Ever see the film Nine Queens? It was very enjoyable Argentine movie about a couple of conmen. I’m not sure where my copy is at the moment, but anyway…

(SPOILER FOLLOWS)

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The pictures in the Heckler section on the back page of The Sunday Age this morning may look familiar…

I originally posted them here.

Had to laugh at this AP report:

Palin pre-empts state report, clears self in probe

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) - Trying to head off a potentially embarrassing state ethics report on GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin, campaign officials released their own report Thursday that clears her of any wrongdoing.
…

That’s pure genius.

Why did nobody think of this before?

If I ever get a speeding ticket, I’ll write to the court explaining that I’ve investigated it myself and I’m completely innocent.

(via Lauren)

Facebook wants to know if I speak “English (UK)”.

And they want to know if I want to be an interpreter for them.

You what? What a strange question.

Since when do non-US-English speakers need to have translations from the Americans?

Anyway, why isn’t it asking me if I speak English (AU) ?

And if Facebook’s revenue was USD 300 million last year and they’re worth an estimated USD 15 billion, can’t they afford their own translators?

1. Superparma is gone… but parma.com.au has arrived to take its place.

2. I’ve talked before about how kids inherit traits and behaviour and interests from their parents. I was struck by this clever alcohol awareness advert which shows it well.

3. To the self-confessed lurker lady in the red raincoat yesterday in Collins Street: Thanks for saying hello.

Helen Razer has been sacked from 774.

I’m a reasonably frequent listener to part of her Sunday morning show, only because I’m often in the car driving at that time.

She can be reasonably entertaining. I don’t remember hearing the controversial interview with Stephen Berkoff, but regardless of whether she deserves her fate, I wouldn’t mind if ABC Radio rejigged its schedule.

At 10am on a Sunday morning, I flick between the AM stations looking to get informed.

3AW has their inflammatory Sunday morning crew (self-described as “arrogant and argumentative”), interspersed with ads. How does 3AW rate so highly? Some of their programmes are okay, but the ads just annoy me, and I look to commercial-free stations instead.

[Disclaimer: On the odd occasion, I have been interviewed by 3AW on Sunday mornings. This recent instance is online -- jump to the 30 minute mark; includes that discussion on Hamer Hall.]

NewsRadio has Weekend Halftime, a regular hour-long sports report at that time which bores the hell out of me. (I don’t mind a little bit of sport, but let’s face it, Tiger Woods winning another tournament is not Real News.)

Radio National has Artworks, which can occasionally be interesting, but isn’t quite what I’m looking for.

And 774 has (for now) Helen Razer, also talking about arts — though she often dips into pop culture and general chatter too.

Couldn’t RN or 774 shift their arts coverage so they don’t compete? Then arts lovers could tune into both, and news junkies like me would have something to listen to at 10am. If they were to shift Background Briefing back an hour, that’d be superb.

Yet another little thing that might be different if I ran the world. Maybe it’ll happen once Helen’s left.

(And how come RN and Newsradio have web sites that can be navigated easily, while 774’s is still a complete mess?)

From everything I saw and heard of her, Marita’s sister Rose was smart, kind, feisty, funny, and happy with her job and her life.

She died on Friday in a car accident near Shepparton, aged 29.

Just tragic.

Rosemary, 1979-2008
Rest In Peace

Update: Herald Sun notices

Because you can never have too much redundancy redundancy.

(During last Friday’s Grand Final parade.)