Sikamikanico Blogs

There's not a lot I can say about this, with so much that has already been said. There's an excellent website, Australia Unites , which has a case background, news links and an petition you can sign, for what it's worth now; even though it seems like all hope is lost now, "as long as there is life, there is hope" and in any case, no matter what happens, in signing the petition, you can record your disgust about the execution. So what I want to post here, is something I posted on the Necro forum : Regarding this case, I felt an emotion I never expected to feel: I felt sympathy for Ray Martin. Allow me to explain... Last week I was channel surfing, when I happened to land on A Current Affair (which I don't normally watch, The 7:30 Report being rather more how I prefer to get political insights). But anyway, Ray presented a clip of the family visiting Van in prison, then went to the results of an SMS poll of viewers, question being: "Do you believe that th

Hello work week! Well if you're tired of processing data (that's me!), or memorising the periodic table for your science exam, or whatever it is that you're meant to be doing, here's another bloated, multi-subject post to sink your teeth into. (NOTE: actually sinking your teeth into your monitor is not recommended; it will leave unsightly bite marks in the plastic, and may chip your teeth). ~~~~~ Well I had a rather culturally improving weekend; on Saturday, as I often do, taking myself off to the Newcastle art gallery to see a new exhibition I'd been looking forward to, Margaret Olley's Newcastle . Olley, considered to be Australia's greatest living painter, painted many landscapes of Newcastle in the 1960s and 70s, and the exhibiton is really worth getting along to, especially to observe the astonishing changes to the city skyline between then and now. There was an even greater treat at the gallery though - Francsico Goya's Proverbs ; his last, unfin

W O O - H O O ! ! ! Being a soccer fan can be a long, hard, thankless task. Bt there are moments, moments which transcend mere sport and become truly highlights of your life. Last night was one of those moments. After 32 long years, Australia have qualified for the World Cup !!! Rather than giving a detailed review of the game, I'll just give you my highlights, watching at home. When Marco Bresciano scored towards the end of the first half, I was so excited I leaped out of my chair and bit my hand (which I always tend to do at moments of high excitement, I don't know why). However, this meant that the score was now 1-1 on aggregate, and Australia needed to score again to qualify. This didn't happen, not in the second half nor in extra time, and you could tell that the Uruguayans were really beginning to flag. The commentators said the game was Australia's for the taking, but they couldn't quite get that chance, and it ended with the dreaded penalty shoot-out. I don

Finally, the heatwave we've been suffering under for the past few days has broken. I'll give you an idea of how hot it was on Wednesday: at 5:30pm I put out a load of laundry. Now, the spin cycle on my washing machine doesn't work very well, so the clothes were still pretty soaked. At 6:30pm I went out to the bins, and checked the washing on the line; most of the lighter items were dry, and even the heavy towels were no more than slightly damp. Now that is a hot day. The arrival of summer also means the non-ratings period on the TV. That means, for those of us too poor for pay TV, we have nothing to watch for the next few months than re-run, mostly American, drivel. Ugh! It seems to me to be a chicken-and-egg situation; is no one watching because the programming is so poor, or is programming so poor because no one is watching? I plump for the former. Think of all the free time people have over the Xmas/New Year break, and especially with the long school holidays; surely i

This morning I saw Grinspoon performing on Seven Sunrise . Is it just me, or is seeing Grinspoon "up and attem" at 7:30 on a Monday morning rather disturbing? Let alone on commercial breakfast television?!? Okay, sure, three of them have kids now. But still. I had a good look at them, and I couldn't tell if they'd gotten up really early, or whether their performance was one of the last stages of an all-nighter. I was a pretty big fan of Grinspoon in their early days, but like with everything else, I just gave up about four or five years ago. I thought it was fairly prescient that the Grinners referred to Eskimo Joe as "Eskimo Blow" in the lead up to the ARIAs, Grinspoon never having won an ARIA award (The guys were also pretty scathing about losing out to Killing Heidi a few years ago, I might add). EJ may have critical acclaim now, but it's a point to keep in mind, that in the late 1990s, when Grinspoon had built up a respectable career and fanbase,

I can't remember the last time I was this exhausted at the end of a working week. Even now, I'm still at the office past quitting time, because after finishing my "real" work, I have to complete all the myriads of status reports required by modern business. This won't be a very long post; I want to get out of here as much as you do. Weekends have been great, ever since the decision I made a few weeks ago, to stop trying to make plans, organise outings etc. That way, I'm not setting myself up for any let downs. Basically on Friday evening I stock up on all the food, alcohol, DVDs and whatever else I'll need, then I go home and Xander and I bunker down. I only leave the house to get the newspaper and any essentials I've forgotten, unless there's a special event on, like Necro. This may sound awfully boring and lonely, but it isn't; and it's better than calling people to make arrangements and finding that they're all busy, or worse still,

Local readers may well be aware of the Big Black Hole in Sydney. For the rest of you, welcome and allow me to explain... Basically, what happened is that at approx 2am AESST yesterday, there was a rock collapse in the construction of the Lane Cove Tunnel, leading to a 10 metre crater in the ground...with a block of apartments, situated above the construction site, left hanging over the hole. More on the story here ; it's a pretty good overview, although I normally use ABC news for my links. This is a temporary link. The hole below the apartment block. Have you ever stood on the top of a high diving platform? And looked all the way down to the water? That's how deep 10 metres is...over 30 feet. It's a big hole. An aerial view of the apartments, perched above the hole. All the residents were immediately evacuated, and no one can say when they might be allowed back in; although there have been assurances that the building is not about to collapse, yesterday there was hourly up

Well, the Melbourne Cup has been run and won for another year. If you want to get an idea of all the hype there was, see here . Me, I was utterly nonplussed by the whole event. First of all, because I don't gamble, ever (sorry to be a wowser...but I think that if there's one thing on Earth that truly is a sin, it's gambling. Okay, bigotry and gambling). But secondly, because of what I've come to know as my Melbourne Cup day curse. Every year since at least 1995, something terrible has happened to me on Melbourne Cup day. It's some to reach the stage where it's almost like a dear old enemy; yesterday it came along like clockwork as usual, in the form of a very nasty situation at work, in which I'm being blamed for a large problem not of my causing; I know who the real culprit is, but can't really do anything, not being much of a snitch. Anyway, yesterday wasn't a good day, and as usual I missed the race. But really my point, as I alluded to in the ti