Archive for February 6th, 2006
As you may recall from this post a few weeks back, 2GB newsreader Rowan Barker was due to return to work today. I am pleased to be able to bring you the news that he did indeed return to work today, and settled in straight away.
Radioinfo.com.au has more
2GB/2CH newsreader Rowan Barker back at work
06 Feb 2006
Barker back at work today
As predicted by radioinfo on 27 January 2GB/2CH newsreader Rowan Barker returned to work today.
He was stabbed several times in early December during an altercation with two men outside a home in St. Ives.
It’s planned that he’ll ease himself back into it by working half days for the first couple of weeks – up to the end of Alan Jones and John Poole’s shows.
Erin Maher will then continue to fill for him through the weekday morning timeslot.
Macquarie Director News and Current Affairs Jason Morrison told radioinfo: “He started as normal at 5.30am and was brilliant and error-free – just like he’d only had a day off. After 6 he had a lengthy chat on the air with Alan Jones. It’s good to have him back.”
TV crews from all stations covered his return to the job plus a Daily Telegraph crew to greet him as well.
I heard a brief snippet of his work and an interview with him on Seven News this evening, and I must say that he is looking and sounding very well. It’s good to see him back at work after such a terrible and ruthless random attack.
Rowan, best of luck mate, it’s great to see you on your feet again.
Samuel
February 6th, 2006 at 06:38pm
“More” is probably the wrong word in the title, as it is really just the continuation or the underground cabling mentioned in this post from Thursday, and if the paint marks on the grass are anything to go by, it will probably continue for the better part of the week.
Sunday appeared to be a day off for the cabling people from UEA Civil & Trenchless Contractors (trenchless because they have an underground drilling machine which removes the need for trenches along the entire length of the cable), and as such, seemed like a perfect time for a few more photos.
First up, we have one of the holes they dug recently, presumably to check the progress of the conduit along the drilled hole.
Next up we have the conduit, the company sign (UEA Civil & Trenchless Contractors) and a digging machine.
And finally, the digging machine from another angle.
The first time I saw one of those digging machines (which are much more compact than a backhoe) was while I was walking to Primary School, probably during 1996 or 1997, when Reid Court and Braddon Court, the public housing apartments for the elderly on Ainslie Avenue (the brown buildings in the previous post about the underground cabling) were having the internal grounds refurbished, which included landscaping work, and resealing of the carparks.
Samuel
February 6th, 2006 at 03:29pm
Some of you may be aware of (or in some cases be an editor of) a website called The RiotACT. For those of you that aren’t, I will provide a brief description.
The RiotACT is a Canberra based news and opinion website which often looks at ACT politics and ACT events. In much the same way as Slashdot, readers are able to submit articles, and after review by an editor, the article may be published.
I first became aware of The RiotACT in April, when one of the editors, Johnboy, posted a review of Linux.conf.au 2005, I did much the same as a comment. After becoming aware of the main subject matter of the site, I decided to stick around, and became a regular commenter, and occasional article submitter. This went on for quite some time, and I found the debates to be quite interesting.
After a long while though, it became apparent that certain people either didn’t like me, or didn’t like my opinions, and took it upon themselves to take minute sections of my comments out of context, make a huge deal of it, and let everyone else tag along for the ride. The personal attacks didn’t bother me too much, you learn to deal with it after a while online, the constant being taken out of context didn’t overly bother me either as I would try and correct what was said. What bothered me was the way anything which was taken out of context became the subject of debate, and treated like some bigoted statement, which in turn resulted in constant “Samuel is an idiot” type posts.
After a while, it got worse, and became more consistent, with people starting to skip the “take Samuel out of context” stage, and just go straight to “Samuel is an idiot, yell at him”. This made it impossible for me to get my point across, and really hindered the ability of the site to remain on topic.
There were also some fundamental differences in opinion between myself and certain people, including an insistence that I live my life in a way which makes my opinions invalid. Apparently drinking to excess, getting into pointless fights or doing other things which I’m not interested in would turn me into a psuedo-fountain-of-wisdom. (Interestingly, there were some assumptions in the linked comment that I haven’t done certain things that I actually have done, which is why I linked to that comment. There are plenty of similar examples of pointless comments directed at me to be found if you browse through the archives of The RiotACT. There are also some interesting and factually incorrect generalisations about commercial talk radio in the linked comment.)
It was these fundamental differences and the inability of decent discussion whenever I made my views clear, which made me make the decision to leave The RiotACT. I have checked in on it a couple of times since taking that decision, and it seems to be functioning in a normal manner without me. On topic discussions seem to have returned, and the site seems to have some value again.
To summarise this, I made the decision to leave for two reasons:
- There was no point wasting my time making my opinions known on The RiotACT if people were going to take them out of context and spend their time telling me how worthless my opinions are. I have no problem with people telling me my opinions are wrong (if they have a good reason), but telling me that they are worthless is just fundamentally stupid.
- As long as I stayed there, The RiotACT was losing credibility due to constant flaming of me. The solution was simple, leave and focus on other things, it seems to have worked, RiotACT is better off without me and the pointless flaming directed at me.
The RiotACT has very noble intentions, and is a very interesting and useful website, it is just a pity that people felt a need to rubbish me, not because of my opinions, but because I am who I am. I wish The RiotACT success, and I didn’t want them to lose visitors because of constant junk. The people who run the site have worked hard to build it up over more than five years, I respect that, and felt that it was best for them if I left as it is the ultimate cure for the garbage directed at me, which ultimately lowered the standard of the website.
So there we go, for those who were wondering, that is why I left The RiotACT.
February 6th, 2006 at 11:05am
Well, here is yet another dream that I don’t quite know what to make of.
This dream was brief, I was in a hallway with wood panelled walls being directed into a room for a job interview with the CEO of a company, upon entering the room I saw a table, and at the table was the CEO of the company, who just happened to be ex-2CC presenter Kane Bond.
On that note, I wonder what Kane is doing these days.
Samuel
February 6th, 2006 at 09:13am
As 2CC Listeners would know, Mike Welsh is currently on holidays for two weeks, however the way it is being dealt with is rather interesting.
For the five days of the drive show last week we had Mike Frame, this week for four days (Monday-Thursday) we have Pete Williams, who filled in for Mike Jeffreys on the breakfast show on Australia Day. Friday will see Mike Frame return with an outside broadcast from the grand opening of the new Bunnings store in Belconnen.
Friday will be odd for me. From 9am-2pm I have a CIT class called “Preparing for employment in your chosen profession” which sounds like an extended “please rate the following aspects of your industry by their importance” survey-a-thon. Ultimately this class (as long as it sticks to its name) is irrelevant drivel to me as I have already worked in my “chosen profession”. There will be angry letters if there isn’t at the very least a morning tea and lunch break, preferably one of them being encompassing 11:30-midday so that I don’t have to miss Best Of Laws. If I do miss it then I will just have to listen to it on Lawsie’s website.
After this class I will make my way out to the new Bunnings store in Belconnen (approximately 10-15 minutes walk from the bus interchange) and watch the outside broadcast for a while. With any luck, this Bunnings, just like the one in Tuggeranong, will have a mini-cafe.
Afterwards I will make my way home and, depending on the temperature, take Nattie for a walk.
Anyway, getting back to 2CC, I remember hearing Pete Williams on Australia Day, but only briefly as I slept through most of the breakfast show and didn’t pay much attention to the bits that I did hear. It will be interesting to see how Pete goes on the drive show.
Samuel
February 6th, 2006 at 07:30am
