Schinckel.net

Tonight on Channel 10 (the only commercial TV station in Australia not to yet align itself with a web portal: c.f. nineMSN, yahoo7), we saw the premiere of the intellectually stimulating Australia’s Brainiest Radio Star at 7:30pm. I only saw the last two minutes, enough to see the winner fluke the last question. What I want to know is: where were Dr Karl and Adam Spencer, of Triple J/ABC Local Radio? Surely they have to be amongst the smartest Radio personalities. And Dr Karl is hardly not a star! The first question I saw was something about a cricket ball vs. a pendulum, asking the question a cricket ball has more degrees of … freedom. The joker answering got this wrong, which I’m fairly sure both of my champions would not have. The determinant question asked What is the correct term for a group of 7 musicians? The contestant ummed and aahed, before shakily guessing (correctly) a septet.

Mr. Bojangles • Robbie Williams • Swing When You’re Winning ★★½

BBC NEWS | World | Asia-Pacific | Monkey magic casts spell in Asia Hot on the heels of the news of the Dark Crystal remake, comes this, an announcement that a Japanese company is redoing Monkey!, the tale of a priest and his companions, Monkey, Pigsy and Sandy as they travel across China to India in search of the Buddha’s Scrolls. It’s one of my all-time favourite shows (I now have the complete set, including the dozen or so that were never shown on Australian TV). I’ve read the original book, or rather a translation, written by Wu-chèn Eng, and can sagely say (that was supposed to be safely, but I like the typo) that the original TV series was true to the story. I hope the new one is.

…via The Tao of Mac - Battlestar Galactica (Image cropped to fit site width).

Clean Up Australia Day was started years ago, it’s now expanded into Clean Up The World, or something similar. Apparently the first year was a huge success, and although the numbers of people involved now isn’t as high, it’s still pretty big. I’ve never been involved: it’s always right around the time of my birthday, and whilst I support it, I’m a bit apathetic at times. Anyway, the new Advertisement for it is on TV now, and it’s rather cool. It starts with a picture of Ayers Rock, sorry, Uluru, which when the light turns up is revealed to be a bag of garbage. Then, there is an image of the Olgas, which is really three cans of spray. Then we see the Sydney Harbour Bridge, which is a bicycle wheel and some other garbage. Finally we see the 12 Apostles, which are trash in the water. The clip ends with the phrase “Don’t let rubbish become part of the scenery.” I actually think it is an excellent Ad. It’s punchy, clever and hopefully will cause some support. Will I be involved. I doubt it. I’ve got a 30th birthday party to organise, after all.

Emma • [Hot Chocolate][1] • [Their Greatest Hits][2] ★★★★★

[1]: http://www.google.com/search?q=%22Hot Chocolate%22 [2]: http://www.google.com/search?q=%22Their Greatest Hits%22

I missed the last episode of The Biggest Loser. A friend taped it, but our VCR is still packed away somewhere since we moved house, and we only have the Xbox connected up. This does double duty as our DVD player. So, he converted the taped version to DVD using his PVR. Except it came out as not a proper DVD. VR_MOVIE.VRO This is a file format used by PVR systems, and apparently is similar to a VOB file, but not quite. I went to convert this with some software, but it failed. I then tried to copy it across to the HD so I could manipulate it, but that failed too. It seems to have something to do with the fact that the file is larger than 4Gb. But I’m not sure… but I do know that no commands or applications seem to be able to open it up. I’ll have to try on the PC. Update: No good. The PC only has a DVD+RW drive, the disc is a DVD-RW disc.

Saw this on Drunkenblog, just had to snaffle and post it here.

Did you ever hear the saying “you can’t turn chicken shit into chicken salad?”