Neil Armstrong. Truly inspiring to a child in primary school, a long, long time ago, a child who wanted more than anything to be an astronaut. As that child grew older, somewhere along the line, he came to realise that not very many people could become astronauts. Although that child no longer holds any illusion that he can become an astronaut, he still harbours a fascination for space, and a dream of one day being able to see the Earth from the outside. And he thanks Neil Armstrong for keeping this dream alive.
RIP Neil Armstrong. I hope you're now resting amongst the stars, where you belong.
If you can't be bothered, I'll summarise for you. It's about people complaining about two things at a parliamentary level. First, that overseas roaming costs are too high. Second, there should be greater transparency with regards to roaming costs.
I'm all for both things. What I don't like is the shirking of any sense of personal responsibility, which seems to be a trend in society today.
Yes, the costs could afford to be more transparent, if you'll pardon the pun. Insofar as they're not RIGHT IN YOUR FACE EVERY SECOND THAT YOU'RE AWAKE.
I'm fairly certain that when you want to roam overseas from Australia, you have to phone up and everything to get it enabled. I mean, I haven't done it, because I knew right from the off that it's a ridiculous rip-off. $20 for a MB of data or something stupid like that.
I mean, it's not screaming IN YOUR FACE EVERY SECOND THAT YOU'RE AWAKE, like your personal assistant would, but it wouldn't be too far a stretch to know, or at least think about the possibility, that roaming overseas would maybe cost a bit more than using your phone at home.
Then again, maybe it's not as common-sense as I think it is. I thought that it was fairly evident that peanuts would possibly contain traces of nuts, but obviously some people don't realise that, so there you are, warning labels. Telling you that there may be FREAKING TRACES OF NUTS IN PEANUTS.
Like peanuts containing traces of nuts, roaming isn't exactly a really new phenomenon either.
Again, I wouldn't know, because I haven't done it before, but I'm inclined to think that when calling up to enable roaming, the operator or whatever would let you know how much it would cost. Or (here we go with personal responsibility again) you could ask. Yes, I know it's not your responsibility to ask, they should tell you, but I just thought it'd be a logical thing to do to avoid any future disputes or surprises. The article and parliament thing makes it sound like the costs are hidden deep in the bowels of the secret files vault of telephone companies. I'm fairly certain that the information is accessible on most phone company websites.
Senator Conroy says: "One of the most common complaints that I hear is from people who return from overseas and are confronted by a mobile phone bill that runs into the hundreds or even thousands of dollars". That's not really a valid complaint. It's like buying a Ferrari, and then complaining that it costs a lot.
Yes, roaming is a monumental rip-off. Yes, increase transparency by sending messages to people when they're overseas how much it's going to cost them if they're not astute enough to realise that it could cost them a bit. But don't go around blaming all and sundry about your failure to exercise a little bit of personal responsibility.
Some semi-random, juxtaposing happy music feat. Joseph Gordon-Levitt.
So how about that Arsenal last night ey? We didn't score, and of course it's because we're van Persieless, and not because Sunderland locked down with two banks of five.
I don't really understand the whole van Persie thing. None of what he did makes much sense at all, but there you go. Footballers are strange beasts at the best of times, and when you flash some money at them, they just become downright weird. All I know is he's a jerk, and I believe that we can cope without him.
Anyway, the game. Despite the draw, I like what I saw, Obviously I'd be a bit happier if we'd won, but I thought the team played well. Santi Cazorla looks the real deal, Gervinho looks a lot better than last season, and Podolski and Giroud provided good movement and could have scored a couple of times.
What pleased me the most was a) how well we coped defensively without Alex Song and b) on a related note, how well the team pressed and tracked back. It was noticeable how many times we won the ball in the Sunderland half, which came from everyone pressing. It was particularly pleasing to see Arteta and Gervinho tracking back. Revolutionary idea, but I think if we can get two central midfielders tracking back when the opposition attack, we may not even need to buy an out-and-out defensive midfielder to replace Song. I mean, it's not like he was even that defensive to begin with, it's just he could defend a little bit when he could be bothered.
However, despite the team looking alright, before the transfer window closes, you'd hope that the manager signs another midfielder and/or another striker. Especially a striker. We've essentially only got 1.5 strikers that are actually any good.
Or as I like to call it, the Greatest Gig That Ever Was, And Ever Will Be.
Yeah, almost as catchy as the Olympic Anthem.
As I was saying, best gig ever.
At which other gig would you get most-of-Oasis, most-of-Queen, The Spice Girls, Taio Cruz, Jessie J, The Who, David Bowie, George Michael, Take That, One Direction, Beatles songs, Russell Brand singing a Beatles song, and more besides?
None other, that's right.
I don't even like half those guys that I just listed, but other people might. And thus, it adds to a cumulative awesome. If you know what I mean.
And yes, they only had three-quarters of Oasis. They were only missing THEIR BEST QUARTER. And yes, Liam's voice is incredibly nasally now. But whatever. They sang Wonderwall, and if I'm not very much mistaken, it got the biggest cheer/singalong of the night bar Spice Girls. Or at least, the biggest singalong. Such a stadium song.
Obviously, the spectacle wasn't as OMG amazeballs at the Opening Ceremony, but whatever. I'm in it for the music, man.
Seriously. I actually watched 0 minutes of sporting activities.
But Opening and Closing Ceremonies, I'm there. Especially if they're British.
Brazil 2016 should also be a riot. I don't know what it is about samba music, but it makes me want to move.
So goodbye London. I liked you. You have a certain charm about you that I can't quite attribute to one particular feature about you. I'm gonna be deep and say it's your soul and personality that I'm attracted to.
Back to news from Andrewland.
As usual, nothing overly exciting to report. Just finished off my major essay for the Holocaust unit that I went to Europe for. Yes, there was work involved for that.
Also, I'm kind of starting to make a mini-breakthrough with my thesis. Don't tell anyone, but I think how breakthroughy I get with my thesis, and work in general, may be positively correlated with me actually working on it/talking to people that know more stuff about it about it (yeah, repeated words no typo!)
PS. What's with people calling it the 'Closing Ceremonies'? I noticed it with the Opening Ceremony as well. They were trending on Twitter and all as well. It drives me mad. It's almost as annoying as 'Daylight savings'. Urgh.
There are many things that I would like to say to you, but I don't know how.
So someone threw a banana at Gael Clichy while he was playing football a few days ago.
I thought people were over that by now. If you're going to be racist, at least be original or innovative about it. That's only about the 1,309,392,909.45th time that somebody's thrown a banana at a black football player.
In all seriousness though, I don't understand how people can do that sort of thing and not be disgusted with themselves. It's so small-minded and idiotic, and, as canvassed before, doesn't even get lols from people that are into that kind of stuff. Grow up, and stop acting like a five-year-old who has never seen someone with skin that is differently coloured to yours, and find some better hobbies.
Another not particularly incisive rant from Andrew Huang.
Going through a bit of a Prince phase at the moment. I think it started on Friday night at IKEA, when they were playing 'Kiss'. I think the positive feeling from the song was subsequently reinforced by the cheap ice-cream I had afterwards. Cool story bro.
Allow me a moment to be outraged at a Herald Sun headline again.
BONUS HUMBLE PIE
the headline cleverly screams. See how the first letter of each word make up the word BHP?
First issue with this: a CEO forgoing $7 million in profit has nothing to do with being humble.
I'm not going to look in the dictionary, but to me, humble means being understated, not going around telling people you have loads of money or whatever just because you do.
Second issue: if we take the phrase as a whole - that is, 'humble pie' as it's supposed to be used in context - it still makes no sense.
Is not the phrase 'eating humble pie' used when somebody makes an error, and is forced to apologise or atone for such an error? To me, the headline implies that Marius Kloppers has made a grave error in judgement, and is now atoning for it.
They further somehow make the link from his salary and bonus - which is a minute amount, when compared to the profits of BHP - to super funds taking a hit. What.
If anything, the man should be lauded, rather than made out to be in the wrong for making so much money.
I'm not sure whether the Herald Sun is supposed to be left wing or right wing, and it never really struck me as being particularly left or right (not that I ever bothered to really look into it), but I think it's fairly obvious that even if it's not left wing, it's definitely anti-right. Most of their stuff can be summarised as reading:
"How dare he make so much money when so many of us don't? Why don't all of us make millions of dollars? What did he ever do to deserve higher pay than us? It's not like he does anything anyway. Where's our free money?"
I don't really know what my point is, but it just really annoys me.
The Opening Ceremony for the London 2012 Olympic Games was fairly amazing.
Yes, I realise it was almost a week ago. What of it?
It was just an epic bombardment of English cultcha. Which I love.
English music, English people, English history, English literature, English language, James Bond and David Beckham (yeah, that's right, separate category for them). Love it all. And most of it was there. Except for the medievalness and stuff.
The pyrotechnics were also pretty amazing. The Olympic Rings dripping gold, the genius of the cauldron lighting, the fireworks spray. The lighting of the cauldron was a bit anti-climatic, however. I kind of didn't realise it was happening until the cauldron caught on fire.
Dripping fiah.
The only part that was really bad was the absence of any reference to Oasis. Like, what. At least they atoned by putting Paul McCartney and Arctic Monkeys in.
I also did really like the literary references though. Dickens, J. M. Barry, J. K. Rowling.
Conclusion: did not feel like a drag, creative, fresh, and full of stuff that I love. Good stuff.
So what of the Olympics themselves?
I'm kind of in the non-caring boat, uncaring away. I've taken a morbid curiosity in the controversies - you know, the alleged drug taking by Chinese swimmer, badminton game throwing - but apart from that, not much interest.
The whole Chinese swimmer thing is a farce. I think she's taken drug tests, etc. There's no need for all this slander and accusation. The Americans and the British should never have started it, the Chinese should never have responded in the way that they did.
The badminton involves the Chinese as well. This time, deservedly so. If you're going to throw the game, at least make it subtle. The manner in which they did it just smacks of sheer arrogance.
Not only do they want to throw the game, but they want to throw it in such a way that everybody knows that they're not trying. So they want the practical advantages of throwing a game, without losing any face. That's not the way it works. People pay and give up time to watch these games.
It's also arrogant because of the fact that they assume that both Chinese teams are a shoe-in for the final.
In sum, it's disrespectful to everyone. The paying public, the game, the Olympic spirit (not that I'm a big believer in that anyway).
So what am I actually going to watch? Maybe the football final. Not predictable at all, me.
