Vegemite Crisis!!!

Auzzies in the US have been happily buying Vegemite from Cost Plus, Mother's, O'Henry's etc for years....until now!
I have just spent my morning tracking down why it has mysteriously disappeared off shelves everywhere.
After a long & exhaustive investigation (not willing to do it often but for Vegemite...no question!) I have the answer...

The FDA will not allow importation of foods with added folic acid.
Why the FDA have such a problem with folic acid is another head scratcher for another day.
Do they want more birth defects? I don't get it!
I think they need more anemic, pregnant women involved in their decision making process.

Anyway, Kraft apparently do not think it worth their while to import the 'old' recipe of Vegemite (early '90s) with the 'acceptable' amount of folic acid in it.
Their international legal dept. have taken over the issue now, I guess to fight for the 'new' folic acid added recipe to be allowed.
Conclusion, it's going nowhere fast!

Meanwhile, Auzzies all over the US are losing their accents, surfing badly, getting drunker quicker & having the lifeblood slowly drained out of them - It's TRAGIC!

OK dear reader, I know you know an Auzzie. They've been nice to you, right?
Made fun times funner, spun a few yarns, taught you some new words, played a joke or two on you or your mates, shared with you some insignificant pieces of world knowledge;
the area of Australia covered by snow in winter is larger than the area of Switzerland, or
the 'black box' flight recorder was invented in Australia....
stuff like that.
Now is your chance to show your appreciation!

Please call Kraft 1-800-323-0768 & tell them that they in fact have NOT sold the product to International Glace but are in the process of legal wrangling with the FDA over folic acid content.
Please tell them that you would consider it a personal favour if they just started re-importing the 'old' recipe of Vegemite (no folic acid added) & everyone will be happy again...

Kraft won't have to battle the FDA, Internationl Glace could start distributing again (which is their connection to this), store employees won't have to sound clueless when they tell enquiring customers that the 'company doesn't manufacture the product anymore' & Auzzies all over the States will regain their former joyful disposition & happy demeanor which, let's face it friends, the US could use as much of as it can get!
In the end, we're all just Happy Little Vegemites aren't we?

Loving The 21st Century! ~ Part Deux

So I just finished listening to ..."Ohhhh Lord, make me pure, but not yeeeeeeet..."
The concert sounded even louder that yesterday if that's possible!
If you have never seen Robbie Williams live, I recommend getting a ticket...quickly!
The greatest show on earth!
If you can't get a ticket, then finding a friend who does & who will take the time to call you from the spectacular is the next coolest thing!
RW, technology & friends RAWK!!!

Loving The 21st Century!

I just received a call from RheinEnergieStadion in Cologne where Robbie Williams was singing ..."Monsooooon, come soooo-oon"... with about 75,000 fans.
It was SO LOUD but I could hear Mr Williams very well - they must be in the front row! ;) haha
Thanx to my friends xxx   Biggie hugs mates!

& every person who had a hand in the development of the technology that got us to the point of me being on the other side of the planet & yet still being able to hear Rob in real time!
Gotta love it!



Monsoon ~ Amsterdam June 25 '06.
Recorded by me on my digicam. More technology to love!

Auzzie Auzzie Auzzie

        OY ! OY !! OY !!!



Game ON Brazil !!!!!

i -am very annoyed- tunes

I was given a shiny black Nano for my happy birthday.
Sounds good yeah?
I guess, one day, I'll probably agree but right now, not really thinking along those lines.
Now, I'll admit, mine is not the tidiest puter when it comes to music. I upload from cds, I download from sites. The songs go into 'My Music'...mostly.
Some I find in the Media Player library, some in the Winamp library...but they're all there, around, somewhere. I can usually find them when I want them.
So, I thought when I jumped thru all the hoops for installing i-tunes, I could just drag & drop from wherever to the i-tunes library & ba-da-bing, there is my new listening toy.
WRONG!
The i-tunes library popped up...with a bunch of my stuff already on it!
This would not have been such a mystery if the content had come from one place, but it didn't! Some uploaded cds (but not all), some downloaded tunes (but not all), some from 'My Music' (you get the idea).
Some are video which I can't play anyway!
Annoying I think....I have to delete before I have even added anything!
No delete...hmmmm. OK, 'Clear' I think is the way to go. I clear one file & double check it's where it came from....ARGH!...NO!!
It's no longer there!
I've lost my precious "Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em" vid.
Luckily I can upload it again but HOW FRIGGIN' ANNOYING IS THAT?!
I know if I read up, I will figure out what I need to do (& probably what I did wrong) but I really would just liked to have seen a blank i-tunes library to start with, to fill with my desired music & not random stuff I own.
Not being a big fan of sifting thru stuff to organise it is the reason why my puter's music collection is not the tidiest in the first place!

Oh, & while I'm on this rant. What is the deal with the 'look at the Nano & watch it smudge' thing?! Why is this surface like a 'hot zone'? Couldn't it be made with a surface that you can touch without it looking like it needs decontamination?
It's shiny & pretty, for about a Nano-second & then it looks like crap!
Oh! I get it!

Sin Sin Sin

I liked this song when I heard it but after I saw the video it guru on me. Get it? GURU on me! hahaha!

There are few artists who can do what this man does - another brill vid thank you Mr Williams!

A Day Without An Immigrant

So, exactly how many illegal people should the US let in? Just the 12 - 20 million who are already here? Another 12 - 20 million?
How about 100 million?
What about another country allowing their citizens to come & work in the US for cheaper wages than the illegal workers work for now?
I hear many saying "we play by the rules" - that may be true, but you got into the game illegally.
This country has an absolute right to define it's immigration policy & just because a poorer country is attached by land, does not give that country's citizens carte blanche to invade.
Today, I have read too much graffiti insulting the US & seen too many Mexican flags flown high & too many US flags flown upside down during these protests against the US's immigration policies.
If it's so bad here, why are you protesting to stay? You can't have your pan dulce & eat it too!

This Week In WTF Ville

Copperfield Was Mugged


   Doherty Was Drugged


Keef's Head Went Fud


   & Tom Talks Crud


According to Tom, "...it's Kate, not Katie. Katie is a child's name. My Kate is a woman, a magnificent woman, a magnificent child-bearing woman. Woooo-hoooo! And I got this magnificent woman pregnant. Can you dig it?"

Yeah? Maybe you think she birthed her brains & her voice box out with that baby eh Tom?
May I remind you that 'child-bearing woman' & 'silent brow-beaten wife' are not synonymous. Can you dig it?


Next week...David Blaine goes glug, glug, glug
 

This Is Obscene

This Lee in NOT correct!!!
In fact, his picture epitomises the 'pigs at the trough' that is corporate America today.
How well fed does $400,000,000 make you anyway?
Doesn't look like it gets you a descent dental plan though does it? Shame.
And while the good old boys pat themselves on the back for a job well extorted, & America's oil reserves are at their highest levels in 8 years, how much did you pay for your last gallon of gas?
"We're all in this together".... my skinny, white, gouged by corporate America ass we are!

Exxon Chairman Gets $400 Million Retirement Package
Amid Soaring Gas Prices


Exxon Made Record Profits in 2005
April 14, 2006 — Soaring gas prices are squeezing most Americans at the pump, but at least one man isn't complaining.

Last year, Exxon made the biggest profit of any company ever, $36 billion, and its retiring chairman appears to be reaping the benefits.

Exxon is giving Lee Raymond one of the most generous retirement packages in history, nearly $400 million, including pension, stock options and other perks, such as a $1 million consulting deal, two years of home security, personal security, a car and driver, and use of a corporate jet for professional purposes.

Last November, when he was still chairman of Exxon, Raymond told Congress that gas prices were high because of global supply and demand.

"We're all in this together, everywhere in the world," he testified.

Raymond, however, was confronted with caustic complaints about his compensation.

"In 2004, Mr. Raymond, your bonus was over $3.6 million," Sen. Barbara Boxer said.

That was before new corporate documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission that revealed Raymond's retirement deal and his $51.1 million paycheck in 2005. That's equivalent to $141,000 a day, nearly $6,000 an hour. It's almost more than five times what the CEO of Chevron made.

"I think it will spark a lot of outrage," said Sarah Anderson, a fellow in the global economy program at the Institute for Policy Studies, an independent think tank. "Clearly much of his high-level pay is due to the high price of gas."

Exxon defends Raymond's compensation, pointing out that during the 12 years he ran the company, Exxon became the largest oil company in the world and that the stock price went up 500 percent.

A company spokesman said the compensation package reflected "a very long and distinguished career."

Some Exxon shareholders are now trying to pass resolutions criticizing the company's executive pay policies. The company is urging other shareholders to vote against those resolutions.

Source: www.abcnews.com

Robbie Who?

Bloody Cold

This is the only possible way to bear listening to this bloody song anymore!
See next post for the leader of the 'Cool Singers Gang'.

Ode To A Kitchen Helper

As it's raining today, I'm posting a little ditty I penned last year during the 'Great SoCal Deluge', when everything that wasn't nailed down tightly (& some things that were), washed down thru the humanity that is LA & OC counties, into the LA & Santa Ana rivers & onto the beaches.
Rain here brings a veritable treasure trove of house parts, along with the more mundane tennis balls, dog chew-toys, plastic garden chairs & of course, bamboo.

Where did you come from broken colander?
Someone’s kitchen no doubt.
Did you slide down from Bel Air?
Or were you abused by a 2 year old & thrown out?
Now you are thrashed & discarded
Strewn & abandoned along the shore.
Try to make friends with the bamboo
You can’t drain spaghetti anymore.

Torn

In Honour of the Olympics

If you are anywhere else in the world, you are probably enjoying the Olympics way more than us here in the 'US...let's not show anything live but wait to see which events the US Team does well in & THEN pretend that we don't know the outcome...A.'
This country is HORRIBLE at international sports coverage.
Makes me painfully aware of how much I should have respected
Kerry Packer while he was with us!

What Winter Sport Are You? Take This Quiz To Find Out I KNEW it!...I Am Skiing! I WISH I was Skiing Right Now!

Graceful, athletic, and gusty - you're willing to put it all on the line. You're willing to take big risks for big rewards. YEAH BABY!!!!

Shark Attack!

Shark attack!
Get out of the water & don't look back!

Anyone....Anyone?

If a blog isn't updated but nobody hits it to see, is it really out of date?

Love Me Daddy

Muse this...
Should it be difficult to enjoy the Suicide Girls as a sexy burlesque show knowing the background of some of the girls is splattered with abuse?
Do most of these girls have sad backgrounds?
Chldren of divorce, alcohol, drugs. Abused, molested, neglected.
If society feels burlesque is art, sexy, entertaining, does that make society an enabler of dysfunctional behaviour?

Big Unit vs Little Bird

Guess who wins...

Live8

Robbie Williams - Best Performance of the Day

How GREAT was this event?! I know a lot of people thought it was indulgent, ineffective & insulting to have a mass of the world's richest entertainers poncing around 4 continents performing for human rights, but it was still the coolest thing to happen since
Live Aid.
I watched the whole day on my puter with extremely good streaming, it was amazing!

I will not say the same for the US MTV broadcast of the same event however. How anyone could balls this up so badly still mystifies me!

"Yes, we have Will Smith on in the background now & he's doing a magnificent job. What a great show today. You should see how the crowd is reacting...blah blah blah."

Yeah? Well, get out from in front of the camera & let us see, YOU WANKERS!!!!

Anyway, I just think it's amazing to live in this era where we can all watch the same thing & interact with people from all over the world, all in real time.
Gives me goose bumps.

Now if it has an effect on the G8 then it will really have been worthwhile. If not, it was still a rockin' day & I'm sure it will be appreciated in years to come way more than it seems to be now.

Old School Piracy?

When I was a young'un my day could be ruined by the ill timed slam of a door or a squark of a cockatoo. Why? I was 'recording' in my room & neither my parents nor nature had any respect for my need of absolute silence.
Silence was necessary because I had a record player & a tape recorder...& there was no way to connect the two.
My solution (remember when it comes to music, for a teeenager, there's always a solution) was to play the record & tape it, thereby giving me the precious music I needed to survive while I was livin' large away from my stereo.
Now, as I see it, the only difference between me then & teenagers now is they can be tracked doing this & I couldn't.
Hey, wait up, don't get your knickers in a twist! I'm not naive enough to think it's only teenagers downloading from Kasaa & Grokster et al however, I do think this new lunacy from the US Supreme Court does nothing to solve the real problem of large scale piracy but instead is well, just an easy way out.

Justice David Souter wrote for the court...
"The question is under what circumstances the distributor of a product capable of both lawful and unlawful use is liable for acts of copyright infringement by third parties using the product. We hold that one who distributes a device with the object of promoting its use to infringe copyrights, as shown by clear expression or other affirmative steps take to foster infringement, is liable for the resulting act of infringement by third parties."

Huh?

If I read 'copyright infringement' as 'unlawful act' then can someone tell me if I can still buy blank videotape for the express purpose of taping General Hospital? Or is the blank tape legal but the video recorder now suspect? Maybe ABC who airs General Hospital without a way to block me from taping it are the culprits? No, according to Justice Souter, I think it's the videotape manufacturer.

Where is TiVo in all this? Expressly manufacturered to record stuff while we're out living life so we can watch later....without commercials!!! The reason for the TV in the first place!
Surely that is 'a device with the object of promoting it's use to infringe copyrights' to quote Souter again.

The music business is not only strangling the innovation & talent of artists but is choosing to ignore progress. On top of that, they're trying to force everyone do the same instead of progressing with new technology. Now they have The Supremes voting with them. I wonder if Florence, Mary & Diana would agree?

If piracy is the problem, I think it wise to go after the pirates not their vessels. Nor the little sailors putzing around in their tinnies through the sea of sound. They're not pirates, they're explorers.

Although maybe, in the big karmic wheel of life, the Supreme Court is this generation's parents & cockatoos.