Ex-Boyfriend in Boot

I suspect you have all seen the “Baby on board” warning signs in car rear windows. For those of you who haven’t, they all look much like this:

This morning, driving into the city on my way to the office, I saw what can only be described as a, “Bogan chick” with a, “P” plate and attached to the inside of her rear window what was, at first glance, an innocuous sign that looked remarkably like, “Baby on board”. On closer inspection, the sign read, “Ex-Boyfriend in Boot.” Unfortunately, much to my chagrin, I didn’t manage to snap a pic of it. As it happens, driving while struggling with a mobile phone camera was just not working for me. Now, here’s the don’t try this at home moment for you all. I must warn you not to try this at home, but it’s much easier to text or actually use the phone as a phone while driving than it is to manipulate the built-in camera in your phone when in traffic. Not that I either condone this behaviour nor perform said acts myself, but I understand it.

I’ve always wondered why those people who have things similar to this like, “Zero to Bitch in Under 3 seconds” bumper stickers would advertise the fact.

Surely this isn’t something you want the rest of the city to know? Then again, perhaps it’s like the, “Stupid” sign. What’s that, I hear? You must know the joke that recommends stupid people should have to wear a sign so you don’t or wouldn’t ask them something once you’ve seen the sign? Maybe it’s like that and we should all be grateful for the prior warning.

Anyway, here’s the joke:

Stupid people should have to wear signs that just say, “I’m Stupid. That way you wouldn’t rely on them, would you? You wouldn’t ask them anything. It would be like, “Excuse me…oops, never mind. I didn’t see your sign.”

It’s like before my wife and I moved. Our house was full of boxes and there was a U-Haul truck in our driveway. My friend comes over and says, “Hey, you moving?” “Nope. We just pack our stuff up once or twice a week to see how many boxes it takes. Here’s your sign.”

A couple of months ago I went fishing with a buddy of mine, we pulled his boat into the dock, I lifted up this big ‘ol stringer of bass and this idiot on the dock goes, “Hey, y’all catch all them fish?” “Nope – Talked ‘em into giving up. Here’s your sign.”

I was watching one of those animal shows on the Discovery Channel. There was a guy inventing a shark bite suit. And there’s only one way to test it. “all right Jimmy, you got that shark suit on, it looks good…They want you to jump into this pool of sharks, and you tell us if it hurts when they bite you.”

“Well, all right, but hold my sign. I don’t wanna lose it.”

Last time I had a flat tire, I pulled my truck into one of those side-of-the-road gas stations. The attendant walks out, looks at my truck, looks at me, and I SWEAR he said, “Tire go flat?” I couldn’t resist. I said, “Nope. I was driving around and those other three just swelled right up on me. Here’s your sign.”

We were trying to sell our car about a year ago. A guy came over to the house and drove the car around for about 45 minutes. We get back to the house, he gets out of the car, reaches down and grabs the exhaust pipe, then goes, “Darn that’s hot!” See? If he’d been wearing his sign, I could have stopped him.

I learned to drive an 18 wheeler in my days of adventure. Wouldn’t ya know I misjudged the height of a bridge. The truck got stuck and I couldn’t get it out no matter how I tried. I radioed in for help and eventually a local cop shows up to take the report. He went through his basic questioning. No problem. I thought for sure he was clear of needing a sign… until he says, “So..is your truck stuck?” I couldn’t help myself! I looked at him, looked back at the rig, then back to him and said, “No I’m delivering a bridge…Here’s your sign!”

I celebrated in the park

March 9th was the Monday of the Canberra Day long weekend. Of all the things to be doing on a day off from work, I can’t say I was overly thrilled at the prospect of listening to a bunch of local bands at Stage 88 and particularly not because we were supposed to be arriving at the venue around 1400h and spending at least seven hours on the grass before the fireworks display.

We arrived at about 1600h and got settled with just enough time to hear the end of one of the local groups, Los Chavos and the to hear all of the next local act, Chasing Bailey. The announcers, the current Mix 106 “Feel good” station’s breakfast DJ pairing, described Chasing Bailey as having played together since they were teenagers. Was that the best that could be said about the band? As it turned out, Chasing Bailey were no more than teenagers! Though capable, and certainly better than me, there was nothing, “Wow!” about them.

Following Chasing Bailey was the first of the headline performers for the evening, Jessica Mauboy. I am told Jessica was a contestant on Australian Idol so when she came on stage, I wasn’t surprised to hear what you would expect from the Idol franchise factory – a repertoire of manufactured music that appeals to pre-pubescent girls. She really can sing though, just not my sort of music.

Kate Miller-Heidke was next on the programme. From Triple J, I had heard her name but couldn’t put a song to it so I was interested to hear her perform. Again, a really good voice (she is classically trained) but the vocal stylings sounded like she was singing scales in the middle of her songs and what seemed to be a bit of posing and hand waving like this:

and this…

some more of this kind of action…

I get the feeling she likes it like that.

All these images were taken from http://katemh.com/ and I’ll take them down if there is a problem.

Next were the headline act, the Hoodoo Gurus. The Gurus came on at about 2000h and rocked for over an hour finishing with a double encore. For the most part, the set list was a a trip down memory lane though they did play a track that I had never heard before. It was clear that they had slowed down a little bit since I’d seen them last, and I was surprised to see Dave Faulkner wearing the same vertical stripe pants he was in 1992 when I saw them while I was at Uni! None-the-less they still ROCK!

Fireworks ended what ended up the show and finishing off what was an alright afternoon and evening out.

Recording industry complains – 95% of digital music is obtained illegally!

Digital music revenues are up but the recording industry is complaining – Not like they don’t charge an arm and a leg anyway.

All that is happening is a rationalisation in the market. Consumers pay for good music and won’t pay for the rest of the padding that makes up an album, particularly as most of it is just rubbish. Why should an additional charge be levied on a medium that has increasing revenue purely on the basis of figures that they can’t prove?

From economist.com 4/2/09

Big record companies and music-retailer may be struggling, but sales of digital music are booming. Global revenues leaped by 28% last year, despite piracy – up to 95% of digital music is obtained illegally, reckons the IFPI, a trade body. Though this figure is disputed, governments are enacting tougher legislation to catch illegal file-sharers and shut down the sites they use. Last week Britain’s government proposed a £20 ($28.60) levy on every household using broadband to help offset the costs of piracy.