without rain, and a huge firestorm breaks out in the bushland surrounding Sydney. Very, very well made, and very relevant too. But that was the problem as well. In some ways, it was one of the scariest movies I’ve ever watched, simply because it was very real for Sydney and Australia.. Not sure about the desalination plant conspiracy, but still.

The families meeting yesterday went pretty well, I think. No awkward silences [not that I thought there would be with selected parentals of ours :) ] and everyone seemed to get on well. Yay for that.

That is all.

There’s a new TV show starting on Channel 10 – Taken Out. From what I can tell from the promos, one guy stands in a room while 30 women stand opposite and rate him out of 10 for his looks and what he’s wearing.

Not sexist, apparently.

But imagine for a second what the show would be like if the roles were reversed – let’s put one woman out the front and have 30 males stand opposite and rate her out of 10 for her looks and what she’s wearing. How do you reckon that would go down? I’m pretty sure there would be yelling and screaming about sexism and degrading of women, and the media would go crazy with it.

Here’s a good definition of sexism: take a situation in which there’s a male and a female and reverse the roles they’re playing; would the people now be treated differently that the roles have been reversed? If yes, then it’s sexist.

Time to get off my soap-box.

This started out as a comment on Tom’s blog, but became quite long. So I have given it its own post.

Referring to Tom’s post about Mike Guglielmucci.

For those of you who haven’t been following the story, Mike Guglielmucci was a Youth Pastor for Planetshakers. He has recently admitted to faking having cancer. He had been pretending to have cancer since September 2006.

… I guess watching him on Today Tonight made me feel sad because he must be feeling terrible. I am sure he loves Jesus, otherwise he had no reason to admit his sin. And now he’s getting a battering in the press, thousands of people are upset with him, he’s let his wife, family, parents and church down. I can’t imagine that the relief for admitting this makes up for what he’s copping now as a result. It would have been easier for him to not tell anyone what was going on.

His Dad said in a statement to his church: “I can’t begin to tell you how much this is hurting us on the inside. A few weeks ago Mike had a dream of Jesus on the cross looking down on him saying, ‘the truth will set you free’ and so he decided to confess and bring everything out into the open.”

Read the rest of what Tom wrote. But what I began to write as a comment on his site was that I definitely agree with what he said.

First up, this is why I don’t watch Today Tonight or ACA. They just get it so very, very horribly wrong. And I get so very angry and passionate as a result. So it’s probably just best I don’t watch them at all :)

But back to the main point… in God’s eyes, yes, Mike Guglielmucci has sinned. But he is no less loved by God than you or me or anyone else on this earth. It’s only us who put labels on how serious a sin is. God hurts very deeply whether we swear, have a lustful thought in our mind, or whether we murder someone.

So who the heck are Today Tonight, or any other media source, to judge him? Are they perfect? It hink what makes me most angry is the way some people are acting very high and mighty; very arrogant really. Their actions give the impression that they think they’re better people that Mike, and that they would never possibly do anything as evil as that.

But every second they have their back’s turned on Christ, they are being just as evil.

Most importantly, Mike Guglielmucci has confessed that what he did was wrong. And so therfore he is forgiven by God. [edit: bad theology James - regardless of whether he confessed it to the world, if he has asked God for forgiveness, he has it.] Do we claim to know better than the one who created us? Are we choosing to say to God, “Hey God, I know better than you, and I reckon we should judge this guy a bit more before we let him off the hook.”

No. We need to forgive. Just as our Father has forgiven us.

Oh how my heart hurts for those who don’t understand the love, the freedom, the peace that Christ has shown and gives us.

A rare occurance happened last night – I watched [some of] A Current Affair.

It’s no secret that ACA and Today Tonight are my two most loathed TV programs, bar none. But last night, the TV was on channel 9, and it just stayed on as I was interneting in front of it. And as the program started up I was sucked into watching the first story: it was a story where Ben Fordham went “undercover” as a hitman and they filmed a man ordering a hit on a male escort.

It was incredible to watch. Video here. [Should be on the front page for a while - titled "Special Investigation: Murder Mayor" - go the alliteration.] But it was only after they’d filmed all this, gone undercover, got all the evidence, pretended they were detectives, that they handed everything over to the police – yesterday afternoon, only a couple of hours before the show was due to go to air! My worry is, how long ago was it all filmed? No doubt they waited so long to take it to the police cos they were worried about their exlcusivity getting away from them.

They seriously acted like they were police:

• Ben Fordham loved saying he was “undercover” [I think he said it about 6 or 7 times in the one story, to camera, and then to different people that he was talking to]  But Ben Fordham has been on TV for many years – what was to stop the guy that was ordering the hit from recognising him, and potentially killing him? Cos sunglasses aren’t the world’s greatest disguise.
• And they went and found the guy who the hit was ordered on and took him to a hotel and put him in hiding. And yes, ACA’s witness protection is just as good as the police’s, no one’s gonna find him! Nup, cos I’m sure that the ACA office is very tight and no information is ever leaked from there, is it?

Incredibly stupid if you ask me.

All that evidence that they gathered is inadmissable in court anyway, I think, cos it was obtained without a warrant. I may be wrong.

But there’s a good chance that ACA did far more damage than good. Actually, I think there’s a very, very good chance they did more damage than good. Either way, that was a one off – I’m not watching ACA again.

It’s so frustrating when you can’t rely on other people to help when they had committed to something.

I began to think about organising an item at church quite a few weeks back… thinking that it would work well in our Easter services. Other musicians agreed, and I began to try and organise a time to practice. But gradually, people realised they couldn’t make it to a practice or to the service on Good Friday, and I had to give up on it.

But B kindly suggested that it would fit well with communion, and so I gave it another go… making sure I gave people more notice. From 2 weeks ago, we were going to practice this arvo, and then play it in two weeks time. But again, gradually people have dropped out until this afternoon at church I was left with just me on keys, and a guitarist – no singer, no bassist and no drummer.

To say I am unhappy is an understatement. Some gave me a bit of notice… some said they were coming 3 days ago, but then just didn’t show up this arvo. It’s so incredibly frustrating, and makes me not want to ever put any effort into trying to organise band items again.

I guess it’s a little hypocritical of me to gripe and whinge about this – I’m quite notorious for forgetting events and double booking myself (something I’ve become quite embarrassed about recently, and am making sure doesn’t happen anymore). But I guess it’s frustrating because of the effort I went to to remind people – SMS’ing them all several times to remind them (and each time getting confirmation from people saying it would be fine).

Not playing on band this week. Just gonna hang at home for a little while until I head over to Thornleigh to visit the Thornleigh Baptists tonight. 

Last night was the first night I led a service at church. Something that had been coming for quite a while…

B had mentioned it to me about 18 months ago, at which time, I wasn’t overly keen on the idea, and conveniently brushed it aside and chose to forget about it. And I thought he’d forgotten about it too. Hehe, I was wrong – he and God are crafty. And last year, God used a few different things to get me thinking about it more and more and even got me to the point where I was keen for it.

I spent a lot of last week thinking about what I would say, and how I would tie songs together, and what “God” things I should say… But then I realised that all that is pretty unimportant – I don’t need to have a speech or mini-sermon rehearsed. In fact I don’t need to say much at all aside from one or two welcome lines. And so I spent a lot of time thinking and praying about band practice and realising that my attention needed to be focused on leading that well. Kinda glad I came to that realisation, cos it was the right one.

And band practice went awesomely smoothly (thanks, God!). We powered through the songs, even worked on a fun transition (that ended up getting dumped at the last minute, but it was still cool teamwork), and still had time in the middle to practice a new song that we’re going to do with the church in a few weeks.

So for my first week leading a service, I ended up feeling very happy with how it went, and looking forward to how God’s going to use me more and more at church with music and services :)

And then it was off to level 4 at Westpoint to get some noodles (or Nandos if you so desired) and just hang out at the seat things in the middle of the piazza area like a cool gang. Yeah, we were cool.

After such a tops Sunday, it was a pity that this morning started off crap. Stupid Epping stupid road was stupid narrowed down to stupid 1 lane. Morris Iemma is a goose. I used to be a bit indifferent towards him… but I am rapidly joining the bandwagon of “get us a new premier, pronto”. Anyway, I reckon because of Epping Rd being narrowed, everyone went down other roads… namely my precious Victoria Rd. So my normal 1 hour drive into the city took 2 hours this morning. Not fun.

And then to hear on the radio that there is an early idea floating around to charge motorists for using main aterial roads during the peak times? Above and beyond the existing tolls?! What a joke! That is honestly the most insane idea that I have heard come from the NSW Government. The main reason that I think it is so insane is that our public transport system is nothing short of pathetic. It’s fine and dandy if you live within 10kms of the CBD. Lucky you. However, anyone outside that radius is subject to private bus companies who don’t operate very reliable or conveient routes, and trains that are constantly over-crowded. (Speaking of which, if I have to use a main arterial road to drive 15 minutes to the nearest train station to catch a train to the city, are you going to charge me a “congestion toll” too?)

Morris is a goose. Rant over.

correction: The “congestion toll” seems to be at the federal govt level rather than state. Which is good news I reckon. K-Rudd will sort it out. He’s a good boy.

It’s lunch time now - I’m sitting here eating some chicken pasta with sun-dried tomatoes in a white wine sauce – and the emails have subsided and I’m feeling dramatically more cheery than I did this morning. Looking forward to heading home shortly though to enjoy an evening of nothingness – just hanging out with Debbie and watching GNW. :)

There’s an article on smh that talks about the owner of the Manly Wharf Hotel banning all young people. Without going on too much a rant about not liking this at all [I will get to that in a minute], it’s actually pretty shocking for a smh article I found. I will pick smh 8 days a week over the Daily Telegraph – I like my news, not an opinion.

But this particular article just seems like it’s covered in contradictions:

“He said the hotel did not have a specific policy against people under the age of 25, as was reported in today’s The Manly Daily. Instead, bouncers were simply rejecting potential trouble-makers.”

The very next paragraph:

“He apologised for the fact that many well-behaved young people would have been excluded by the blanket ban but said he was within his right to keep the atmosphere of his hotel orderly.”

So we’ve just established that he’s said it’s not a blanket ban on young people, just keeping the trouble makers out. But then we completely contradict that by him apologising that some “well-behaved young people would have been excluded by the blanket ban.”

I’m quite confused.

Let’s now launch into the part where James gets incredibly frustrated at “young people” being pigeon holed. Again. Again again.

If this guy decided that anyone of Aboriginal decent wasn’t allowed in his hotel because of a few trouble makers, he would be up on racisim charges faster than smh could publish the article. So why is it seemingly fine to chuck all young people in a category and say treat us differently because of our age?

“Oh, but it’s just young people… they’re the ones causing all the problems in today’s society, so they’ve brought it on themselves.”

Ok, a sarcastic moment there – but it’s what I feel like some people want to say. And say it anywhere but to my face. I don’t want to hear your view point if it’s going to be filled with a solid dose of ignorance and stupidity.

Tonight was tax return evening. I was too lazy to do last year’s tax return last year, so I did that as well as this year’s return. Thankfully they’re both now done, and it’s looking like I might get some nice amounts of dosh back too.

Now I’m sitting here end-dating a bundle of contracts on a customer’s account. The contracts are all not compatible with the new pricing they’ve agreed to, and so I have to get rid of them all – it’s a long and painful process for all… but the quicker I get it done, the quicker the new pricing gets implemented, and the sooner it hits my numbers - and I desperately need this for this month.

I’m getting so sick of hearing all the whinging about free speech in the news this evening in relation to Channel Nine’s use of the “Worm” during the debate last night. There were rules put in place for the debate. Clear rules that were told to all media organisations. So Channel Nine, I’m sorry, but you don’t have any part of any leg to be standing on. I’m sure the only people who are sooking with you are the same clowns who believe everything they watch on A Current Affair.

Rant over.