Samuel's Blog

Absence of posts

Apoligies for the absence of posts, the last few days have been pretty hectic. Things should return to normal shortly.

Samuel

13 comments August 30th, 2006 at 04:49am

Samuel’s Footy Tips: Results

That weekend wasn’t as good as the previous weekend, but it was reasonable none the less.

AFL Round 21: 4/8 (50%)
NRL Round 25: 4/7 (57.14%)
Week Total: 8/15 (53.33%)

Totals:
AFL: 89/168 (52.98%)
NRL: 89/173 (51.45%)
Total: 178/341 (52.20%)

Samuel

August 28th, 2006 at 06:49am

Samuel’s Musician Of The Week

This week the award goes to country blues legend Warner Mack, and the feature song, which I have personally transcribed, is “These Crazy Thoughts”. Did you know that if you added up all the weeks that Warner’s recordings have been on the national music charts, it would total more than seven years? Well it’s true, and this is just one of many great songs.

These crazy thoughts run through my mind

Does a tide get dizzy when it rolls?
Does a memory ever let you go?
And does a weeping willow really cry-y-y?
These crazy thoughts run through my mind

Does a rich man worry when a poor man’s down?
Does a tear feel your pains when it hits the ground?
Some people love just one ti-i-ime
These crazy thoughts run through my mind

Now baby I’ve got a lot of time to think
And every time I think, I’m thinking ’bout you
That’s why you’ll find in every line I’ll sing
There’s a little bit of glad, a touch of sad, and a whole lotta Blu-u-ue

Does a car run better when it’s clean?
Can you find a will to live, without a dream?
And how many breaks can a heart take before it di-i-ies?
These crazy thoughts run through my mind

Now baby I’ve got a lot of time to think
And every time I think, I’m thinking ’bout you
That’s why you’ll find in every line I’ll sing
There’s a little bit of glad, a touch of sad, and a whole lotta Blu-u-ue

Does a car run better when it’s clean?
Can you find a will to live, without a dream?
And how many breaks can a heart take before it di-i-ies?
These crazy thoughts run through my mind

These crazy thoughts…these crazy thoughts…

Samuel

August 27th, 2006 at 08:21pm

Samuel’s Footy Tips

Apoligies for the delay, I’ve not been well today and this post has been rushed on to the site just before 7:30pm

NRL Round 25
Cowboys
Eels
Warriors
Panthers
Dragons
Storm
Bulldogs

AFL Round 21
Bulldogs
Demons
Kangaroos
Tigers
Swans
Power
Blues
Dockers

I’ll come back and fix the formatting sometime tomorrow.

Update 26/08 20:00
Here are the properly formatted tips

AFL Round 21
Bulldogs V Saints
Cats V Demons
Hawks V Kangaroos
Tigers V Bombers
Swans V Lions
Power V Crows
Magpies V Blues
Eagles V Dockers

NRL Round 25
Rabbitohs V Cowboys
Eels V Broncos
Warriors V Roosters
Knights V Panthers
Dragons V Sharks
Raiders V Storm
Sea Eagles V Bulldogs

End update 26/08 20:00

Samuel

August 25th, 2006 at 07:28pm

Be nice to the magpies, and the magpies will be nice to you

The fuss and hooplah about swooping magpies which always seems to rear its head at this time of the year never ceases to amaze me.

Admittedly magpies do swoop other creatures which they perceive as a threat, but it is worthwhile looking at it from the magpie’s point of view. The magpie is a parent, it is raising children (baby magpies), and the area surrounding the tree containing the nest is the magpie’s territory. Most of the creatures which pass by the tree are of little concern as they don’t appear to pose a threat, but some do, for one reason or another, register as a threat to the magpie.

One magpie near where I work will swoop cyclists, but not pedestrians or cars or umbrellas or dogs or anything else…just cyclists. One can only assume that this magpie was, at some stage, nearly run over by a cyclist, and now perceives bicycles as a threat.

This behaviour is recognised in the academic community…Andy, in a comment over at The RiotACT, explains this quite nicely. (It’s just a pity that the article the comment is attached to insinuates that ABC Local Radio had the news of Liberal MLA Vicky Dunne’s concerns about the effect budget cuts will have on magpies first at midday on Wednesday, when in fact 2CC had the news on Tuesday).

magpies learn… some post grad, or somethin, at CSU, demonstrated with a couple of people. they’d walk through a magpies territory, and just keep goin.
the other guy, he’d eye off the magpie, and seem threatening to it.
3 years later, same group of people, magpie continued to attack the guy that was threatening, but not the other ones.

I know that there are quite a few magpies in the area where I live, and I am always courteous towards them. If they are walking around on the grass, I will walk on the other side of the footpath and give a pleasant “hello” to the magpies. If I am taking Nattie for a walk in an area where there are magpies, I will keep her away from them.

The way the magpies begin to trust people is quite noticeable, there are magpies near where I live who will move away from many people, but will not be in the least bit bothered if I am walking close to them.

I have never been swooped by a magpie.

In most cases, if you are swooped by a magpie, it is worthwhile thinking about your own behaviour…do the magpies flutter and fly away when you walk past them? do you ride a bicycle near magpies? Of course, in some cases the magpies are just being overly territorial, but in most cases, there is some justification for their actions. They feel threatened for some reason, and feel a need to protect their children.

Magpies live in urban areas because we built our urban areas on their native habitat…we don’t have to give the land back to them (that would just be stupidity), but we should be courteous towards them and try to understand why they do the things they do.

Magpies are lovely birds, they deserve our respect and courtesy.

In semi-related news, I would like to publically congratulate and thank John Laws for providing a voice over to the RSPCA in their latest series of television advertisements, featuring a sad little busking dog.

Samuel

3 comments August 24th, 2006 at 06:52am

Samuel’s Footy Tips: Results

I’m not entirely sure how I managed to delay this until today, but here are the results from a pretty good weekend anyway.

AFL Round 20: 6/8 (75%)
NRL Round 24: 5/7 (71.43%)
Week Total: 11/15 (73.33%)

Totals:
AFL: 85/160 (53.13%)
NRL: 85/166 (51.20%)
Total: 170/326 (52.15%)

Samuel

August 23rd, 2006 at 10:31am

Samuel’s Persiflage #7

Samuel’s Persiflage Episode Number Seven is now online. There is also a low quality version for the bandwidth impaired here.

HTML Transcript coming soon
PDF Transcript coming soon

This month’s Persiflage Puzzle has three words of nine, eight and five letters respectively. The clue is “a very important measurement”

The episode kicks off with the persiflage puzzle (as it always does) and then Samuel interviews two people affected by the ACT government’s decision to close 39 schools.

Mike Hettinger is the administrator of the Save Dickson College mailing list, and ran for election with the Labor party at the last ACT election. Mike has some very interesting things to say about the proposed closures, and even labels them as against core Labor values.

Alison Zanetti is a parent who has had two children go through Dickson College (and plans for another to go through) and has also had children go through Campbell High School which is earmarked for merger. Amongst other things, Alison says that she has always voted Labor, but won’t be doing so again.

After that a few more letters get revealed in the Persiflage Puzzle.

Then we go to the Samuel’s Persiflage listener feedback, which contains two sensible comments, and two rather odd comments.

All listeners are invited to send in more (sensible) feedback, both in written and audio format. As per usual feedback can be sent to podcast@samuelgordonstewart.com (text, MP3, Wave or Ogg Vorbis), spoken feedback by clicking here or on the button below would be great, or leave a comment below.

This is followed by some highlights from Samuel’s appearance on You Are The Guest episode 52.

Samuel then reveals even more letters in the Persiflage Puzzle, and the first word becomes quite obvious, and then Samuel has his thought for the month, and it all has to do with temperatures.

Samuel then talks about David Young’s retirement, and how David is the inspiration for the Persiflage Puzzle.

The Samuel’s Persiflage #7 file itself is available here, and is 45:39 in length (41.7MB) at 128kbps stereo. The 128kbps format was decided upon because it produces a very good sound quality, and doesn’t “flatten” any music used in the podcast. I do, however, acknowledge that this is just unreasonable for dial-up, so a 16kbps mono file is also available here. The sound quality isn’t as good, but some people like it. The low quality version is 5.22MB

For those of you who are using podcast software to receive your podcasts, the feed can be found here and if you are using iTunes you can subscribe to Samuel’s Persiflage by clicking here.

Podcast related questions and comments can be sent to podcast@samuelgordonstewart.com or left in the comments section of this post. Spoken feedback is preferred (but not mandated) and can be sent either in MP3, Wave or Ogg Vorbis format, or sent even more easily by clicking the button below and following the prompts.

Samuel

5 comments August 23rd, 2006 at 02:22am

Samuel’s Musician Of The Week

This week the award goes to Loretta Lynn, and the feature song is “One’s On The Way”.

They say to have her hair done, Liz flies all the way to France
And Jackie’s seen in a discoteque, doin’ a brand new dance
And the White House social season should be glittering and gay

But here in Topeka, the rain is a fallin’
The faucet is a drippin’ and the kids are a bawlin’
One of them a toddlin’ and one is a crawlin’ and one’s on the way

I’m glad that Raquel Welch just signed a million dollar pact
And Debbie’s out in Vegas workin’ up a brand new act
While the TV’s showin’ Newlyweds, a real fun game to play

But here in Topeka, the screen door’s a bangin’
The coffee’s boilin’ over and the wash needs a hangin’
One wants a cookie and one wants a changin’ and one’s on the way

Now what was I doin’, Jimmy get away from there, darn there goes the phone
“Hello honey, what’s that you say, you’re bringin’ a few ole buddies home??
You’re callin’ from a bar, get away from there
No not you honey I was talkin’ to the baby, wait a minute honey the door bell..
Honey could you stop at the market and … hello … hello … well I’ll be”

The girls in New York City they all march for women’s lib
And Better Homes and Gardens shows the modern way to live
And the pill may change the world tomorrow but meanwhile today

Here in Topeka the flies are a buzzin’
The dog is a barkin’ and the floor needs a scrubbin’
One needs a spankin’ and one needs a huggin’ Lord, one’s on the way
Oh gee I hope it ain’t twins again

Samuel

1 comment August 20th, 2006 at 07:01pm

Clinton Maynard on New Day Australia

As previously reported, 2UE news reporter Clinton Maynard will be filling in for John Kerr from midnight, and again on Sunday morning.

Samuel

August 18th, 2006 at 06:04pm

Amusing Internet Scams

Last week one of the Google ads on this site led to another website, which was offering a $1000+per day work at home data entry job. On this website some woman claims to work a couple hours a day doing data entry for major Internet companies such as Ebay, Yahoo, Verizon etc, and earning astranomical amounts of money in the process. According to this “Computer Learning Centre” website, these companies don’t publicise these jobs very much.

This easily fits into the “too good to be true category” for any number of reasons including the facts that data entry jobs don’t pay thousands of dollars for a couple hours work (half my job is data entry…I get about $20/hour), the companies mentioned are dealing with sensitive information which would not be delegated to unchecked third parties, and major Internet companies who need external data entry staff have got some efficiency and automation problems. So in order to counter this problem, “Computer Learning Centre” show screenshots of bank statement “proving” that they really do get all of this money, and they even go and announce that they are approved by the “Consumer Advocacy Group of America“.

The consumer advocacy website details a few scams and non-scams, and has this to say about the Computer Learning Centre:

Name: Computer Learning Center Data Training Course
Rating: 97
Average Investment: $179
Average Yearly Return: $85,000
Summary: This company offers a short course in how to earn a comfortable living doing data entry from your home computer. Obviously, this is not the kind of data entry many people are used to. But using the power of the internet, and in connection with a number of well known companies, participants are taught how to type simple data in online forms which net more money than we thought was possible. We were suspicious of this opportunity and thought it was too good to be true until we spoke with a number of people participating in the program. Those involved were more than satisfied with their earnings. We followed up with a Business Bureau check and found no complaints whatsoever in the last three years.

Starting to sound plausible isn’t it? Well it does until you start to look into the technical side of the websites…one was registered on the 20th of June, the other on the 21st, they are both hosted by GoDaddy, they were previously both on the same server, one has since been moved, they both host their secure pages on the same server, the registration details for each site has been modified every week or so since registration, and the discount offer for the data entry course has been marked as expiring on progressively later dates since the sites went online.

Currently the discount is set to expire today (Friday 18th August)…should be interesting to watch that move. Even more odd, the discount keeps being extended despite the website stating “even though the data entry work is unlimited, the Computer Learning Center staff is starting to get overloaded. And they don’t want to take on so many students that they can’t give everyone personal attention. So unfortunately, they may have to discontinue taking on new students for this program in the near future.”

Moving onto another scam now, and Clayton Northcutt has been keeping one email scammer busy recently, and managed to attain the title of “Executive Officer of Outlet EDF23” and identification tag number “EDF/015 /Clayton Northcutt” for the Matsushita Semiconductor Company Ltd. For the full amusing details, see these posts in order:
Saturday August 5
Sunday August 6
Monday August 7
Friday August 11 and
Sunday August 13

Samuel

1 comment August 18th, 2006 at 03:27pm

The Hole And The Whole

I had a very odd dream the other night. A man was standing in my lounge room when they suddenly realised they had to be upstairs with their hole (apparently they owned the word “hole”), so they ran upstairs (which just happened to be a park) and announced that they had a hole. The other people in the park were annoyed that this person was late with their hole, and after a few moments of noisy commotion, another man called out “Well I have a whole with an E” (I think he meant that he had a whole with a W), and then there was an argument about the spelling of hole/whole.

Thankfully the madness ended there…I woke up in a rather confused state.

Samuel

August 18th, 2006 at 12:30pm

A Love Story

This week’s Friday funny comes to us courtesy of Melanie in Sydney

A man and a woman who had never met before, but were both married to other people, found themselves assigned to the same sleeping room on a transcontinental train.

Though initially embarrassed and uneasy over sharing a room, they were both very tired and fell asleep quickly…he in the upper bunk and she in the lower.

At 1:00 AM, the man leaned over and gently woke the woman saying, “Ma’am, I’m sorry to bother you, but would you be willing to reach into the closet to get me a second blanket? I’m awfully cold.”

“I have a better idea,” she replied. “Just for tonight, let’s pretend that we’re married.”

Wow! That’s a great idea!” he exclaimed.

“Good,” she replied. “Get your own blanket!”

Do you have something you would like to contribute to Friday Funnies? If so, email it to smoothwallsamuel@gmail.com. All contributions welcome!

Samuel

2 comments August 18th, 2006 at 09:29am

Samuel’s Footy Tips

Another weekend, another series of Footy Tips.

NRL Round 24
Sea Eagles V Rabbitohs
Sharks V Panthers
Cowboys V Knights
Bulldogs V Broncos
Dragons V Tigers
Roosters V Eels
Storm V Warriors

AFL Round 20
Power V Magpies
Cats v Sydney
Bulldogs V Crows
Bombers V Hawks
Dockers V Saints
Lions V Eagles
Blues V Tigers
Kangaroos V Demons

Samuel

1 comment August 18th, 2006 at 06:12am

2UE’s Byrnes and Maynard promoted

It looks like the restructuring at 2UE has finally come to an end, with the role of Program Director being filled by Greg Byrnes, and the new “News Chief Of Staff” position (new name for “News Director”?) being filled by Clinton Maynard.

Looks like a solid lineup running the practical day-to-day air operations at 2UE, and that’s exactly what they need after the recent round of sackings and retrenchments, and their lapses in the ratings.

I wonder if this means everyone in the 2UE newsroom will have to call Clinton Maynard “Chief”?

Samuel

2 comments August 16th, 2006 at 06:25am

David Young to “swing open the rusty gate” for the final time

2CC gardening host David Young is calling it quits…only 4 months after his ABC competitor Mark Carmody did the same thing.

This weekend coming (August 19 & 20) will be David’s last on 2CC. The stalwart of Canberra horticulture made the announcement during his show on Sunday August 13, after a decade (or thereabouts…I can’t remember if he started in 1997 or 1996…it was probably 1996) on 2CC, and a 12 year stint on ABC Local Radio before that. David was also the gardening reporter for Ten Capital News (the TV station now known as Southern Cross Ten). David is well known for hosting garden tour/holidays to many places around Australia and the world. David is also the bearer of a Churchill fellowship and an Order of Australia Medal.

Unfortunately, the only photo I can find of David is a tiny outdated photo from one of his tours.

If anybody has a more up-to-date or better photo, could you please send me a copy…I’m happy to give you attribution for the photo if you like. (I suppose I should have gone with the camera to see David at the retirement expo last year).

I’ve had a delve into my (not very comprehensive!) archives, and found a gem from 1997…it is the Sunday outro for David Young’s Garden. This uses what I consider to be the best theme music 2CC have ever used for David Young, and unfortunately I neither know the name of the music, or possess a complete version of it.

The outro runs for nearly 30 seconds, and can be played or downloaded by clicking here.

I will be sure to give David a call on the weekend to wish him all the best for the future…I’ll also get the recorder going just in case 2CC’s current longest serving presenter receives a tribute or gives a speech of some sort…somehow I think his last two shows will be filled with callers wishing him well. I know that I will miss him, he has been the relaxing voice of the weekend for me for many years, his “thing” is the inspiration for the Persiflage Puzzle…I think a lot of people will miss him, he would have to be one of the longest continuously serving people in Canberra Radio at the moment, and this is truly a very historic moment.

Mike Frame and Vicky (whoops…I heard her last name once…but she is usually just called “Vicky”) will fill-in for the rest of the ratings period, but after that, who knows? (Endless re-runs of David’s years on 2CC perhaps?, Mike and Vicky forever more? Some other show??? The possibilities are endless.)

Samuel

2 comments August 15th, 2006 at 10:50am