Breaking news

Council loses pointless VCAT appeal

According to Prime TV News tonight (Channel 7) & Win (Channel 9):

The Alpine council has lost its costly appeal against the wall heights of the soon-to-be-opened Woolworths supermarket in Bright.

That’s good news and not unexpected. How pathetic is it though that there is no corresponding announcement of this important decision on the council’s website? What’s wrong, are they too embarrassed at the massive loss of face (and ratepayers’ money)? Come on, someone there needs to get off their arse and make a public statement – NOW!

I’m sorry to break my 7-day no blogs pledge, but this news compelled me to do it. Anyway I’ll write more about it when I know more.

 Meanwhile, for the attention of Lee Rosser , Nick Malkin and the handful of Save Bright hillbillies & neanderthals ….

You lose (again!)

No blogs for one week

7-Day open thread

I’ve got a lot to of jobs to do around the place at the moment so I’ve made myself a promise not to write any new posts for a whole 7 days. I know it will be hard for many of you to get through without my daily contributions so I’ll leave this post as an open thread where you can say whatever you want on any topic (I’m not restricting myself from the comments). Here are some starters:

The population debate: The leader of the Greens, Bob Brown, has said that he “definitively” believes Australia cannot sustain Kevin Rudd’s projected population of 35 million by 2050. What do you think? I think he’s absolutely wrong.

The Barry Hall debate: How long before the reinvented Barry Hall blows it and pops someone? I’ll give him until about round 9. And that’ll be the end of the Bulldogs’ year.

The Michael Clarke debate (if you can call it that): I reckon the Australian cricket team’s vice captain has come out of this Lara Bingle thing looking like a real self-obsessed ponce. I really don’t care if his cricketing career suffers.

Strange search terms #2

I’ve done this before but it’s interesting (and amusing) to look at some of the search engine terms people use to find this blog (WordPress provides this information on my stats page). This is the pick-of-the-bunch from the last 7 days:

how we can stop climate change ~ Um, leave the planet?

And here are some more:

Should New Zealand become an Aussie State?

It's only 2,000 kms from Australia's east coast, which is much closer than Perth.

Of course they should - it’s a ‘no-brainer’

I’ve been saying for quite a few years that Australia should simply annex New Zealand, and now it looks like the Kiwis are starting to agree that they’d be better off as part of the Australian Commonwealth (or Republic, as the case may be).

According to this report  more than 40% of New Zealanders think it’s time they considered becoming Australia’s seventh state:

The research, conducted by UMR, asked residents on both sides of the Tasman for their views on a possible union of the countries, 110 years after New Zealand chose not to join the Australian Commonwealth.

Of the New Zealanders asked, 41 per cent said the prospect of New Zealand becoming Australia’s seventh state was “an idea worth debating”.

Comment:

The NAB Cup Final

It doesn’t ultimately mean a lot but this pre-season ‘Grand Final’ tonight promises to be a great game. As much as I’d like to see St Kilda win it, I just think that Footscray will want it more. After all, they’ve had even less success than St Kilda has had over the past 50 years or so. But I bet the Saints keep Barry Hall pretty quiet – they usually do.

Did you know ….

…. that digital TV reception can be affected by sound waves put out by domestic equipment? I didn’t … until a few minutes ago. My neighbour started up his (rather loud) lawn mower and while he was mowing up & down within about 10 metres of our antenna, our digital TV reception went haywire, cutting in & out with “no signal” messages. But as soon as he turned it off, it was fine. This is not good enough and I get the impression we have been duped into accepting a sub-standard transmission signal that can be interfered with by the simplest of things. Fix it please, Mr Rudd. Gotta go now, he’s just started the mower again and guess what?

The time machine

Bright goes ‘Back to the future’

This is great news for Save Bright and people like Nick Malkin & Lee Rosser, who seem to think we should be living in the past and that Bright should not be updated and, instead, should become a sleepy hollow like Omeo.

The Alpine council is about to fulfil their wishes by purchasing a Great Alpine Time Machine that will take us back to … well, maybe back to Neanderthal days?

I kid you not, here is the, er, slightly amended press release:

The million dollar mauler

Persona non grata

Andrew Lovett, who has never played a game with St Kilda and was sacked by them soon after being recruited following his, er, misdemeanours (he’s been charged with rape!), now wants a payout of his full $1 million 3-year contract.

Okay, I understand that the sacking has effectively ended his AFL career and that at 27 (and with his reputation) he’s not likely to be picked up again by any other club (although there’s always the Gold Coast or West Sydney!), so I guess he’s entitled to something … he just needs to take a zero of that $1,000,000 he’s after.

PS: He should have gone to Geelong – they would have only suspended him for about 6 weeks and then let him back in. Just like they do with their drug traffickers.

Pub in a caravan

That laptop computer looks strangely out-of-place, but I think the van's in better nick than the pub.

So what do you do when your favourite blue singlet & thongs pub closes down because the lessee has been evicted for not paying the rent and the landlord has changed the locks and taken possession? Well, you park your caravan out the front and start your own bar of course:

Letter of the month

From the Border Mail comes this little gem:

DID any one else see the funny side of Myer Centrepoint Beechworth Bakery’s advertisement in Saturday’s The Border Mail (March 6).
“Buy one bottomless tea or coffee and get the second one free”.

DIANNE KERR, Oaklands

Comment:  Well I guess the ad meant to say that if one person buys a bottomless cup, their relative, partner or friend accompanying them gets theirs for free. Or did it? Pretty stupid offer.

Public service message

It costs more than the Herald-Sun!

Bright residents are advised to save themselves $1.20 by not buying this week’s Bright Observer, which contains …. well, absolutely not one, single, readable or noteworthy news story. Take my word for it.

Dump her

Update: He HAS dumped her. See foot of post.

Update #2: This just gets more & more bizarre. Now Cricket Australia & Ricky Ponting are saying they don’t know if Clarke will be back. He really does need to get his head together – it’s not like we have any shortage of players ready to replace him as vice-captain (and future captain). Shane Watson comes pretty quickly to mind.

Lara 'Where the bloody hell are you?' Bingle and Michael 'Pup' Clarke. Maybe they deserve each other?

If this story  about Bingle’s, er, activities, is to be believed, then the vice-captain of the Australian cricket team, Michael Clarke, is truly at the crossroads of his career. And it’s all because he has put an airhead before his own interests and those of the national team he one day is tipped to lead. Honestly, why the ‘bloody hell’ would anyone in Clarke’s rather privileged position get himself involved with such a dubious, self-serving gold-digger like Lara Bingle? Wake up Clarke and let her go.

The Neanderthal Code

The two-part documentary that ended last Thursday on ABC1, The Neanderthal Code, advanced the theory that neanderthals (i.e. cavemen), who once occupied Europe but were believed to have been wiped out 30,000 years ago, actually survived the invasion of homo sapiens (i.e. modern man) and that their descendants are still walking the earth today. Which makes me wonder …. 

…. are there any NEANDERTHALS around here in Bright?

The long weekend

To all those Melburnians who decided it would be a good idea not to go away for the long weekend, I just want to let you know that the weather is beautiful up here in sunny Bright.

Flinders Street, Melbourne this afternoon. Looks like a great place to be.

 Update Sunday 7 March: Well, there’s plenty of rain here today but nothing like Melbourne had yesterday. No ‘hailstones as big as tennis balls’ … yet.

Woolies nearing completion

For a supermarket, it looks pretty damn attractive ~ click on image to enlarge.

Close up of the main entry - click to enlarge.

The bitumen is down and the building works are clearly all but finished. This is the new Woolworths supermarket & specialty shop development in Bright, that has caused some people to go rather stupid with claims that it would “ruin the character and amenity of the town”. Um, I think not. The contemporary style and finishes are quite pleasing and I think we’re getting something that a lot of other towns would kill for. It has to be a big plus for residents & tourists alike. Hopefully it’ll be open by Easter.