Drew's Views

Possibly a Hit and Run Murder.

2008-09-28T12:36:00.002+10:00

Last night (Saturday) between 7pm and 7:30pm our dear little Max decided to try and cross the road out the front of our house. Unfortunately the driver of a car failed to see or slow down at the same time. It's highly possible that the driver was speeding as many cars do along our street.

It was a little after 7:30 that I went outside to call Max in only to discover his body lying on the nature strip, someone had placed his body there after moving it from the road. I don't know if it was the person who was driving the car that hit him or someone else came along later.

It was a terrible discovery, but by the looks of things the death would have been instant, so there would be little pain and suffering following the contact.

It's been extremely hard to come to terms with as he was a very much loved part of our home and loved us equally as much. we keep thinking back to what would less than an hour prior to the incident when we went to let him in, but at the time he didn't come. Had he come inside at that time, then he would still be alive with us today.

But now we have to try and move on with our lives knowing that we will never be able to feel his warmth and hear him. We do believe that he is now in heaven watching us and having much fun with the other little ones up there.

This all came just a couple of days after our other little one was injured after was probably a close call with another car. We really need to get out of this place now and will be moving this week and to a street that doesn't have so much traffic.

Egg Shells

2008-04-27T21:55:00.002+10:00

Well the other day I got up to goto work and when I got out to my car I found that someone had broken an egg on the driver's side of my car. They probably threw it as they went past, but not really sure. We think that it might have been the neighbours from across the road as the house they lived in got sold, and so they were moving out. Of course we can't prove who did it and I guess it doesn't matter who was responsible for the act of vandalism.

The night before I watched the show called "American Dad", which isn't the best show. In fact its pretty much a copy of "Family Guy" which is by the same makers. The episode involved the Dad of the show having issues with his neighbours saying bad things about him, and so he used his work to have them all moved out so he had no neighbours to complain about. I was thinking that sometimes I wish that we could have the neighbours moved out, but know it would be a selfish act, just because they do things that annoy or interfere with our lives. We share a common wall of the house with one neighbour and they at times are loud and obnoxious especially if they are partying and/or drinking.

It seems that no matter where you go and live, we are surrounded by bogans. I'd like to live in a house where the nearest neighbour is half a kilometre away. A house much like the one on Forest Gump that Forest lived in. It was on a large property. There would be problems with a that type of house, and that would be living out of town.

Superhero

2008-04-13T00:00:00.002+10:00

Today we drove to werribee for the day and went to the cinema to see "Superhero Movie." This is a comedy in the same vein as the Naked Gun, it started by showing the main character putting on his costume with narrating with a voice over, which then took us back to how he became a superhero.

He was an ordinary teenager who was in love with the girl next door, although she was in a relationship with another guy who as expected was a jerk to him. While visiting a laboratory where the scientists were doing genetic experiements, he was biten by a dragonfly.

A few days later he woke up to find that he could climb walls and had super strength. He tried to use his powers to help people but ended up hurting the people he loved. Realizing he needed a costume he set about drawing some designs. Some of these were pretty stupid really, and were just part of the naked gun humor. The Hourglass became his enemy who wanted immortality and was played by the guy who was Shooter on Happy Gilmore.

The movie had parts from many other superhero movies, like Batman when he had witnessed his parents murder, and Spiderman with the upside down kiss. They also had the X-men with Professor Xavier and his school of "Non-Asian gifted people."

Professor Stephen Hawking made an appearence several times during the movie, and each time was used for some Naked Gun style jokes. This was really his main purpose for being in the movie.

There was also alot of toilet humor used in parts of the movie, as well as some dialog that probably isn't appropriate for children, although it could be classed as a "family" movie. There were quite a lot of children under 15 years in the cinema.

Anyway you probably think that I've written this terribly, but that doesn't matter. All in all the movie gave us some laughs and was worth seeing, but I wouldn't go to the cinema to see it a second time.

Moment of Truth

2008-04-05T20:36:00.002+11:00

Have you been watching tv on a tuesday evening recently?

After a couple of weeks of a show called Monster House, channel nine replaced it with the American show "Moment of Truth". This show is a game show based on contestants answering personal questions truthfully in order to try and win $500,000. In typical fashion there are many comercial breaks, when they preview upcoming questions or contestants, and then following the break they replay the lead up to the current question. This method of programing stretches a program that could be fitted into a half hour timeslot to fill a full hour with commercial time.

The aftermath of the game show has wrecked much of the relationships of the contestants. Basically the wording of the questions could be taken as having a yes answer from something that happened in the past or the way the person felt in the past or might feel in the future.

Sometimes the questions people have found to have lied about would seem to have an obvious answer, such as "Do you think you're a good person?" Her husband would have said no, after many of the answers to previous questions, like if she was still in love with her ex. Her father thought she was a good person, and she answered yes, only to lose the $100,000. So far no one has made more than $100,000 in ten episodes.

It would be a very difficult thing to admit these extremely personal things on national tv and in front of friends and family. Many questions are related to how committed the contestant would be to their partner or if they trusted them.

I was looking at Wikipedia about this show and the ratings started quite high with viewers in the US, but it dropped quickly each week until an episode screened that created alot of publicity in magazines about the contestant that ruined her marriage based on the questions that she answered.

I guess it would take a lot for them to ax this show. They have already created a second season which they previewed on the final episode of the first season.

Feel free to leave comments on this post. Would you go on a show like this?

Food for sale.

2007-03-31T15:56:00.001+10:00

This is something that I started writing ages ago but never posted:

Well the other day I went to La Porchetta in Ballarat and ordered the Lasagne. I ate some of it and got the rest to take home. The next day I was eating it and found a leaf that was in between then sheets of lasagne.

That was a shock and something that I never expected. When i was eating it in the restaurant, I found part of the leaf but thought it was just burnt pasta. I really wonder how on earth it managed to get into the lasagne.

I later found out that it might have been a bay leaf or something that is actually used in cooking, although i'd never put it in Lasagne.

More recently I had the Cabonara from the same La Porchetta only to find later in the evening that I felt really sick and it all came back up.

I don't think i'll be getting that again for quite some time.

Australia Day

2007-01-27T00:31:00.000+11:00

What does Australia Day mean to you?

For many people it is another excuse to drink to get drunk... For Australia Day this year I went to watch a cricket match between York St CoC and Ballarat Family CoC. Which is turning into an anual event. It was a good match to watch with several spectators in attendance and it is better than just sitting around drinking somewhere.

In the evening I went upto the "Lake" Wendouree where they had fireworks for about 30 minutes from 9:30pm... Many people take their families upto see the fireworks.. I wouldn't want to take my kids up there due to the large number of people drinking up there including many teens. It is a sad reflection on society that so many people use alcohol in order to have "fun". I don't believe that it is a good environment to have children there when there is so much exposure to drinking, smoking and foul language.

Also on the news on the 25th the Prime Minister showed what many australians would assume. There was an asian guy who was going to receive an award, and Johnny boy asked him where "where was he born" as in country, but he was born in Adelaide... That assumption is what many people would make, and we are supposed to be a multicultural society accepting of all cultures. But in reality not everyone is accepted. What happened at the tennis recently also proved that point.

Bucks Night (mostly Go Karting)

2007-01-07T11:51:00.001+11:00

Last night the 6th I went to Timmy's bucks party. Most of the guys went out to Ballan for paintball during the afternoon, but I didn't because I didn't want to spend that amount of money. Aparently they got alittle screwed over by the organisers as they had to play with and against another group, which meant there were 35 or so players and made it very difficult to know who was who. The instructors apparently didn't hold up all the rules of the game with players being shot when they had their hands up.

I joined them for tea at the Golf House Hotel and had a Thai Chicken Curry, which was real nice. That place do have pretty good value for the amount they charge. Although it's not a cheap place to eat. After tea we went to the Go-Karts. We had 3 groups of 7 and each got a 15 lap warmup and two 30 lap races. There was a 12 lap final with two from each group. I'm not exactly sure how they figured out who went through.

My first race I started at the back of the grid because of where i was on the track at the end of the warmup... that sucked a bit. I made up a place on the first lap, and spent a few laps to get upto 5th. I had pretty good pace throughout the race with my fastest lap on the 22nd lap of 23.67 sec with an average speed of 38.0km/h. I made four laps under 24 seconds. I spent several laps trying to pass Que who was trying to pass Simbo. I eventually managed to pass them and was running 3rd when i came up to overtake Starbuck. Coming out of the hairpin I got along side him on the outside had got mostly past into the next corner, but then he decided to ram me into the wall... and needless to say I wasn't happy about that one.. His kart was pretty wrecked after that. While i waited to get going again, I was passed by Simbo and Que, and then there was just another lap left so I ended up 5th, when I should have had 3rd.

My second race I started 5th, and spent much of the race there being held up behind Simbo & Que again. My Kart had a higher top speed, but didn't quite handle as well through the corners, This made it so much harder to overtake. Eventually after Que passed Simbo, I managed to take him into the first corner after trying to get him for a few laps. Each time i tried the inside, I was worried that he'd cut me off and put me into the wall, but I managed the clean pass. Several laps later i caught back upto Que and looked at passing him into the first corner and after a few laps he allowed me through cleanly. By this time Dave (a chariot guy) had closed up to lap us and was sitting right on Que's tail. I couldn't quite pull a gap on Que and I felt some bumps into the corners. I realised that Dave was the cause, although he didn't pass Que, he was forcing Que to hit me. This happened into the right hander and exiting the sweeper onto the start straight. I got one bump that got me partly sideways, but I managed to get back online. After a few laps of being bumped and getting extremely pissed off, the three of us came into the first corner with me in the middle, Dave got into me and half spun me which allowed Que around the outside. Exiting the first corner and into the second Dave was on my outside trying to take me. I know his kart was faster than everyone elses, but he's a dirty driver. He bumped several others out of the way to lead the race. He was right beside me and so I squeezed him against the wall. Into the third corner which is the tight right hander the tyre wall juts out a bit just before the corner and Dave hit the wall and got held up enough so that I didn't need to worry about him for a couple of laps. I managed to catch back upto Que who got stuck behind Mick for a few laps when lapping him. I ran out of laps to take the place back from Que so finished 4th. With my fastest two laps at 23.78 second averaging 37.8 km/h, and four laps under 24 secs. I didn't have the fastest times on the day with some people getting the low 23 secs. I think I might have been losing a bit of time in the tight right hander or exiting the hairpin.

The final that I wasn't in was a good race with Tim B taking James at the start and then Nick a few laps later. After 5 laps he took the lead from Dave, and made some great moves when lapping the back three. The last three were locked together for the majority of the race with a couple of good passes, but Tim D got turned around late in the race which forced him to last.

There were several accidents throughout the other races, with one race 5 of them got locked in the hairpin. Russ got turned around on the starting straight. I was very dark about the tactics employed by a couple of the drivers, and it was the same the previous time i went with some of these guys, although the other time it was a different person who kept ramming me. There were several damaged karts during the night, with a Kart Russ was driving in the second race started sparking exiting the hairpin and something broke and was dragging on the ground. The problem with these kart races is not all the karts are evenly matched. Plus for heavier people it is a huge dissadvantage for the power to weight ratio is a major part of driving fast.

Following the karting we went back to Tim's place for some chat and relaxing, with some stories being told. There was a party over the road from his place and there was some nasty stuff going on over there, and since we could hear them most of the guys went out the back door to see what was happening in the street. Tim B said something which could have antagonised them. A few minutes later everyone decided to leave.

Bendigo Meet

2006-12-19T09:45:00.000+11:00

The weekend in Bendigo was fantastic, we (Godiswatching and myself) got to the lake at about 12.15 and met Squid and Joanna first, Hanz and FireBird had gone off for a bit while Cozmos and belovedgirl had gone to the supermarket. I'd only met two of them before so at first it was a little awkward meeting people for the first time offline. We had some great and interesting conversations. Cozmos had the internet on his mobile phone and was reading some of the Gush posts after lunch.

Ducks go Quack.....how do you spell quack?

The were some entertaining statements made that will probably be quoted again for some time.
After lunch we went upto the Bendigo lookout and had a peak at the surroundings. While we were on the tower some woman was running up and down the stairs... Such fitness is something i will probably never experience... anyway, after the tower we went to BigW as some people needed to buy some shorts so that we could go swimming. We went to the Caravan park where we were staying and sorted our stuff out, put up the marque between the vans, and then went to the pool. It was alittle cold in the water at first, but we got used to it. Cozmos has some photos from beside the pool on his website. Is he a Dolphin or a Seal??? Perhaps some combination of the two.

We all went to KFC for dinner... Mmm, popcorn chicken. I love popcorn chicken. After tea we went back to the park, on the way there was a santa on the side of the road handing out candy canes, he didn't have much of a gut and his voice hadn't broken.

We watched Hitch on the laptop when we got back, but had to use subtitles as the laptop speakers weren't loud enough. It's a good movie which we can learn a few things from. The subtitles show you some things that you probably wouldn't pick up just by listening to what is said. We went to bed just after midnight after Hanz got picked up.

On the sunday we went to maccas for breakfast and had hotcakes. It was about 10am when we got there, FireBird had a can of lemondrink in a stubbie holder, and a manager asked him what was in the can.. she thought it was alcohol.

We sat there for about 30 or 40 minutes. The booth seats weren't as comfortable as they were at KFC the night before. We then went to the gardens for a bit before heading off to Castlemaine, where we met up with some people the Cozmos knows. We were at a cafe.. and were there until about 1.30pm. We headed home after that, and got maccas when we got back.

No more fast foods.... that is my plan. Hopefully I can stick to this.

Centrelink

2006-11-22T00:19:00.000+11:00

They are implementing a new system which both is more annoying to everyone but might reduce the amount of paper used, I'm not quite sure of that yet. In the Ballarat office they have changed the system. Now those on Newstart get a participation book, which is a job diary as well as the fortnightly form and income record. The problem with this is now they make us look for 8 jobs a fortnight, but if we work over 40 hours then it's 4 jobs even if we only get $1 from centrelink.. If we receive nothing then we don't need to put any jobs down.

I'm sure it will just frustrate more and more people. Like last friday when I took my form in between my jobs, I had 30 minutes to get from one to the other and goto centrelink in between. I ended up spending 20 minutes in there as i had to sign these stupid activity agreements. Soon I should be able to get rid of the need to go in there.

So what’s in the news.

2006-11-01T23:25:00.000+11:00

In a few weeks time there will be an election, and so we now have to deal with adverts where each party degrade their opponents. Unfortunately it is a two party system with each Labour or Liberal/Nationals in power. I heard something about the system changing so that the minority parties will have a greater influence in government.

The way I see it which ever party holds government, not much will change. I wonder how many people that vote actually care about the elections, and how many people research what the parties’ views on everything are. I can’t be bothered reading lots of stuff about them to determine who to vote for. It’s actually the preferences that get a party through into power. When people vote for the Greens, or Democrats, or whoever else, these parties decide which of the two majors they support and give preference to.

It might be interesting to know what percentage of the population would vote in this county if it wasn’t compulsory. I probably wouldn’t vote. Really by making people vote it’s another way that the government can track people. Although they can track peoples movements through their mobile phones anyway, if they wanted to.

How far away are we to having this national ID card which records personal history, that is stored in a computer system somewhere in the world that can potentially be hacked into and have the information stolen. Medicare cards can sorta be used as an ID card.

The Telstra T3 shares are available now for shareholders to apply for with a first instalment of $2 a share. The current share price is just under $4 a share so they’ll probably decide that the final instalment will be another $2 a share whenever that will be. Hopefully the share price does go up again; otherwise we are wasting more money. Currently it’s still at a loss for those that purchased T2.

Water, Water everywhere, now lets all have a drink!!

2006-10-19T22:11:00.000+10:00

I found out last night that it takes 4 litres of water to make one A4 sheet of paper. With this new information it further adds to my reasoning that the government waste money and resources. As I mentioned in previous posts, the Centrelink fortnightly forms now take up two and a half pages and therefore use an extra piece of paper.

As we know they like to send heaps of letters out to people, many of which is just wasted, sometimes a couple of letters arrive the same day in separate envelopes.. So that’s another several litres of water.

I drove past Lake Wendouree today and it is almost completely empty. So where has all the water gone?? There is always the same amount of water on this planet in some form. It is just dumped in the wrong places. If we could reverse the weather cycle then we’d get the water from New Zealand.

It takes several thousand litres of water to build a house, and in Ballarat they just keep building more and more houses.

On a somewhat related issue the council voted 5-2 to demolish a house that was built in the 1800s, and there are plans to build 11 units on the block of land. Apparently the house is historically significant, although I don’t see why. It was on the Courier the other day.

Anyway we will be in stage 4 water restrictions pretty soon around here, so for residential properties people can only use grey water to water the gardens. I was told that industries are still aloud to wash down concrete slabs with fresh water. Now that is totally illogical. Until they stop wasting water the crisis will only keep getting worse.

Some people want to combine the Water supplies of Ballarat, Bendigo, Melbourne and Geelong. But really what needs to be done is to find out where the most rain falls, where floods occur and move the water to the parts of the country that need it most. I couldn’t handle being a farmer.

The environment would be much better off if we eliminated any road car with an engine that had more than six cylinders. Only the highest level of motor sport should be able to use eight or more cylinders.

I wonder how much water it takes to build an automobile. Every new house should use a separate water source for stuff like flushing toilets and watering the gardens. Eventually every house probably will have that in place. Unfortunately as the population increases worldwide, the level of consumption of water also increases.

In conclusion water tastes great.

Lives

2006-09-12T21:20:00.000+10:00

It's been over a month since I last posted on this blog and much has happened in the world during that time.

Just last week we heard about the death of Steve Irwin and on Friday the death of Peter Brock. Both were a real shock to the world and many young australian kids. Irwin's death got coverage all over the world, particularly in america as they were a little obsessed. I'm not sure if Brocky's death got the same level of coverage. The major commerical networks had several special programs about Irwin. I've heard it said that Brocky's death was to soon after Irwins, cause the australian media hadn't milked it for all that they could. Perhaps that is a little cynical, but the media do tend to stretch out the stories and coverage for as long as people will watch. Just think back to when Princess Diana died, the funeral was broadcast on most of the tv stations and then repeated later.

I was told that Irwin and his family became Christians five months ago, I'm not sure if it's true, but it would be good if it is. His remaining family must have been doing it tough over the past week, as it was so unexpected.

At least both he and Brocky were doing something they loved when they died. Brocky was a definite sporting hero for me when I was growing up. I loved watching the Bathurst 1000 each year and always supported Brock.

One thing that has gotten a little annoying is that many people have put turtles in the messenger nickname. One of the worst things is that there have been alot of emails going around with Jokes about Irwin and Brock.. and many are in real poor taste.

Losing the Mass Dampers.

2006-08-05T15:13:00.000+10:00

Since the FIA decided that the Mass Dampers were deemed illegal as they are movable, Alonso really struggled to get speed out of the car. The German race was dominated by the Ferraris. Even though Kimi started from the pole and led the early laps, an error on the fuel for qualifying meant that Kimi pitted after 10 laps, and this along with a problem with a rear wheel during the pitstop costing an extra 8 seconds after the fuel was complete meant that he rejoined in 8th place behind Rubens. This severely hampered his fuel strategy.

At the start the Renaults made up places on both the Hondas, but Button retook Alonso in the hairpin on the first lap and then passed Fisichella on the next lap. They ran together like that until Alonso got by Fisi during the pitstops, which was team tactics and they remained like that untill the end eventually getting 5th and 6th after a couple of cars dropped out later in the race.

Yamamoto started from the pitlane after switching from the old chassis to the new one. He had trouble getting started and didn't exit the pitlane until the 3rd lap of the race. He completed 1 lap before a driveshaft failure ended his race. Truili started in 20th after the engine penalty, and pitted for fuel twice with a long first stint. He gained 8 places in the first 3 laps, due mostly to incidents on the opening lap. His fuel strategy worked well for him as he managed to get upto 7th.

Nico Rosberg crashed on the opening lap so another DNF for Williams. Webber was running fantastically with the Bridgestone Tyres. He was running in 3rd the few laps before his pitstops and wasn't to far of the Ferraris laptimes. His race ended with 8 laps remaining due to a water leak. Webber decided not to resign with Williams for next year and so might end up at Renault.

Kimi eventually got 3rd place despite being the only driver on a 3 stop strategy, his teammate de la Rosa retired with a Fuel Pump problem on lap 2.
Villeuve, Ralf and Heidfeld all pitted at the end of lap 1 to repair damage from incidents on that lap. Heidfeld's race ended with Brake problems on lap 9. Villeneuve crashed on lap 30 which was caused by something breaking on the car. Ralf made 9th and was the last driver on the lead lap, after he was able to unlap himself from the Ferraris in the last few laps as they coasted to victory. Rubens had an engine problem on lap 18 and Sato's Gearbox packed up after 38 laps. Both the Midlands were the last runners at the end of the race, but were later disqualified for have the flexi rear wings. Both the Torro Rosso's remained in the midfield throughout the race, eventually finishing 10th and 12th with Coulthard in 11th. Klien took the final points place after starting 12th.

With the Ferrari's 1st and 2nd, the points gap in the drivers championship is down to 11 with 6 remaining races.

The Offical Race Results.

Pos	No	Driver	Team	Lap	Time/Retired	Grid
1	5	Michael Schumacher	Ferrari	67	1:27:51.693	2
2	6	Felipe Massa	Ferrari	67	+0.7 secs	3
3	3	Kimi Räikkönen	McLaren -Mercedes	67	+13.2 secs	1
4	12	Jenson Button	Honda	67	+18.8 secs	4
5	1	Fernando Alonso	Renault	67	+23.7 secs	7
6	2	Giancarlo Fisichella	Renault	67	+24.8 secs	5
7	8	Jarno Trulli	Toyota	67	+26.5 secs	20
8	15	Christian Klien	RBR -Ferrari	67	+48.1 secs	12
9	7	Ralf Schumacher	Toyota	67	+60.3 secs	8
10	20	Vitantonio Liuzzi	STR -Cosworth	66	+1 lap	16
11	14	David Coulthard	RBR -Ferrari	66	+1 lap	10
12	21	Scott Speed	STR -Cosworth	66	+1 lap	18
DSQ	19	Christijan Albers	MF1 -Toyota	66	Flexi-Wing	21
DSQ	18	Tiago Monteiro	MF1 -Toyota	65	Flexi-Wing	19
15	9	Mark Webber	Williams -Cosworth	59	Water Leak	11
16	22	Takuma Sato	Super Aguri -Honda	38	Gearbox	17
17	17	Jacques Villeneuve	Sauber -BMW	30	Accident	13
18	11	Rubens Barrichello	Honda	18	Engine	6
19	16	Nick Heidfeld	Sauber -BMW	9	Brakes	15
20	4	Pedro de la Rosa	McLaren -Mercedes	2	Fuel Pump	9
21	23	Sakon Yamamoto	Super Aguri -Honda	1	Driveshaft	22
22	10	Nico Rosberg	Williams -Cosworth	0	Accident	14

Channel TEN delays.

2006-07-30T23:19:00.000+10:00

Well right now it is 11:15pm AEST. The German Grand Prix started at 10pm AEST yet Channel TEN hasn't started the telecast yet. It is scheduled to start at 11:30pm, however due to the Big Brother eviction show earlier tonight, the Grand Prix telecast probably won't start until 11:45pm. By that time the race will be over and I could find the result on the internet, but I won't look at the F1 website so I'm not spoiled by the result.

Channel TEN can't get and Big Brother live shows to end on time. On friday night the "Prize Fight" game show for Big Brother ran until 10:25pm, when it was scheduled to run from 7:30pm until 9:30pm. I was waiting for Veronica Mars to begin at 9:30pm, but it didn't happen. So much delay. Most preceeding weeks Veronica Mars didn't start until about 9:45pm, which allowed me to get home before it started, but I was setting the VCR to record it, and had I not been coming home I would have had another 15 to 20 minutes of Big Brother crap. Next week Veronica Mars is scheduled to start at the new time of 10:30pm. I'm surprised they didn't just stop showing it again, like they did part way through the season, and now with just 4 episodes left of this season they are changing the timeslot. Before it this week is The Simpsons at 7:30pm followed by Everybody hates Chris, then the American Pie Wedding movie. Why couldn't they put Veronica Mars at 7:30pm?

Formula One Grand Prix: Germany

2006-07-30T00:12:00.000+10:00

So here we are in Germany, Michael Schumachers home event. The temperature for qualifying was around 30 degrees. This report will be based in part on the live timing archive on the Official Formula One Website.

Jarno Truili and Christijan Albers will both lose 10 places from there qualifying due to engine changes. The Super Aguri debuted their new chassis, however Yamamoto crashed in the morning practice and used the old chassis for qualifying. Scott Speed crashed out of qualifying early on which halted the session, and he recorded no time. After the first part of qualifying, Luizzi, Albers, Sato, Monterio, Yamamoto and Speed were eliminated. This means with the penalty Albers will start 22nd.
The second period of 15 minutes saw Webber elminiated again with a time 0.073 seconds slower than de la Rosa. Klien, Truili, Villeneuve, Rosberg and Heidfeld were also slower, but all improved from their 1st part times.

The final top 10 shootout started with both Ferraris and both Renaults at pit exit ready to leave. de la Rosa made contact with Ralf and gained a puncture, which forced both into the pits with Ralf being kept in the pits much longer checking suspension. Kimi was on provisional pole for much of the session, and in the last minute of the session all the cars were on track on flyers, but Kimi ran off track which ruined his lap. Alonso could only make 7th fastest, with Rubens in 6th.

Here are the qualifying times:

Pos	No	Driver	Team	First	Second	Third
1	3	Kimi Räikkönen	McLaren -Mercedes	1:15.214	1:14.410	1:14.070
2	5	Michael Schumacher	Ferrari	1:14.904	1:13.778	1:14.205
3	6	Felipe Massa	Ferrari	1:14.412	1:14.094	1:14.569
4	12	Jenson Button	Honda	1:15.869	1:14.378	1:14.862
5	2	Giancarlo Fisichella	Renault	1:15.916	1:14.540	1:14.894
6	11	Rubens Barrichello	Honda	1:15.757	1:14.652	1:14.934
7	1	Fernando Alonso	Renault	1:15.518	1:14.746	1:15.282
8	7	Ralf Schumacher	Toyota	1:15.789	1:14.743	1:15.923
9	4	Pedro de la Rosa	McLaren -Mercedes	1:15.655	1:15.021	1:15.936
10	14	David Coulthard	RBR -Ferrari	1:15.836	1:14.826	1:16.326
11	9	Mark Webber	Williams -Cosworth	1:15.719	1:15.094
12	15	Christian Klien	RBR -Ferrari	1:15.816	1:15.141
13	8	Jarno Trulli	Toyota	1:15.430	1:15.150
14	17	Jacques Villeneuve	Sauber -BMW	1:16.281	1:15.329
15	10	Nico Rosberg	Williams -Cosworth	1:16.183	1:15.380
16	16	Nick Heidfeld	Sauber -BMW	1:16.234	1:15.397
17	20	Vitantonio Liuzzi	STR -Cosworth	1:16.399
18	19	Christijan Albers	MF1 -Toyota	1:17.093
19	22	Takuma Sato	Super Aguri -Honda	1:17.185
20	18	Tiago Monteiro	MF1 -Toyota	1:17.836
21	23	Sakon Yamamoto	Super Aguri -Honda	1:20.444
22	21	Scott Speed	STR -Cosworth	No Time

Costs of extra pages.

2006-07-25T16:11:00.000+10:00

Recently centrelink decided to change the layout of the fortnightly forms, as a result of this it now goes onto a third page. Even though it's printed front and back, it now takes an extra piece of paper to print out.

Now lets work out the extra costs that has resulted from this change, lets say 1 piece of paper is worth 1 cent, 1 staple is valued at about 0.1 cent. The staple is used to keep the 2 sheets together once you return the form, so for each person who recieves a form an additional cost to centrelink is approximately 1.1 cents.

Lets say the population of Australia is 20,587,223 (sourced from Austrlain Bureau of Statistics) and the unemployment rate is 5.2 percent. That makes about 1,070,535 unemployed people collecting from centrelink in any given fortnight.

With those figures the total cost increase for the extra page is $11,775.88 a fortnight to centrelink and therefore the government.

It makes you wonder why they have decided to change the layout of the forms, considering there is only one extra piece of information added to the form and that is only the dates a person has worked. I don't know how this really helps processing time of the forms.

This doesn't even take into account the amount of wood or trees used to make the paper in the first place. 128 cubic feet or of wood makes approximately 89,870 sheets of paper, this equates to needing ~1524 cubic feet of wood to make the paper used in the forms. If this was to come from a single tree that happened to have a 6 feet by 6 feet core, it would need to be 43 feet high, so in essence the government are destroying one tree of this size every fortnight unnecessarily.

On top of that Centrelink seem to like to send out a piece of paper saying how much you got paid in a single envelope by itself, so we can add to the above figure the same and then the extra postage costs need to be added and the cost of envelopes which about another cent each. Lets say an extra envelope and postage is used once a month, thats $272,986.42 per fortnight with 50 cents per postage.

Total wasted costs of $7,403,819.93 per year. I suppose this is nothing compared the amount the government waste on political campaigns.

People taking responsibilty for their actions.

2006-07-19T23:48:00.000+10:00

Well today (19th July 2006) I parked my car in the carpark near the supermarket, opposite the chicken shop in the Eastwood St shopping complex. I went to work came back to the car at about 12ish, then went to Big W and Dick Smith's. When I got back to my car at about 1pm i noticed that the drivers side tail light was broken, and some panels been pushed in.

That is really frustrating cause I have no idea who did the damage cause they didn't leave a note or anything. Just the broken tail light. Now I have to figure out where to take it to be fixed, it might not be worth claiming on insurance due to the excess fee. It depends how costly it will be to fix.

So now this brings me to the issue at hand, what type of person would damage another person's car like this and not provide their details to the owner of the damaged car.

Sometimes if the contact is light then they may not have realised, but with the extent of the damage here, it would be pretty much impossible to not notice. I'm thinking that the possible vehicle involved was something like a 4WD that is higher, or they reversed into my car, the damage is above the rear bumper. Another possiblity is that someone did the damage without driving a vehicle. If that is the case then I have know idea why someone would. Unless it's a ripple effect from something that happened here a few nights ago. And they recognised the car.

I'm leaning towards someone failing to pull out of the park far enough. I think i'm going to take more note of cars parked around mine in the future. It sucks for sure.

My own point is that if I caused damage to someone elses car then I'd leave my details. I've never had to do this though, not since I've had my own car. Anyway there are those people out there that don't want to take responsibility. I have to wonder where their morals lie. If they were a Christian or not. Would that make a difference?? perhaps after the incident they paniced and took off. It happened sometime between 12 and 1pm. I'd like to think that they'd own up to their mistake, but I can't see it happening.

This is the third thing with my car in the last 2 months. I've had two speeding fines, for being less than 10kms over the limit, just because I wasn't paying attention to my speed. I also need to get new rear tyres at some stage.

I'll have more of a think about this and might post more later.

Schumacher's Eighth French Grand Prix Win.

2006-07-17T15:13:00.000+10:00

Both Liuzzi (Torro Rosso) and Rosberg (Williams) changed engines and so lost 10 grid spots. Liuzzi started 22nd with Rosberg 19th. The coverage from Channel 10 started a little after 10:30pm. The race started live at 10pm, so the coverage of the race started about 45 minutes later, which isn't to bad since this race they decided to pause the tapes for each ad break which meant that we didn't lose the laps, but instead we had Diffy and Crompton talking for a couple of minutes after each ad break. That is about as much of those two that I can stand.

As the cars set off for the Warmup lap, Sato (Super Aguri) struggled to get away from the line. He did line up on the Grid with everyone else, but after the start part way around the first lap he pulled the car off track with a Transmission problem.

Most of the top few drivers got away well, and with Massa starting 2nd behind Schumacher (both Ferraris), he immediately moved across the track to block Alonso (Renault). Alonso tried going around the outside of the first corner which would give him the inside for the next turn, but had to back off after Massa squeezed him. Alonso tried the outside line into the hairpin, but couldn't make the move or even the switchback move. He almost lost the position to Truili (Toyota) as they exited the hairpin. Luckily Truili managed to slow before coliding. The top 7 remained in the same order as they were on the grid.

Webber made a good start and was able to pass de la Rosa (McLaren) and Coulthard (Red Bull). This hurt de la Rosa's race as he was being held up by Webber until the first round of pitstops. They were lapping a second to two seconds slower than the leaders.
Villenuve (BMW) also made a good start passing Speed (Torro Rosso) and Albers (Midland). The first couple of laps saw some unsuccessful passes in the lower half of the top ten. Kimi (McLaren) tried a few times to pass Ralf (Toyota), but couldn't make it stick.

After 4 laps Schuamcher had a 1.9 second lead over his teammate. Alonso was able to match the times of the Ferraris, but was being held up a little bit by Massa. Rubens Barrichello (Honda) was running 12th early on but ran wide on lap 9 allowing Speed to take the place. A queue had formed behind the Honda driver as he stuggled to lap under 1minute 20 while Scumacher was in the 1:18s.

Monterio has a mechanical problem that locked his diff and cause the car to spin into one of the chicanes. The front of his car hit the curb and got airborn as the car slid. He then coasted into the pits on the following lap. It looked quite spectacular.

Villeneuve made a pass on Rubens but then lost it again as they exited the corner. By this stage they were both more than half a minute behind the leaders.

Drivers can either do a two or three stop strategy, with the three stopper being quicker under normal circumstances. Massa was the first to pit on lap 16th, which released Alonso to chase Schumacher. Both Alonso and Kimi pitted on lap 17, with Alonsos stop being longer, he fell back from Massa when he rejoined. A lap later Schumacher, Fisi and de la Rosa made their first stops, this left both Toyotas running one-two. Truili led two laps before pitting and then Ralf led two laps.

Ruben's had an Engine failure on lap 18, which ended a dismal weekend for the him.
After the stops, de la Rosa had passed Webber, and Button kept his lead over Rosberg.
Ralf's pitstop was a long one after a problem with the left rear tyre. This dropped him behind Kimi and Fisi.

Heidfeld, Albers, Villeneuve, Speed, Coulthard, Klien and Liuzzi were still to pit and were all on two stop strategies. Liuzzi and Klien were the last to pit on lap 31.

Kimi's second stop was earlier than expected and there were thoughts by the commentators that he had a problem with a tyre. But really it wasn't much shorter than the other drivers. With Massa pitting 2 laps later and Schumacher another 4 laps later. Alonso was the surprise by not pitting until lap 42. When Michael rejoined after his second pitstop he was right behind Alonso which meant the Renault Driver led for a couple of laps. Alonso's second pitstop was 9.5 seconds stationary, which suggested that it could have been his final stop.

Realising that Alonso couldn't beat Schumacher with strategy they decided to make him only stop twice which allowed him to take 2nd place when Massa stopped for the final time.

Truili had a brake problem which put him out on lap 39. Meanwhile Webber pitted for a second time after he had a spin caused by the left rear tyre delaminating. After rejoining on the next lap the same tyre went again so hit pitted and the team spent a few minutes trying to figure out why it happened. He rejoined and did another 7 laps before finally retiring. Webber has had a shocking season with being involed in other peoples accidents and many mechanical issues throughout the year. The Williams just hasn't been fast enough this year. Monaco was the only really good showing that Webber has had.

Button retired on lap 61, which brought to an end a terrible weekend where they couldn't find enough speed to break into the top ten.

After the second round of pitstops Ralf emerged ahead of Fisi. Massa's third pitstop put him behind Alonso, and he didn't have the speed to catch 2nd place. In the closing laps Alonso reduced Schumacher's lead as Michael cruzed to another win. The margin in the Championship is now down to 17 points with 7 races remaining this season.

The Offical Results are:

Pos	No	Driver	Team	Lap	Time/Retired	Grid
1	5	Michael Schumacher	Ferrari	70	1:32:07.803	1
2	1	Fernando Alonso	Renault	70	+10.1 secs	3
3	6	Felipe Massa	Ferrari	70	+22.5 secs	2
4	7	Ralf Schumacher	Toyota	70	+27.2 secs	5
5	3	Kimi Räikkönen	McLaren -Mercedes	70	+33.0 secs	6
6	2	Giancarlo Fisichella	Renault	70	+45.2 secs	7
7	4	Pedro de la Rosa	McLaren -Mercedes	70	+49.4 secs	8
8	16	Nick Heidfeld	Sauber -BMW	69	+1 lap	11
9	14	David Coulthard	RBR -Ferrari	69	+1 lap	9
10	21	Scott Speed	STR -Cosworth	69	+1 lap	14
11	17	Jacques Villeneuve	Sauber -BMW	69	+1 lap	16
12	15	Christian Klien	RBR -Ferrari	69	+1 lap	12
13	20	Vitantonio Liuzzi	STR -Cosworth	69	+1 lap	22
14	10	Nico Rosberg	Williams -Cosworth	68	+2 laps	19
15	19	Christijan Albers	MF1 -Toyota	68	+2 laps	15
16	23	Franck Montagny	Super Aguri -Honda	67	+3 laps	20
17	12	Jenson Button	Honda	61	Technical	17
18	9	Mark Webber	Williams -Cosworth	53	Wheel Rim	10
19	8	Jarno Trulli	Toyota	39	Brakes	4
20	11	Rubens Barrichello	Honda	18	Engine	13
21	18	Tiago Monteiro	MF1 -Toyota	11	Mechanical	18
22	22	Takuma Sato	Super Aguri -Honda	0	Transmission	21

Formula One Grand Prix: France

2006-07-16T12:44:00.000+10:00

Qualifying for the French Grand Prix saw the implementation of the new qualifying rules. The third section of qualifying is reduced to 15 minutes, while changes in the first two sections of qualifying allows a driver to record a time if they start a lap before the chequered flag comes out.

As per usual both Super Aguris failed to make the first cut, Villeneuve also missed the cut despite having the fastest time in the Saturday Practice session. Button, Liuzzi and Monteiro also were cut. Webber was sitting in tenth towards the end of the second section, before being bumped out by Coulthard. Heidfeld, Klien, Barrichello, Speed and Albers also failed to make the final 10.

In the final section, the cars circulated burning fuel for about 8 minutes before returning to the pits to change tires. Eight of the Ten had a chance at pole. After setting a quick time they returned to the pits before heading out with about 2.5 minutes left. In the final minute the pole was held by, de la Rosa, Räikkönen, Massa, Alsono and M Schumacher. Massa's final lap was enough to bump Alsono from 2nd on the grid.

So it's another Ferrari One-Two. It's a little surprising as many people thought that Renault and Michelin would dominate since it's their home GP. Alonso is third with both Toyotas 4th & 5th followed by Kimi.

Rosberg had an engine change before qualifying and will take a 10 spot grid penalty making him 19th.

Here is the qualifying times:

Pos	No	Driver	Team	First	Second	Third
1	5	Michael Schumacher	Ferrari	1:15.865	1:15.111	1:15.493
2	6	Felipe Massa	Ferrari	1:16.277	1:15.679	1:15.510
3	1	Fernando Alonso	Renault	1:16.328	1:15.706	1:15.785
4	8	Jarno Trulli	Toyota	1:15.550	1:15.776	1:16.036
5	7	Ralf Schumacher	Toyota	1:15.949	1:15.625	1:16.091
6	3	Kimi Räikkönen	McLaren -Mercedes	1:16.154	1:15.742	1:16.281
7	2	Giancarlo Fisichella	Renault	1:16.825	1:15.901	1:16.345
8	4	Pedro de la Rosa	McLaren -Mercedes	1:16.679	1:15.902	1:16.632
9	10	Nico Rosberg	Williams -Cosworth	1:16.534	1:15.926	1:18.272
10	14	David Coulthard	RBR -Ferrari	1:16.350	1:15.974	1:18.663
11	9	Mark Webber	Williams -Cosworth	1:16.531	1:16.129
12	16	Nick Heidfeld	Sauber -BMW	1:16.686	1:16.294
13	15	Christian Klien	RBR -Ferrari	1:16.921	1:16.433
14	11	Rubens Barrichello	Honda	1:17.022	1:17.027
15	21	Scott Speed	STR -Cosworth	1:17.117	1:17.063
16	19	Christijan Albers	MF1 -Toyota	1:16.962	1:17.105
17	20	Vitantonio Liuzzi	STR -Cosworth	1:17.164
18	17	Jacques Villeneuve	Sauber -BMW	1:17.304
19	12	Jenson Button	Honda	1:17.495
20	18	Tiago Monteiro	MF1 -Toyota	1:17.589
21	23	Franck Montagny	Super Aguri -Honda	1:18.637
22	22	Takuma Sato	Super Aguri -Honda	1:18.845

My Views on Big Brother and other reality TV

2006-07-04T16:01:00.000+10:00

Well this year I’ve tried as much as possible to avoid Big Brother. Ch 10 has made it harder by screening it so much more, having had about 7 hours on Monday nights until the uncut show was axed. Isn’t that ironic.

I was watching A Current Affair last night so I could avoid the BB 7pm show, before heading off to sports, and they had a story on the BB sex scandal. Over the weekend, early Sunday morning, two of the guys cohurst Camilla, so that she would get into the bed with them. One of the guys held her while the other guy Turkey Slapped her. They had one of the guys dads on ACA saying that he didn’t think his son had done anything wrong. Both the guys were evicted for the act of sexual harassment. They say it was done as a joke, and whether or not you agree with that is irrelevant. The fact is that they breached the guidelines set out by BB, and they were harassing her. It doesn’t matter if she appeared to allow it to happen.

ACA then went on to show that BB itself had breached it’s own guidelines by asking Camilla to kiss every other housemate on the face or lips within an hour. In reality the whole concept of Big Brother is setup to try and get the housemates to ‘sleep’ with each other. In an attempt to get ratings. They must be making a fortune from all the SMS’s and Calls to vote people in and out of the house. The more people they have up for eviction, the more possible calls and SMS will come through.

I wonder now if they will send some replacement housemates in to the zoo. It wouldn’t be the first time either. There is no way that I’d ever go onto Big Brother, even if you paid me a millions dollars. I think that the first thing that would eliminate you from the selection process is to say that you are a Christian.

When will the Australian public realise that reality TV is not reality and it is just a whole bunch of crap designed to boost the ratings and make money. After this BB is over they will then go on with Australian Idol and the American Idol. Meanwhile Ch 7 has the It Takes Two, which isn’t much different to the Dancing with the Stars. None of which are original Australian concepts.

The only good one was “Thank God You’re Here”. That was an original Australian concept which has been sold overseas. That certainly was a funny show, but I guess the level of humour on the show is determined by the comedians that they have as the guinea pigs.

There has been some dicussion on the Big Brother issues at Gush

The Race of attrition: USA GP.

2006-07-03T17:43:00.000+10:00

So last night I stayed up until 5am.. although i did sleep a little bit during the 125cc Bike race that was on just before the Formula One Grand Prix.

Channel TEN realised that the original telecast time was wrong as the race was set to start at 3am AEST instead of 4am. So they went straight from the Bike GPs into the F1 telecast at 2:45am.

A change in the grid due to penalties saw Liuzi start 2nd last (for an engine change) and Rosberg start last (due to missing a weigh-in after qualifying. Truili started from the pitlane because the team had to take the car out of parc-fermae conditions, to repair part of the car.

With the Ferraris on the front row they were set for a competitive race. Massa had a better start from 2nd on the grid and took the lead into the first corner. Alonso got past Fisi and almost past Michael into the first corner.

Around about the mid field, as they were heading through the second corner, Montoya got into the back of Kimi, which caused him to spin and bump Webber who made contact with Heidfeld. Heidfeld's car barrel rolled three times before coming to rest near the barrier. Jensen Button, Scott Speed, Christian Klien, and Franck Montagny were also collected in the mayhem. Button retired 3 laps later due to damage from the collision. The Safety Car was deployed immediately. In the old, and somewhat better days, the Race would have been stopped and restarted after the cleanup which would allow some drivers to take the spare car. But these days the rules don't allow it.

Although just a few years ago, the German GP when Schumacher went out on the first corner, they did red flag the race, even though they could have deployed the safety car.

Anyway, Channel TEN decided to go to an ad break almost immediately after the SC came out. 3 minutes later we re joined the coverage after missing 2 laps of SC. For some reason Daffy and Cromlin decided they had to say something after every ad break during the coverage. Even though the ITV guys had returned from their ad break. Sure the ITV guys love the british drivers, and moreso Button, but the ch 10 commentators talk up Webber's chances all the time. That's annoying at times.

I digress, back to the race and after the SC left the circuit, Massa got a huge lead over Michael, about 2 seconds cause the SC pulled off to the left at the last corner instead of entering the pitlane. At the first corner of the restart, Sato made a move on Tiago Monteiro, which took himself out and cause damage to Monterio's car, that later caused his retirement. After 9 laps we were down to 12 cars remaining in the race. It's times like this that I wish they would allow more teams to enter and have 26 cars on the grid. I suppose I just want it the way it used to be when I started watching the Grand Prixs.

Jacques Villeneuve's race came to an end on lap 23 when his engine expired causing the rear wheels to lock up. Albers had a transmission problem and retired on lap 37.

Fisi was being held up by Alonso for several laps, but eventually was allowed passed. Rubens was the first to pit for fuel on lap 24. Michael and Fisi both pitted on lap 29, with Massa and Ralf pitting on lap 30. The in lap of Massa was 2 seconds slower than Michael, which allowed Michael to pass him. Alonso led a lap before pitting on lap 31.

Alonso didn't have the speed in the car to catch the Ferraris or his teammate.
Truili, Liuzzi, Rosberg and Coulthard only pitted once during the race. This allowed Truili to get in between Fisi and Alonso. After the final pitstops Alonso found himself in 6th behind both Toyotas. Ralf retired on lap 62 allowing Alonso to take 5th, and the positions remained that way till the end. Luizzi got by Rosberg toward the end of the race to take 8th and the final point.

The final results are:

Pos	No	Driver	Team	Laps	Time/Retired	Grid
1	5	Michael Schumacher	Ferrari	73	1:34:35.199	1
2	6	Felipe Massa	Ferrari	73	+7.9 secs	2
3	2	Giancarlo Fisichella	Renault	73	+16.5 secs	3
4	8	Jarno Trulli	Toyota	73	+23.6 secs	22
5	1	Fernando Alonso	Renault	73	+28.4 secs	5
6	11	Rubens Barrichello	Honda	73	+36.5 secs	4
7	14	David Coulthard	RBR -Ferrari	72	+1 lap	17
8	20	Vitantonio Liuzzi	STR -Cosworth	72	+1 lap	21
9	10	Nico Rosberg	Williams -Cosworth	72	+1 lap	19
10r	7	Ralf Schumacher	Toyota	62	ret	8
11	19	Christijan Albers	MF1 -Toyota	37	Transmission	14
12	17	Jacques Villeneuve	Sauber -BMW	23	Engine	6
13	18	Tiago Monteiro	MF1 -Toyota	9	Accident Damage	15
18	14	Takuma Sato	Super Aguri -Honda	6	Accident-Monterio	18
7	15	Jenson Button	Honda	3	Accident Damage	7
16	3	Kimi Räikkönen	McLaren -Mercedes	0	Accident	9
17	16	Nick Heidfeld	Sauber -BMW	0	Accident	10
18	4	Juan Pablo Montoya	McLaren -Mercedes	0	Accident	11
19	9	Mark Webber	Williams -Cosworth	0	Accident	12
20	21	Scott Speed	STR -Cosworth	0	Accident	13
21	15	Christian Klien	RBR -Ferrari	0	Accident	16
22	23	Franck Montagny	Super Aguri -Honda	0	Accident	20

Formula One Grand Prix: USA

2006-07-02T12:56:00.000+10:00

Well tonight at 3am Victorian time the race will begin. The tv guide shows the telecast to start at 3:45am with Video Hits before it for half an hour.

Alonso has dominated this season winning the last four races for a total of six wins and three 2nd places. Can he do it again? This time from 5th on the grid. He probably will, it all depends on how much fuel they had in qualifying. Alonso should have won in San Marino too, but coming into the pits early cost him the win.

Here is the qualifying times:

Pos	No	Driver	Team	First	Second	Third
1	5	Michael Schumacher	Ferrari	1:11.588	1:10.636	1:10.832
2	6	Felipe Massa	Ferrari	1:11.088	1:11.146	1:11.435
3	2	Giancarlo Fisichella	Renault	1:12.287	1:11.200	1:11.920
4	11	Rubens Barrichello	Honda	1:12.156	1:11.263	1:12.109
5	1	Fernando Alonso	Renault	1:12.416	1:11.877	1:12.449
6	17	Jacques Villeneuve	Sauber -BMW	1:12.114	1:11.724	1:12.479
7	12	Jenson Button	Honda	1:12.238	1:11.865	1:12.523
8	7	Ralf Schumacher	Toyota	1:11.879	1:11.673	1:12.795
9	3	Kimi Räikkönen	McLaren -Mercedes	1:12.777	1:12.135	1:13.174
10	16	Nick Heidfeld	Sauber -BMW	1:11.891	1:11.718	1:15.280
11	4	Juan Pablo Montoya	McLaren -Mercedes	1:12.477	1:12.150
12	9	Mark Webber	Williams -Cosworth	1:12.935	1:12.292
13	21	Scott Speed	STR -Cosworth	1:13.167	1:12.792
14	19	Christijan Albers	MF1 -Toyota	1:12.711	1:12.854
15	18	Tiago Monteiro	MF1 -Toyota	1:12.627	1:12.864
16	15	Christian Klien	RBR -Ferrari	1:12.773	1:12.925
17	14	David Coulthard	RBR -Ferrari	1:13.180
18	22	Takuma Sato	Super Aguri -Honda	1:13.496
19	10	Nico Rosberg	Williams -Cosworth	1:13.506
20	8	Jarno Trulli	Toyota	1:13.787
21	20	Vitantonio Liuzzi	STR -Cosworth	1:14.041
22	23	Franck Montagny	Super Aguri -Honda	1:16.036

Soccer

2006-06-27T16:04:00.000+10:00

Well for the first time, (I think ever), I watched an entire game of soccer. Late last night I went to a friends house with a few others and we watched the World Cup match between Australia and Italy.

Australia had most of the possession, around 59%. Italy had a player red carded with 40 minutes left in the second half. So from then on Australia had the extra player. I don't know alot about the rules of soccer, but have a minor understanding.

There were several tense moments when the ball was close to the goals at each end. Italy's defense was amazing, several times the aussie players had the ball near the box, but were forced to be facing the other way.

After the 90 minutes had come up on the clock, they decided to have another 3 minutes due to injury time. I reckon that is a stupid rule, they should just stop once the 90 minutes are up. Anyway, with about 1 or 2 seconds before the clock reached 93 minutes, Italy had the ball in the box, and about to take a shot at goals, when one of the aussies went to take the ball, and the Italy player decided to trip over the aussie guy. I'm sure he could have avoided it, but as everyone knows Soccer players act up alot, they take dives. As a result of this a penalty was called, so it was just the Italy player versus the Goal keeper. In that situation the pressure on the keeper would have been worse than Bush taking on Terror.

So the penalty shot made the easy goal in the 95th minute. So Italy won 1-nil and eliminated Australia. I don't know if I'll ever watch another game of soccer. Stupid damn referee, I reckon he'd get a big payout from Italy. I don't think anyone liked the decision of awarding the penalty.

State Youth Games

2006-06-27T13:33:00.000+10:00

My State Youth Games this year was terrible because I was sick.
I couldn't participate the way I wanted to. So cold and tired for the whole time. I didn't even get to the saturday rally and went home early sunday evening.

York St's overall position was no where near as good as previous years. Simply because we didn't have enough sports entered, and with two 'B' netball teams we only got half points for winning the grand final. Yorkie also won the Touch Football, plus were finalists in several other sports.

York St finished 11th in the medium churches and 29th overall, which is really one of the worst finishing positions of all the time that we have been a medium size classification.

This year our 'B' Basketball draw was crap... we had to play our first two games back to back.. The first game started 4 minutes late cause the other team were late so instead of playing two halves, we had one 8 minute period.. then had to play the next game of two 6 minute halves. We could have beaten Castlemaine if we hadn't already played a game with no subs. Plus I was heaps sick, and had no stamina for the weekend. Normally a 12 minute game wouldn't take much out of me. Before the third game I brought up what was left in my stomach... I know you all wanted to read that.

more to come soon....