In case any other Australians are wondering, the version of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” that plays during the Dulux paint commercial is by a Hawaiian guy called Israel Kamakawiwo’ole. Rodd and I both love the song so he tracked it down. It’s actually a medley with “What a Wonderful World.” I love it. If you can find it, download it.

Trivia Update: The Snook and I headed back to Kelly’s, our old regular trivia pub, and managed to score second place all by ourselves! (Our celebrations were curtailed by the fact that the winning team was captained by an overweight geek in an “All Your Base Are Belong to Us” t-shirt. It was like losing to the Comic Book Guy. Very mortifying.) Your questions for the night:

• Name the eight countries of the world with one word names (in English) that start with the letter “I”.
• Name the six Jane Austen novels that have been turned into movies.
• Which movie did Shirley Maclaine win a Best Actress Oscar for in 1983, and who won Best Supporting Actor that year for the same film?
• Which city in the world has the most taxicabs?

As you might imagine, I rocked the Jane Austen one. (I’m working my way through her complete works right now.)

Congratulations to my friend Nat, who has become the first of my college friends to have a baby. He and his wife Staci welcomed little Marianne Elizabeth Cunningham into the world two weeks ago. Isn’t she cute? The last time I saw Nat we were drinking our faces off at a tailgater… and now he’s a Dad. It’s a weird feeling.

Uh oh.

Snookums sent me a link to this story about a huge iceberg that just broke in half. He especially liked this quote from the end: “The Ross Sea is on the northern Antarctic coast, 3,832 kilometers (2,395 miles) south of New Zealand.” As he put it: The northern coast of Antarctica, eh? Where exactly are the other coasts?

Happy 21st birthday to my brother Anthony! Don’t party too hard, bruder. 🙂

The Herald published my letter… and the bastards gutted it! That’s literally less than half, and they cut the whole bit about crusty old curmudgeons who pooh-pooh everybody else’s fun. That was the whole damn point!

The Herald is reporting that Ten will refund the cost of votes for Cosima that came in after they closed the voting. Apparently you have to show them your phone bill to get the cash. That sucks for all the folks (like me) who have pay-as-you-go phones and thus don’t get any friggin’ bill. Not that I voted for her, of course, but it’s still a pretty crappy maneuver.

The Guardian lists the 40 Greatest US Bands Today. REM’s in there at #22 and the Flaming Lips top the list at #1. Sounds good to me.

“Beer mat ‘flipping’ perfected.” The Snook’s gonna love this. He practices flipping every damn time we go to the pub. (Link courtesy of John.)