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  • Japanese confuse sheep for poodles

    What the?

    From news.com.au:

    THOUSANDS of Japanese have been swindled in a scam in which they were sold Australian and British sheep and told they were poodles…

    The scam was uncovered when Japanese film star Maiko Kawamaki went on a talk-show and wondered why her new pet would not bark or eat dog food.

    She was crestfallen when told it was a sheep.

    Hundreds of other women got in touch with police to say they feared their new “poodle” was also a sheep.

    One couple said they became suspicious when they took their “dog” to have its claws trimmed and were told it had hooves.

    Police believe there could be 2000 people affected by the scam.

    Have you been sold a sheep thinking it was a poodle…or a cat, or even a bird? Or perhaps your poodle bleats and shits all over the place?

    This has got to top the weird news stories for 2007.

  • The Top 100 Australian Blogs: feeds via OPML

    Following on from Meg’s great Top 100 Australian Blogs list, my quest to become the Dave Winer of Australian blogging continues, I’m occasionally grumpy, I’m getting older by the day, I haven’t got the beard yet…I guess I can work on it….but on a more serious note, let me present The Top 100 Australian Blogs: feeds via OPML, set up for easy importing into the feed reader of your choice.

    Click here.

    The file has been tested in Google Reader + Bloglines and seems to work.

    OK, there is one little catch! There’s only 98 blogs on the list, 2 blogs didn’t have feeds, and I did try looking for them at karencheng.com.au and blogcharm.com/sweets, if anyone knows where they are, let me know and I’ll update the list.

    The list is in order as per the Meg’s list at the time of writing. It’s done manually so there’s no magical way to update it aside from me coding it so please don’t expect a whole pile of changes over time, but I will maintain it on occasion.

    As much as I’ve crossed swords with a couple of Australian bloggers over the last week on the list, I still believe that despite all our differences that collectively we should be promoting blogs more in this country, and that’s to the benefit of all Australian bloggers. Hopefully expanding the reading list of some people (including myself) may play a small part in this jigsaw puzzle.

    Enjoy.

  • Smage downsizing: following US trend

    Iconic Australian newspapers the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age (The Smage collectively) are downsizing, not only jobs but print size as well, shriking to the tall sheet size I blogged about noticing in North America last November. It’s been 10 years since I read a print version on the SMH regularly, and I remember it being a particular pain (indeed near on impossible) on Sydney trains, so the new size can only help.

    Interesting though that it’s a lead story on news.com.au, but only rates a mention way down the page in Business @ smh.com.au 🙂

  • US online gambling ban to be overturned?

    Good news from el Reg: “U.S. House of Representatives Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank’s press office has confirmed that Thursday at 10am Frank will introduce legislation to repeal the controversial Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA)”

    Now if only we could someone in Australia to overturn our ridiculous laws 🙂

  • The Simpsons meets Google

    Compliments of Search Engine Land, The Simpsons meet Google:

    simpsons1

     

    simpsons2

     

    Full clip as follows:

  • Nifty Tip: FF search in a new tab

    Thanks to Lifehacker (once again) for a very handy tip. If you’re like me, you use the search box in FireFox regularly, and in doing so I usually open a new tab for the results, this hack sets search results to automatically open in a new tab:

    Type about:config into the address bar, and then put the following into the filter box: browser.search.openintab. Double-click the value to change it to true.

    Simple, yet totally useful.

  • OMG, the broke Fark, those….

    Fark has a new design. It isn’t pretty, but probably worse still is the loading times, it’s beyond slow to buggery. What in the world were they thinking? Took me over a minute to get to the bottom of the page to leave a comment, and longer again to actually make the comment, and this with a TotalFark subscription as well!

    fark

  • Where’s Krug?

    Thought I might open this one up, given I’m not getting responses to my emails, and I’m hearing all sorts of interesting rumours: where is David Krug? he’s literally MIA? anyone have any ideas? health or something else?

  • Top 10 George W Bush moments

    Worth a laugh:

  • Lest We Forget, Anzac Day 2007

    anzacSomething a little more upbeat this year, some Banjo Patterson: We’re All Australians Now;

    Australia takes her pen in hand,
    To write a line to you,
    To let you fellows understand,
    How proud we are of you.

    From shearing shed and cattle run,
    From Broome to Hobsons Bay,
    Each native-born Australian son,
    Stands straighter up today.

    The man who used to “hump his drum”,
    On far-out Queensland runs,
    Is fighting side by side with some
    Tasmanian farmer’s sons.

    The fisher-boys dropped sail and oar
    To grimly stand the test,
    Along that storm-swept Turkish shore,
    With miners from the west.

    The old state jealousies of yore
    Are dead as Pharaoh’s sow,
    We’re not State children any more
    We’re all Australians now!

    Our six-starred flag that used to fly,
    Half-shyly to the breeze,
    Unknown where older nations ply
    Their trade on foreign seas,

    Flies out to meet the morning blue
    With Vict’ry at the prow;
    For that’s the flag the Sydney flew,
    The wide seas know it now!

    The mettle that a race can show
    Is proved with shot and steel,
    And now we know what nations know
    And feel what nations feel.

    The honoured graves beneath the crest
    Of Gaba Tepe hill,
    May hold our bravest and our best,
    But we have brave men still.

    With all our petty quarrels done,
    Dissensions overthrown,
    We have, through what you boys have done,
    A history of our own.

    Our old world diff’rences are dead,
    Like weeds beneath the plough,
    For English, Scotch, and Irish-bred,
    They’re all Australians now!

    So now we’ll toast the Third Brigade,
    That led Australia’s van,
    For never shall their glory fade
    In minds Australian.

    Fight on, fight on, unflinchingly,
    Till right and justice reign.
    Fight on, fight on, till Victory
    Shall send you home again.

    And with Australia’s flag shall fly
    A spray of wattle bough,
    To symbolise our unity,
    We’re all Australians now.