Friday, 15 February 2002

Favourite words - Do you have any fav words you use over and over again. I have a few that I truck out - more for the reaction they get than for any other reason: Bozo - anyone who does anything that is a bit dumb - from silly through to just plain stupid. Sucko - short for "sucked in." You were caught out, you ended up getting your "just desserts" etc. Swag - a general purpose collective noun. eg: A swag of reporters, a swag of mail, a swag of students... Magic - becasue I move in some very conservative circles, this is a nice word to raise hackles! I use it in the sense of unexpected or unexplainable. 10:54:00 AM    Comments ()

"Howard didn't ask me" - so screams the headline on Australia's national broadsheet The Australian this morning. Former defence minister Peter Reith yesterday cast new doubt on John Howard's account of his involvement in the "children overboard affair" and the subsequent cover-up. [story] Maybe this will get interesting Garth. 10:48:52 AM    Comments ()

Food - This quote caught my eye in the Herald this morning: There are two truisms accepted the world over. One, that the English know and care nothing about food. And two, that you can't get a decent cup of coffee in America. These facts have been known since the beginning of time. I haven't been to the UK, so I can't comment on that hald of the quote - but as a regular traveller to the USA I have noticed a vast improvement in coffee over the years. If I could offer one suggestion to revolutionise American popular culture - it would be to use a much thinner mug for serving coffee at breakfast time. The thick white mugs that are used in many establishments are guaranteed to turn that first cup of coffee stone cold. Yuk. 9:57:00 AM    Comments ()

Sordid tale deepens for Deceptive PM - The Sydney Morning Herald carries the headline "PM denies all in boat people row" this morning. Having spent the day in parliment and in the media ducking accusations of lying and deception, the Prime Minister stuck to his guns and blamed his former Defense Minister Peter Reith for any wrong doing. "But I asked Reith..." he lamely said on National Television last night. What a shameful story. Michelle Grattan's excellent opinion piece offers more. Why have no public servents been sacked of forced to resign? I want to see blood on the floor for this one. 7:42:18 AM    Comments ()

Sucko Spammers - Seven Silly Spammers were snared yesterday in an FTC sting. [DMNews] 7:38:13 AM    Comments ()

Search Engine or not? - Internet surfers are increasingly favoring direct navigation and bookmarks over search engines and Web links: as of Feb. 6, nearly 52 percent of Web surfers arrived at sites by direct navigation and bookmarks, compared with about 46 percent during the same period last year. [News.com] 7:35:49 AM    Comments ()