Archive for April, 2006
ACT Chief Turnip Jon Stanhope has been in the news a bit lately, one of the many reasons is a possible plan to close some schools, and the ABC had a rather interesting article about that yesterday.
The article featured this baffling quote from the Chief Turnip
We cannot continue to sustain a government school system where there are, in the context of the level of expenditure, which we make or investment in education and maintain a school system at that level of under use.
Even if you change a few words it still doesn’t seem to make sense, and as such it is impossible to work out whether or not there is a typo in amongst that. I decided to send a copy of the quote off to the Plain English Campaign, and nominate Jon Stanhope for a Foot In Mouth award, which is awarded for “a baffling quote by a public figure”.
Shortly after sending an email to the Plain English Campaign, I received a response from Dave Smith. (We previously met Dave on Samuel’s Persiflage #1.) Dave said
This certainly deserves a nomination for the foot-in-mouth award and I will see that the judges get it.
He also went on to say that
The judging for the awards will take place in October. I will let you know if your nomination wins in November.
It will be interesting to see if our Chief Turnip wins this prestigious award or not, it seems like the kind of award he could be very proud of.
Samuel
April 20th, 2006 at 08:49am
Yesterday morning I had a small accident on the stairs. Nothing was broken, but I am still a bit sore. I have also been advised to take it easy for a couple days.
Samuel
April 19th, 2006 at 01:22am
I have a minor correction to announce in regards to Samuel’s Persiflage #4.
During the interview with Mrs. Gordon-Stewart, the town of Echuca came up as a topic, and I looked at the map behind me in the studio to find the exact location. Here is a transcript of my findings.
I just found Echuca, it’s on the Murray River, it’s a bit North of the New South Wales/Victoria border.
I’ve had a few emails about this, and have since revisited the map. Unfortunately the map has very similar markings for state borders and railway lines, the map is also a tad faded. I was looking at the railway line and not the state line by accident, and would like to point out that Echuca is in Victoria. Wikipedia has some interesting information about Echuca.
I will also issue a retraction in the listener feedback segment of Samuel’s Persiflage #5.
Samuel
April 18th, 2006 at 03:56pm
On Sunday afternoon I was doing a spot of grocery shopping in City Supabarn, paid for the few iems which were required, got my change and receipt and left.
A short time arriving back at home, I checked the back of the receipt paper to see if there were any useful deals on the advertisements.
Did you spot the error? Lets take a closer look.
Yes, that’s right, Magnus Advertising sent Big W’s receipt paper to City Supabarn. Seeing as the only Big W store in Canberra is based in Woden, I wonder if they got Supabarn’s receipt paper?
Samuel
April 18th, 2006 at 12:32pm
A long weekend which saw me get the same result as last weekend in the AFL, and do one match worse in the NRL, which means that overall, I have once again tipped one less winner. For the record, Aunty_Jack was right that I should have tipped the Eagles to beat the Tigers in the AFL, as they won by 46 points.
AFL Round 3: 4/8 (50%)
NRL Round 6: 3/7 (42.86%)
Week Total: 7/15 (46.67%)
Totals:
AFL: 14/24 (58.33%)
NRL: 17/42 (40.48%)
Total: 31/66 (46.97%)
Samuel
April 18th, 2006 at 09:41am
We have reached the end of this extended season of Samuel’s Coffee-Cup-O-Meter, so here is the final entry of the season, and a graph of the points.
Monday
5 x Standard Mugs (1 Point Each) = 5 Points
Total = 5 Points
Samuel
April 18th, 2006 at 01:00am
As promised, at 1:56:44 there was a celebration of the birthday of Samuel’s Blog, which included a singing of “Happy Birthday”, some coffee, and a few photos.
First up we have Nattie, myself, and a cup of coffee. In the background obscured by my head there is a Samuel’s Blog birthday sign which is basically the current birthday page header.
Following that is a photo of Nattie and the sign.
And a closeup of Nattie
And a picture of me, my coffee and the sign.
Happy Birthday Samuel’s Blog!
Click here to hear “Happy Birthday”.
Samuel
April 17th, 2006 at 02:33pm
It’s 1:56:44PM, the time one year ago when Samuel’s Blog made a start as a journal of my activities at Linux.Conf.Au 2005.
As this post appear I am raising a cup of coffee with Nattie to celebrate the birthday, I should have a photo online soon.
Happy Birthday!
Samuel
April 17th, 2006 at 01:56pm
It’s April 17, and that means it is the birthday of Samuel’s Blog. I will be raising a cup of coffee at 1:56:44PM with Nattie to celebrate the moment of the birthday of Samuel’s Blog. With any luck I should have a photo of the small celebration.
Happy Birthday Samuel’s Blog!
Samuel
April 17th, 2006 at 12:01am
Sunday
5 x Standard Mugs (1 Point Each) = 5 Points
Total = 5 Points
Samuel
April 17th, 2006 at 12:00am
Time for episode seven of this second series of Samuel In Dolgnwot, and finally Samuel is searching for gold. Naturally enough, Samuel does it in comfort with his automated gold searching truck, whilst having a cup of coffee and some carrot cake, and listening to the radio (which is tuned to 2CC’s frequency of 1206 KHz). Incidentally I found an interesting feature in GIMP which automatically enhances the colour levels, which is very handy on scanned pictures which do tend to look washed out, the feature does a better job than my manual adjustments to brightness and contrast.
Samuel
April 16th, 2006 at 09:29pm
This week I’m giving the award to a group called “Family” who were a christian pop group of the 1970’s or thereabouts. I think that the song I have chosen as the feature song is very appropriate for Easter Sunday.
Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Children gather ’round now
Clap your hands and sing
For the sun is shining down
And the bells are gonna ring
Yes they will now!
Can’t you see that ray of hope
Jesus is bound for me alive
I’m gonna let my brother know
It’s gonna be alright…yeah!
Hallelujah day, sing hallelujah
Love is on its way, it’s comin’ to ya
Hallelujah day, sing hallelujah
Love is on its way, it’s comin’ to ya
People come together
Let the good times roll
Jesus gives his life forever
You can know it in your soul
Yes you can now!
Jesus got the key
His spirit opened up the door
Now there’ll be dancing in the streets
This is the day we’ve been waiting for…yeah!
Hallelujah day, sing hallelujah
Love is on its way, it’s comin’ to ya
Everybody get together
And put your hands like this
And sing along with the family
Hallelujah Hallelujah
Hallelujah Hallelujah
Hallelujah day, sing hallelujah
Love is on its way, it’s comin’ to ya
Hallelujah day, sing hallelujah
Love is on its way, it’s comin’ to ya
Hallelujah day, sing hallelujah
Love is on its way, it’s comin’ to ya
Samuel
April 16th, 2006 at 06:00pm
The Easter Bunny was very good this year (thankyou Mr. Bunny), and brought some very nice Easter Eggs from Alpha Confectionery (and another egg from another company, although it hasn’t been unwrapped so I don’t know who it is).
I must admit that until now I had not heard of Alpha Confectionery, which in hindsight is a shame as they make some lovely chocolate. The Easter Egg boxes contain one large egg, and four chocolates, the eggs that we have came with either Apricot or Plum filling chocolates.
So far everyone in the household has had one Plum Royale chocolate, and they were absolutely fantastic. The plan originally was to have two chocolates each at morning tea, but the plum chocolates were so smooth and rich and lovely that we couldn’t really eat another one straight away, firstly because it is nice to retain the taste in memory for a while, and secondly because they are just so satisfying.
These are dark chocolates and contain no dairy or nuts, they are also an Australian product.
The nutritional information is also quite interesting.
These are such lovely chocolates that I could not resist taking another photo.
Once again, thankyou Mr. Bunny, these are an excellent choice, and I thank you. I just hope that Supabarn start stocking more Alpha products as they are very very good.
I’ve had a couple requests for information about Nattie’s Easter food, and I can inform you that she had a smoked bacon bone, which she has been enjoying.
Seeing as there is so much chocolate flowing today, it might be a good idea to have a look at some rules of chocolate (Thanks to Irene in Brisbane for sending this through to John Kerr this morning, and prompting me to do a Google search for it).
- If you’ve got melted chocolate all over your hands, you’re eating it too slowly.
- Chocolate covered raisins, cherries, orange slices and strawberries all count as fruit, so eat as many as you want.
- The problem:
How to get two pounds of chocolate home from the store in a hot car.
The solution:
Eat it in the parking lot.
- Diet tip … eat a chocolate bar before each meal. It’ll take the edge off your appetite, and you’ll eat less.
- If calories are an issue, store your chocolate on top of the fridge. Calories are afraid of heights, and they will jump out of the chocolate to protect themselves.
- If you eat equal amounts of dark chocolate and white chocolate, you have a balanced diet. They counteract each other very nicely
- Money talks … Chocolate sings beautifully!
- Chocolate has many preservatives. Preservatives make you look younger. Therefore, you need to eat more chocolate.
- A nice box of chocolates can provide your total daily intake of calories in one place. Now, isn’t that handy?
- If you can’t eat all your chocolate, it will keep in the freezer. But if you can’t eat all your chocolate, what’s wrong with you???
- If not for chocolate, there would be no need for control top pantyhose. An entire garment industry would be devastated. You can’t let that happen, can you?
- Put “eat chocolate” at the top of your list of things to do today. That way, at least you’ll get one thing done.
Samuel
April 16th, 2006 at 05:16pm
It’s Easter Sunday, and I hope the Easter Bunny has been good to you. He was good enough to send us a publicity photo, we’ll see about the eggs later.
Happy Easter! (again)
Samuel
April 16th, 2006 at 07:02am
We’ve finally made it to the last Year In Review post for the year, which will undoubtedly come as a relief to a person who called the Year In Review series “seemingly endless”.
Anyway, March 2006 was a very interesting month, and it started with Senator Ian Campbell having a rather odd off-topic comparison of a bird called the “Latham’s snipe” and former Labor leader Mark Latham.
2CC upgraded their equipment, bringing joy to their many night time listeners.
Before starting the new series of Samuel In Dolgnwot, I provided a thorough recap of Series One.
ACTION decided to have a half-baked open day.
I then started series 2 of Samuel In Dolgnwot
The delivery of the White and Yellow Pages phone books was much more tasteful than previous years.
A teacher decided to change an assignment one week before the due date.
I started my footy tips for the year, they were not good, I only correctly tipped one winner from seven NRL matches. Thankfully they have improved.
3AW released the details of their Commonwealth Games Coverage.
I started a new podcast, called Editorial Echoes.
I analysed some Australia Post statistics.
I had a dream about Telemarketing, House Visiting, Cheap Furniture Con Artists.
As is to be expected in March, the sunrises were lovely.
The spammers started writing novels and distributing bits of them in their emails.
I explained some of the automation behind Editorial Echoes, and became frustrated when I encountered a building designed by a maze enthusiast.
There was a storm in Canberra which produced some heavy rain.
The underground cabling stories continued, with a photographic tour.
I also documented the construction work happening over at Section 84 in Civic.
Campbell High School took my constructive criticism on board and fixed the problem.
Editorial Echoes was off to a good start.
I had a dream about a very bad day.
Nattie & I went to see the hot air balloons.
Australia did well in Lawn Bowls at the Commonwealth Games.
Editorial Echoes was canned.
2CA/2CC put out a job advertisement for a senior journalist.
I got a phone call from the principal of Campbell High School.
I showed you a picture of a scarecrow laundry robot.
Southern Cross Ten broadcast the Black Opal.
The website was crossed out for some readers.
With the March episode of Samuel’s Persiflage out of the question, I announced a bigger than normal April episode.
Breakfast on 2CA changed hands.
Kim Beazley made a fool of himself when he visited a bus depot.
And that was March 2006. Tomorrow we will be celebrating the birthday of Samuel’s Blog, which should be fantastic!
Samuel
April 16th, 2006 at 07:00am
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