Happy Financial New Year

May your next four quarters be prosperous.

And the winner goes to...

Shock horror, an actual update! Yes, I'm still alive and doing well. Thanks for asking.

Tonight sees Australian television industry's (cringe) night o-nights, the Logies. Cue shots of nineteen year old blonde Home and Away bimbettes on the tiles. Yawn. The anti-Logies, however, have already been awarded. Here's a look at the results of the 2007 Fuglies:

1. Worst TV Show- Big Brother
So John Howard says it's stupid and should be taken off air? Isn't that reason to make the show more popular? I guess the show fits the "so bad it's good" category, especially the Friday night games edition.

2. Worst Male TV Personality- Kyle Sandilands
Agree. Now Idol have Dicko back, why hasn't this guy got the arse yet?

3. Worst Female TV Personality- Gretel Killeen
Hmm, she can be condescending at times but surely there has to be someone worse?

4. Most Biased Sporting Commentator- Phil Gould
Agree. Watching this guy outright barrack for NSW teams on a weekly basis on Nine's rugby league coverage is tiring.

5. ‘The Eddie’ for Most Over Exposed TV Personality- Bert Newton
I don't watch a lot of Nine, so Bert doesn't bother me. I enjoy the occasional episode of Family Feud where is affable enough. Anyone who sits through 20 to 01 repeats on their third airings should be lobotomised (although if it's much of the same audience that watches Australia's Funniest Home Videos every week that probably isn't needed).

6. Most Spankable Female TV Personality- Myf Warhurst
Who? (Googles.) Some Triple J chick? She's okay I guess, but doesn't hold a candle to Nikki Osbourne.

7. Spunkiest Male TV Personality- Adam Hills
Meh.

8. Most Under Acknowledged TV Show- The Chaser’s War on Everything
It's a hilarious show, but I think it starting to be acknowledged, given that its ratings are toppling House, Heroes and Cold Case on a regular basis.

9. Most Under Acknowledged TV Personality- Adam Hills
As above.

10. Newsreader/TV Journalist with the Most Gravitas- Kerry O’Brien
I think it's fair to say that this guy and little Johnnie Howard have a love-hate relationship more enthralling and complex than any two Big Brother housemates. Bring back Kym Gyngell and Full Frontal.

11. Show that was messed around the most by a television network in the last 12 months- Scrubs
Hello, Jericho anyone? Scrubs has been shown more or less consistently in the Monday 11:30pm timeslot, I can't see any reason for people to complain - stay up or tape it.

12. New “Sports” to broadcast on TV- Birdman Rally
Heh. Bit of a laff, just like Carlton's performance on Friday night.

13. Naomi Robson’s worst incident of the year- “Tribute” to Steve Irwin
Nup. I would've gone with either the deportation or the Beaconsfield caravan park hissy fit.

Enjoy your Logies viewing, I think I'll be over on another network watching What About Brian...

Days remaining until I crack open a ice XXXX Gold in Brisbane: 17

Taking it to the streets

Seeing as Kate has seemingly discontinued her blogging presence, I feel it's my duty to inform you that she was ambushed by Sam Newman in the street today, who was filming for his Street Talk segment.

Tune in this Thursday night to see if she gets on - she was wearing a Queensland Rugby League jersey at the time which should be controversy-stirring enough for her to make it. Get ready to cringe at Sam's tired routine of arrogance and sexual innuendo.

And speaking of Sam, he was on the game show Temptation last night with Trevor Marmalade up against the two hosts of Getaway. He didn't attempt to answer one question, yet had the nerve to try and belittle the Getaway guy for one of his answers. Yet for the whole show he stared blankly into space, like he was on the Ben Cousins magic dust, leaving Trev to answer all the questions by himself.

Australia, your tempura fish is ready

Australian fast food chain Red Rooster, not content with purveying solely chicken-related products, has started selling fish and chips.

I get the impression it's a limited-time-only thing designed to cash in on those twice-a-year Aussie Christian devotees who refuse to eat cow parts on Good Friday. Good luck to them I guess, although I don't see the harm into chowing down into a bacon double cheeseburger be it Good Friday, Pancake Tuesday or Queen's Birthday Monday. Blasphemy-wise, that is, of course there is the harm done by the raising of one's LDL cholesterol levels.

But something doesn't seem right about a national franchise chain selling fish and chips. Fish and chip shops are meant to be run by a fifty-something year old bloke of European descent and his five kids, not a bunch of high school kids. If I want the full fish-and-chip shop experience I expect to a faded Chiko roll poster from 1976 on the wall beside a Coca-Cola promotional poster from 1987. And who could forget the old video game machine in the corner to play while your deep fried grease-filled treats were cooking up? It was usually Street Fighter II, and I'd play as the uber-hot Chinese chick Chun Li.

But I digress. The Red Rooster ad for new fish-and-chip product line mentions delicious tempura-coated fish, which sparked my attention. For those unaware, tempura is a Japanese dish consisting of lightly battered prawns, vegetables and other delicious oddities. If I can somehow do enough exercise to compensate, I may have to try this new fast food offering despite its apparent wrong-ness. Review to come should I decide to.

Credit where it's due, this post was inspired by the musings of Geelong-based blogger Daniel85 as to the irrelevance of Red Rooster.

Cometti's back...

Last night after a Kangaroos player emerged from a pack with the ball: "He's very good in tight spaces, a la Ralph Fiennes." Dennis, it's good to have you back. Hasn't Brucey aged though, and he looks like a midget standing next to David Schwarz.

Listening to Camille's album "le fil": a delicious slice of French pop, with divinely sweet vocals that sound catchy yet I can't ruin by singing along to, thanks to not knowing enough French...

You think that I could muster up a little soft-shoe gentle sway...

Just over 24 hours to go ... before I'm graced by the presence of Scissor Sisters live on stage!

And to psyche myself up I just had myself an early morning Scissor Sisters listening marathon. That's if you can call two albums plus a couple of remixes a marathon. And I have a confession to make. I rocked out miming the words to "Laura" in front of the bathroom mirror, while wearing my chunky headphones. Would've been youtubeworthy if someone had been there to videotape it.

On that note, I've probably said too much.

Listening to Scissor Sisters - Comfortably Numb.

Bloggers' graveyard

A big shout out to the blogs out that I used to read once upon a time, that have since gone to that big web server in the sky.

Namely Why, should I care?, EMU HQ, Restart, Greensborough Life and Insertcreativeideahere. And of course, one of my own ill-fated conceptions, The Ranga Cup, which was awarded once and once only.

These blogs still exist with posts intact from years gone by, although linked images have since deceased. Regular readers of this blog should know one or more of the bloggers too, and can relive amusing anecdotes from yesteryear.

If the authors of these former blogs are reading (and I know you are), how about one last one-off post, for old times' sake...

Drinking OJ, not much else is available to me at this hour.

Logies time. Out: Hotdogs In: Nikki Osborne

As Kate has so kindly reminded us, it's that time of year again. Self-confessed televisiophiles such as I have the chance to immortalise a special someone from our screens in the annals of Australian television history. Yes folks, it's time for the 2007 TV Week Logie Awards.

You may recall last year's much-publicised campaign to nominate Simon "Hotdogs" Deering as Logies king. For those of you living under a rock (or with actual good taste in pop culture), Hotdogs was best known for outliving his fifteen minutes of Big Brother fame and going on to star in the Up Late Game Show, the original late night "quiz" show that suckered 55 cents times X out of the phone bill of many a bored insomniac, drunken uni student or dole bludger alike.

I say Hotdogs has had his chance for glory, and the sooner he fades from the public eye the better. (Besides it's time to give this year's inevitable crop of vacuous starry-eyed whores housemates their time in the spotlight.)

This year, vote for a late night cash cow game show host that's actually talented. I nominate the babelicious redhead Nikki Osborne from Quizmania!

In fact, someone has done the hard work already and started a campaign for her at http://www.nikkiosborne.com/. There's a nice image there too which I will not display here for fear of legal reprisals. While the Gold Logie title would be nice, it's a bit ambitious and will probably go to Rove or Lisa McCune again anyway. However the "Most Popular New Female Talent" category fits the bill quite nicely.

Oh, and an addition to being gorgeous and funny, she's not a reality TV contestant nobody either, she's an accomplished actor who's been in several Australian mini-series and movies and apparently just missed out on a part in Lost. Bio here.

Not that I have a thing for her or anything...

Sipping on iced tea, unfortunately not of the Long Island variety.

Weekend sports wrap: dishlickers and inflatable crocodiles

After spending Friday night on the tiles (note: New energy drink "Mother" doesn't mix with vodka quite as well as I hoped it would), I spent the remainder of this weekend past at two of Melbourne's finest sporting venues: the world-famous Melbourne Cricket Ground, and The Meadows, the northern suburbs' mecca of greyhound racing.

Despite it's not-so-trendy location being tucked away in an industral idea just off the Hume Highway, The Meadows is a fairly enjoyable place to spend a Saturday night. There's something uniquely Australian about families, couples, and drunken old men gathering together to watch eight dishlickers (that's greyhounds, for anyone who was wondering) chase a small rabbit around a track.

Much amusement is gained from observing other punters' selection methods ("me kids are aged 8, 4 and 3 so I'll box those in a trifecta thanks love"), and it was a joy to see the owner of the dog who won the main race awarded a brand spanking new Kambrook cappucino machine in a ceremony with no less grandeur than the Melbourne Cup presentation.

Meanwhile, word has it fellow blogging identity Supermercado has recently invested in a greyhound of his own, so I look forward to watching it run. I await the day he will hold aloft a spanking new Breville sandwich maker in front of hundreds of cheering fans.

Sunday brought the choice of attending the one-day cricket match between Australia and New Zealand at the G, and the sport-previously-known-as-soccer final between Melbourne and Adelaide at Telstra Dome. Aren't we sports supporting Melbournians spoiled for choice? We went for the cricket.

For the first innings, we sat in the top deck of the new Olympic (Northern) Stand which provided a good birds-eye view of the action and a moderately subdued atmosphere, as there was a good spread of the young, the elderly and families amongst the crowd. New Zealand batted first and made a respectable total of two hundred and seventy something. I managed to stay well under .05 thanks to the usual sale of mid-strength only beer at the groud.

The second innings was quite a different experience altogether, as we ventured down to the terraced bays of the Southern Stand, in the general vicinity of the area infamously known as "Bay 13". Patrons sitting in this section of the ground are more interested in singing, chanting and drunken tomfoolery than the actual cricket. Which can be a welcome source of amusement when the on-field action becomes boring.

I may have taken part in several Mexican Waves, but cannot admit to doing so here for legal reasons (maybe this blog needs to employ a full time legal consultant?).

Everyone's favourite MCG security guard "Chopper" (a dead ringer for Chopper Reid) had his work cut out as the fans threw around beach balls, tennis balls, pool ponies and various inflatable animals over the crowd. At one stage, I was concentrating on the bowling delivery only to see an inflatable crocodile thrown from the upper level land two rows in front of me. And luckily I wasn't the recipient of a blow to the head from an airborne Pringles can thrown by one rather inebriated young lass from Elwood.

For the record, Australia won, and a good time was had by most (possibly not the nude streaker who was belted into submission by security and fined six grand for his efforts). And we also got to see Melbourne's winning goal in the soccer via the magic of having Fox Sports Three set up next to one of the bars.

It didn't quite match the excitement of the tennis, but it was a fairly memorable weekend of sport in Melbourne town.

Chewing Extra Professional spearmint flavour.

A litre of Coke costs six times a litre of petrol...

...at the good old cinematorium. I haven't been moviegoing quite as much lately, what with the tennis, barbecue after barbecue and close encounters of the dubious kind. But here's a brief look at the three films I've been to this month.

CASINO ROYALE
Seen at: Northland (I think, I can't remember for certain)
Bond jumps on the poker bandwagon, and gambles the lot on behalf of Her Majesty. Plenty of action here, with eye-catching stunts alpenty and eye candy for both girls and guys to drool over. New 007 Daniel Craig is certainly suave, but doesn't feel quite as "Bond" to me yet as Brosnan was.

BABEL
Seen at: Nova, Carlton
Brad Pitt, some Mexicans and a horny Japanese schoolgirl star in this bizarre flick set in several different countries/languages. Very hard to watch in parts as it deals with human reactions to death, and the way it affects different family members. Tokyo nightclub scenes brought back many memories that a copious flow of Asahi had washed away.

EPIC MOVIE
Seen at: Northlands, bro
Spoof of other films in the same vein as Scary Movie and Date Movie presented as a series of disjointed sketches. Main targets are Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Narnia and Harry Potter, but the "humour" wears very, very thin here. Five to ten minutes of laughs stretched out into a ninety minute movie with no plot to speak of means you had best be very drunk or otherwise mentally incapacitated if you want to get much enjoyment out of this pitiful mess.

Watching the new series of 24, back on Seven from tonight. Word is Jack goes vampire on a terrorist baddie, biting a chunk of flesh from his neck!