Still recovering today from a bike ride from Fishermans Wharf in San Francisco over the Golden Gate Bridge then back again. About 15 miles, what ever that is in Km I have no idea, but the trip up the hill, wearing RM Williams Moleskins nearly killed me. Amazing the climatic differences in the Bay Area, in the Valley it can be a full 10 degrees warmer than San Francisco, then the bridge is colder again, and there seems to be a never ending amount of fog hogging the coastline. Leaving Wednesday then home Friday.

Steve Bracks quits.

Of course there was Giddyup Gallop in WA before him.

Who in the world would want to be a Member of Parliament?

I actually know the reason why many are: most are self important dysfunctional wankers, but occasionally you meet some that aren’t.

The question worth asking though is has the level of media scrutiny now gone too far? From the BS stories about excessive wages (MPs get paid shit for the hours they put in) to the never ending invasions of privacy, what decent Australian would want to serve their State or Country? Wouldn’t we all be better served by providing an environment where the best people available lead our country?

Flip side of course is that the public has the right to know. The problem is that the cost of that right delivers the poor state of Australian politics we all live with now, a state that is only going to continue to get worse. There will never be another Menzies or Curtin, another Barton or or even Sir Henry Parkes. The next Australian Prime Minister is a professional policy nerd with the warmth and grace of a wet blanket, who is also blander and more boring than an Australia movie. By comparison our current Federal Leaders remain drunk on years of success having long since lost touch with the reality of the average Australian. It nearly makes me think that the American system is better: their leadership might be crap but at least the process is far more entertaining 🙂

The Sky is Falling! Well it was 3 weekends ago when I took this. Not bad for a place that according to many is becoming bone dry, a place that is forever suppose to bare the burden of drought. Filmed on my Panasonic DMC FZ-50 still camera, great video quality for a still camera.

This is the latest mouse from Sony. OMFG! Just when you thought Sony had already lost the plot.

(via Crunchgear)

Hollywood Reporter:  Fans win battle for ‘Jericho’

You little ripper! CBS has back-flipped and decided to renew Jericho, although only for 7 episodes at this stage with a potential for more depending on ratings in the US. 7 is far better than none at all and at least we might get some closure.

I didn’t send nuts to CBS but tens of thousands of Jericho fans did and hundreds of thousands worldwide signed petitions and linked to the cause. Congrats to every single person who helped save one of the last decent shows left on Television and I look forwards to downloading watching the Second series later in the year.

Good news for US based bloggers and owners of forums, guestbooks or any other type of site that allows visitors to make comments; a Federal Court ruling in the case of Universal Communication Systems v. Lycos, a case where Universal Communications systems sued Lycos for defamatory statements made on a message board (I presume the mean forum) hosted by Lycos, found that site owners cannot be found liable for comments made by users of that site.

According to the ACSBlog, the court noted that “Congress intended that, within broad limits, message board operators would not be held responsible for the postings made by others on that board,” adding that allowing bloggers and message board operators to be sued for the statements of commenters on their sites would have an “obvious chilling effect” on speech.

(via Slashdot)

Today’s inspirational post bought to you by Quadszilla. Of course he’s right, which is why I’m busy building stuff myself, but when you’ve got a big ticket idea you need money to fund that…that as they say, is a story for later in the year, all things being equal 🙂

My many thanks to everyone who let me know that duncanriley.com was down. It’s not b5 related, I promise, and u can all take that with my personal I don’t lie certification. It’s just after 7pm US EST time as I’m writing this, but just 4 possibly the first time in my life, I’m actuallly at that time zone. It would appear that with the traffic spike, duncanriley.com being on my personal box, that it went down for a while. My side projects, people I know who have projects etc….that’s the box I’m on, it’s been like that for 12 months, although this site was only on there previously. I will at this stage add something of substance: f*ck, I’m really not famous. When I’m talking to Prince and he’s telling me that ppl signed up to The Blogging Times because I did. That’s nut’s. For the mad few of you who care what I write….Struth. If you want to insert Steve Irwin there go for it. Because to me it’s so Bizarre. When I startered blogging I did it because I liked blogging, and that’s the honest to god truth. There was never an alteramotive. Ever. That some people out there treat me as a minor celebrity……..OMG! To every one though who is ready this. There is as always one thing I would ask: if I ever get so far up myself, so self obsessed. For the love of god tell me. It’s easy to get out of control, and yet it’s harder to remember where you’ve come from.