Thursday, September 11, 2008
YouTube Clip Of The Day
4:14PM Jess McGuire | Anthony The Crunchy Poet has hit paydirt once again. Here’s a lovely, oddly soothing clip of something called a “Ferrofluid Spiral” for your viewing pleasure.
According to Anthony, “a ferrofluid is a totally mental liquid that becomes crazy polarised in the presence of a magnetic field.”
So now you know. More » 
Peter Costello Accuses Janette Howard Of Political Cockblocking
3:23PM Jess McGuire | Peter Costello is apparently claiming in his forthcoming book that he would have won the 2007 election for the Coalition if he’d been allowed to take over leadership, but that evil old harpy Janette Howard refused to let it happen because she wanted to personally serve George W. Bush sandwiches at Kirribilli. Or something.
Mr Costello calls the former prime minister’s wife a “consensus of one” and claims she was more powerful than federal cabinet in the lead-up to last year’s election, the Nine Network reported.
Mr Costello says Mrs Howard did not want anyone else occupying Kirribilli House when US President George W Bush visited Australia for the APEC summit in Sydney last September, the report said.
Good god, Peter. You really are a pathetic individual, aren’t you? You had your chance and you wimped out, buddy. And now, like someone who lost an argument but then later regales friends with tales of the things you would have said and done had you not run off crying like a big girl, you won’t stop jabbering on about how things might have been different.
You coulda had class. You coulda been a contender. You coulda been somebody, instead of a bum, which is what you are, let’s face it.
Anyway, it’s the quotes regarding Peter’s memoirs from politicians on both sides of the political fence which interest me and are rather telling. More » 
Oscarlima Continue To Delight!
2:03PM Jess McGuire | Well folks, I simply could not be in a better mood this afternoon. After yesterday’s rediscovery of a forgotten Australian music gem from the nineties, Oscarlima’s If You Wanna Be My Friend, I was hankering – HANKERING – to locate a copy of the song so I could listen to it while riding my bike around town during these delicious early days of spring (I realise listening to music while riding a bike is the safety equivalent of kicking a cripple – a big no no – and I hope to change my dangerous ways soon).
But I have no credit card – I cannot purchase things from iTunes! Other than going through every second hand record store in what would probably be a fruitless search for the Oscarlima album, I couldn’t fathom a way to fulfill my melodic cycling dream.
BUT THEN… More » 
Australian Idol Round-Up: Ratings Bonanza
11:00AM Clem Bastow | While the traditionally high-rating stage of Australian Idol (i.e. the Final 12 weeks) hasn’t quite begun yet, it looks as though the old stayer of the reality/light entertainment/talent quest format is still a tidy ratings earner for Channel Ten, which will no doubt be a relief after the unmitigated tanking of Big Brother (somewhere, Channel Nine is wiping away its hysterical tears with the contracts drawn up to purchase that ailing axed franchise).
The show so far appears to be firing on both media fronts with data from the online researcher Hitwise showing Idol has jumped to the top ranking in online TV shows ahead of The World Game on SBS, Nine’s A Current Affair and Seven’s Home And Away.
More » 
Kylie Set To Join The Wiggles In Orgy On Bed Comprised Entirely Of $100 Notes
10:30AM Clem Bastow | She spends so much time overseas these days (hell, since the mid-’90s) it’s sometimes easy to forget that, for the purposes of things like “Australia: Just What Do They Put In The Water Down There?” features and, oh, high earner lists, Kylie Minogue is still considered as Aussie as chucking another Victa Mower on the barbie built out of XXXX cans and kangaroos. But she is, and she’s done well for herself in the latest BRW Top 50 Entertainers list of those who light their cigarettes with flaming $50 notes – so I charge another glass of liquid gold and sprinkled with diamonds to Our Kyles!
The singer earned $40 million in the last year to see her clinch second spot on the annual BRW Top 50 Entertainers list. Minogue’s fortune is closer than anyone has got to children’s entertainers the Wiggles in years.
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Robbie Williams Considering Changing Name To “E.T. Foanhome”
10:00AM Clem Bastow | Well, the name-change bit might be a stretch, but it seems the days when Robbie was a chipper lad about town are well and truly over. First he refused to join in the Take That reunion party, then he started growing a crazy-man beard, then he started enthusing about mysterious phenomena, and now it seems Robbie must be doing little more than sitting in a dark room filled with those old ‘I WANT TO BELIEVE’ posters and wearing an XXXL t-shirt with an alien smoking a bong on it saying ‘Take Me To Your Dealer!’ Yes, Mr Rock DJ has definitely entered the arena of the unwell:
Robbie, 34, said a weird black light flew into his recording studio in Los Angeles and out again as he and pals watched stunned.
More » Are We Dead Yet? Is This The Afterlife?
9:30AM Clem Bastow | In case you missed the memo, yesterday was D-Day: the day the Large Hadron Collider was turned on, searching for dark matter and The God Particle and generally teetering close to the brink of the destruction of all mankind, or so we’ve been told. Hell, even Google got in on the party! But is it really going to suck us into hell through a mini black hole, a la Event Horizon? Professor Stephen Hawking was typically nonplussed about its world-ending capabilities, even placing a bet that it wouldn’t find the Higgs Bosun “God Particle”, though he did put good money on its ability to earn him a few more paperweights:
He said: “If the LHC were to produce little black holes, I don’t think there is any doubt I would get a Nobel Prize, if they showed the properties I predict.
That’s the spirit! But perhaps, through all this, you are still a little confused as to what the LHC actually does? Perhaps you downloaded the 115MB of schematics and instructions from our siblings at Gizmodo and still can’t seem to put all the bits together in the right way? Sounds like you need a lesson in particle colliding – via the power of rhyme! 
Did National Debate on Pigs in Politics Start at Coachella?
9:00AM STV | No sooner did Barack Obama’s PorcineLipstickGate scandal reared it head here moments ago than we had an epic acid flashback to a far worse drama that unfolded this year at Coachella: That of the “Obama Pig” set aloft and eventually untethered during Roger Waters’s set. “That’s my pig!” Waters shouted, watching its inflated girth and pro-Obama checkmark rise over the valley and drift out of sight. It was soon found and replaced anyway by another anti-gravity oinker, this one bearing its own Obama endorsement and contained to the Q2 Arena in London. And suddenly, the vortex of American politics slowed, stilled and became the crystalline rabbit hole we always knew it was. We’ll stick to beer next time. [via Flickr/NachoFoto] More »
Difficulties Of The Technical, Not Alcoholic, Variety To Blame For Brooke’s Radio Silence
8:50AM Clem Bastow | The biz was abuzz this week after Brooke Hanson was booted from Dancing With The Stars and, apparently, got blotto and neglected her promotional duties the morning after her exit; Seven seemed to be one step away from calling a search party to find the erstwhile athlete-turned-hoofer. Well, turns out our Brooke wasn’t stuck down a drain somewhere after calling Bert on the big white telephone – in fact, her telephone was kaput! Yes, that old excuse:
Telling her “funny” story to NOVA jocks Merrick, Rosso and Kate Ritchie, Hanson said she forgot to hit the power switch on her charger and slept in, then had to fly to Mildura to speak at an environmental youth conference with a dead phone.
More » 
