The moon photo has been delayed due to an overcast night…hopefully we the sky will be clear tonight or tomorrow night. The only problem is, the longer it gets delayed, the later at night the moonrise will be.
Samuel
October 9th, 2006 at 12:16am
This week the award goes to 2CC’s Mike Welsh & Frankie plus Frankie’s friend Alex and one of Alex’s unnamed friends (that’s a mouthful) for their combined effort, The Ballad Of John & How. Whilst I now know that Alex’s unnamed friend is the singer, I originally suspected that it was Kim Payne, producer of the Mike Jeffreys Breakfast Programme…I was quite wrong about that one!
With thanks to Mike Welsh I can offer a download this week:
[audio:https://samuelgordonstewart.com/wp-content/BalladOfJohnAndHow.mp3]
Download MP3
He can’t walk on water, he can’t raise the dead
How can he be so damn good when he can’t lie straight in bed
Plenty around, they would if they could
Little Johnny How– can he be so goodKids are in detention, kids are overboard
Sing the same song and tug the right cord
Cricket is the ashes, lies are bulldust
At the end of the day just who do ya trust
Being a pollie don’t make you a cheat
Just don’t ask how we sell our wheat
Winners are grinners and losers are not
Get what you can, and keep what you gotHe can’t walk on water, he can’t raise the dead
How can he be so damn good when he can’t lie straight in bed
Plenty around, they would if they could
Little Johnny How– can he be so goodOnce upon a time, turn back the clock
Little Johnny H was a laughing stock
Took it on the chin and took it in the back
Now it’s George and John in the same sack
Don’t be alarmed and don’t be alert
Little white lies and no one get hurt
All about clichés, pain and no gain
Excuse me sir, but could you please explainHe can’t walk on water, he can’t raise the dead
How can he be so damn good when he can’t lie straight in bed
Plenty around, they would if they could
Little Johnny How– can he be so good
Little Johnny How– can he be so good
Little Johnny How– can he be so good
Samuel
October 8th, 2006 at 07:21pm
Today, according to 2UE is Rob Elliot’s birthday. Rob is arguably best known for his role as host of Wheel Of Fortune.
Rob is shown in the lower right corner of this picture.
It is unclear whether Rob was born in 1965 or 1966, but either way, happy birthday Rob, Wheel was never the same when you left.
Samuel
11 comments October 8th, 2006 at 09:36am
On the whole, I consider myself to have a pretty good general knowledge, certainly not enough to ever be a contender on television quiz shows like Temptation (aka Sale of the Century), but pretty good none the less. And for that very reason, there are questions I occasionally find myself asking which I think I really should know…things which seem incredibly basic, but are probably known by very few people.
For example, last night around 6:50pm as Nattie and I were walking past the intersection of Ballumbir St and Ainslie Avenue, I noticed that the moon was rising over Mount Ainslie, it was a lovely clear night and I was disappointed that I didn’t have the camera with me. So I thought that it would be a good idea to take a photo tonight…and then it dawned (hmmm, no pun intended) on me…how long does the moon stay “up” for? And when does it rise again? Is it remotely similar to the sun cycle? How does it work?
I felt quite silly not knowing this seemingly basic information, but I thought about it for a while and realised that with the moon being up during the day, the information couldn’t be as easily understood as I thought. With this in mind, and knowing that I wanted to get a photo of the moon rising over Mount Ainslie, I set about finding out when the moon rises next.
I typed “moonrise” into Google and landed on Geocience Australia’s “Compute Moonrise & Moonset Times” page, and after entering my location found that the moon will rise tomorrow at 7:40pm…I then checked the accuracy of the page by asking it when the moon was scheduled to rise today, and it informed me that the moon should have risen at 6:24pm, which sounds about right considering that I can’t see the horizon from my location and it therefore took about half an hour for the moon to get over Mount Ainslie!
So, with that mystery solved, I now intend on taking a few photos of moonrise tonight…I have identified a spot with a nice, clear unobstructed view of the moonrise location…a spot which is out of the way of traffic and passers by, and should be quite good!
Samuel
October 8th, 2006 at 06:18am
Good morning John,
Lawsie is working actively in his seventies, although I must say that I am becoming increasingly concerned about his health, and have to wonder how long it will be until Tim Webster takes over completely…over the last few weeks Lawsie has been away that much that it has felt like Tim’s show, with Lawsie filling in once or twice!
Regards,
Samuel Gordon-Stewart
Canberra
October 8th, 2006 at 12:30am
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I’ve stripped out the links, but you get the drift. It looks like “Ben” is taking the domain names of email addresses, and adding them to the body of the message, in an attempt to get website owners to pay him/her/it.
Never mind the fact that the vast majority of email addresses which are spammed (and the vast majority of email addresses for that matter) are not used by the person responsible for the maintenance and administration of the domain name in the email address, and the vast majority of people who do run websites know that search engine optimisers don’t work…they might get you listed on Google, Yahoo, MSN etc, but you need the links from real websites, not funny little search engines and directories, to increase your page ranking.
For example, do a search for pages which link to this website…I can guarantee you that this site is listed in a few hundred or more directories and little search engines, and none, or almost none of them will appear in the results.
That being said, somebody, somewhere, will follow the link and enter their credit card details, under the false impression that, this will somehow bring in more traffic (or who knows what else they might think it will do)…and then they can wait for all the nice unknown credit card charges to appear…endless fun can be had in spam!
Samuel
October 7th, 2006 at 10:59pm
I just noticed on AAP that Google are in talks to buy YouTube for about USD$1.6 Billion.
Previously analysts have said that only a fool would buy YouTube, because of the large amount of potential lawsuits over copyright infringements…however Google have worked out a way to sell some videos on Google Video (Leo Laporte’s “Call For Help” sells for 99 US cents per episode on Google Video) and have obviously dealt with the same legal issues as YouTube, so they are probably the right people to buy YouTube.
I just hope Google utilise the YouTube flash player as a replacement for their own, and learn a thing or two about ease of use from YouTube’s uploader interface.
Samuel
5 comments October 7th, 2006 at 01:53pm
I suppose if we put that jolly band of gentlemen (not a trio as I originally wrote) together on one show, it would be a very lively show, but I’m not sure that their personalities would work with each other. With that in mind, it’s probably a good thing that they’re not on the same show.
Glenn Wheeler has returned to 2CC’s weekend afternoon timeslot, and it looks like he will be on for the full six hours each day this summer and surrounds, it also looks like the overly Sydney-centric first couple hours which 2CC avoided last summer have been scrapped. Canberra listeners could be forgiven for thinking that 2UE and 2CC are owned by the same people today, as the 2CA/2CC traffic reporter, Dennis Leigh, is reporting on Sydney traffic for 2UE (and therefore 2CC) today.
When Glenn started on 2UE, he filled in on New Day Australia…and if his timecall at 12:14pm is anything to go by, he wants to do it again…”14 past midnight” indeed…maybe on the other side of the world…ah, that explains it…timecalls for the webstream!
Speaking of New Day Australia, with Stuart Bocking taking the week off for a well deserved break, John Kerr will be filling in until 5:30am on Thursday, John will then take some time off, and Clive Robertson will run the Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday shows. Stuart should be back for the Tuesday show.
Samuel
4 comments October 7th, 2006 at 01:01pm
I see that Johnboy of RiotACT fame has decided that this blog is part of Canberra’s “weird” contribution to the blogosphere…to be quite honest, I’m flattered, and I would be tempted to replace “It’s just not normal” if I wasn’t one of five Canberra bloggers apparently “pumping all the weird into the blogosphere”.
I’ve always been a little bit odd, and it seems that those who didn’t like the fact that I’m not quite the same as everyone else, have backed off a bit, and seen the good side to my quirks and differences. “Weird” is, in reality, a bit of a fun complement…the opposite of which being “normal”, something which nobody to date has been able to define with any degree of authority.
However, and I really didn’t want to push this war of words along, John B1_B5 is not impressed with being declared one of Canberra’s weirdest, and has hit back at Johnboy and The RiotACT…according to John B1_B5, The RiotACT is “The most boring site on the Internet”, Johnboy has “no idea how utterly BORING his postings are” and his postings are often “highly inaccurate and poorly researched”.
Quite clearly, John B1_B5 is not impressed, and is really flying off the handle in disgust at the moment. It is rather interesting though that, after calling Johnboy’s article “highly inaccurate and poorly researched”, John B1_B5 went on to say:
never let the facts get in the way of a “good story” by this Commonwealth Public
Servant, who seems to devote a large amount of time posting stuff on his
private website during Public Service working hours .
OK, now who’s highly inaccurate and poorly researched? Johnboy used to work at Parliament House in the press gallery for a private company…he is now doing similar work from home on The Concatenate…at least since I’ve been reading RiotACT (April 2005) Johnboy has not been working for the public service…maybe before that, but I wouldn’t know about that.
Both Johns are quite entitled to their opinions, and it is of little concern to me what they think of each other, but if sanity is to prevail here, I would expect Johnboy to ignore John B1_B5’s bizarre retort.
Moving back to Samuel’s Blog for a moment, just for prosperity, here is what Johnboy wrote:
Samuel Gordon Stewart who’s blog would be less remarkable if he was 50 years older, and is currently (as near as I can make out) blogging statements he was hoping to make on talk-back radio.
Well, close, copies of emails I sent to Tim Webster…I missed bits of the show so I don’t know if he read either email out or not…it’s also interesting to note that on RiotACT, my name has been unhyphenated by Johnboy for over a week…oh well, all a bit of fun I suppose!
Samuel
4 comments October 6th, 2006 at 10:20pm
I can probably put this dream down to days filled with Windows Update and last night’s episode of Stargate SG1 where Prometheus was destroyed by an Ori satellite.
The dream starts in the music corridor of Campbell High School as it looked in 2003 (a corridor I haven’t been in for at least three years), I am standing down the end with the door which leads out to the Central Quad (a place I named by declaration “Samuel Central Quad” when it was re-opened after being closed for part of a year) and looking towards the “keyboard lab” (a room at the end of the corridor), there are other people around walking about. All of a sudden there is a quiet bang, and the corridor starts to tilt, something which I announce in the dream. It is quite apparent to me in the dream that we have hit an iceberg and are sinking, so I rush down the corridor and turn left.
The dream hits an abrupt scene change at this point, and I am walking towards a command centre of some sort…there is a general sense of emergency and I go over to see a technician who is sitting at one of the computers…he informs me that the copy of Windows XP that we have to use is three years old, and we will have to apply updates ourselves…he then goes to the Windows Update website and I (seemingly being in charge) inform everyone of how annoyed I am that we don’t have these updates stored locally…by this time it has become apparent that we are saving the Internet, and not a boat…why? I don’t know, but we were.
The dream ends there…I wonder if we saved the Internet or the boat…with the track record of XP, I doubt it.
Samuel
3 comments October 6th, 2006 at 02:00pm
Morning again Tim,
Telstra already are trying out an "operational seperation" between wholesale (equipment) and retail…so I see no problem with keeping the wholesale section in government hands and selling off the retail section.
Regards,
Samuel Gordon-Stewart
Canberra
October 6th, 2006 at 10:30am
Good morning Tim,
I’m not in the least bit surprised that Sol announced his new 3G mobile network today…Vodafone launched their faster but smaller network earlier in the week, Telstra have their own infrastucture in place and have had for a while…finally they’re turning it on!
Pity it’s not great technology for the bush.
Regards,
Samuel Gordon-Stewart
Canberra
October 6th, 2006 at 10:30am
It looks like half the on-air staff at 2CC and 2UE are on holidays or suffering from a “lurgy” at the moment.
2CC’s Drive presenter Mike Welsh is on holidays, Mike Frame is filling in for him, except for today…Mike is busy hosting a racing luncheon (if my memory serves me correctly) which means that Kris McKenzie will be hosting the drive show today. Thankfully 2CC don’t believe in having “filling in for” in the voiceovers, otherwise we might hear “Kris McKenzie for Mike Frame, filling in for Mike Welsh, with thanks to Blumers Personal Injury Lawyers, on your talk radio, twelve oh six, two double C”.
Mike Frame will be back on deck on Saturday for the weekend programming, and Glenn Wheeler will be returning to weekend afternoons on 2CC. At this stage it is unclear whether or not 2CC will block out Sydney programming between midday and 2pm like they did last year, but it is clear that Framey won’t be hosting those two hours…perhaps a general talk show with Kris on Saturday and a local sport show on Sunday?
Stuart Bocking is having a week off next week, so John Kerr will be filling in for him, John will probably also run his normal weekend show this weekend, and leave it to Clinton Maynard next weekend. John has been afflicted by ill health a bit lately, so there is a chance of Clinton getting a weekday berth in the coming week.
John Laws is also due back on Monday, although I wouldn’t hold my breath, and if he does come back, I wouldn’t expect him to be there all week. His health problems are becoming more of a concern, and I do have to wonder how much longer 2UE will put up with his endless amounts of sick leave.
Samuel
October 6th, 2006 at 07:56am
G’day Tim,
Just thinking about these blokes who have problems after retirement…it can’t be that bad surely…surely Victor Mildrew from One Foot In The Grave had more problems, and he seemed to handle them one way or another.
Enjoying the show, and looking forward to hearing you again tomorrow, and whenever you’re on next…didn’t you say a couple weeks ago that you wouldn’t be back until Christmas…we can scratch that one.
Regards,
Samuel Gordon-Stewart
Canberra
1 comment October 5th, 2006 at 11:30am
Well that was an odd day if ever I’ve had one. I had the day off from work to take care of some personal comittments which I needed to deal with (truth be told, I wasn’t expecting my contract to be renewed in the temp role I’m currently employed in, and today would have been my first day after the contract, so I had some things planned to take up a couple days until I was in another temp role). I didn’t get to the computer until a bit before 10:30, which is when I noticed that all hell had broken loose in the comments, this was followed by the loss of an online friend (John B1_B5), emails from about five people claiming that I was a hypocrite for not dealing with the comments earlier, and a lot of heavy contemplating of things.
It’s actually quite funny that, during a cup of tea, I was thinking about how it must be about a year since I met John B1_B5 in person at Mike Frame’s Erindale appearance with the 2CC Kingswood, I thought about it for a while, but was constantly distracted by thinking about what had happened between contributors on this blog.
I ended up having a bit of an outing which took my mind off things for a while, and then had lunch, and by this time I had composed my thoughts a bit and thought I should clear things up by republishing the deleted comments.
Things started to look up a bit after this, to start with the comments on other sites about the incident seemed to die down a bit, and people started to talk again here. Then I thought again about how it must be nearly a year since Framey’s Kingswood show at Erindale…and so I checked the archives to see what happened on this day, and straight after that I was on the phone to Framey to inform him that is indeed a year to the day. It’s a funny coincidence that John B1_B5 leaves on the “anniversary” of the time we met in person, and it’s even funnier that John was the first caller to 2CC’s drive show today, while I was the last.
A little bit later I took Nattie for her evening walk, we were just walking past the Reid Tennis Courts when a small black poodle came over to us. The poodle did not appear to have an owner (or an aide as I call them…you really don’t own a dog) nearby, but it did have a collar with a nametag, after a few moments of Nattie and the poodle meeting each other, I was able to gain the trust of the poodle and get hold of the collar…the poodle was not interested in staying still though, so I picked it up and went to the nearest bench, tied Nattie up momentarily (Nattie was very excited, and a bit jealous that this dog was getting carried and she wasn’t) and checked the name tag for an address.
I couldn’t find an address, but there was a phone number, and from memory the dog’s name was Tammy. I decided that it would be best to abandon the walk, take both Nattie and Tammy home, and ring the number on the tag to arrange the safe return of Tammy to her home, however it was around this time that I noticed a car had come from the same general direction as Tammy, and had been sitting at an intersection for a while for no apparent reason…I decided to take a chance and see if the person in the car lives with Tammy. As Nattie, Tammy and I walked over towards the car, the driver’s side door opened, and after a few moments and a brief discussion, I was able to establish that the man in the car (Tony), was Tammy’s “owner”, so I handed Tammy over, and they went home. After this, Nattie and I continued our walkies.
Tammy, for the record, is a lovely little friendly six month old black poodle.
It was not long after this that I started thinking about the words of dubious astrologer but great philosopher, Jonathan Cainer, in his forecast for my star sign today:
Let those amongst you who have no salacious skeletons in your own closets write the first gossip column.’ Or something like that. We all love to judge. We none of us like to be judged. Yet how often do we put ourselves in other people’s shoes or acknowledge our own failings before we criticise others? You are in the process of doing something very laudable now. Who knows how long you can manage to continue being this wise? But while the mood lasts, you may yet work some real wonders.
I do tend to be a bit sceptical about fortune tellers and people of that ilk, but I do have to admit to believing in some elements of fortune telling…it’s probably not fair of me to call Jonathan a dubious astrologer…he obviously believes strongly in what he does, and I have to admit that, in hindsight, a lot of what he says he eerily relevant to my activites of the day in question. If anything, it is a lot of other astrologers who should be called dubious, with their consistent daily babbling about how “you might have a holiday soon”…at the very least, Jonathan deserves credit for creativity…and as I said, he does have a habit of being eerily relevant.
But I digress…his comments were quite thought provoking, and I dare say he may be right.
Anyway, at the end of this day (whoops, it’s already over…it’s a new day already), I think the song “End Of The Line” by The Traveling Wilburys is appropriate:
Well it’s all right, ridin’ around in the breeze
Well it’s all right, if you live the life you please
Well it’s all right, doin’ the best you can
Well it’s all right, as long as you lend a handYou can sit around and wait for the phone to ring
(At the end of the line)
Waiting for someone to tell you everything
(At the end of the line)
Sit around and wonder what tomorrow will bring
(At the end of the line)
Maybe a diamond ringWell it’s all right, even if they say you’re wrong
Well it’s all right, sometimes you gotta be strong
Well it’s all right, as long as you got somewhere to lay
Well it’s all right, everyday is judgement dayMaybe somewhere down the road aways
(At the end of the line)
Youll think of me, and wonder where I am these days
(At the end of the line)
Maybe somewhere down the road when somebody plays
(At the end of the line)
Purple hazeWell it’s all right, even when push comes to shove
Well it’s all right, if you got someone to love
Well it’s all right, everything’ll work out fine
Well it’s all right, we’re goin’ to the end of the lineDon’t have to be ashamed of the car I drive
(At the end of the line)
I’m just glad to be here, happy to be alive
(At the end of the line)
It don’t matter if you’re by my side
(At the end of the line)
I’m satisfiedWell it’s all right, even if you’re old and grey
Well it’s all right, you still got something to say
Well it’s all right, remember to live and let live
Well it’s all right, the best you can do is forgiveWell it’s all right, ridin’ around in the breeze
Well it’s all right, if you live the life you please
Well it’s all right, even if the sun don’t shine
Well it’s all right, we’re going to the end of the line
Samuel
October 5th, 2006 at 12:21am
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