To the people that have argued with me about the non-possibility of Barack Obama winning the Democratic primaries, then going on to the Presidential elections, so far I've been able to negate every argument of yours that Clinton is a shoe-in. From the fact that her policies are too left-wing to keep the centrists, the same voters that Obama can keep, to the "weight" of the Clinton name (a negligible point as it is the same surname of Bill, who has had the smear campaign on his hands for the past half a year), to the point that she is the most popular, even though all polls show that Obama has improved, and others that he has overtaken.

Now the only argument left, that Hilary can raise more money, seems to be out the door.

$25 million!? I had reservations about Obama and his fund raising abilities, but this just goes to show that he is popular enough among the people, not just the fat cats. Obviously, by the looks of that too, he has some fat cats in tow, but gee, that's some serious dough. And more surprising, Hilary only made $26 million. Does this show a waining in Hillary's popularity, if it's the case (of the neigh-sayers to the Obama cause) that most people like her more?


Thomas.

The end of semester is going to be a whole basket full of fun. I can categorically say that I have had the worst that Sydney University can offer in terms of lecturers this time round. Not all of them, but I would say six (of the eleven) that I have had are absolutely horrible. In the past I've had one or two, at the most, who were bad. But this time they are truly abhorred in terms of style and presentation. And one of the subjects I'm doing, as a whole, should be cast out to the void of the universe - it seriously isn't fit to be spoken about, much less taught.

The only thing I'm looking forward to is the end of semester, as not only does this torment end, but I get to fill out evaluation papers for each and every subject. I've never written a totally negative one before ... but there's a first for everything. I've already begun to plan what I'm going to scribble down, and it isn't pleasant at all. No sir-ee. And when I do, I'm going to make sure it makes its way onto here in some form or another, just as a recommendation to all those prospective students of these awful lecturers to avoid at all costs.

Thomas.

Ok, so where are we in terms of the World Cup? Australia sits on top, after run rate, with six points, followed by Sri Lanka, New Zealand and South Africa, again, all on run rate. If the end of the Super 8s was now, they would go through to the semifinals. Bringing up the final half is England and West Indies, on two points, Ireland and Bangladesh on zip.

There are fifteen matches to go (you can find them if you look). Assuming that a) Australia win all their matches, and; b) The favourites of the one-sided matches win, then the places in the semifinals hinges on these matches:

• South Africa vs. West Indies
• Sri Lanka vs. New Zealand
• New Zealand vs. South Africa
• South Africa vs. England
• West Indies vs. England

Because it will help my next rambling, here are what the points table will look like before any of the above matches are taken into account:

• Australia: 14
• Sri Lanka: 8
• New Zealand: 8
• South Africa: 6
• England: 4
• West Indies: 4
• Bangladesh: 2
• Ireland: 0
  

With the South Africa vs. New Zealand match, that will change nothing in terms of either of these teams going through to the semis. However, if South Africa lose to the either the West Indies (who New Zealand beat) or England, and only one of those matches, they must win against New Zealand in order to stay in the top four. Of course, if they lost all three, England need only win one match match more, and from current figures, they would put South Africa out on run rate. If the West Indies can win all of their matches, they will move to eight points, two ahead of what South Africa's point total would be before the above matches are taken into account, therefore making them have to win two matches. This, in conjunction with the scenario against England putting them out, means that if they lose to England, and the West Indies do indeed win all of their matches (which after beating South Africa puts them ahead of England and equal to South Africa at that point, and run rate determines the placings), the must beat New Zealand in order to at least stand a chance at making the top four by run rate against West Indies. If England can beat the West Indies in their match, it doesn't stop the West Indies from becoming a threat to South Africa, but puts more emphasis on the South Africa vs England if South Africa loses against New Zealand. In this setting, South Africa have to beat the West Indies if the also lose to England.

So, in simple terms, losses to England and New Zealand means South Africa must beat the West Indies. Or, losses to the West Indies and New Zealand means that South Africa must beat England. Even in these two cases, it comes down to run rates, which South Africa is at a disadvantage already as they, after playing three matches, are at -0.35, while England is +0.02.

Thomas.

I sat next to the worst person I have ever traveled beside in my life today. Rather than simply rambling on about the whole damned experience (which is what I did (internally) for the entire day effectively), I thought I would compose a letter to that anonymous person to throw a spin on the whole 'blog' stereotype:

Dear Rat-Face who sat next to me on the train today,

I gather from our encounter between Beverly Hills and Wolli Creek that you were disappointed having to sit next to me, what, with your demeanour, your expressions and your general uncouth ways. I do hope that you know that you were hardly doing me any favours by "gracing" the space beside me with your rather repugnant (in both appearance and smell) presence. In fact, you caused me inconvenience in that I had to lean again the hair-greased window beside me - hardly the highlight of my shirt's day.

Further, the way you acted while seated next to me reminded me of a National Geographic film I once saw that showed the abilities of 'domesticated' monkeys. Suffice to say, you are no domesticated monkey. You were one of those ratty, annoying, little apes that failed to learn a single association. The say you showed no respect for another person, the way you 'hogged' the room, the way you continually elbowed me as you rummaged through you backpack (that looked as though it had seen two World Wars), and of the utmost annoyance, the way you failed to move when I wanted to exit the confines of hell (or sitting next to you, it's your choice as to the proper description) showed that the socialisation process does indeed fail when you are trying to bring into the fold of society a half-wit.

I make no apology for stomping (or would it be kicking?) your backpack which you had oh-so thoughtfully shown me contained a portable DVD player which may or may not have been older than DVDs itself. I would have recommended that you upgrade your hardware, though I think you would struggle to understand the bigs words I use like "you" and "should". I hope that I caused irreparable damage to your hunk-of-junk, and that you will forever curse the day you sat next to "that" person.

Go and die of your own volition,
Thomas.

Thomas.

I came upon (what I believe is) a good idea for future posts about movies. Yes, I know, more dreaded film posts. It's between those and general ranting that you actually get posts on somewhat interesting topics, I know, but I much prefer writing about movies.

Anyway, during yet another deathly-boring tutorial where it was dominated by the woman who thinks she knows everything (and, as a result, is extremely condescending in the way she talks to people), a man who likes to come off as smart to impress those of the opposite sex (though where knowledge of 1500s Europe ranks on the 'hotness' scale I have no idea) and the mature student who really does know the right answers, but feels so awkward and out of place that she hardly speaks up and have twenty-odd pairs of working eyes staring at her, I had an idea. I think it was between Vittoria and Native American's possession of their lands that I thought wouldn't it be cool if my favourite movies could fight to the death to see which was the greatest of all! Then my mind ran wild with ideas of Darth Vader heading the meeting in the secret war room during Dr. Strangelove, or Natalie 'Queen Amidala' Portman vs. Natalie 'Sam' Portman.

Of course, my thoughts digressed when it came to two Natalie Portmans, then further when Audrey Tautou got involved ...

Ok, getting back on topic, I thought that it would be pretty cool if I could invent some way to compare, contrast and show down the movies. So I scribbled down two types of, I don't know, maps?, diagrams at least, that I wrote down the similarities of the two films then, exercising the rigorous scientific methods of this idea, put a plus or two next to the film that did that similarity best. I then went and did the same to the differences, weighing up which difference made which film the better of the two. Then, come time to write it all up as a post, I'll outline how the two films are similar or different, then why which film got the plus. At the end, I'll add up the pluses, and if there were any minuses subtract those (such is the extent of my mathematics education), and then we will have an ultimate winner!

Ok, it probably sounds ridiculously confusing without seeing something on paper. However, because I like this idea, I'm going to go ahead and do it for a couple of pairings that I already thought of:

• Amelie vs. Garden State (I suspect this will be the best, as these are rather similar films, yet different enough so that they are still unique)
  
• The Star Wars Saga vs. The Lord of the Rings Trilogy (Quite the clash of the titans here)
  
• The Godfather vs. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (I was rather surprised at how many similarities I could pull out of these two)

Of course, those are only six of the (figurative) endless films I've seen. And those are all from my "Top 10 List" to the right there. I'm happy to do other films that I've seen as well, or seek out films that I should have seen (after all, I do call myself a well-viewed film connoisseur) .

Thomas.

Everyone loses. You lose, I lose, that weird guy down the street growing marijuana in his roof loses. We all lose. I guess that makes us all losers by the fault. Which would generally be a bad thing.

Well, I've never seen a film make such a compelling case to make the viewers want to be losers than this one. The message I suspect they are trying to get across is that it doesn't matter whether you win or lose, it's the actual journey of getting to the end, how you come to your result, that only matters. So, if you're honest to yourself, true to everyone around you, believe in yourself and not worry about what anyone else is thinking about you, then no matter if you are the winner or the loser, you really are the moral winner.

Little Miss Sunshine has a deceptive title. Everyone remembers the Little Miss books from their childhood (if you're young enough). They are happy little children's books with little to no substance between the pages other than colourful pictures and basic sentences. Got it? Ok, now dispell that notion because Little Miss Sunshine is extremely deep, packed with moral, ethical and personal questions, all thrown at you with the use of adult humour and a fantastic script. Not to mention delivered by the best assortment of character actors I've seen in the past year. I need not sing the praises of Steve Carrol; the comedic genius from The Daily Show a while ago, and of late, the US series of The Office (which a regular reader will know, I rate as one of the best).

Forgetting about the acting for now, because the movie is much more juicier than just that, what you have in this film is an M-rated positivity message that should be shown through schools. Of course, you'd have to hope that the kids can cope with the hilarious scenes, especially where the grandfather Edwin (the Academy Award winning role of Alan Arkin) tells his grandson to "Fuck a lot of women, not just one. A lot of women.", and scene after scene showing failure after failure of each character. Because that's how it goes down: each and every character fails in what they are trying to do except for one. And when the success of the one occurs, it brings the rest of the family together to rejoice and enjoy the moment in the spotlight.

So, while the whole family ends up being a loser in their endeavours, they all discover a whole new side to themselves - strength and character - and it's this process that is so entertaining, hilarious and moving for the audience that makes this film so damn good.

In other words: go see Little Miss Sunshine.

Thomas.

Why? I don't remember the Queen ever having a slave running around for her. Especially since she was born ... wait for it ... 88 years after slavery was abolished within the British Empire! Yes, I know that the Slave Trade Act of 1807 is marked as 'the end' of the slave trade, but let's be serious here, slave traders were only being fined £100 for every slave they had - hardly a serious deterrent. It was in 1834 that all slaves were 'freed', and in 1838 released from a system which was slavery by every other name.

Don't get me wrong, I like to remind Poms that, while celebrating their "We got rid of slavery!" parties, that their country was the one that started the whole modern slave trade in the first place. But I don't expect anyone to have to apologise for it. After all, what did the Queen do? Hell, that dude might as well apologise to me for, say, saying that their country has a good cricket team and that the 05/06 Ashes Series would be the best ever.

Thomas.

If I had stayed up to watch the cricket last night/this morning, stayed up to watch all the cricket, half of which ended up being rained off, I'd be pissed off. Hold on a second ... I did stay up to watch the cricket! And I am pissed off!

So now the West Indies are batting tonight - an innings that will go un-televised! So I got to watch Australia bat (something I know isn't their weak side) and miss their bowling (something I want to see if they (the selectors) have fixed). Far out Brussel sprout. Thank-you Channel 9 once again for ruining television once more.

And who gives a stuff about this bloody swimming!? Seriously, that is so 2000 Olympics. Can't we just pretend it's not happening and watch more cricket? Even if it's two minnow teams like India and Pakistan playing against each other. Because only minnow teams go out in the first round ...

Thomas.