Big Bag of Goodies

I got lotsa links for you, eh?

Red Ball: Apart from the enjoyable thrashings going on in South Africa (the Aussies going for 5-0 starting this arvo, and Smith is out for the final Test), there's some equally enjoyable matches on the Subcontinent.

As we know, the Poms won a Test against a real side for the first time since The Ashes, but the ODI's aren't going well. They failed to chase 203 (in fact, fell 39 runs short), and the hero of the match was Harbajan Singh. He was brought on when Freddy and Pietersen were looking the goods, and managed to 4 for 9 in 6 overs. See, that's a bowling change, Punter.

Speaking of Mick Lewis, sanity has finally prevailed, and he's been dropped from the side to tour Bangladesh. Even better, he's been replaced by a genuine young talent in Dan Cullen.

Still on cricket, Punter's century in both digs last week has everyone singing about him - this blogger included. Check his stats at Cricinfo and you'll see what I mean. He's now 9th on the all-time list, and with the best average of the lot. He'll become the best Aussie batsmen ever with another 2600 runs (to give you an idea, he scored 1544 in 2005, and 1503 in 2003. By then, it'll be a battle between Lara, Tendulkar and himself to see who retires the best. Awesome.

Finally, the ICC has confirmed that a Twenty20 World Cup will happen pretty soon. Mick Lewis will soon be named captain of the Australia side, due to his superior economy rate. Interestingly, the ICC has called it an "invitational", but participation will be "mandatory".

Oval Ball: Anyway, who cares about cricket when the footy's back! Went to the game last night, but honestly can't work out whether West Coast were good, or St Kilda were bad (in fact, they played like a bunch of spastics). At least my predictions are looking good (i.e. Chad Fletcher to go missing this season, never to recover from a horrible finals series last year, and Beau Waters by Round 15 to be the first player picked every week).
Cox was unbelievably good, justifying Sheahan selecting him 9th in his 50 Most Important Players.

And how's this for a headline: "Archer Admits 'Living on Tablets'". Replace Archer with Gardiner, and it's suddenly not news. Simpson's Quote:

Hutz: Now don't you worry, Mrs. Simpson, I - uh-oh. We've drawn Judge Snyder.
Marge: Is that bad?
Hutz: Well, he's kind of had it in for me, since I accidently ran over his dog. Actually, replace 'accidently' with 'repeatedly', and replace 'dog' with 'son'.

Round Ball: You ever seen a young kid riding a bike or skateboarding or something, and they go over a little ramp or bump or something and land it. Then, they get so full of ridiculous confidence that they then try and jump a 10-storey building? Funny, eh? So, replace 'kid' with Justin Madden (Victorian Minister for Commonwealth Games), 'bump' with Comm Games, and '10-storey building' with FIFA World Cup 2018. Hilarious!
In sad news (which everyone already knew), Guus won't be 'round in July.

Misc: Rose Porteous had a stroke. Wasn't that about 20 years ago? No? Well how the hell else do you explain her?

Hilarious George Bush puppetry. You can lose hours in this, and it's so damn satisfying.

In obvs news, everyone hates Tom Cruise.

Finally, if this is the only blog you read, then you gotta get out more. Folks have been doing this sh*t for years now, and one of the first ones I ever read was The Modern Age. The author, Laura, is just the sweetest thing, and everyone who reads her knows. So, how do you explain some anonymous f*cker needlessly calling her a sl*t in one of her recent posts? Everyone get on there and post some heat back at this c*cksuker!

While you're there, check her link to the weirdest News Broadcast ever.

Thanks, Adam

Let's Play Guess the Cooker

Oval Ball: I know I shouldn't post excerpts from Crikey's newsletter verbatim, but I'll do it with a link to their subscription page (seriously, I highly recommend it).

They've shed some light on the leaked AFL player names (you know, the ones who tested positive twice). Anyone here heard any further on this?

How the names of three drug-taking AFL players got out
By Anthony Stavrinos

There's been quite a kerfuffle over the story set to run in The Smage last week about three AFL players who had twice tested positive for use of illicit recreational substances.

A key part of the story by Jacqueline Magnay – the names of the three players – had to be removed after the AFL took out an injunction against Fairfax and the rest of the media, to keep the trio's identities hush hush.

The saga will return to Victoria's Supreme Court on Wednesday, but while the blanket ban on the players' names is in force, a cock-up has seen the players' names revealed to clients of media monitoring company Media Monitors.

Media Monitors has an arrangement with Fairfax in which it is sent a copy of the electronic page proofs from its newspapers at the same time as they are sent to the publisher's printing facilities. That feeds into an automated system which delivers the relevant information to clients – before the paper has even been printed.

So when the injunction was enforced on Thursday evening, the page proofs had already been sent to the company before last minute alterations to the AFL story.

Understandably reluctant to draw attention to the names it has fought so hard to remove from public circulation, the AFL was guarded in its comments. "There was feed on our media monitoring service, it was from a newspaper and it was removed,” a spokeswoman told Crikey.

Senior deputy editor of The Age, Paul Ramadge wanted to make it clear the unfortunate mistake had nothing to do with his paper. “My understanding is that Media Monitors got access to a version of the story off a Sydney Morning Herald page, not an Age page”, he told Crikey. “The story did not make any editions of The Age.”

Crikey has the players' names, but we can't publish them – the Supreme Court injunction covers all media.

Now, to make this post completely lazy, some quick links:

• "Richo can't rely on reputation". Doesn't he have a reputation as a useless, fat pr*ck?


• The Swans are "the worst titleholder since Collingwood in 1990". Love it.


• Same old same old, with concern over West Coast's firepower. This is the team that was the competition's 3rd highest scorer last season, right?
  


• Richie Vandenburg knows his team is sh*t, but this quote concerns me

  "We've got a number of goals that we've put in place for the season and none of those revolve around where we finish on the ladder"

  What's so wrong with having a goal to win some bloody matches?


• TV: Plenty more Simpsons, King of the Hill, and Futurama to come. Excellent news.


• SBS has signed up the rights to World Cups 2010 and 2014. Whilst looking for details on that, I also stumbled across SBS' upcoming soccer reality show, Nerds FC. Interesting...


• Hilarious news out of the US, with rumours abounding that everyone's favourite couch-jumper refusing to promote his new vehicle if Comedy Central airs the South Park episode pulling the p*ss out of Scientology. Read the article just for Parker and Stone's press release.


• Culture: Finally, everyone who knows me has heard me whinge at one stage about how sanitised little old Perth is. If you have 10 mins, read The Age's article celebrating the revamping of liquor licensing 10 years ago that made the city what it is today - my favourite (no doubt soon to be displaced by any number of the cities soon to be visited on the upcoming world trip).

'Til next time... (and if I haven't told you about the Final 8 Tipping Contest, comment me).

How Many Half-Volleys to Make 112 Runs?

White Ball: I'm an angry b*tch today, still reeling from Sunday night's debacle...

I have this horrible run of luck where the best sports games I remember watching are actually losses (perfect example, best Western Derby ever was the one where Dale Kickett went postal, Phil Read got angry - what a surprise, Phil Matera managed to hurt someone - the umpire, but my team lost in a thriller).

I thought that run of luck ended in the Socceroo's qualifier (btw, just to make me feel better on Monday morning, I had another look at the photo gallery - I recommend it, very therapeutic if you're ever feeling crap).

But no, the best ODI ever ended up a terrible, terrible loss. Everyone's been asking how did we manage to not defend 434. Two simple answers, Bracken dropping Gibbs (he got 45 extra runs from that), and Ponting putting Lewis back on not once, not twice, but three times!

Quick quiz for young players:
Imagine you're captain of a side fielding 2nd, 43 overs gone. The batting side needs 77 runs off the last 7 overs (4 wickets in hand). You've got Bracken bowling at one end pretty well. Who do you put on to bowl?:

• Symonds (9-0-75-2)


• Clarke (7-0-49-1)


• Clark (6-0-54-0)


• Lewis (7-0-72-0)

Maybe you might want to avoid the slow bowlers (even though they're doing the best of a bad bunch), so you'd choose between Clark and maybe Lewis.

That's right, you read somewhere (it might have been a Cricket Australia press release?) that Lewis is apparently a "bowl at the death specialist".

So, you put on the only bowler who's going for more than 10 an over.

Bad decision, and it only gets worse!

1-4-6-1-2-0 Lewis gets carted for 16 runs. Next over, Bracken bowls his only bad one so far (14 runs). They now need only 47 runs from 5 overs. Better batten down the hatches, eh? I know, I'll put the "bowl at the death specialist" on.

2-1-1-1-1-3 Lewis falls in for 9 runs. Next over, Bracken gets a wicket and goes for 8 runs. Now they need 30 runs from the last 3 overs.

You've got half a chance here now. You'll leave Bracken and Bing to bowl overs 49 and 50, so who to have for 47?:

• Symonds (9-0-75-2) RR 8.33


• Clarke (7-0-49-1) RR 7.00


• Clark (6-0-54-0) RR 9.00


• Lewis (9-0-96-0) RR 10.66

Here's a great idea, how about you put on the only bowler going for more than 10 an over (since that's exactly what the required run rate is)?

4-2-4-1-2-4 (17 runs).

Good one, f*ckwit.

No one now cares about your 164 runs in the first innings, since you just wasted 41 runs putting Lewis back on.

No one now cares about Australia's awesome record in the last 5-10 years (this was the first bilaterial ODI series Australia lost since Pakistan in 2002).

Certainly, no one gives a f*ck that we won the 4th ODI despite Smith saying we choked.

And, you know what, no one will care even if we win the World Cup next year, because we will forever be the team that couldn't defend not only the highest score ever, but 36 runs over that score. Everyone's already forgotten about the '99 World Cup that Herschelle "dropped".

Links: Warney jumping the gun, branding Smith a fool. The Age jumping the gun even more, singing the Aussie's praises after the 1st Innings. The Australian quoting Ponting trying to blame it all on Lewis, like Ponting didn't have 3 chances to nip that in the bud. One journo having the guts to say Lewis is finished (some would question whether he ever started at all). Ponting making the first steps toward realising his mess-up. And a happy bunch of Saffies, so they should be.

In an attempt to forget that and move on, good to see England weren't just flashes in the pan in the Ashes, eh? Losing the 2nd of 3 Tests against India (after getting only 181 in their 2nd digs), many would be surprised to hear that, ignoring 2 tests against Bangladesh, the Poms have won the grand total of 2 of their last 10 Tests (and that includes The Ashes!).

Music: Nice article 'bout The Vines (now minus Patrick Matthews who ran from the carnage to join Youth Group), the new album, and everyone's favourite mentally disturbed lead singer.

Thanks, Jason

Same Old Story

Just a quick one, because I know no one will actually read this tonight...

Just watched Freo lose. They were pathetic in the last quarter. The scoring "worm" graph says it all (a 32-point turnaround in about the last 20 minutes)...

And, if I see Digby Beacham or any of his c*cksucking mates in tomorrow's Sunday Times write up the game as a "brave effort" by the Dockers, I will turn homicidal.

So this is obviously the new, improved Dockers under Connolly's "hardline stance". Trust me, read that link. It would be funny if it weren't so f**king tragic.

However, it was funny to hear the loudest cheer of the night was reserved for when Farmer went up for a mark one-handed, dropped it, and did his ankle. Poetic...

In what appears to be an even worse performance, West Coast lost to Carlton (who last week lost by 99 points).

Let's just get this sh*t over with and get on with Round 1, eh?

Even Better!

Music: Seriously, this blogging thing is just getting easier, when the stories themselves are so hilarious/ridiculous you don't even need to beat them up.

For example, Chopper Read to release rap album. What? No, it's true! You can even check out his MySpace profile for samples.

On the subject of psychotic people who made music, the last bastion of original 70's punk, the Sex Pistols, are now bending over and taking it for cash, announcing their back catalogue is available to shill anything from luxury cars to MP3 players.

Red Ball: And, on the back of Thommo saying he's not a footballer's a**hole, Watto has now asked for a quiet chat with Punter to find out why he was dropped. Maybe it'll go something like...

Watto: Punter, how come I'm dropped, and stuff?
Punter: Cause you're sh*t.
Watto: But so is Mick Lewis and Mitchell Johnson!
Punter: Hmm, yeah good point. Oh well, you're still sh*t though...

Fun: Also, a new-ish site to add to your favourites, Office Pirates, full of weird and wonderful crap aimed at bored office workers like me.

Unbeatable

I know that these days blogs aren't supposed to just be a list of links (any loser can do that). But, sometimes you just can't value-add to perfection.

Like the headline "Watson 'not an all rounder's a-hole'". Sorry, can't top that! Thommo goes on to give Mitchell "Who?" Johnson a spray too (winning more points in my book), but then shows his true Queenslander colours by saying that Bichel should be a walk-up start.

Speaking of charity cases like Watto, pleese take the time to visit the charity helping to save rangas worldwide, the International Ginger Kids Foundation. Give generously.

BTW, I tried to find a pic of the original "Watto" (Perth Wildcats Point Guard), using trusty old Google Images. Look what pic you get first up. Must be something about that name!





Thanks, Ricko