Picture this scene - you're at the 18th green, 5-10 metres away from the hole, holding on to the rope, watching Rod Pampling and Marcus Fraser battle out a sudden death playoff. The playoff results in a par for each player and they return to the 18th tee once more. Two more playoffs and holding your breath for around 20 minutes, Rod Pampling scores the winning shot. The crowd erupts into a colossal roar.

And some people say golf is boring.

The day was amazing, the food was incredibly expensive.

1 salad sandwich - $7.50

I ask you - it was two pieces of bread, a tiny bit of grated carrot, avocado dip and one small piece of lettuce. Was the bread gold plated?

The day was mind blowing, we were metres away from Robert Allenby, Rod Pampling and my partner nearly bumped into Peter Lonard as Lonard was coming out of the changing rooms. We watched Peter Senior (legend) putt on the 12th and Scott Hend tee off on the 13th.

Scott Hend hit the ball and we watched his long walk to his ball. Then we realised he wasn't stopping. He kept going, going and finally walked around to the back of the green, approximately 318 metres away. Holy crap, that's a long drive.

The realisation dawns when you actually watch these players in action. They-are-really-really-good. When you see it on TV, it doesn't quite have the same effect.

For the first time in my life I saw the presentation of the gold jacket and the trophy. If you love golf or are even just curious about golf, I suggest attending a tournament at least once.

technorati tags: Rod Pampling Wins Sportsbet Masters 2008 Huntingdale

It's that time of year again. The standouts from Choice Magazine Shonky Awards are as follows: 

Airobe Body Dryer It's basically a huge hairdryer for your body. It also seems to claim that it's environmentally friendly due to no longer needing to launder towels. Excuse me but when I have a shower I don't like to parade around without a towel with decent coverage. Must be my little quirk. For those of you who like to dance around in the nud in front of a huge hairdryer I have only one thing to say to you: You're weird, pal. 

Coles Steam Iron The purpose of an iron as I understand it is to smooth out creases in your clothing, giving you that "just laundered" look. The Coles steam iron, according to the results of Choice testing, sticks to clothes, increases creases (snigger!), and makes a big ol' steamy, watery, burny mess. If I wanted to do that to my clothes I would hang out in a steel foundry.

  Premium Mobile Services Industry

I'm not sure if anyone has heard about that guy who downloaded one episode of Prison Break and a few songs overseas and ran up a bill for around 35,000 pounds (see story here). This is a good example of how much these companies can charge for what is essentially useless content. I mean I have a phone, it rings numbers and sends texts. I don't need Kanye West's latest song as my ringtone, I don't need phone bling and I'd feel a little silly with a Harry Potter theme for my menu. I ask you, who really wants to watch an episode of Prison Break that much? And who wants to sit through the latest episode of Lost on a tiny phone screen? Here's an idea: record it, get your friends to record it, buy the DVD box set! Surely it will cost a lot less than 35,000 pounds. And parents can guard against their teenagers doing such dastardly things like downloading hotBabes4U by only allowing them to have a prepaid phone and recharging in small amounts. The recurring charges on a post-paid account can be devastating to all involved. And shame on these evil wrongdoers by targeting a naive audience and making it almost impossible to unsubscribe. 

Glaceau Vitamin Water I am also a victim of this shonkiness. I have many times consumed this concoction, erroneously believing it to be providing me with some kind of health benefit. Now, through these awards I have discovered I have been consuming a third of the daily sugar requirement for an adult female. AND I've often been consuming one of these before my 1-2k walks. Talk about a false economy! I don't even have sugar in my dandelion coffee! Argh! I also discovered that these drinks contain less than 1% fruit juice and are packed with artificial colouring. Yet another product to drop from my list. *sigh* Thanks to Choice for exposing the shonkiness infiltrating our consumer goods. Keep up the good work!

 

 

technorati tags: Shonky Awards Choice Magazine

I was sorry to learn from Blogetiq that BlogMad is closing down on the 12th of December 2008.















It's a real pity because I know of many people (myself included!) who know and love the site and surf through blogs regularly to earn credits at a 1:1 ratio. I have noticed a number of sites are closing down including matched.co.uk and various others. I wonder if it is due in part to the credit crunch? Or credit splat more like it, since that's the noise it's going to make when it hits its rear end on the bottom of the ladder. Eeek! I hope this doesn't affect too many sites because the rise of interesting blogging resources is required more than ever. We need to know how screwed things are just as soon as events occur.

Fingers crossed we get ourselves out of this mess.

BlogMad - farewell old buddy, I'll miss the creds!! If I had a lazy bunch of US$ lying handy I'd buy the domain.

technorati tags: BlogMad closing down December 2008