Friday, April 27, 2007

Poodle Scam

2 posts in an hour! Just got sent this link:

Japanese Fooled in Poodle Scam:
Thousands of Japanese have been swindled in a scam in which they were sold Australian and British sheep and told they were poodles.
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The scam was uncovered when Japanese moviestar Maiko Kawamaki went on a talk-show and wondered why her new pet would not bark or eat dog food.

She was crestfallen when told it was a sheep.


I didn't actually believe it, so I did a Google news search. It certainly would appear to be the real thing.

PoohBear goes to Adelaide

And what a dull city it is too!

Ok, that's unfair; all I really saw of Adelaide was the inside of a sports hall. However, from taking a quick wander around there didn't seem like there was much going on.

The results are up on the Australian Fencing Events website. A good pool result apart from 1 silly loss, but messed up in the last 8. I wasn't alone: 3 of the top 4 seeds lost their last 8 matches.

Saturday, April 21, 2007

Off Fishing.. I mean Fencing!

Off to Adelaide today for the first National Competition Circuit event of the year. These AFF organised comps are bigger affairs, with proper weapons checks and everything. Am somewhat worried about my sabre mask getting through weapons control, fingers crossed!

Better go pack!

Friday, April 13, 2007

Technical Talk



A good friend of mine recently got herself a new phone, and sent me what was quite possibly the funniest e-mail I've ever read. Here it is, for your enjoyment.

Don't get too excited - it is only a Samsung. But looks impressively mysterious. Had a girl to girl discussion this morning with someone from Telstra with same phone. Conversation went like this:

Me: So how do I open it?

Her: Flip it open and push the thing?

Me: Silver thing?

Her: No, the red thingy.

Me: Oh. So what do all the silver things do?

Her: Ohhhh. Can't remember what the silver things are for... Do you know what they are for? I have a phone just like this... Any idea?

Me: No idea. Camera ?

Her: Oh THATs what it's for. So what do the other silver things do I wonder...

Me: Right or left?

Her: Right - no left ! Um, which way up is YOUR phone?

And on and on...

Wednesday, April 11, 2007

Dissimilitudes: 50 Meter Pools

Right! I'm determined to make something of this blog, so here we go. This is -hopefully - the first in a series of posts discussing some of the differences between life in Sydney and in Dublin.

Perhaps people reading this are Irish people thinking of making a visit to Sydney, or Australia. Perhaps you're Aussies thinking of visiting the Emerald Isle. Either way, forewarned is forearmed. Read this series or articles and you'll have everything you need.

First off, a subject which has recently become dear to my heart: Olympic Sized Swimming Pools.
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For those of you completely unfamiliar with the sport, an Olympic sized swimming pool is one which is 50 metres from end to end and 10 lanes wide. As an aside, the outer two lane are not used during competitive events.

According to this wikipedia entry: Ireland has a total of two Olympic sized pools - count them, two! Even a UCD student with his mittens could count that high! One is in Limerick and one is in Dublin. There is also a 50 meter pool in Clontarf, but that only has 6 lanes and belongs to a private health club.

By contrast, in Sydney, there are 5 public Olympics sized pools, within walking distance of my apartment. They typically cost lest then AU$5 enter and they are the bee's knees! I've got a touch of Achilles Tendinitis, so my running has been severely curtailed. Instead, to avoid getting fat, I've voraciously attacked the pools. I go swimming two or three times a week and and I'm to 30 lengths of the pool; for those Irish reading this that's 1.5 km, not 750m. I think it's fantastic exercise.

I can't find a reference to when the Irish pools were built, but I can tell you that 10 years ago there were NO full length pools in Ireland. None. Nada. Zip. Zilch. A big fat Zero. How do I know this? Well...

In 1996, a young Irish swimmer named Michelle Smith, unexpectedly won 4 medals, including 3 golds at the Atlanta Olympics. According to her Wikipedia page: She was single-handedly responsible for Ireland's second largest ever medal haul at one Olympics.

In interviews following her wins, she publicly shamed the Irish sporting authorities for having no full sized pools in Ireland. The Irish government, reactive as always, immediately went away to start work on the previously mentioned pools.

Of course since then, Ms Smith, now better know by her married name, Michelle de Bruin has received a 4 year ban for drug test irregularities. The fickle Irish media have since seemed to disown her. I can't verify if this is true, a friend of mine reported to me that in a recent RTE broadcast on Ireland's Olympic successes, the medal count for Atlanta showed zero medals won.

It's as if she never existed.

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Blogger just ate most of my post. I had to re-write it. I remember now why I stopped making so many entries.

Saturday, April 07, 2007

Shudder


Anyone remember the Skeksis? You know the vulture things from the Dark Crystal.

Damn! They were scary b4$74rd5!

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Sorry for yet another filler. I actually have a few posts planned in the near future. Still a work in progress, but watch this space.