When they wrote the footy club songs, they got together an old familiar tune and lyrics which are generally way over-the-top for most circumstances, basically proclaiming the team is invincible. If only it were true.

The Geelong Football Club song is called We Are Geelong, sung to the tune of Toreador from Bizet’s Carmen, a tune I’m very familiar with as my mum used to love playing music from this opera around the house when I was growing up.

The lyrics were written by John Watts, and admittedly I didn’t know the full words until yesterday during the game, when it was getting clearer that the team would win, and Tony found them and printed them out for me.

They open with: We are Geelong, the greatest team of all

Under normal circumstances, this would be a big call. But as the game came to a close, it became apparent that the Cats had in fact won the game by the biggest Grand Final margin ever. At one point I was even cheering on Port Adelaide, urging them to kick a few goals just to make it a little more interesting.

If winning margin at a Grand Final is a good way of measuring it, then maybe they really are “the greatest team of all.”

PS. I have now memorised all of the lyrics. At least, the first verse. Like the national anthem, few know there’s a second verse, and even fewer know what the words are. I also promised Tony I’ll buy a club jersey.

Now… Go Storm!

PS. Monday morning: Storm won their game too.

My friend Greg is on a quest to become an evil genius. He spotted an abandoned missile base for sale on ebay, and is trying to raise the money to buy it.

He writes: “People have donated to help some ditz pay off her credit cards, some kid go to college, some stripper get breast implants… why wouldn’t they donate to help a budding evil genius get his first lair?”

He’s a pretty nice guy, so I bet he’d be a benevolent evil genius.

See how you can help at evilgreg.blogspot.com.

The train was coming, so I ran into the station and scrabbled for my Yearly ticket. But I couldn’t find it. It wasn’t in my wallet. I pulled all the extraneous crap out to look for it… stamps… business card… Brumby’s baked-goods-frequent-eater (or whatever it’s called) but no luck. Dammit.

The train came and left. Oh well, nothing for it but to buy a ticket. I dug a $10 note out to buy a Daily. People were using the machine, so I sidled up to the booking office window (I am truly blessed — my station has staff who can sell you a ticket, rather than leaving you to the mercy of the Kelvinators).

The lady behind the counter recognised me. She said my mugshot is in the Connex newsletter. Ahh… so that explains why I’ve been recognised a couple of times by Connex staff recently.

I validated the ticket, then went to slip it into my shirt pocket, where I always keep my ticket when it’s not in my wallet. And there in that pocket… you can guess… I found the Yearly, which I then recalled I’d slipped into the shirt pocket 10 minutes earlier to save time at the station.

Dammit. (Grumpy Twitter post from the station.)

But there’s a happy ending. In the evening I encountered a lady who had locked all her belongings, including her wallet, inside one of the Ross House offices. She needed to get home, and had no money. I was able to — with no skin off my nose — give her my superfluous Daily ticket, and to use my Yearly to get home. (Yes, I made sure to give her the correct ticket.)

Afterwards I recalled some newish regulation about not sharing tickets. Must look up the details of that to see if what I did is against the rules…

Most bizarre thing seen in the shops recently: DVD Fireplace, $19.99.

Clive James used to show this kind of thing on his TV show. Video fish tanks, fireplaces, washing machines… does anybody really buy this stuff?

So there we go, the series has ended. Some great episodes.

The Runaway Bride: Enjoyable enough. Loved the highway chase scene — and the way it captured the excitement of the TV audience in the little kids in the other car. One day the ABC programming people will learn to programme Christmas specials at Christmas, instead of six months later. (Though it could be worse… in Canada the CBC put this episode on after the following one.)

Smith and Jones: Some fun moments, but obviously it’s mostly to introduce the new companion. Some of us who have been watching for a while thought the Judoon were Sontarans when they first appeared.

The Shakespeare Code: Oh, good stuff. Some very funny moments (I really liked the barely noted “No you can’t have yourself sketched with me”), and an interesting concept, the power of words.

Gridlock: I was put off by the concept of the multi-decade traffic jam, which just seemed a little too ridiculous. But as the episode went on, it grew on me a lot.

Daleks in Manhattan/Evolution of the Daleks: It was all going well for me until SquidMan appeared. After that it just seemed a little bit silly. But Solomon’s demise was a good antidote to the kind of “inspiring hero miraculously escapes” plotlines you sometimes see.

The Lazarus Experiment: Nothing too challenging.

42: I found this one really exciting. In space, noone can hear you shouting “I’ll save you!” Okay, so the plot was lifted from the second half of Planet Of Evil (circa 1975), but still very enjoyable.

Human Nature/Family of Blood: *sniffffff* Very clever, and one of those plots that had you wondering what’s happening. Nice touches in John Smith’s journal. (Some people freeze-framed it and noted pictures of past Doctors and numerous other series references.)

Blink: Oh great stuff from Stephen Moffat, once again making great use of time in his stories. No wonder he won a Hugo for last year’s effort. The weeping angels were superb. I wish I’d watched this episode in the dark the first time I saw it.

Utopia: Ooooh yeah. Derek Jacobi! John Simm! Captain Jack’s back, and so is… you know who! Superb, with just niggling doubts about the apparent re-appearance of 20th century technology in the year 50 trillion. Best line? “…and you two are BLOGGING!”

Sound of Drums/Last of the Timelords: Wrapping it all up nicely, though I’m getting a little weary of Russell T Davies and his mega-CGI-massed-alien-invasions at the end of every season. But it did all neatly use bits from the rest of the season: the watch/Chameleon Arch, the mysterious Harry Saxon, The Face Of Boe’s final utterance, the power of words, and more about the last great time war.

And Torchwood? Well, you’ve gotta love a spinoff. It ranged from the excellent (”Random Shoes”) to the pointlessly horrifically mundane (”Countrycide”), and not forgetting Fight Club With Aliens (”Combat”). But I can’t help thinking they could have done it almost as well without the gore, swearing and sex, and then I could have let the kids watch it. Ultimately while Doctor Who manages to include secondary themes and some deep thinking in many of its plots, Torchwood seemed a lot more superficial.

The forthcoming Sarah Jane Adventures spinoff looks interesting, too.

Had a day off yesterday. Took the kids on a couple of errands, and went through Fed Square to visit ACMI.

I never fail to be impressed with ACMI, especially since I discovered their Games Lab. Last time I was there they had old Commodore 64 games. This time they were highlighting some of the best indie games from the recent Independent Games Festival, a kind of TropFest for games.

In the video game world, many games are churned out by the big Hollywood-style production houses, coded by drones (as so famously documented in EA Spouse: The Human Story). What we saw showed some nice innovations that you might not get out of those big companies, and it was good to see that small-scale game writing didn’t die with the 80s.

We played a few of them, and ended up downloading one, And Yet It Moves when we got home. A quirky rendition of one of my favourite genres, the 2-D platformer.

We’d really gone for the Pixar exhibit mind you. Which was very interesting, with a lot of material from a variety of their films. What really caught the kids’ imagination was the Zoetrope — loads of Toy Story models loaded onto a turntable, which span around and at top speed was accompanied by rapidly flickering lights to animate it. Very very cool. The admission fee wasn’t overly cheap, but seeing that on top of all the other stuff definitely made it worth it.

I’ve got today off, to enjoy the sunshine, enjoy the first day proper of the school holidays, and generally enjoy not having to do any work (touch wood).

I’ve seen O Brother Where Art Thou twice in the last month, and I still like it a lot. Recently the kids watched it for the first time**, and while I had to explain some of the concepts and plot, they seemed to enjoy it.

Here’s some of the reasons it’s one of my favourite movies:

The film very nicely captures the time and place it’s set.

Harry McClintock’s opening Big Rock Candy Mountain song, describing a hobo’s version of Utopia.

“Damn, we’re in a tight spot!”

“My hair!”

And of course Everett’s more lengthy and involved dialogue.

That scene early on with the steam train going across screen sounds and looks fantastic on a decent sized TV with good speakers. (The UK SE DVD release I have has 5.1 sound; it’ll be near the top of my list for playing when I eventually invest in surround sound.)

Indeed, there’s some glorious photography and sound right through the movie… and of course the music.

The music captures the age it’s set in. And a lot of it is genuine, from the period, thanks to geniuses like John and Alan Lomax, who wandered the country making recordings of songs that otherwise would have been lost to history.

Pappy O’Daniel with the wise words that campaigners and advocates should bear in mind when sorting out their priorities: “We ain’t one-at-a-timing here! We’re mass communicating!”

The look on Everett’s face Where the boys start singing Man Of Constant Sorrow to a delighted audience, completely unaware it’s become a big hit.

All the Ullyses allusions. The Sirens, the Cyclops, the return home — even the old man disguise. And there’s plenty more.

“Oh George, not the livestock!”

“Gopher?”

I’m sure there’s plenty more reasons that will come to me the next time I watch it.

**It’s rated M in Australia, but 12 in the UK and PG in the USA… I don’t normally show my kids M-rated material yet, but I’ll make an exception in specific cases. Compared to many M-rated films, this is pretty mild.

The weekend’s here, the crowds are gathering around the MCG, and though I won’t be attending, I have only one thing to say:

Go Cats!