I don’t know why I find this so amusing… it’s like tricking a coffee snob with instant coffee, or feeding Fabio real butter: “Two 19th Century paintings thought to be of the romantic city of Venice, are actually views of the more rugged British naval port of Portsmouth.” (BBC)

“Liberals call for more inspectors as fare evasion soars” (Age)
Silly Liberals. There are two reasons Victorians are evading fares – they’re either poor (or think they are), or they’re choosing an act of civil disobedience. Either way, bringing back conductors is the answer.

“Net censorship hits ‘all time high'” (The Register)

I can upgrade my phone in October. So far the Nokia 7250i is looking like the winner. I really want a phone that will connect to the computer for backups, etc.

So I’m trying to update my records at NetSol. They’ve improved the ‘update your old email address’ fax, so I print it out and send it off with a copy of my passport.
I spend the next few days obsessively checking my email, wondering how long it will take for the form to be processed.
Finally I crack and go to the NetSol site to see if there’s a FAQ on how long they take to update their records. I can’t find anything, so I go through the ‘update domain contact thing’ on the off chance, and discover that they have updated the records after all! To ‘mike@mike.tv’. Which data entry genius was that?

I had an amusing variant on the Nigerian scam email. It start with some philosophical musings, then onto the extraodinary claim that his cancer defiles medicine.
“As you read this, I don’t want you to feel sorry for me, because, I believe everyone will die someday.
My name is Joseph Hadim, a merchant in Dubai, in the U.A.E.I have been diagnosed with Esophageal cancer caring for my health. It has defiled all forms of
medicine, and right now I have only about a few months to live, according to medical experts.”

Very tempting… http://www.languagesabroad.co.uk/ and http://www.cactuslanguage.com/.
I want to learn Spanish, French and Chinese before I die, so I really should start somewhere.

Apropos of nothing, rude place names.
Depression has changed since my day.

I think I have a new obsession: is spin the new propaganda?
Speaking of spin, prwatch.org offers “Public Interest Reporting on the PR/Public Affairs Industry”.
I love the sound of misleader.org: “The President says things that are misleading or just plain wrong every day, but most of these statements are never challenged. That’s why we’re launching Misleader.org, a new website and free daily email service for journalists and the general public to track George Bush’s false statements.” I wish there was one for Australia and the UK.

I was looking for proof that wombats have been known to kill people, but this wasn’t it.