The Half-Arsed Olympics
So the Commonwealth Games are on in Melbourne... just like a half-arsed Olympic Games. Some people say that having countries that you have never heard of finishing miles behind the rest of the field is what makes the Comm Games unique. I say its what makes them half-arsed. Of course the Australian media are are making the most of screwing it up for the rest of the country/world. I say 'Comm' Games because it seems that three syllables are too much for the average tv presenter or commentator. I can't wait until we have the Foot World Cup this year, the Rug World Cup next year and the O Games the year after (and there is the Melb Come Festival soon). Of course not content to shorten the name it seems that the medal ceremonies only have an australian component. If an Aussie wins gold then that's all we see, or gold and silver then we see them. Poor non-australians who win bronze... pfffft.

Of course the Commonwealth is basically a group of countries that England conquered so that they would have someone to play cricket against... and they dont even have cricket at the games!!

However, the free stuff around the games has been superb. A Festival with heaps of free entertainment all over the city, day and nite - and not a medal ceremony to be seen.

Movie Review: Match Point
Unless you have a thing for Scarlett Johansson, who gives her best performance(white linen blouse... lotsa rain) since she was the voice of Princess Mindy in The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie, then I can save two hours of your life. DONT GO!.
Is tedious, with two dimensional characters and an unbelievable plot. Woody, go back to making movies in New York!

We're Back

To the hundreds of people that have emailed us asking why the posts to the blog have dried up… we say to you “read the blog title!” To post on a regular basis would hardly be half arsed would it now?

So its 2006 – Christmas has been and gone… many blog posts have been half (arsed) written and discarded, gems like why are yellow cabs in Brisbane orange in colour, and Silver Top cabs in Melbourne don’t have a silver top.

Maybe a movie review or two this year – I will review the emotional thought provoking movies, many that have no endings (its about the journey); Praj will review movies that have a chopper in them ("… the best movies have choppers, guns and explosions in them.” Basnet, 2006)

Brokeback Mountain: A little long and my arse got sore after a while (I think Heath Ledger said that too). So with the double entendre out of the way… Unless you have been living under a rock then you know the story. Of course once you realise that these guys aren’t actually cowboys but shepherds (no cattle only sheep) then you know the 'John Wayne' image of a cowboy is in serious trouble. However the story aint about sheep rustling or just about gay (bi-sexual actually) cowboys; it is about romance, it is about pain - as Ennis (Heath Ledger) wrestles between what he feels for Jack and his family responsibilities, over 20 years. Ang Lee directs hmmm... A Chinese director on a film about gay cowboys with a wanker(HL) as its star with Alberta Canada pretending to be Wyoming... but it works! [BD]

Predator: This is the movie that started the Chopper craze with Arnie's (the Governator) immortal words, "....run, get to the chopper", where the word chopper should be pronounced more like choppah. Anyway, this movies got it all, guns, arnie, an alien, a fight between an alien and arnie, a chopper, and more guns and explosions. Anyway there's also a plot (I believe all movies have a plot, just that some movies don't consider it as important a component as others). Basically, arnie and his commando buddies are in a jungle somewhere on rescue mission, when people start getting killed by a alien - the predator, and only Arnie stands in his way........ [PB]

The Gist List - Infinity

Mathematically as we all know the best way to describe it would be the limit that a function f is said to approach at x = a when f(x) is larger than any preassigned number for all x sufficiently near a. Makes sense of course.

Infinity is written thus ∞. This of course was invented in the old days when 8 was a really big number and after counting to it you got tired and had to lie down. The lying down 8 thus signifies

“It’s really really big, bigger than 8”

In the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy infinity is defined as:
"Bigger than the biggest thing ever and then some, much bigger than that, in fact really amazingly immense, a totally stunning size, real 'Wow, thats big!' time. Infinity is just so big that by comparison, bigness itself looks really titchy. Gigantic multiplied by colossal multiplied by staggeringly huge is the sort of concept we are trying to get across here."

To infinity... and beyond (Buzz Lightyear)

The half arsed rules for free stuff
Melbourne is the home of free stuff – yesterday at Federation Square you were able to get a free massage, pedicure, manicure, chocolate drink, cap. Then today there are free Breakas (choc drink) given out at the train station. Marie, who gets HEAPS of free stuff, including a Nissan Pulsar a year or 2 back, has also managed to get the team free cartons of Red Bull, free backpacks with more free stuff inside and free sushi/sashimi for 15 people, in the last couple of weeks. So….

The half arsed rules for free stuff:
1. Always accept free stuff – it makes the giver feel good (it’s their job).
2. Don’t feel guilty – you should feel good (it’s free!).
3. Throw it away if you don’t need it – still feel good (see 1 & 2)
4. Actively seek free stuff – it’s our half arsed duty to make the world a feel good place!

P.S. The Dandy Warhols played for FREE tonight at the Vic Markets site(Channel V promo)... not here for the $, not here for the cool-dudeness of the city, here for the rock 'n' roll!!

So how did all this start you ask? No… oh well we’ll tell you anyways…
We had a look at Lindsey’s most excellent blog “Random Thoughts of a Geordie Down Under” and thought, we could do one of these… it was on Bratwurst Friday, which is a long standing half-arsed tradition (of 2 weeks). We were contemplating the dilemma of whether sauerkraut, cheese AND onions were just too much – y’know it might overflow from the bun and cause unnecessary mess on the shirt, or just reduce the volume of sauerkraut and therefore not be worth the extra 40c. So as you can see the big issues still get discussed down here. This made us think that maybe we could put these ramblings in a blog, because obviously people out there need to know the answers to these important issues, with a half arsed slant of course. We referred this to the blog queen (the aforementioned Lindsey) who said that sounded like an excellent idea. (This of course smacks of ‘you read my blog, I’ll read yours’ but hey, there’s nothing wrong with that! Hint: Lins we have linked to your blog).
Half arsed?? Well if anything is worth doing it’s worth doing half arsed, we figure there are 3 ways of doing things; the right way, the wrong way, and the half arsed way.
DISCLAIMER: The half arsed methodology is only applied to issues and projects of a personal nature - the right way always takes precedence at work.

The theme has been chosen! There was a tequila snapshot one but it looked crap - however it was named tequila snapshot which caused a bit of stir. Anyway after 3 meetings and some QA the tictac blue theme has been chosen! No going back from that decision.