My Opinions Are Important

Is there no end to the nuttiness to be found on YouTube? My brother has alerted me to this gem - a Korean band, with easily the most joyfully flamboyant drummer I’ve ever seen.

RSS readers click here to view the video (I wish the damn thing would just appear in the feed *sigh*)

Check out this YouTube vid of a new Wii game, Pii Pii Brothers. (RSS readers click here to view)

The perfect man-simulation for women of all ages, I’m sure.

(Found at Hello Internet)

I find Bible translation to be a hugely interesting topic. There are so many things that translators have to take into account.

For example: if the Bible uses graphic or explicit imagery, do you translate into equivalent English? Or do you tone it down, to avoid offending the sensibilities of delicate churchgoers?

Consider the King James rendering of 1 Kings 14:10 -

Therefore, behold, I will bring evil upon the house of Jeroboam, and will cut off from Jeroboam him that pisseth against the wall, and him that is shut up and left in Israel, and will take away the remnant of the house of Jeroboam, as a man taketh away dung, till it be all gone.

How do modern translations handle this? The NIV, in place of “him that pisseth against the wall”, has “every last male”.

Lame.

Now, watch a Baptist preacher take on this very subject (RSS readers click here to view):

(Originally found at Better Bibles Blog.)

Not according to Australians. Recently I saw these comments on The Age, on a forum where readers were asked what they were homesick for when travelling abroad:

 Coffee! After living in Canada for years, all I know is they don’t do coffee well. Being from Melbourne you are spoilt for choice. The amount of times people say “Oh I love Starbucks” I would rather drink toilet water!

Here’s another:

 Good Coffee - Unfortunately the local coffee shop with a Melbourne influence shut down about 9 months ago. Now it is a struggle to find a good local coffee shop/cafe among the 100’s (not joking) of starbucks outlets in Vancouver….if I here a order for a non-fat soy latte extra hot with a dash of cold water and splash of caramel spirit one more time I could go insane!

Sounds awful to me. In my time in Melbourne, it was hard to find coffee worse than Starbucks. The thought of being stuck in a Starbucks-only wasteland makes me shudder.

I will say one thing about Starbucks though: they’ve never threatened me with an idiotic lawsuit for my criticism.

The world needs LOLcafegeek. Not sure why, but it does.

For those interested (and who isn’t?), this photo was taken in McKinnon and the cafe featured in Five Word Coffee Shop Reviews #20.

Normal blogging shall resume here shortly.

A couple of things shall change though. As follows:

• All comments are now to be held for moderation. Sorry, folks, but there is too much spam about and I simply don’t have the time to individually delete each one. My aim is to check comments every 24 hours or so.
• No nofollow links are now off. Again, spam. Hopefully this will deter the pesky spammers.
•  I’m going to do some paid posts, probably. I simply can’t afford to spend time blogging nowadays unless I get at least some dosh for my trouble. I’ll keep doing non-paid posts and hopefully keep things interesting.

That’s all for now. See you all soon with some quality blogging!

The find of this edition is in Mornington. Yes, Mornington. Keep reading for details; but first, a detour to Sydney.

From Judy:
Driftwood Cafe, Cronulla Mall, Cronulla
Very good coffee, served hot.

Carlo’s Espresso Cafe, Forest Rd, Hurstville
Great coffee. Has won awards.

From yours truly:

Caffe Moravia, Burke Rd, Camberwell
Quite good coffee and atmosphere.

Turtle Bean Cafe, Poath Rd, Murrumbeena
Bar or cafe? Adequate coffee.

Expresso Drive Thru, Murrumbeena Rd, Murrumbeena
Cheerful service but awful coffee.

Cosmic Bear Cafe, Atherton St, Oakleigh
Nice. Good flavour, well presented.

Beetle Cafe, Dandenong Plaza, Dandenong
Very strong coffee. Not bad.

Malibu, Karingal Hub, Frankston
Food is okay. Coffee mediocre.

Avocado Blue, Main St, Mornington
Nice food. Coffee nothing special.

Coffee Traders, Blake St, Mornington
Excellent coffee. Highly recommended. Euphoria.

My local supermarket has signs displayed saying

“We no longer offer plastic bags for 2 items or less”.

A small thing, but it got on my nerves for some reason. What gives them the right to tell me when I should or should not get a bag?* It’s not like it would do any good to the environment to withhold it from me. I reuse plastic bags at home, and they are recyclable in any case!

I don’t know about you, but having such a small choice taken away from me makes me feel I’m being treated like a child.

* Aside from the fact that they’re paying for the bags, of course.**

** But then again, supermarket costs are factored in to the cost of the groceries, are they not?

Expresso Drive Through, a drive-through coffee outlet in Murrumbeena, has apparently threatened me with a lawsuit for defamation if I don’t remove my post regarding their company (which said, among other things, that they serve bad coffee).

Rather than email me or send me a nasty letter, their threat is in a comment left on my About page. Here it is, in full:

“without prejudice”

NOTICE OF INTENTION TO BEGIN LEGAL PROCEEDINGS.

IF THE DEFAMATION REGARDING EXPRESSO DRIVE THRU IN MURRUMBEENA IS NOT REMOVED FROM YOUR WEBSITE WITHIN 7 DAYS (BY 27/2/2008) WE WILL BE TAKING LEGAL ACTION AGAINST YOU FOR DAMAGES AND ALSO OBTAINING A COURT ORDER TO HAVE IT REMOVED.

IF YOU WISH TO CONTACT US TO DISCUSS PLEASE PHONE US ON (03) 9939 0830.

BEST REGARDS,

It ends at the comma.

I highly doubt that they intend to sue me, particularly not after reading this post.

Why? Because, first of all, it is quite common for companies to threaten to sue when they have no intention of following through, in order to silence critics.

Second of all, defamation is notoriously hard to prove in the courts. It would cost probably hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees to pursue the case. All this, against a blog that almost nobody reads? Come on!

Thirdly, most companies cannot now sue for defamation under Australian defamation law, after a law change of a few years ago.

I don’t know about you, but I despise the tactic of empty legal threats. For this reason, the post - and this one - shall remain on the site.

What do you think? I encourage you to state your opinion, both on this blog, and by contacting Expresso Drive Thru.

You can contact them at the phone number above, or by emailing expressodrivethru@hotmail.com.

ALL PUBLICITY IS GOOD PUBLICITY: Expresso’s hot chocolates are the worst ever, according to a commenter at the Melbourne Victory Forum, where a kind soul has started a thread about this topic.

MORE READING: Another idiotic legal threat from discount card company 22 Percent Off. Also read my post about defamation law.

Hi everyone.

After several months of not blogging, I have decided to break my silence. I’ve been waiting until some inspiration has come to me to write on a certain subject; I hereby give up on that approach, and shall now just talk at you all, if only to reassure you that I’m still alive.

How you all doing, anyway?

In particular, I’m thinking of Pete who has about 15 or so blogs at last count, not to mention his own business, and wife, and kids, who must be sorely neglected by this time surely, what with so many blogs to feed. How many blogs can one man maintain?

Also, I’m thinking of “The” Molk(s), at least one of whom still continues his quest to lose weight, I’m pleased to see.

And to everyone else, including but not limited to Robert Hruzek, Ben of Hello Internet and however many others.

While you wait for me to say something substantial, go read about the thorny mathematical problem that’s just been solved by a dog.