Samuel's Blog

For Dinner

A dinner suggestion from a kid in Michel’s Patisserie Weston yesterday:

Ice cream soup with chocolate sauce.

Sounds great, I wonder what vegetables will be included in the soup.

Samuel

December 5th, 2008 at 01:14pm

QuickTime Confusion

Last night when I went to open iTunes, I was greeted by a rather annoying error stating that iTunes could not be opened due to a “detected” problem with QuickTime. Apple recommend uninstalling QuickTime and then installing it again under these circumstances, but that sounds like a bit of a “we don’t know, but this might help” solution to me.

Considering that nothing had changed since I used iTunes about 24 hours before receiving the error, I figured that I would see if I could sort the problem out myself before resorting to a reinstallation. I remembered that a few hours before the error I started loading a large MP3 (Samuel’s Persiflage #8 to be precise) in Firefox, but cancelled it by closing the tab it was in when I realised that for one reason or another, Firefox was insisting on downloading the full file before letting the QuickTime plugin play it, which is a change from its previous behaviour of letting the QuickTime plugin play the file while it is downloading.

My thought was that, possibly, a QuickTime process was still active and was preventing iTunes from loading QuickTime properly. I couldn’t see any QuickTime processes in the Task Manager, so I tested the theory by launching QuickTime from the start menu…oddly this resulted in an installation wizard, which produced the following rather insightful message:

I somewhat nervously hit “OK” and watched the progress bar indicate that the setup routine was doing something, although I haven’t the faintest clue what it was doing as I wasn’t prompted with a Windows UAC “Are you sure that you want to grant this program permission to do stuff?” message, which indicates that no changes were made in the Windows or Program Files directories.

Once Setup finished, QuickTime loaded, and iTunes was able to work. It’s beyond me what that was all about, but at least I didn’t have to waste time going through Apple’s website to find the somewhat hidden standalone QuickTime installer.

Samuel

December 5th, 2008 at 09:56am

The Petrol Price Cycle

It’s still a mystery to me.

An hour ago, unleaded petrol was 99.5 cents per litre at Caltex Weston, now it’s 115.9 cents per litre. An increase of 16.4 cents per litre.

At least it coincided with a fuel truck arriving to deliver fuel.

Samuel

1 comment December 4th, 2008 at 04:18pm

Some ground rules for debating a talkback radio host

Sometimes it’s just best to learn from a good example of how not to do it. Back in April, caller Lynn rang US talkback radio host Rush Limbaugh to inform him that the Bush administration has been a failure. I’m sure that Lynn had many good reasons for believing that, and I’m not going to debate the topic of the call, this post is really for a bit of fun.

Lynn may have had a point to make, but she clearly forgot that it’s not the host that you need to convince, it’s the listeners, and the way to do that is to back up your statements either with facts or things which sound like facts. Basing your entire argument on “I don’t know what planet you’re on, but down here on Planet Earth…”, the word “no” and “I don’t believe that”, really doesn’t get you anywhere. They’re good phrases, but they need substance behind them.

Lynn could have made a lot of people stop and think if she had produced some facts, as this could have been a very interesting debate…sadly it turned in to a rather amusing seven minute case of “this is not how you debate people on the radio”.

Kudos to Rush for trying to get a meaningful conversation going, and to Lynn for her persistence in her belief that the word “no” would magically change Rush’s mind. It really does take all types to make this little planet down here called Earth.

Samuel

November 13th, 2008 at 02:08pm

The shonky way to get a three-day paid holiday

Follow Wilson Tuckey’s lead…interrupt some people in your workplace, and then when your supervisor comes over to ask you sit sit down, behave and get back to work, tell him or her that you will do that, so that they can “get on with this shonky business“:

Outspoken Liberal MP Wilson Tuckey has been suspended from parliament for three sitting days for defying the Speaker.

Mr Tuckey was forced five times to withdraw remarks he made about Treasurer Wayne Swan.

The veteran MP had earlier interrupted Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner’s answer to a question without notice by raising a point of order.

“The remarks of the minister for finance are an invitation to disorder and if wants us to talk about Wayne Swan running around with bags of money in Queensland and the disgrace that was delivered to him, well let him suspend standing orders and we’ll get into the shonks,” Mr Tuckey said.

When asked to withdraw, the MP said: “I will withdraw to let you get on with this shonky business.”

All of this commotion seems to have confused poor old Lindsay Tanner who forgot the laws of cause and effect:

The opposition failed in a bid to later silence Mr Tanner, prompting the minister to say: “Many, many years ago a colleague gave me a word of advice – when you throw a stone into a pack of dogs, the one that yelps gets hit.”

I’m fairly certain that the events occur in the opposite order, ie. “the one that gets hit, yelps”.

Then again, perhaps it’s a proposed shonky amendment to the laws of cause-and-effect. All those in favour…

Samuel

November 13th, 2008 at 10:45am

Talkback Caller Quote Of The Day

Bob, who called Jim Ball this morning: “There are too many fictional movies these days”.

I don’t think that’s what he meant, but those are the words that were sent down the phone line and across the airwaves.

Samuel

November 13th, 2008 at 04:17am

Kwik-E-Mart Invades Caltex Woolworths Weston

This is a receipt (minus EFTPOS details):

There’s nothing particularly special about it…after all it is the same as just about every other receipt which I have received from there, which makes me wonder why I have never noticed the bottom line before:

Ah yes, Apu Nahasapeemapetilon has invaded the point of sale systems at Caltex Woolworths Weston and ensuring that everyone receives his famous complimentary farewell.

I think this calls for a song.

Samuel

November 12th, 2008 at 03:38pm

Breakfast over a complaint or two or three or four of five or…

One day last week I was having breakfast at a cafe in Woden and had the rather amusing (and unavoidable without earplugs) pleasure of eavesdropping on the people at the table behind me. Whilst I say “people”, it’s probably fairer to say “one of the people” as the conversation was very one-sided, to the point of having one woman talking, and the other one intermittently grunting sympathetically.

I picked up on the conversation when this particular woman was complaining about the 2IC in her workplace who is apparently a very diligent worker and does half of the complainers work because she doesn’t really manage to get around to it, but wants to take the rostered days off to which she is entitled. I couldn’t quite work out the logic behind this complaint, except that, perhaps, if the 2IC had the day off, the complainer might actually have to do some work. Oh the horror of the notion.

The next complaint was downright bizarre. It took a very very long time for her to rant about this one, but the basic summary is that her daughter failed a driving assessment because, to be blunt, her driving skills don’t exist. Apparently the fact that the government wouldn’t let her have a licence was an absolute outrage…and to make matters worse, she has to book in for another assessment (without gaining some skills, apparently) at a time which, *gasp*, the government have an available timeslot, not at a time dictated by the complainer.

Just to give her yet another reason to complain, she arranged all of the rosters at her work on the assumption that the government would read her mind and have a spare slot for her daughter on the day when her workplace’s schedule prefers. Not surprisingly, when she rang the government to book an appointment at her preferred time, they “typically” couldn’t accommodate her, which forced her to accept a time two days later and rearrange those rosters…which prompted complaints from her staff who had been promised particular shifts or days off. If only those staff would understand…

She also found something else to complain about, not that I remember what it was.

This morning I had breakfast in the same place and unfortunately ran in to the same complainer…and she was still complaining. Her staff still want time off (“despicable”), and apparently she went to exchange some Australian Dollars for US Dollars yesterday, but the exchange place wouldn’t give her as many US dollars as she wanted (“something to do with some exchange rate or some other nonsense”).

I was hoping that people like this were fictional…unfortunately my faint hope has been eroded. Oh well.

Samuel

2 comments November 12th, 2008 at 10:24am

Eight Weeks Later…

We find out what we already knew:

An exploding oxygen tank forced an emergency landing of a Qantas jet in Manila after it blew a hole in the fuselage, air safety investigators have found.

The tank failed and burst, blasting through the cabin floor from a storage area between business and economy class seats on a Hong Kong to Melbourne flight last month, a preliminary report by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) found.

Unfortunately, eight weeks is only enough to catch up on information already known, not to actually find out anything new or useful

Bureau investigators are yet to determine why the tank exploded, almost two months after the July 5 incident.

And as it seems to be a day of quotes, bleeding obvious quote of the day goes to Julian Walsh from the Australian Transport Safety Bureau

The passengers were obviously very lucky

Slow news day perhaps?

Samuel

August 29th, 2008 at 02:57pm

Silly quote of the day

Goes to somebody who happened to be at Baker’s Delight in Weston a few minutes ago

What is your nice bread for sandwiches and stuff?

Samuel

August 29th, 2008 at 01:50pm

Endeavour or Independent?

I’m confused and I have been for some time. Endeavour carpets in Fyshwick have a radio advertisement featuring a jingle for “Independent Carpets”.

What I can’t work out is why Endeavour Carpets would want to pay for an advertisement claiming that “Independent Carpets is the only place to go”. The only possibilities that springs to mind are:

1. Nobody noticed the error
2. It’s a deliberate tactic to confuse the listener and get the store’s name firmly implanted in the listener’s head.

Can anybody shine some light on this?

Samuel

August 19th, 2008 at 08:42am

Two reasons that my Olympic boycot could be slightly difficult

The amazingly amusing statements coming out of the Chinese media are just too good to resist:

The People’s Daily, a newspaper controlled by the ruling communist party, has made the rather bold declarations that last night’s opening ceremony is a “potential turning point in world history” and “will become an important page in the history of world civilisation”.

Meanwhile The China Daily (with information courtesy of official Chinese news agency Xinhua) reports that:

Beijing fired over 1,000 rain dispersal rockets on Friday evening to blow away rain clouds for the smooth opening ceremony of the 29th Olympic Games at the National Stadium, confirmed the local observatory on Saturday morning.

It was the largest rain dispersal operation in China, and the first time that such technology has been used to ensure the weather condition for Olympic opening, said Chinese meteorologists.

“We fired a total of 1,104 rain dispersal rockets from 21 sites in the city between 4:00 p.m. and 11:39 pm on Friday, which successfully intercepted a stretch of rain belt from moving towards the stadium,” said Guo Hu, head of the Beijing Municipal Meteorological Bureau

Apparently the weather bureau had forecasted rain which leads me to wonder why, if they were so confident of their technological achievements, they didn’t issue a forecast of “it would rain, but we’ll make sure it doesn’t”, and why we have only been told about the 1,104 rain dispersal rockets after the event.

Perhaps this perplexing sentence explains it:

“Under such a weather condition, a small bubble in the rain cloud would have triggered rainfall, let alone a lightening,” said Guo, whose team had monitored the movement of the rain cloud heading for Beijing from 7:20 am Friday.

With English skills as excellent as those, a forecast of “rain avoided due to rain dispersal rockets” would probably have come out as “fire of rockets raining away” which could very easily have alarmed the international media who had already reported on a terrorist threat against the opening ceremony.

As much as I really don’t care about the actual sporting events of the Olympics, I have to admit that the reporting of it and the bizarre stories being produced by China’s bizarre media are most enthralling.

Samuel

August 9th, 2008 at 05:21pm

Apply today to be insolvent tomorrow!

If first impressions count, then what’s the first thing that this job advertisement says to you?

The headline seems to invite me to apply to become insolvent, whilst the body text seems to invite insolvent people to discover “what else it out there”. Some sort of swap arrangement (“I’ll become insolvent so that you can have money”) perhaps?

Maybe I should just stop trying to read too much in to poorly written titles…but it’s too much fun. What a bind I find myself in.

Samuel

August 5th, 2008 at 10:56am

The Annual “Human Bites Dog” Story

For some reason there seems to be at least one internationally noticed news story each year about a human biting a dog. Last year it involved a 65 year old man named Pappan in the Quilon district of India (who wants to pronounce the name of the state capital “Thiruvananthapuram”?) who bit a dog after it attacked his duck…this year the story is less bizarre:

An 11-year-old boy is enjoying a flash of fame in Brazil after biting a pitbull that attacked him as he played in his uncle’s back yard, local media reported on Thursday.

Gabriel Almeida, who lives on the outskirts of Belo Horizonte in the state of Minas Gerais, broke a canine tooth when he bit into the dog’s neck to fend off an attack. Since then, he has been pampered in the studios of several TV stations, where he has been recounting his ordeal.

However unlike last year where the villagers only took over after both the man and dog were exhausted, the boy at the centre of this year’s story was rescued by bystanders. Unfortunately Reuters make it sound like the bystanders rescued him because he reached a four stitches threshold:

He was freed when bystanders pulled the dog off him and needed four stitches in his arm.

I have a rather amusing recording of Clive Robertson talking about last year’s story and another story about a dog eating all of the pies in a pie-eating contest after a “Mr. Williams” left the pies unattended for ten minutes. I had to listen to it again after reading this year’s story.

Samuel

July 31st, 2008 at 09:24am

You know how some people can’t read their own writing…

Well I’m struggling to make any sense of something I wrote in February. I’m currently clearing out a bunch of old useless files from my laptop and I cam across a list of topics I was going to write editorials about. Most of them make sense to me, but I can’t figure this one out for the life of me:

China’s olympic censorship (athletes and horror movies)

I almost remember the point I was trying to make about China’s approach to Olympic Games publicity, but “athletes and horror movies”? Anybody want to try and make sense of that?

Samuel

1 comment July 23rd, 2008 at 12:17am