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The Gruen Transfer Series 3

For those who know me, I love all things Wil Anderson. He’s one funny bastard. Even better, The Gruen Transfer, whihc combines my love of Wil Anderson’s sense of humour, Andrew Denton’s brain, and advertising.

I haven’t had a chance to watch this week’s episode yet, but should to tomorrow. One of my favourite parts of the show is The Pitch, where an ad agency get to make an ad for something fake. No-one yet has managed to top the very first one in Season 1 Ep 1.

Enjoy.

My personal fave (above)

The best fake ad that could actually be used (and to think I sell reusable shopping bags online!)

Are you dying for an iPad?

I know I’m certainly not. For anyone with decent notebook or tablet, it’s a toy. The iPad won’t replace a computer by any stretch. For me, it’s a massive iPod that you can’t put in your pocket, but it’s got a bigger screen for watching movies.

In China, 11 employees at the Apple factory have jumped off the roof of the factory as workers struggle to meet deadlines.

Food for thought while you’re lining up for one…..

Coles sell pastry pass used by date to Masterchef contestants. Ouch!

In what can only be considered a HUGE embarassment to Coles, Masterchef contestants have bought pastry past its used by date. Isolated incident? Bullshit. Here’s my story.

March 1994, I go down to Coles at Chatswood Chase to buy something to cook for dinner. I choose fresh pasta with meat in it and a tub of pasta sauce. I drive the 5 mintues back to my house and cook it straight away. Mine was actually within its used by date, but was obviously not kept refrigerated properly (no doubt stacked too high and out of the cool zone). 

Next morning,  around noon, violent vomiting, quite literally emptied my entire stomach and couldn’t keep anything down for at least 6 hours afterwards, not even water. In hindsight, being home alone while this was happening was extremely dangerous and I should have called the ambulance and been taken to hospital.

Doggonit

http://vividlive.sydneyoperahouse.com/MusicForDogs.aspx

Sydney Opera House are holding a concert for dogs. I kid you not. It’s 20 minutes of music that humans can’t here. Take your 4 legged kids and plenty of poo bags (and perhaps some ear plugs from all the howling & barking)

Lunchbots & Seven Wonders

I just love it when I flip through womens magazines and find products I sell, especially products that don’t have a high profile. I just opened up my latest copy of Women’s Health magazine. On page 113, they show the Lunchbots Stainless Steel Lunch Box in green (the big one – the Lunchbots Eco lunch box). They do come in 4 sizes, but this one is our biggest seller by far. It’s surrounded by plastic in the feature and at least one of them is marked BPA Free. The Nude Food Movers look pretty nifty too.

On page 155 there’s an ad for the new Seven Wonders natural hair care range. It’s  bargain, starting at $14.95 and it’s salon quality. I’m about to crack a few open and give them a test run. Would love some feedback if anyone has used it.

iPad, new notebook or edgy new women’s sanitary protection

I can’t believe how stupid the name is of the new iPad. It’s a friggin’ tablet, call it the iTab. I also can’t believe that 240,000 of them have been ordered and paid for sight unseen and Australians have literally flown to New York ot line up to get one. (News story here).

Let’s see, it won’t run Flash applications, so you can rule out about a quarter of the world’s websites. Although, since I loathe Flash, perhaps I should be embracing Apple for a change.

Go Mr Rabbit

Have you ever noticed that when people call Tony Abbott, Mr Abbott, it sounds like they’re saying Mr Rabbit? Journo’s, radio announcers, how friggin’ hard is it to put a little break between the Mr and the Abbott?

Anyhoo, Mr ABBOTT is up at Port Ironman today competing. He expects to complete the 3.8k swim, the 180km, bike ride and 42km run in about 14 hours. The guns from Central Coast Triathlon Club will do it in about 8 and a half hours. For those of you wondering just how far that all is, it’s 76 laps of an Olympic swimming pool but IN THE OCEAN with 1,500 other people trying to swim over you and push you out of the way, a bike ride from Sydney to Wollongong AND BACK AGAIN and to top of all off, an Olympic distance marathon.

I’m getting tired just typing it all in!

Earth’s Axis shifts after earthquake

Is 2012 coming? Is the Myan Calendar correct?

Apparently each time the planet has one of these massive earthquakes, our axis shifts a little & make our days shorter. Let’s hope if these disaster movies start coming true that NASA really does have something that can shatter an asteroid ….

Men At Work sued by kookaburra

It’s a sad and disgusting day today when the little flute interlude from Men At Work’s ‘Down Under’ loses a court case against the new owners of the song “Kookaburra Sits In The Old Gum Tree”. It’s not the melody, it’s a little filler, and it’s really just a small snippet of notes in a sequence, and it’s the 3rd, 5th & 6th notes of the scale, and there’s other stuff in the middle.

As a musician and an Australian, I’m bloody disgusted.

Obama Murders Fly

PETA are a special group of people aren’t they??

Today, PETA have accused President Obama of ‘murdering’ a fly. So for those of you who own a can of fly spray, an Aerogard roll-on or a fly swatter, shame on you. And if you’re an African and you’re killing flies so they don’t spread disease and kill you, then shame on you for killing one of God’s creatures.

Seriously …….. I loathe PETA.