Brownlow excitement

Wow, the singing duties were handled by the capable team of Jon Stevens and the chick out of Batchelor Girl. How can they top that? A full rendition of "Red Hot and Rhonda" during the recap of the bye week I'll bet.

And did that tool Wayne Jackson just refer to David Wirrapunda as "E. Wirrapunda". He's been running the game for a few years now you know.

And why are we talking about tennis? What is this shit? Lleyton Hewitt can feature on the bloody
"Ille Nastase Tennis Medal" show for all I care but he's not a footballer.

3 hours of Wayne Jackson reading votes off cards and getting players names wrong - that's what I want. Not the fucking sporting Logies.

6 Rounds in,

* The Peter Bell tilt is still on.
* Wayne Jackson has been given crash coaching lessons in players names
* Melbourne's top vote getter is David Neitz with 5. In 1999 Scott Chisholm got the most votes with 6 despite being utterly shit. This might mean that 2003 is/was a better year than 99.

Back after Round 9

* Voss is surely going to win the thing.
* Bell's chance is slipping away. The umpires are clearly racist.
* Matthew Richardson usually gets 3 votes against Melbourne and nobody else, this year he only got two. He's clearly shit.
* Wayne Jackson sounds pissed.

DID YOU KNOW? In our last shit year (2001) Peter Walsh was Melbourne's top vote getter with 11 (source). Can Neitz crack that? He only got 11 himself last year when he topped the goalkicking.

* Eddie managed to talk to Jason McCartney without accidentally referring to the "atrocities in Dili" like he did during the International Rules game last year.
* Predictions that Scott Burns will get fuck all should have been heeded. He's on 2 so far.
* Dennis Commetti's reading of the highlights isn't impressing me all that much. You just know he's not going to come out with one of his great lines.
* I don't think a Melbourne player got 1 vote in the last three rounds. Daniher should have been out of a job at about this point.

DID YOU KNOW?
The following 10 players recieved Brownlow votes in the 1990's. Who remembers them? Not me.
Darren Troy (Geelong) 1 vote (1990)
Sean Simpson (Geelong) 6 votes (1991)
Joe Cormack (Fitzroy) 5 votes (1992)
Daniel Craven (Brisbane) 2 votes (1993)
Shane Tongerie (Adelaide) 1 vote (1994)
Ed Considine (Sydney) 3 votes (1995)
Quenton Leach (Fremantle) 2 votes (1996)
Donald Dickie (Port Adelaide) 3 votes (1997)
Andrew Bomford (Essendon) 2 votes (1998)
Garth Taylor (Fremantle) 3 votes (1999)
Source - Same as before.

* For our international viewers let me remind you that I'm posting about the Brownlow Medal - the highest individual honor in Australian Rules football. More than $5 million Australian has been bet on this event. We're all addicts.
* Neitz is up to 8. Walsh's record for votes in a shit season is under threat.
* Bell is definately being robbed.
* Andrew McLeod might pull off a shock here but Dermie has decided Ben Cousins is going to piss it in. Nigel Lappin was winning, but nobody cares about him. He didn't even bother showing up to the Brisbane function - hope he does win it now just to be confusing.
* Nathan Buckley is going to lose again. Cue the anguished howls of Collingwood mutants across the nation.
* This is all very close. I'd like to see the AFL plebs work out what do if there's a 6 way draw.

DID YOU KNOW?
Contrary to his claims earlier on the telecast Gary Lyon actually recieved 3 votes in the 1989 Brownlow Medal count.

Melbourne players to only get one were Tony Campbell, David Flintoff, Greg Healy, Ricky Jackson and Brian Wilson. The club's top vote getters for the night were Stephen Newport and Jim Stynes with 10.

* Wayne Jackson cockup alert - Paul Dimmatina = P. Dimmantina
* HOW THE FUCK DID BELL ONLY GET 2 AGAINST ADELAIDE?
* If Bell doesn't win I want Goodes to instead.
* This is going to be a massive tie. There's about 300 people on 16-18 votes at the end of round 16.
* Ben Cousins is winning again.
* Smoking Joe Misiti has two votes, which is precisely how many he clocked up when I bet on him a 1000-1 to win it in his debut season.
* Now Goodes and Cousins are equal again
* Isn't it amazing how I'm writing this as if you're actually reading it in real time, and not three days after the event?
* Cockup alert - Kane Johnson = J.K Johnson
* Nick Riewoldt will win next year.
* Oh good, the drug dealers in my flats are arguing again. It's getting violent. SOME OF US ARE TRYING TO WATCH THE BROWNLOW YOU PRICKS. I'd turn the sound down but this is an absolute fucking thriller.
* COME ON PETER BELL! No six way draw or i'll get less money.
* Melbourne - how shit were they this year? At least the 1997 squad were just shit - this years list could have done so much.
* Walsh's record is safe. Long live the man known mysteriously simply as Whopper.
* Buckley's equal leader now. Best Brownlow EVER.
DID YOU KNOW?
Former Melbourne players receiving votes tonight include Shane Woewodin, Troy Simmonds, Martin Pike and Nathan Bassett.
Current Melbourne players recieving them include not many people at all.

* Somebody is going to get robbed. Try to guess who. I bet he's Asian. AND HE WAS!
* Chris Lamb should get a sympathy vote for the amount of times he was best on ground in the VFL without getting a senior game.
* The umpires are clearly morons. Nathan Brown for Melbourne got three votes against Sydney when 25 of his 30 possessions were clangers.
* The other top contenders haven't polled in R20 either. Go Bell you good thing.
* 9 players are within three of the leaders with two rounds left. Amazing.
* Now some guy is picking up outside. A neighbourhood of mystery for sure.
* They just accidentally got a shot of Adam Goodes being chatted up by a producer. Channel 9 must be confident he's in with a shot.
* I don't think Bell will win it, but that's what I said at this point in 2000 when I stood to win a fortune on Woewodin getting up. Then he somehow got 2 votes in the last game against West Coast when he was about our 12th best player. I hope Bell also benefits from such umpiring rorts.
* Sweet god, they're actually debuting a new "Sophie Monk + teenage stalker" ad. Who writes this shit?
* Sorry, I'm wasting time during the commercial break.
* Mutants are going to do their own version of the LA Riots if Buckley doesn't win this.
* Round 22 - Melbourne vs Sydney. We put more effort into throwing that game than we did trying to win anything.
* I tip Buckley to win this outright. How offensive.
* Bell and Scott Burns robbed again. Judd never a chance. No money for Adam this year.
* FUCK OFF. Bell got about 3000 possesions against Essendon and no vote. I don't give a fuck if they got thrashed - he deserved two at least.
* Buckley, Cousins and Riccuito on 21 apiece going into the last round. Goodes one behind. This is madness.
* 10 people can win it going into the last round. Neitz can't be beaten for Melbourne's 'best'.
* Bucks is home I do believe. I suppose he deserves it. Bell is going to run a place I think but this could be where somebody gets royally shafted. Wanganeen, Bell, Buckley and Crawford have all had awesome games in this round.
* Come on - Peter Bell 3 votes. Nathan Buckley 0 give it to me
* They're doing all the dud games first... what a conspiracy.
* GET A FUCKING DOG UP YOU - AFL PIGS. Bell robbed again.
* 4 way tie at the top. +Crawford
* Riccuito hits lead outright
* Buckley one vote - it's a draw.
* Adam Goodes two votes against Melbourne
* Buckley + Riccuito + Goodes
* TV microphone picks up an inappropriate "fuckin' well done" as some easy listening music blares out of the speakers.
* This result really fucks the dividends up if you bet on one of the winners. You won't get much bling bling if you had Buckley as late as today.
* I'd like to point out that if Bell had got the three votes he deserved in the final game it would have been a four way tie at the top if you don't mind.
* I have the feeling that while Goodes and Riccuito are over the moon Buckley is actually cut not to have won it on his own. Give your share to Bell if you're not happy pal.
* This is bitter Adam, with the same amount of money in his pocket, signing off from Brownlow Headquarters in St. Kilda. Over and out.

And another thing..

I'll tell you what really shits me about the finals (apart from the fact that Melbourne are too USELESS to feature in them with any regularity). I'm sick to death of that bloody tape of the national anthem they play before every non-Grand finals match. Every city in Australia is full of ten thousand musicians who could easily walk out onto the MCG and play the thing before a packed house and would probably do it for free yet they insist on playing this pissy recording from 1986 instead.

The players all line up in perfect formation for some warbler to come out and let rip and then that familiar orchestral arrangement fires up and we're left with the same thing we heard the day Gary Lyon went ballistic against the Dogs in 1994.

Then when they do drag somebody in for the Grand Final it's usually your "where are they now?" Julie Anthony type candidate. I'm no fan of Delta Goodrem, but at least they were onto something new and exciting by hiring her this year before she got sick.

What Merger?

We all knew it already but Channel 10 tonight provided further proof that the Fitzroy-Brisbane amalgamation was nothing short of a cynical attempt to create a Queensland team with a decent theme song and sensible jumpers.

Robert Walls provided us with the 'amazing' stat that "The Lions" haven't won under lights at the MCG since Round 20 1988 when 'they' (i.e the Brisbane Bears) beat Richmond. But I thought it was supposed to be a totally new club from day one of the 1997 season? Was it really an excuse to stack the Bears with some quality players (a ploy that failed miserably. See Carter, Nick) and create a team that bandwagon supporters would jump on? Of course it was.

For the record Fitzroy won two MCG night games between Round 20 1988 and 1996. Somebody alert the monkeys in the Channel 10 production truck.

Round 16, 1989 vs Richmond (123-51)
Round 9, 1992 vs North Melbourne (105-66)

Either acknowledge the shared history or start the Brisbane Lions at Round 1, 1997. Don't hedge your bets and go either way.

Box Boy

Well it's official, from Saturday week I'm moving to St. Kilda to live in an apartment roughly the size of a cardboard box. It'll be just like The Secret Life of Us without the threesomes (you couldn't fit three people in there), pregnancy scares and Samuel f'ing Johnson.

I knew it was the place for me when I went to inspect it and there was a toothless old lady sitting on the pavement outside cackling maniacally to herself. This is the place to be.

David Baddiel and Frank Skinner will be able to buy a small African country each soon if any more Australian TV networks rip off their ideas.

After the Game on Channel 10 is a really good show, based on Fantasy World Cup which ran during the '98 World Cup. I presume it only screens in the main AFL states because the bandwagon "we love the Lions/Bears/whoever until they start losing again" people probably don't understand how the game works without being in a corporate box at the SCG.

Merrick and Rosso Unplanned, however, is based on a rather pointless show they did a few years back where the whole point is that it's 'unscripted' (for them anyway, the audience questions are clearly loaded) and hilarity ensues. To be fair it wasn't that bad but that's not the point. If it's not really spontaneous (and I have my doubts) then why bother? Why not just sit down and write some proper scripts? These two could do an awesome comedy show, this is not it. If it is all done on the spot what's the point? There's nothing funny about awkward silences.

The one advantage of 'unplanned' was that it featured an audience member that was such a nerdlinger he makes me look cool. I demand that he follow me around everywhere from now on to provide an appropriate contrast.

I predict that in six months time when the show has been axed the same people who stacked comment boxes with crap about how Skithouse was misunderstood will haunt the same comments sections and tell us how we don't give Australian comedy a chance or something. I'd like to say hello to them now and point out that I thought they were sad months before they even thought about posting.

I thought the "Socceroos" had a monopoly on the stupidest nickname for a national sports team but I just saw something on television about the New Zealand men's basketball team being called the "Tall Blacks". That's the stupidest thing I've heard since, ummm, ever.

Of course it was an ad for Sports Tonight, and Tim Webster was reading it out - so it could very well have been one of those magical Channel 10 mistakes we haven't seen for a while.

Dear sir or Madam:

Please forgive this follow-up email but my server was infected by a virus and I was unable to retrieve the responses from my first emailing.

My name is Steve Zuwala. I am a Country Music Songwriter and Performer. I have written and performed over 70 original songs. I work hard. I accept instruction and I am willing to learn. I have a great deal of respect for the music industry and I'm looking for representation.

I understand that you receive hundreds if not thousands of these same emails. Artists looking for someone like you to listen and maybe offer them a contract. I am equally certain that many may never make it past first base. But I believe there is a lot of great music out there that will never be heard because it wasn't properly introduced. It is for this reason that I am sending you this email. I believe in my music and I know it's the squeaky wheel that gets the grease.

I'd to send you my demo. I think you'll find it may be what you are looking for.

I look forward to hearing from you,

Steve Zuwala

If I ran a record label I'd sign him just for comedy value, but sadly I don't. Can anyone out there fit Steve up with an Artie Fufkin-esque A&R man to make his dreams come true?

Scud fans hate TSP

In the comments from a well dated post (July 7th) we get this from an anonymous reader, tennis lover and probably female version of your masturbating teenage Kournikova fan.

You seem to be very unhappy with your life or are very jealous of Marks success. Grow up,

I thought we'd already established the first point was true (though what it's got to do with second rate Aussie sportsmen I'm not sure) and as for the second part I promise to grow up when the Scud does - or when somebody gives me a shitload of cash for smacking a small yellow ball around ad nauseum.

Interesting results in today's Herald-Sun footy poll "sexiest player". As usual the very fugly Mick Martyn ran second with a "huge percentage of the male vote". I love it that so many male football fans are sitting there filling in the ballots going "Oh my god, everyone will think I'm gay if I say anyone but the ugliest man in history". They should have all voted for Chris Lamb instead if you ask me.

Lamb didn't feature sadly. The top Melbourne hero (and he didn't even crack the top 16) was Russell Robertson. He's good, but he's no Chris Lamb.

Melbourne has a new champion of bizarrely named businesses. King Kauliflower and the Chevy Chase Milkbar (Toorak Road, South Yarra) step back because the world famous suburb of Essendon North has the,

PARTRIDGE FAMILY CHIROPRACTIC CLINIC
222 Keilor Rd Essendon North

And their slogan? I kid you not because I saw the place in person today, "Come on everybody, get adjusted!" I laughed so hard I was inconsolable for minutes.

TSP Super Happy Fun Quiz time

Match the celebrity to his/her embarassing novelty song cover version. Most of them are ludicrously easy so it shouldn't be too hard to work out the rest. The winner earns two free tickets to the next Melissa Tkautz concert.

CELEBS

1) Bruce Willis
2) Gwyneth Paltrow
3) Gary Sweet
4) Rolf Harris
5) Jason Donovan
6) Mae West
7) Sid Vicious
8) The Blakeney Twins
9) Craig McLachlan
10) William Shatner


SONGS

a) My Way
b) As Time Goes By
c) Rocket Man
d) Most People I Know Think That I'm Crazy
e) Mona
f) Stairway To Heaven
g) Respect Yourself
h) What Will We Be Singing In The 80's
i) Twist and Shout
j) Bette Davis Eyes

I'm sure Bruce Samazan was involved in some fairly heinous musical crimes too, but sensibly enough not one site on the internet mentions them. And yes I realise that the answer for Shatner could be a) to j) and continuing on down the alphabet, but for the purposes of this exercise he's only got one terrible tune in the list.

My prediction for the future is that Channel 9 superheroes Gav and Waz doing a sparking cover of "I Second that Emotion" by Smokey Robinson and the Miracles. Then Gretel Kileen will release her reworking of "Natural Born Killaz" by Dr. Dre and Ice Cube in competition. They will both, however, be knocked off the top of the charts by Mary Kostakidis and Lee Lin Chin's performance of Islands in the Stream.

From Slate,

Fox News channel talk show host Bill O'Reilly says "shut up" the way other people say "um."

On his daily show, The O'Reilly Factor, he uses it as a place-holder for an idea still formulating in his brain. As a way to begin a sentence, end it, or punctuate it. Sometimes he says "shut up" with fury, eyes bulging. When he's being dismissive, he delivers it offhandedly and without real malice. Other times he says it gently, with a minxlike twinkle in his eye, signaling to all the world that he's just being frisky.

And then there's the massive list of all the times he's told somebody to shut up. Here's a few of my favourites,

"All of these spin-meisters on both sides should just shut up until all the [Florida] votes are counted."
—Nov. 9, 2000

"There is no victory for any American in the impeachment trial. The president should be ashamed of himself, and his partisans should shut up."
—Feb. 4, 1999

"Anyway, Kelsey Grammar and Robert Duvall were at this dinner, and [they] both said, hey, Dixie Chicks and all—these people should just shut up."
—April 28, 2003

"I would never tell a general to shut up under any circumstances."
—April 3, 2003

O'Reilly: "Shut up. Shut up."
Jeremy Glick: "Oh, please don't tell me to shut up."
O'Reilly: "As respect—as respect—in respect for your father, who was a Port Authority worker, a fine American, who got killed unnecessarily by barbarians—"
Glick: "By radical extremists who were trained by this government—"
O'Reilly: "Out of respect for him—"
Glick: "—not the people of America."
O'Reilly: "—I'm not going to—"
Glick: "—the people of the ruling class, the small minority."
O'Reilly: "Cut his mic. I'm not going to dress you down anymore, out of respect for your father. We will be back in a moment with more of The Factor."
Glick: "That means we're done?"
O'Reilly: "We're done."
—Feb. 4, 2003

"Believe me when I tell you The Factor goes out of its way to get Democrats on this broadcast. But Daschle has been and remains too frightened to appear. So with all due respect, senator, shut up."
—May 17, 2002

[To an atheist Eagle Scout, Darrell Lambert]: "I want to quote this—'On my honor, I will do my best to do my duty to God and to my country and obey Scout law,' on and on and on and on. I mean, God's in the first 10 words. So why did you have to tell them you were an atheist if you didn't have any trouble reading the oath? Why didn't you just shut up?"
—Oct. 30, 2002

"You can do whatever you want. Just shut up about it. Little kids don't need to know whether you're homosexual, heterosexual, a cross-dresser, whatever. Don't discuss it. That's reasonable."
—Sept. 28, 2000

"I'm asking you to shut up about sex."
—Sept. 23, 2002

O'Reilly: "I don't go running around telling everybody about my sex life, and I don't think you do either, do you?"
Hugh Downs: "No, you don't have to—"
O'Reilly: "So just shut up about it."
—July 2, 2001

God bless whoever went through all the tapes to transcribe these.

Simpsons episode - "A Star is Burns"

Jay: Welcome to "Coming Attractions". I'm your host, Jay Sherman, thank you. Tonight, we review an aging Charles Bronson in "Death Wish 9".
Bronson: [in a hospital bed] I wish I was dead. Oy!

And now, he is,

Actor Charles Bronson, perhaps best known for his "Death Wish" films, has died in Los Angeles, California, following a four-week bout with pneumonia, his publicist said. He was 81.

Team MILF end of season trip causing concern

From the Globe and Mail (which is just one newspaper despite the stupid name),

"Confronted with the term 'sex tourist,' most people automatically visualize a bald, corpulent, middle-aged American guzzling Mai Tai cocktails in a Bangkok strip club. It goes without saying that this imagined sex tourist is a man, and probably not a very nice one at that. But at many resorts and holiday destinations around the world, sex tourism is an equal-opportunity pastime these days. European and North American cities are burgeoning with single (heck, married), professional women with money, and libidinous urges, to burn. For the female sex tourist, as with the male, desire is the same. What differs is the method and approach. ... 'A lot of the women who come here, they're good girls the rest of the time, then they come down here and the moment their feet hit the sand, bam! They go buck-ass wild.'"

They should come to Camberwell instead.