Posts filed under 'Bizarreness'
2UE certainly are keeping the webmaster busy, once again the schedule has changed, this time breakfast is the victim of a 2UE movement.
Mike Carlton will be joined by his fill-in, Peter FitzSimons, for a two person breakfast show starting Monday. Talk duos seem to rate well, although I can’t stand them, and I can’t personally see this duo gaining much, if any, ground on 2GB’s Alan Jones.
Meanwhile 2UE’s website is reporting that Dugald Saunders is hosting the night show tonight, possibly filling in for Mike Williams, or maybe not…who knows? The schedule at that station is a solid as a water roof…it just keeps splashing all over the place.
Also on the 2UE website, John Mangos is listed as on air now despite the fact that the schedule below it shows Glenn Wheeler being on now, and my radio confirming Glenn’s on-airness.
Maybe Lawsie should get The Cuckoo’s Nest to write a song about 2UE schedules, and then hope he doesn’t get moved to 7:36am-2:49pm…
Samuel
January 14th, 2006 at 03:06pm
One thing I have noticed over the last week or so is that the people who think that Summernats is a good idea generally belong in one or both of the following categories:
- People who don’t live in the inner north of Canberra.
- People who think the only way to have fun is through loud noises, preferably whilst intoxicated.
I’m sure they enjoy this event and it’s inherent noise, smoke and pointlessness, in fact I’m sure they enjoy it, because they carry it out of the venue at the end of each day and continue it on suburban streets. The lovely loonies who bring their high-powered vehicles into Canberra each year aren’t content with watching others perform unusual activities in an enclosed environment, no, they feel a need to keep everyone else awake for many hours afterwards.
It is the general attitude of this group of people which becomes very annoying, they tend to think that the best way to drive a car is with a flat foot, especially when on a suburban road, couple this with the loud vehicles that these people generally drive, and suddently you will understand why I was still awake at 3 o’clock this morning, despite attempts to go to sleep.
I’m sure there are some genuine car enthusiasts who can behave themselves and not feel a need to wake up northern Canberra, and I’m sure Summernats does wonders for the local economy (especially the petrol stations), but it has a rather negative impact on those who live anywhere near it.
Organiser Chic Henry was on 2CC a couple weeks back telling us all that the people who don’t like Summernats don’t like noise and generally have something wrong with them…well sorry Chic, but you’re wrong. I don’t mind noise, but I’d rather not have it outside my window at 3am, I also don’t like the undesirable element which are generally attracted to your event, the ones who manage to drag Canberra’s road safety level to record lows (no pun intended).
Whilst Chic maintains that Summernats is a fantastic and safe event, reality shows it is anything but safe. For example, last night a ute in one of the parades managed to lose control and plow into a crowd, injuring four to six people, depending on your news source. Watching the footage it is quite clear that the driver was a goose and the fencing was completely inadequate.
According to Channel Ten, Summernats organiser Chic Henry says there’s always an element of danger associated with motor sports. Chic is right about that, but there is a vast difference between most motor sports and Summernats, the fencing. Most motor sports have a proper concrete barrier or similar with proper fencing above it, Summernats has a puny little fence that could probably be pushed over by an average grown human.
Add to that the fact that it was possible for a semi-streaker to get onto the arena under the location where a crane was about to drop a car on to a caravan (proper fences would fix that) and then they missed the caravan anyway, and you really have a very unusual definition of “safe” in Chic’s dictionary.
When Chic was on 2CC as previously mentioned, he was talking about how Summernats almost didn’t survive when they had to find a new location a few years ago…wouldn’t it have been brilliant if it hadn’t survived? Absolutely fantastic in my view. According to the ABC Television News, crowd numbers were down this year, which is fantastic as it might be spelling the beginning of the end for this strange annual annoyance.
News reports indicate that Chic will review safety procedures, well I’m going to give him some free advice. The best way to make the event safer is to not have it…there! Problem solved! Alternatively, move it to the middle of nowhere…that will, at the very least, make Canberra’s roads a bit safer…and let the loonies make as much noise as they want with nobody getting annoyed…won’t stop the injuries though.
If Summernats leaves Canberra I’ll be pleased, if it disappears altogether then I’ll be over the moon, as the world will be slightly more sane!
Samuel
January 8th, 2006 at 06:47pm
It looks like the spammers have found the podcast email address, as it received it’s first spam email overnight, which was apparently from the vice president (of what???)
From: SUPER LOTTERY
Reply-To: superclaim@zwallet.com
To: podcast@samuelgordonstewart.com
Date: Jan 8, 2006 12:30 AM
Subject: You have won US$500,000.00
NOTICE…CONGRATULATIONS!!!!
FROM THE OFFICE OF THE VICE PRESIDENT
SUPER E-MAIL LOTTO INTERNATIONAL MEGA MILLION
PROMOTIONS/PRIZE AWARD DEPT
BATCH NO: 65409/11/05/SLT
REF. NO: SLT/54390812/121/3421
WINNING NOTIFICATION / FINAL
NOTICE…CONGRATULATIONS!!!!
This is to inform you of the release of the E-MAIL LOTTERY
BALLOT INTERNATIONAL/ WORLD GAMING BOARD. Your name
attached to ticket number 219028 with Serial number
200432 drew the lucky numbers of 05-31-75-64-25-74, which
consequently won the lottery in the 1st category.
You have therefore been approved for a lump sum payment of
Five Hundred Thousand United States Dollars ( US$500,000.00 ) only, which is deposited in your favour as beneficiary and
covered with HIGH INSURANCE POLICY. It is important that
keep your winning confidential to avoid people garnering
your information and subsequently making claim with your
winning paraphernalia information, Super lotto
international Mega Million will decline payment if such irregularity
occurs.
All participants were selected through a computer ballot
system drawn from only Microsoft users from over 20,000.00
companies and 3,000,000.00 individual email addresses and
names from all over the world. To begin your lottery claim,
please contact your claims agent below on or before the 21st of February 2006
CONTACT NAME: JIM EDWARDS
EMAIL: agentjim05@netscape.net
It is imperative that you contact your assigned payment
officer within the stipulated period of time. After this date all
unclaimed funds will be included in subsequent promos.
Please note in order to avoid preventable delays and
Complications please remember to quote your reference
number and batch numbers in all correspondence.
Furthermore, should there be any change of address do
inform our agent as soon as possible.
Congratulations once more from our members of staff and
thank you for being part of our promotional program.
Yours Sincerely,
Mrs. Anna-Maria Spitale
Vice President
Superlotto@zwallet.com
Normally I would not publish email addresses, but these people are special (and I’m hoping the spam robots will pick up the addresses and spam them).
I wonder if Mrs Vice President Spitale and Jim Edwards are Shirley Mathis and “supervisor”, the holiday by phone scammers I reported back in August? If so, it’s lovely to hear from you again, but I’m still not giving you my bosses credit card number…
Samuel
January 8th, 2006 at 04:53pm
This morning I made the journey to my local ACT Government Shopfront (oddly named “Canberra Connect”) with some fairly important papers, only to discover that they have all taken the day off. Perhaps they were confused by the change of public holidays by ACT Industrial Relations minister Katy Gallagher and didn’t realise that today isn’t a public holiday, maybe they thought that it would be nice to have another day off.
Either way, they have flown in the face of just about every other ACT government agency, as the rest all seem to realise today is not a public holiday, and in the process inconvenienced a lot of the ACT public, who walked up to the doors of Canberra Connect agencies to find a “We are closed” sign. In fact, a family was walking there at the same time as me, and were equally disappointed.
This will only make the queues worse tomorrow and Friday…
Samuel
December 28th, 2005 at 12:28pm
The proof is in the pudding, or in this case, in the continual games of “Schedule Shuffles” that 2UE management insist on playing.
This time around it is John Kerr and his many loyal listeners being given the pointy end of the stick. John Kerr is being moved to weekends as of his return from holidays in late January. Stuart Bocking is taking over the weekday version of New Day Australia, thereby confirming the June rumors of this happening.
2UE claim that this was due to the recent release of the annual overnight ratings (which it seems I forgot to write an article about), this is pure nonsense as 2GB had a very large and clear lead beforehand. Certainly 2GB’s Jim Ball gained 6.8 points to be on 29.4%, but a large proportion of this could be attributed to his recent Media Watch infamy, where he had an award for media dupes named after him, due to the fact that he fell for a clearly fictional internet story about a fictional school in a fictional town banning (a fictional?) graduation.
John Kerr may have lost 3.1 points, to be on 8.9%, but he has a distince advantage over Jim Ball, in that his show is syndicated to a whole heap of stations up and down the eastern states. John has a (mostly) very loyal bunch of listeners who have formed a nice community. John might only have 108,000 listeners in Sydney on a weekly basis (not far short of 2GB’s 168,000…I don’t know how those figures work), but he has a very large audience in the eastern states which earn Southern Cross Syndication big bucks.
I will admit that, after Media Watch made a big deal of Jim Ball, I checked out the 2GB webstream to see what his show was like, and it put me to sleep…it would appear to me that Jim Ball is more interested in his own voice than that of the callers, or perhaps, he doesn’t have many callers. Either way, John has the more interesting ad entertaining show.
John was obviously told by 2UE management to keep this quiet, the only notice he gave to his listeners was a cryptic reference to “weekends” in the few Christmas Cards he sent out. Ultimately this could have meant anything, as John is well known for chatting with listeners off the air. He did signal that something was up when he said on the Christmas Cruise that “we might not be together next year” or something to that effect.
John did confirm this by email to some listeners just before Christmas, but appeared to want it kept quiet, at least until he goes on holidays at the end of this week, so you can imagine his response when, just after reading through the emails after 1am and saying “your P.S is appreciated” or something to that effect in reply to my P.S about sending 2UE letter of protest later in the week, a caller who had been sent a card enquired about the reference to weekends…it sounded like John nearly choked on a glass of water! John did at this stage, being the honest man that he is, make it public knowledge that he is moving to weekends. Whilst he made no comment about it, it was clear from the tone of his voice that he was disappointed about the move, and he was then flooded by callers who didn’t want him to move.
Now, let me make this perfectly clear, I have nothing against Stuart Bocking, I think he is a great bloke and a great presenter, and I think weekends suit him (even if I do miss George Gibson), but 2UE are making the wrong decision by moving John Kerr to the weekend. John has not only built up an internationally popular show thanks to streaming radio, but has also formed a close relationship with just about every listener and has put together (with some help), a formula which works, with guests who are willing to come into the studio at obscene hours of the early morning because John and the listeners are there to have some fun.
Southern Cross Syndication sold New Day Australia to network stations who could have easily run automated music overnight by saying that “John Kerr has a close relationship with his audience, his friendly and approachable style is great company for the hundreds of thousands of people who are working, travelling or just can’t sleep each morning between midnight and 5:30am.” They even added that “The direct benefits for your station include the advertising opportunities that exist with this type of program. Talk radio is foreground radio. Talk radio means your audience has the radio up, they’re listening and involved.” (Source: Southern Cross Syndication website, (C) 2002-2005 Southern Cross Syndication)
If you add these two statements together, it is quite clear that they are making the point that advertising during John Kerr’s show is listened to by the audience because they are taking part in the conversation which John Kerr is having. According to what Southern Cross Syndication wrote, John Kerr makes people feel like they are part of the show, he involves them.
If 2UE go ahead with this move, not only do I think that the overnight ratings will fall further, I think they will lose a lot of money from Stations pulling the plug on their New Day Australia subscription.
2UE really need to listen to what the audience want, it is very clear from the calls after the announcement that the majority of the listeners do not want John Kerr to be moved, and do not want Stuart Bocking on weekdays.
John Kerr has previously announced that he may retire at the end of this year or next year anyway, so 2UE management, let him serve out his time on weekdays, and let him go when he wants to, the audience, the sponsors, and the network stations will thank you for it.
Here at Samuel’s Blog, I have decided to start up a petition to keep John Kerr on weekdays, not only will I be writing 2UE a letter of protest over their silly move, I will also be sending them copies of the petition on a weekly basis. To sign the petition, either leave a comment here, or visit the petition page, and help us keep John Kerr on weekdays!
Samuel
December 27th, 2005 at 02:55am
If you have a time machine then you might be able to benefit from the ads running on 2CC telling us that Carols In The Park will be held at Norwood Park on December 17.
Anybody care to tell me who the bright spark was that bought advertising to run after the event?
Samuel
December 19th, 2005 at 04:33pm
It is said that things (both good and bad) happen in threes, Friday certainly showed that with a series of “Finals”
- The official final day of the ACT school term
- Mike Jeffreys final breakfast show for the year
- My final day in my latest job
Samuel
December 17th, 2005 at 01:04am
Slashdot brings us the news that copiers are broken more over Christmas than at any other time of the year.
It would appear that the christmas period, “leads to a 25 percent hike in service calls due to incidents such as the classic backside copying prank. Such a stunt, a mainstay of the office party, often results in cracked glass on the copier, with 32 percent of Canon technicians claiming to have been called out to fix glass plates during the Christmas period after attempts to copy body parts went wrong”.
Unable to come up with a witty title for the post, I settled for a semi-witty adaption of a Chritmas Carol. It’s an adaption of “Tis The Season To Be Jolly Deck The Halls” and could probably remain as such if you are a copier-repair contractor who gets paid extra over Christmas.
Tis the season to copy bodies, tra la la la la, la laa laa laa
And make calls to repairers, tra la la la la, la laa laa laa
Breaking glass is a given, tra la la, tra la la, la la la
After some heavy drinking, tra la la la la, la laa laa laa
Samuel
November 25th, 2005 at 12:33pm
This one was from a public servant trying to intimidate a lawyer on the television show “Judge John Deed“, the quote isn’t exact, but it is close enough:
Public Servant: “I’m a public servant, we don’t learn from our mistakes, we live in the present!”
Another quote, which was the “Quote Of The Day” on Google’s Personalised Homepage (sourced from http://www.quotationspage.com/qotd.html) was by Hesketh Pearson who said “Misquotation is, in fact, the pride and privilege of the learned. A widely- read man never quotes accurately, for the rather obvious reason that he has read too widely.”
And to all the people declaring that I am not “normal”, Ellen Goodman has some words of wisdom for you:
“Normal is getting dressed in clothes that you buy for work and driving through traffic in a car that you are still paying for – in order to get to the job you need to pay for the clothes and the car, and the house you leave vacant all day so you can afford to live in it.”
Samuel
November 20th, 2005 at 01:10am
One thing I’ve noticed is that, when you’re half asleep, just about everything makes perfect sense. Last night, whilst half asleep I was thinking about this, and trying to think of one of the many examples of such mind behaviour, however I failed, a decided to make up an example of something that woul makes sense when you’re half asleep, I came up with a scenario where someone might need more floor space in their bedroom, so the obvious and logical thing to do would be to move the bed onto the ceiling.
From this point I started thinking about how one would go about doing that, and coming to the conclusion that my bed is tucked in best at the foot of the bed, I would possibly end up hanging upside down from feet, then I woke up a bit and realised that this simply wouldn’t happen because the mattress is not fixed to the bed, so I started thinking about strapping the matress and associated sheets and blankets to the bed, which would also sove the falling out of the bed problem. This morning when I reflected on this I realised that, rather than attaching the bed to the ceiling upside down, it would make more sense to attach it the right way up, which would mean that nobody would fall out, although you would want to have a strong ceiling.
I think I might keep my bed on the floor!
Samuel
November 16th, 2005 at 06:46pm
Oh boy, just when I thought some sanity had returned to my life, 2UE pull some strange changes out of a hat and make my 2CC listening odd.
It started when I turned on the radio this morning at around 12:30am before going to bed and noticed Stuart Bocking, after a bit of research I have discovered George is gone and Stuart has taken over the show (eek!). I reported back in June that Stuart was moving to middawns and leaving Lawsie’s show, which seems to have come true. Stuart only seems to be doing racing tips once a week for Lawsie now, which is a large pity in my view, he was always a welcome and fun addition to Lawsie’s show when he entered the studio out of the blue.
Thankfully 2CC haven’t lost their minds, and Weekend Magazine was back today, with Mike Frame running a mostly snappy and entertaining show, well done Mike! Thankfully Weekend Magazine is on 2CC to save us from Sydney realty and gardening.
As previously reported, Mike frame also ran the Trading Post and the Saturday morning show which used to be the domain of Kane Bond, who has left 2CC.
Glenn Wheeler (Apoligies for spelling his name with one N previously) seems to have settled in to his afternoon show and was pretty good today, although he (presumably at 2UE’s discretion) has launched a 5:30-6PM trading post…ye gods, this brings that dreaded program format repetition back to 2CC…saved from Sydney gardening…driven nuts by Sydney Buying, Swapping and Selling. 2UE management are collectively insane if they think getting listeners from Canberra, Sydney and wherever else Glenn is heard to all ring in and try and sell stuff to each other…yes 2UE, everyone wants to drive for three hours or more just to buy a table…
I suppose this means that I think 2CC should move local programming to the afternoon to avoid loony 2UE segments…but I doubt they will.
Samuel
November 12th, 2005 at 05:16pm
This is taking the changes too far, George Gibson has been replaced by Stuart Bocking.
Regular readers may remember that in June I reported that there were rumors flying about Stuart Bocking taking over the weekday version New Day Australia from John Kerr, whilst what would happen to John Kerr was unclear. Fortunately this didn’t happen, but it looks like there was some truth to the rumors as Stuart Bocking has taken over the weekend version of the show.
For those who are wondering about the fate of George Gibson, I don’t know, but I will endeavour to find out.
Back in June I did say (perhaps not on this site) that I didn’t think Stuart would suit middawn where lengthy conversations are normal, and listening to some of his show this morning, I would have to say I think I was right…maybe he will adapt, but he is no George Gibson, he doesn’t have the same level personality and he doesn’t have the same fun demeanour. I hope he will adapt as I like middawn talk programs.
Just like last week’s surprise changes at 2UE, this change was a complete surprise, with listeners given no warning that George was going. This is very poor form 2UE, you are treating your listeners with contempt, and if you keep playing games of Schedule Scrabble you will lose an awful lot of listeners to stations like 2GB who seem to be able to maintain a schedule for more than one moon phase.
Samuel
November 12th, 2005 at 05:05pm
Over the weekend the ACT Government sent out a booklet to each and every household titled Emergencies And The National Capital: A Residents Guide.
Whilst it is an interesting effort by the government, it is unlikely that you will find anything of use in their quickly, instead you are told objectives, colours and the acts that “underpin” your evacuation.
The guide is clearly written by a public servant as it does lack clarity and plain english, favouring government speak and responsibility briefings. Among my favourite parts of the book are:
The ACT Evacuation Strategy is underpinned by the ACT Emergencies Act 2004 which allows Emergency Services to restrict movement to an area, or direct to people to leave an area due to unacceptable risks to life, property and the environment. The Strategy provides a flexible and adaptable approach to the management of evacuations that is not possible through the development of fixed plans. To achieve this the Strategy has the following components:
- The ACT Community Safety – Evacuation Policy;
- The ACT All Hazards Warning System; and
- A public information plan.
Oh goody, that clears that up!
Apparently part of our emergency planning is acknowleging that emergency services may not be able to immediately meet all individual and community needs.
Looks like the chief turnip won’t need to worry about being responsible next bushfire then!
The guide also outlines the colour coded “emergency event” system, namely “Blue: Possible Threat”, “Yellow: Likely Impact”, “Orange: Certain Impact” & “Red: Immediate Impact”. Only Orange and Red will attract an emergency siren being broadcast through local media outlets, and therefore only Orange and Red are going to wake up the usually automated radio and TV stations. This is interesting because the book does say that some people should evactuate during Yellow…but if our radio and TV stations are automated we aren’t going to know about Yellow…so much for advance warning.
Anyway, if you would like to read this rather odd publication for yourself, take a look at http://www.esb.act.gov.au/Emergencies_and_the_National_Capital_-_A_residents_guide.pdf but be careful, those government papragraphs may make your eyes glaze over.
Samuel
November 8th, 2005 at 03:17pm
There is something about the warmer weather and Friday that brings a large number of loonies into my life. There were quite a few of them today, and it is hard to work out which one was first, but here goes anyway.
Firstly we have the woman who decided that the perfect way to transport a two metre pole (or thereabouts) is to shove it on to a bus rather recklessly…that was helpful…
Moving on to the next loopy person and it was some nut from an anti-daylight saving group, I have no problem with her anti-daylight saving views, but there is definetly a problem when she claims that daylight saving causes cancer, depression, the flu, flying werewolf disease and just about every other known and unknow medical problem on the planet (OK, I made flying werewolf disease up, but you get the drift). The best description of that would have to be codswallop.
What’s next…oh yes, the ambulance that had to go down Ainslie Avenue, kept going straight along Ballumbir St, did a u-turn, came back, stopped in the middle of the intersection before deciding which way to go. I pity the person they were attending…I hope they found their way back to the hospital…or are they at the top of Mount Ainslie right now?
Then we have the people who, regardless of location, refuse to eat quietly. I’m not talking about them talking, I’m talking about the way they chew their food…I really don’t want to be able to hear them chewing their food from the next table…it is rather off putting actually, and spoiled my meal somewhat.
Oh, I forgot to mention the people who, when you place your order give you a funny look as if you have spoken in klingon despite the fact that the order is exactly the same as every other time you have ordered.
Then we have the people in supermarkets who walk around in groups very slowly and block aisles in the process.
The people in bakeries who, despite the queue, feel a need to have a chat instead of serving anyone…..The people who park in bus stops…..The people who can’t wait check if the car in front of them has moved off from the traffic lights and nearly rear-end them….The chief turnip deciding we don’t need water restrictions any more…
Yes, I had a rather annoying late afternoon/early evening…
Samuel
October 28th, 2005 at 09:27pm
Well, the walk I had with Nattie this afternoon was interesting. Despite walking on the other side of a nearby street to the location of the Ten-Year-Old Anti-Angels, I still managed to get an earful of their noise, the more I hear of them, the more I want to print out that article and put it in their letter box, not that it is likely to help, but it would relieve the frustration a bit.
Also on the walk, some lunatic who decided to be an animal health expert for the minute gave some less than useful advice. This all occured while Nattie was sniffing a tree, as she does, and as is natural for dogs to do. This bloke was walking nearby and called out “It’ll get sick if you let it sniff things….pull it away”, I ignored him. Nattie was just about finished with the tree and was doing a bit of ground scratching, which she does occasionally, and most dogs do…what I mean by “ground scratching” is scratching the ground and kicking up a bit of dirt, this seemed to be an opportunity for the loony, who was now further away, to provide more advice “It’s just marking territory, pull it away”.
There was nothing odd about the tree, but there was about the advice provider. For someone offering animal health advice, he wasn’t particularly healthy himself…appearing to be somewhat agitated and under the influence of something, alcohol or otherwise, and littering the ground with orange peels. Eating the orange could be the only thing he had going for him…if he had ever eaten it…he just peeled it and looked at it. Whilst I can’t confirm it, he was certainly heading in the direction of an area notorious for drug dealers, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he was going there.
I must wonder what he thinks dogs do? He certainly doesn’t understand what happens when you take dogs for walks. Walks are not only good excersise for dogs, they also provide an opportunity for them to investgate and explore the area, and due to their extremely good sense of smell, this means sniffing things.
He, on the other hand, should refrain from sniffing or inhaling whatever it is he sniffs or inhales.
Samuel
October 23rd, 2005 at 08:17pm
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