Is This Thing On?

Once again Randall is on the money here.

Attn: developers of mobile websites. If I follow a link from Google (or, say, an obfuscated short url from someone’s Twitter post) to a specific page on your website, by all means sniff my user agent string and give me a mobile-friendly layout because I’m on an iPhone, if that’s your thing, but don’t dump me on the homepage of your mobile website.

Here’s an example: had to look something up on the website of aussie supermarket chain woolies, but it’s basically impossible to browse any content on their main website on an iPhone. Direct links in from Google dump you at i.woolworths.com.au. So you hit that “visit the normal website” link down the bottom and get the homepage of their main site. Oh and there’s the link to that thing you were looking for…. So you tap the link and… oh you’re on an iPhone? Yep back to i.woolworths.com.au for you. Brilliant.

Ah. Free movies.

When we lived in London there were so many free movie screening tickets available if you knew where on the internet to look, that we pretty much saw one every week. Sadly they’re somewhat thinner on the ground over here in Melbourne, but there’s still the odd one every now and again. Tonight it was Barney’s Version, a bittersweet tale of the “fully lived life of the impulsive, irascible and fearlessly blunt Barney Panofsky”, played by the always excellent Paul Giamatti.

I mention this only because, when I turned to the internet to check something, I was highly amused by the IMDb’s page on the film.

Just look at that cast list:

They’ve really summarised the most important people in the film there, haven’t they: “Productions Executive #1″, “Judge at Rome Wedding”, and who could forget the pivotal role that “O’Malley Director #1″ plays in the story.

At least they did remember to include Mr Giamatti in the cast list, even if they forgot to list Dustin Hoffman and Rosamund Pike (who just played really minor characters like, um, his father and the love of his life…)

But nevermind, the cast list did actually answer the question that sent me to the internets in the first place: there in third place was the answer to my question. Yes that guy who appeared for a split second playing a Mountie in the rubbish TV show that Barney produces was indeed Paul Gross, him off of 90s Canadian Mountie-themed drama Due South…

Really, iiNet? Someone been having a dirty protest have they?

Yes, that’s right, The Herald Sun, the fact that you, living in a free country with a democratically elected government, might have to pay slightly more for your electricity is exactly the same as living under an oppressive dictatorial regime in the Middle East.

There’s been some unfortunate sporting endorsements on the airwaves here in Australia during our big summer of sport. Inevitably England’s domination of the Ashes was never going to be entirely compatible with all those ads featuring Aussie cricketers that popped up in between overs.

Just how many multivitamins does Ricky Ponting need to take, one wonders, to feel better after once more leaving the field with just a handful of runs to his name. And I can only assume that when VB filmed the ad for their “If They Get The Score, You Get The Cash” promotion, in which an off-screen interviewer asks Shane Watson how he feels about picking up a big score of 3, that they didn’t expect it would be quite so close to the truth.

And don’t get me started on Mitchell Johnson being loudly berated by the Barmy Army for his erratic bowling one minute (“he bowls to the leeeeeft… he bowls to the riiiiiiight… that Mitchell Johnson, his bowling is ….”) and then popping up to sell us Gatorade the next.

But by far the worst sporting endorsement on the Australian airwaves at the moment is the following rather disturbing insight into the rather sad life of Aussie tennis hope Sam Stosur.

Really, is this supposed to be aspirational? If being one of your country’s best female tennis players means going home alone to your sterile, depressing, lonely apartment with only a fridge packed with microwave ready meals to look forward to and a phonecall from your dad while you eat your meal-for-one out of its plastic container, then frankly it’s no wonder Australia is struggling to find their next tennis great.

I think McAfee must be getting a bit desperate. Seems they *really* want me to renew my anti-virus:

Subject: Subscription Renewal Price Enclosed
From: subscriptions@mcafee.com
Date: Wed, Oct 13, 2010 at 1:06 AM

Subscription length: 1 Year(s) Renew Subscription(Auto Renew)

Base price (pre-tax): £ 64.99(GBP)

Subject: Alert: 1 Month Remains
From: subscriptions@mcafee.com
Date: Fri, Nov 12, 2010 at 4:39 AM

Renew Now
Save 15%

1 Year Total Protection
£55.19 SAVE 15%

Subject: Alert: 2 Weeks Remain
From: subscriptions@mcafee.com
Date: Sat, Nov 27, 2010 at 4:55 AM

25% Off Plus 25 Music
Downloads* When You Renew Today

RENEW YOUR SUBSCRIPTION NOW
1yr Total Protection – plus 25 downloads*
Was £64.99 Now £48.69

Subject: Save 50% On Internet Security Renewal
From: subscriptions@mcafee.com
Date: Wed, Dec 1, 2010 at 11:16 AM

Save 50% On Internet Security Renewal
£24.99 – 1 Year

If I wait long enough they’ll probably give it to me for free eventually…

So there was I thinking, as I walked home from work last night with Test Match Special in my ears courtesy of Radios 4 and 5 and my iPhone’s 3G connection to teh interwebs, that with 8 or so overs still to play at the end of the first day of the first test in this year’s Ashes series, that I’d make it home in time to catch some play on the TV.

WRONG! Of course I was forgetting that this is Australia, where the TV networks have a cavalier disregard for their viewers. “That’s an awfully long ad break”, I thought to myself as I switched on Channel 9 when I got in. I remembered where I was when the ads continued even as Test Match Special started to talk me through the next over, and then Channel 9 returned from their ad break to the end of their half hour nightly news bulletin and the start of their shabby, tabloid telly evening magazine show, A Current Affair. Over on their second and third free to air channels, “Gem”, and “Go”, they were showing some even more important and unmoveable telly: The Flintstones and The Nanny.

And here was me thinking that Australia was a sports obsessed sort of place. Apparently not: cartoons, reruns of ancient sitcoms, and Tracey Grimshaw are more important than the only broadcaster with the rights to show The Ashes live actually, you know, broadcasting it live all the way to the end of play.

Australia’s free to air networks have form in this department: I’ve seen Channel 9 do it before for other cricket matches, Channel 7 just love to cut away from the Aussie Open (which, of course they also have exclusive rights to broadcast live) to show Home And Away, and heaven help the AFL fans in this country, who almost never get to see a game live on free to air telly, with most of them showing with half an hour or more delay (heaven forbid that Channel 7 might have to move Better Homes And Gardens…)

Frankly I’m amazed that the sports-mad Aussies put up with it. Of course I’m well aware that not everyone likes sport, and there would surely be plenty of people annoyed at missing their nightly news bulletin to see some blokes in white throwing a small ball at each other, but the issue is that no one else has the rights to show this stuff, because the right of the free to air networks to dick around with their coverage is enshrined in Australia’s “Anti-Siphoning Laws“, a piece of legislation designed to ensure that key events like the Melbourne Cup, the Aussie Open and the big Cricket matches remain on free to air. Unfortunately although the legislation ensures that at least one of the free to air networks will always get the rights to show these events, it doesn’t apparently require them to actually show the event, live and in full.

Not that I’m the world’s biggest fan of the Murdoch empire, but at least his channels show things live and stick with them all the way to the end…

So it looks like I’ll have to fill in the gaps with Test Match Special and whatever streams I can find on the interwebs.

[And the less said about England's performance so far, the better...]

I think they normally play these things on a cricket oval. Can’t help thinking that this radical new direction by Cricket Australia is going to result in a lot of balls lost in Sydney harbour.

Guardian:

Australia announced their Ashes squad for the first Test on Circular Quay in Sydney this morning…

Hey. So you know when you receive an email that isn’t spam as such but is from a real person who meant to send it to another real person that isn’t you but is probably someone with the same name as you and a very similar email address, and you read the message and think “this is sufficiently weird that it would make a great easy blog post to just stick the whole message up verbatim and invite people to wonder what it all means”?

Well, that.

From: Angus Mcleod
To: Me
Subject: Excercises

Hey mate,

Great to see you at the weekend. Was cool to hang out and lovely for me that
my little babies thought you rock.Thanks also for the chat about that
weirdness on Monday night. Its a headfuck but nice to talk to someone else
about it as sharing lessens its power. Hey also can you get me some more
english lesson resources from the school like discussed. That would be
wicked. Hope youre well. Will try and get into field to check the score.
Big love Angx

Just what was that weirdness on Monday night? We can never know.

This genius business idea is free to anyone who wants it: someone really needs to make a little tool for cleaning out the headphone socket on the iPhone.

As I carry mine around in my pocket typically without the headphones plugged in, I find I’m constantly having to use the end of a paperclip to remove all the fluff and lint and crap that somehow finds its way into the headphone jack.

Given that Apple already provide a custom tool for opening the SIM compartment, I can’t believe they didn’t think of this one too.

It can’t be just me, can it?

File this one under #firstworldproblems…