Sikamikanico Blogs

Do you know who I really hate? Piers Akerman. People in early retirement age who are physically and mentally fine, but demand special treatment. People who don't have their money ready when they go to make a purchase. People who play poker machines. Anyone else who gambles. Tony Abbott. People who say "my bad". People who say "go figure". People who wear sunglasses indoors and at night. People who take their frustration at queues in the supermarket out on the checkout operator. People who make assumptions and then blame others for their mistakes. People who drive SUVs/4WDs. Anyone who doesn't live in an isolated rural area who claims they "need" to drive. Anyone who lives in an isolated rural area. People who regularly read a blog and never comment. People who expect you to find their children as adorable and/or fascinating as they do. People who assume any female is "good with kids". People who want to tell you about their renovations. P

After a long, hard day of helping Boof and Funky move house on Saturday, Boof was giving me a lift home when we decided to indulge in one of our favourite guilty past times: listening to, and consequently poking fun at, the local Christian radio station. Saturday evening was a corker. There was an American Christian rock top twenty countdown playing. I wonder how they work out what the top twenty will be - do people pray for it or something? No, I know that it would be based on sales, which seems rather presumptuous. Surely a real Christian countdown should be God's favourite twenty songs for the week? (And I bet God prefers listening to The Clash). The songs were, well...a little simplistic. Boof, who has musical talent, remarked after a paticularly insipid number about how much freedom the singer feels to pray, remarked "These songs are very repetitive." I replied, "Yes, they've got to be that way so Christians will understand them..." Then the DJ announce

Go on, click 'em - you know you want to. Looking on the bright side of things... If only we could all be so brave Most job interviews require you to do some quick thinking, but this is ridiculous Why Britney's pregnancy really is good news (Okay, there's not many. But a few follies are better than none...)

We've all had one of "those" days. But have you ever had one of "those" evenings? That's what happened to me last night. It began after dinner. I wasn't feeling very happy because I haven't heard from someone in days (okay, you've lost your phone, can you reply to your emails?) but prepared to cheer up in front of The Simpsons . However, as usual, Channel 10 switched the programming around so no Simpsons . Okay, I thought, I'll just put a DVD on. Which I did...to discover my DVD player isn't working. The picture jumps around in the manner of a distorted video cassette. I tried several discs, but they all had the same problem. This was not good news. Now, for someone who has the internet, or pay TV, or at least lives with other people they can talk to, the DVD player not working is a bit of a pain; for me without any of those things, it's little short of a disaster. The light in my house is too dim, and my eyesight too poor, to make re

Welcome back! This has been the longest I've ever gone without posting. But fear not, you can all stop thinking for yourselves now, because I'm here. As I (try to) do (nearly) every year, I got along to the Art Gallery of NSW to see the Archibald Prize finalists. The pictures of Justice Michael Kirby and Garry McDonald were particular favourites, though I notice that due to a certain ubitiquos item of electronic equipment in Michael Zavros' self-portrait, product placement has now made it into the Archibalds! The art gallery experience was rather ruined however, by the hoardes of screaming primary school kids on excursions. Now, I'm all for exposing children to culture, but put an average eight year old inside an art gallery and what happens? They don't care . And we all know what kids that age are like when they are bored. Bottom line is, I had to leave after an hour because the headache I was getting was so bad. I'm sorry, I just don't think school groups

After all those long days and more status reports than NASA would deem necessary, our major sales drive at work is over and tomorrow I start two glorious weeks of leave. What a wonderful opportunity to catch up on reading, start a course, maybe do some volunteer work...the sensible person would be doing these things. But I'm not sensible. I bought a pair of rollerskates. Not blades, skates. They're blue with red glitter trim and wheels, SO gorgeous. I've actually wanted a pair for a long time, so it was a strange twist of fate that led me to them now...I first decided I wanted a pair about two years ago, and saw some on sale in a local sports shop. I told my mother and she offered to buy them for me for my 25th birthday, but then circumstances intervened before she could get to the store. When I realised I returned to the store to buy them myself, but they were gone. For the next year I looked for another pair EVERYWHERE but never found one and gave up. Until last week, whi

Well, it seems like every cultural commentator worth their BlackBerry these days is claiming that blogging is dead or dying. Not the act of blogging itself - there are, after all, more blogs out there than ever - but blogging as a social phenomenon. Yesterday in Crikey , one of the contirbutors wrote this missive, comparing the current blogging situation to that of CB radio in the late 1970s: "A year after he got [the CB radio], we would tune in and roam the frequencies. Airy nothingness. I was reminded of this recently while trawling the blogosphere – which is increasingly taken up with blogs that appear to be dead, dying from neglect or stillborn, with one or two initial entries, now years old. It's eerie and suggests to me that we are entering the next stage of the online revolution, in which the mass expansion of blogs will begin to contract – especially those which are publishing out towards a putative audience, rather than simply being an online diary. As with CBs, what

(Don't you hate it when they say) In an ever changing world, you can count on the... Friday Follies Dr Blogstein points out the similarities between two insidious franchise operations For the best laugh you'll have in a long time, here's the video of Stephen Colbert's speech to the White House Correspondent's Association dinner or thanks to the Psychotic Patriot, you can read the transcript here . With petrol at $1.50 a litre it has come to this for petrol sniffers. Next time you think you're having a bad day If I was a Super Hero, this is the Super Hero I would be . Finally, in yesterday's post (well, the comments) I mentioned that the Labor Party doesn't stand for much of anything these days. If you want proof, just check out Clarke and Dawe for the truth about Kim Beazley...

It's interesting to see how different the Australian political scene is from that of the US. Yesterday the Reserve Bank lifted interest rates. Now, John Howard was re-elected in late 2004 on a key promise to keep interest rates low. This morning on Seven Sunrise , the re-played a clip of Howard making this promise at the time, following which the show's host, David Koch, said of Howard "Well, that was all a load of hogwash." Now, when George W. Bush visited Canberra in 2003, he said, "I love democracy" when heckled by some MPs. But can you imagine Bush appearing for an unscripted interview on Good Morning America , following which the host called the President's words, "Hogwash"? Apart from the fact that the interview wouldn't take place in the first place, any major network anchor who said something like that would be innundated by hate mail. Because there is that mood amongst some Americans - that the slightest critic of the Bush administ

Well, my last post was very sweet. So in the interests of a balanced blogging diet, I shall return to my bitter and sour normal self... Whilst watching this morning's news, I caught the end of an item on the newsbar "____ more popular as Labor leader than Kim Beazley, poll says". They were apparently referring to Rudd and Gillard , but then who could say with the Labor party these days? It could well be anyone - Jeanette Howard, Convicted Money Launderer, Guy Who Waters Parliament House Plants, Toilet Roll Holder In Visitors' Bathroom... Isn't the survival of those two trapped miners in Tasmania just the feel good story of the year? Although it could still be another 48 hours before they are freed . You can really see the frustration in the faces of the reporters sent to cover the story. They're thinking "Oh, I hope they get those men out soon...then we can get away from this miserable little town and back to our nice warm studio in Sydney". Every mo