shannonsays.com

Loud music makes bald bloke deaf

As a subscriber, I like reading my daily dose of sealed section news from Stephen Mayne and co over at crikey.com.au.

But I don't like the amazing back-flipping Peter Garrett, (did someone say sell-out?). So I enjoyed this from Crikey's sealed section yesterday:

"Loud music makes you deaf. Take, for example, this tall, bald bloke. Let’s call him Peter. He clearly can’t hear a word of what’s going on around him.

Peter got up and talked to a Young Labor conference on Saturday about why he had signed up to the ALP – “the Labor values of enhancing community, equity of access to health and education”.

Health. Hello, Peter? HELLO, PETER! HEL-LOOOOOO!!!!!! Did you miss a certain debate last week? Did you hear a thing about Labor’s backflip over the PBS. Clearly not. He needs to read this excellent Alan Ramsey column in the Saturday SMH for the history of pharmaceutical subsidies.

But that wasn’t all.

“As a child of the Whitlam era, as beneficiary of the Commonwealth support for university education, my formative years were those which saw the real difference a brave national government can make to the life of the nation,” he said.

Presumably his hearing was already shot when Whitlam’s party introduced fees and the HECS system"

For more stuff like this, vist crikey.com.au, better still, subscribe. Tell them Shannon sent you!

Gates vs Google

Great article in the Weekend Australian Financial Review that discusses Bill Gates desire to knock Google off as the gateway to the web.

Now that should be an interesting showdown, given Bill’s previous attempts to “knock off” some of his other rivals. I find it a bit peculiar that for such a dominant company, Microsoft is hopeless when it comes to matching and beating competitors when it enters new markets.

Think about it, Microsoft play second fiddle in quite a few areas. The Xbox games console lags behind the Sony PlayStation, and Nokia hardly acknowledge Microsoft as a threat when it comes to mobile phone technology. Even the Microsoft Network has failed to beat America Online and other ISP’s in the USA. It’s database runs a distant third to Oracle and IBM, and the Windows based NetMeeting has been trounced by internet startup WebEx.

And of course, old adversary Steve Jobs has left Gates well and truly in the starting blocks with the Apple iPod. In fact, Microsoft don’t even have a product in the hot online/mp3 music market. Go figure.

Yep, Microsoft seem to always be playing catch-up, and whilst it might enjoy a bit of a fight, it will take a huge effort to stop this goliath of a brand from becoming overtaken, and worse, completely left behind.

It would seem that catching Google, let alone passing it would be a huge challenge for Microsoft. But according to the article in the Fin. Review, Gates has researching new methods of web searching that will be bundled into the next version of Windows (due 2006), so that searching becomes just another utility- like, say, the clock.

But I think it will be quite a while before people are ‘microsofting’ instead of ‘googling’. If at all

Spitting Chips

A couple of weekends ago I saw the film/documentary Super Size Me. I am sure you have heard of it. In case you haven’t hears the rub: Documentary filmmaker Morgan Spurlock decided to eat nothing but McDonald’s for a month. The result was as catastrophic as the target was easy, with Spurlock getting sick ,swelling by 11kg, losing his libido, suffering depression and at one stage vomiting out of the car window. The film attempts to define the line separating corporate from personal responsibility, which sounds a bit boring, but it is framed so amusingly that is never drags or condescends. I left the cinema feeling pretty bloated myself!

The film has been a huge success in Australia, in the two weeks following it’s June 3 release it has made more that $1.5m.

But like McDonald’s in the US, the Australian arm refused to talk to Spurlock during his publicity tour earlier in the month. But this week, with Spurlock safely back home in the States, it seems as though we have been bombarded with damage control ad’s from McDonalds.

The new ad features McDonald's Australia CEO Guy Russo describing the film as being "about a person that decides to over-eat". But, in a super-sized rebuke to the flick, Mr Russo responds to Spurlock's claims that eating burgers for 30 days is bad for you by saying simply:

"You're right." "Doctors told [Spurlock] to stop after three weeks. I would have told him to stop after one day. Surprise surprise, he finds out it was an error. I could have told him that," Mr Russo says in the commercial

I wonder why they left it so long to carry out this damage control exercise? I would have thought that Macca’s could have been a bit more pro-active with its marketing strategy. McDonald's Australia is the first McDonald's in the world to use advertising to publicly attack the movie. Until now the strategy has been to ignore it, but recent research from customers indicated that McDonald's silence might be taken as an admission of guilt.

McDonalds are guilty all right. Guilty of letting the situation get this far. If they had come out on the front foot a month ago, attacked and debated Mr. Spurlock when he was here they might not be in this PR mess. But they adopted the silent approach, which didn’t work.

Oddly Mr. Russo claims "If someone from America produces a film, and then comes out to Australia and attacks us, I'm not going to take that sitting down."

But, yes you did Mr. Russo!

Like your McFriends in the US, you sat around when Spurlock and wanted to talk to you. You sat in your office, not coming out and not answering calls. Why wouldn’t you talk? If you are that angry and that concerned about the attack on your business, the spreading of misinformation and the risk of being perceived as guilty, why not talk? Why wait?

No doubt they had hoped it would all "blow over". Macca's obviously did't anticipate the success of the film, or the amount of news space the issue of childhood obesity has been getting.

But now Mr. Russo wants to assure us all that McDonalds is not as bad as the movie says. And the spin-doctors, or more accurately McDonald’s ad agency DDB explain that the ad’s aren’t a defensive move, they are about “correcting inaccuracies in the film.”

Sure they are.

Also, I am not sure that these ad's are the type of brand journalism that Larry Light, McDonald's (US) chief marketing officer, has been spouting about. (Seth has a great blog entry on this)

Interestingly, despite McDonald's claims that its healthier options are good and that all is not as grim as it may seem, I have not eaten at the Golden Arches since seeing"Super Size Me".

Damir "Dial a Quote" Dokic

I had almost forgotten about tennis-brat Jelena Dokic's pyscho dad Damir. That was until I was checking out todays Herald Sun.

You can always rely on Damir to say something interesting, in the past he has accused half the players in women's tennis of being gay, and Australians of being lazy, stupid and racist.

So it's not really surprising that the Herald Sun plucked his number from their dial-a-quote directory to see what he thought about his daugher Jelena' 6-3 6-3 loss at Wimbledon. Even less surprising is that good 'ol Damir was a bit upset that Jelena put in such a poor performance. At least he knows the reasons why she lost: her coach has been drugging her and psychologically abusing her. Of course he's plotting for revenge:

"The coach and his brother are to blame. I don't know what they talk to her about and stuff her head with."

Speaking from his mountain-top home in Fruska Gora, 50km outside Belgrade, Damir Dokic said he had no plans to travel to London to reconcile with Jelena.

"Why should I come to London?... Revenge will come sooner or later."

"I can't chase them with a gun all over the world. I'm not bin Laden with a plane and can crash into the WTA building. "

"I'm on my mountain thinking about what to do."

Now there's a vision! Damir sitting on a mountain plotting to take over the world...What a dill.

Apparently he has demanded Jelena be drug-tested and analysed psychologically. I think Damir is the one who needs to undergo rigorous assesments.

But unfortunately Damir has been banned from tournaments after abusing security staff, cause if he was courtside, womens tennis might actually be interesting!

"Good Evening, JetStar complaints desk, please lodge your complaint now"

I'd hate to be working in the complaints section at JetStar. They would be busier than a dog trying to bury a bone in a marble floor at the moment.

Since taking off on May 25, Qantas Airways' low cost carrier has been in the news for all the wrong reasons. Or has it?

The airline, which is attempting to follow the low cost service model used by Ryan Air and Delta, promises to fly passenegers around the country for as little as $29. Cheap. But like all good deals, there is a catch, or in JetStar's case, several catches, all of which have been widely publicised:

You have to check in 30 minutes prior to departure. If you are late, stiff. You will not be able to board the flight and you lose your seat – no refund or free transfer is available and you have to book and pay for a new ticket if you still want to get to your destination

They have a free seating policy. That means no allocated seating; first in, first served.

All other passengers will be given a boarding priority on their boarding pass, this will be based on the time that you checked in.

No unsupervised kids. Passengers have to be able to travel independently.Children requiring supervision will not be regarded as able to travel independently on the basis that they may cause a disruption or endanger themselves or others if travelling unaccompanied.

Oh, and if you live in Melbourne, you might have to use the far flung Avalon Airport out near Geelong.

So, if you can handle all of that, then Jetstar is for you. But , like I said in a previous post, we are slow to catch on to consumer trends in this country, so when people rushed to book the really cheap seats on our Jetstar, they did so without really understanding what they were buying. Let's look at some of the complaints so far:

1. May 27:
Karen Smith reports on Crikey that she tried to book a flight for her 13 year old daughter to fly from Maroochydore to Sydney. But JetStar informed her that they did not have unaccompanied flights for children at all. So she complained to them and her local newspaper.

2. June 2:
Five passengers were left stranded in Hobart because they missed the check in deadline. So they grizzled and complained.

3. June 7:
Angry travellers criticised the discount airline yesterday for its handling of a 4 1/2 hour delay for their flight from Hobart.

4. June 8:
Six passengers were stranded in Melbourne because they missed a check-in time by minutes due toi a delay in buying a pass for the toll road that leads to the airport. Passeneger Stan Bednarek is quoted in the press as being "totally disgusted."

5. June 9:
A British Backpacker misses check-in for her flight from Melbourne because he went to the wrong airport. She too complains.

6. June 23:
Six flights were cancelled after a Boening 717 was grounded with serious damage to its front cabin door following .Victorian travellers who pre-purchased tickets for flights between Avalon Airport and Sydney yesterday were instead forced to fly in and out of Melbourne Airport. Oh, and they all complained about the inconvienience.

So all in all, they aren't really doing anything wrong. They are delivering on what they promise. But all of this publicity isn't helpful, and only prooves that we really do want a Rolls Royce service experience at a Kingswood price (Thanks Trevor)!

Of course all of this is a fantastic for Virgin Blue as disgruntled passengers trudge over from the JetStar counter.

Maybe the people at the JetStar complaints department should change their number to 13 6789

Party time in Katherine

The value of hindsight.

When Peter Costello announced in the 'family freindly' Federal Budget it included a raft of measures designed to allow Australian parents to balance their work and child-rearing obligations.

One of these measures included giving more than two million Australian families a $600 payment for each of their children. Some families used the surprise payment for child care, some for schooling, others for immunisations or for clothing. But I bet no-one guessed what the indigenous parents living in the outback Australian town of Katherine (Northern Territory) would spend theirs on.

As word of the payment got around, they raced off to access their bank accounts and have seemingly just gone wild with it, according to Michael Berto, chairman of ATSIC's Garruk-Jarru council in the Katherine region:

"It's created an increase in violence - lots of drinking has been going on and there's been some nasty reports coming through about the fighting that's been going on and the injuries that have been sustained.
Large families in impoverished Aboriginal communities received thousands of dollars, but a number had wasted the money on drugs and alcohol."

This is a bloody disgrace!

The impact of this payment has been an increase in drinking, probably drug abuse, and no doubt domestic violence. And who's fault is it? There will be some, like Mr. Berto who blame the Government:

"There's been no education campaign, nothing to say what the purpose of the money is for,"

But this problem only reinforces the Goverments decision to abolish ATSIC. This rag-tag group of power hungry folk were given $1.2billion a year of our money, our contributions, our taxes to deliver some meaningful, constructive outcomes for aboriginal communities. But they squandered both the money and the opportunity. Surely with $1.2billion they should have been able to educate the aboriginal people as to how to manage their income? Wasn't it their job to teach these morons that their childrens health and future is more important than booze and drugs?

But this situation is only going to get worse, with the government's $3000 baby bonus expected to lead to a increase in pregnancy rates in Aboriginal communities. Once they get their hands on that, there is going to be chaos.

August 7? Forgeddaboudit

According to most pundits, we'll all be off to our local school on August 7 to cast our votes for the 2004 Federal Election. Even Ray Martin had cancelled all previous engagements so that he could anchor channel nine coverage:

The Age, Crikey and The Australian have all decided that August 7 is THE date. I am not to sure that Howard has the testicular fortitude to call such an early election, and nor does Ari. Here's why:

1. Howard's best chance is to give himself as much time as possible to expose and reinforce the flaws in Latham's character. The longer he waits, the more likely there will be Latham gaffes and the more chance there is for dirt to be flung and stick. Howard loves a good mudwrestle.

2. The US election is not until the first week of November, and any tricks that Bush has up his sleeve will came out late ("We're all going on Osama holiday..."). If Howard goes early, he will miss out on the massive boost that this will provide.

3. Howard has said in the past he thinks three years between elections is short enough as it is, and that governments should sit for a full term. And Howard would hate to be a hypocrite.

4. The Senate cycle will become unhealthily out of sync. Regardless of the date, the Senators elected at the next election will not take office until 1 July, 2005. With an early election, there would be an 11 month gap between election and taking office. This means that there will almost certainly be a Senate-only election in the next couple of years.

5. August 7 is Bledisloe Cup night.

So settle down folks, breathe easy, I think we might be waiting until mid to late October. Why, well if August 7 doesn't happen, we'll run into the issue of school holidays. It’s generally considered hard to hold a poll with kids round the house, for some reason. Tasmanian has school holidays from September 6 to 22, Victorian and Queensland school holidays begin on September 18 and in the West the little blighters don’t return until October 17. And given that the PM has kindly said that the AFL and National Rugby League Grand Finals won’t be overshadowed by an election, that rules out September 25 and October 3.

So October 16, 23, or 30 I reakon. Any other thoughts? Closest to the pin perhaps?

The Dentist Chair & Me

Today I realised why people hate going to the dentist.

I had to visit a member of the medical profession's most feared members today, and I can still hear and feel the sound of the MolarCruncher Industrial 392 Rotary Enamel Grinder. Man, the kind of noise a finely crafted, precision, high speed drill-cum-grinder-cum torture tool makes at 93,000 RPM was something I once thought was banned in most countries.

I must confess though it has been a while since I had been to the dentist, and it wasn't until I sat down in the chair of death that I started to get a bit anxious. I should have just sat down and stared at the ceiling, but I am inquisitive and had to have a look around. It was then that I spied all the tools the dentist had lined up for me, they looked more like a set of sidchromes than precision dental instruments. Then I asked a really silly question, "what do you use that for?" Take a tip, NEVER ask a dentist this question, they may just reply with "Here, let me show you!" Ohhhh the agony. Burn me with oil. Run over my legs with a tractor. Anything, but don't use that tool on me!

As I sat there completely helpless, with visions of all those gadgets that looked vaguely like instruments of torture dancing through my head, a bright white light suddenly enveloped me, and an industrial strength,10-ply bib came on, attached by someone behind me using number 29 alligator clips to secure it around my neck

Two heads peeked over me as I squirmed to get comfortable with all of it. Then it happened.

The dentist decided to shoot one side of my mouth up with Novocain by inserting a needle deep into my fleshy gums. Then through the use of some sort of miniature meat hook, she proceeded to extricate all the plaque that had built up from years of neglect, every so often using her prized MolarCruncher Industrial 392 Rotary Enamel Grinder to work on stubborn areas. It was awful.

Then with her assistant looking at me dissapprovingly, she asked me to stop moving my tongue! I'd loved to have been able to cooperate, and have kept my tongue perfectly still, but the more instruments she shoved into my jawbone, the more I fidgeted. Sorry.

Some 30mins later, she had got her fix and ended my dental odyssey. She filled my mouth with cotton wool and told me not to eat or drink for an hour. Then she decided to get a bit comical:

"See you in a few months"

"Yep, no worries" I fired back, just so I could escape from that crazy house of torture. For the rest of the afternoon, I walked around feeling like the lower right side of my face was too big for my skin.

So from now on, I am going to brush, floss and gargle Listerine. Even the taste of Listerine is better than going through that again.

10 Best Internet Fads

A lazy post for a lazy Sunday....

Here's a great link detailing some of the best internet fads of recent times. Check it out, and have a great Sunday... and go Demons!

Trend Watching at the Newsagency

Have you been to a newsagency lately? Its a great place to monitor trends just by checking out the titles of the magazines and which sections are growing and which sections are shrinking. Wondering around my local newsagency this week I found out that nudists have a magazine (Australian Naturist), passenger cruisers have a magazine (Cruise Passenger), even the occult (Urdesires) pig-hunters (Bacon Busters) and low carb dieters (LowCarb Living) have magazines. Even the city I live in has a mag (Melbourne)!

But a category that seems to be growing is mens magazines. Not the traditional Playboy or Penthouse pictorial types, but titles devoted more to mens fashion, style, grooming and other lifestyle trends. Titles like Men's Style, Autore and Men's Health are examples.

Yep, these days, guys like to shop. There is definately an emerging group of straight yet somewhat sophisticated guys who actually care about the way they dress, who are into grooming, and who are nice to women.

Not surprisingly over in the US they are right onto this trend, based on another mag I checked bought recently called Cargo. Cargo is one big fashion, gadgets and grooming catalogue, disguised as a glossy magazine. It even includes Toyota-sponsored stickers, that allow guys to tag the stuff they want to buy and take the mag to a store for easy shopping! What a great idea to help facilitate quick and targeted buying! There are no editorials, no articles and no celebrities. Just ads, ads, and bits of text that are really ... well...just...ads. No doubt something similar is in the pipeline for other markets outside the States. Last time I checked, there were no Macy's stores or Chevrolet dealers in Melbourne!

But these mags make sense. Guys in their late 20s and 30s (like me!)are much more likely to be single, live on their own, and have enough leisure time and disposable income (not like me!) on their hands to work on their looks and style, especially now that women are rightfully expecting men to mirror the almost unattainable beauty standards that have long been set for women.

So whatever the magazine or even store format you are almost always going to win, and anyone who can instruct masses of young males on what and where to buy is going to be, well, RICH!

Now I am off to finish reading Australian Cotton Outlook...