For a good cause

This Saturday I'll be volunteering at the Sydney Food and Wine Fair. It's at Hyde Park from noon to 5pm - get there either very early or very late if you do not care to queue and coupon purchases go to the very worthy AIDS Trust of Australia. The restaurants offering up grub are some of the nicest and fanciest in Sydney including Cafe Sydney, Quay and Guillaume at Bennelong. And if you need more incentive, here's a review of the fair in 2006 with scrumptious pictures.

It's obviously genetic

My little brother will this weekend be doing the 2008 MS bike ride from Wollongong to Sydney. It's a 90km ride. I think that sounds like quite a long way. He and his best friend will be doing the ride together treating it as a pedalling pub crawl. There was even talk of next year doing it on a tandem bicycle.

Love it. Wish I'd thought of it first.

New methods of campaigning

The latest American election has seen some new and super innovative ways of candidates communicating with supporters (like Barack on Twitter) and the public showing their support.

My favourite development is Yes We Carve - making Halloween 'Barack O'Lantern's'. Too too good.

Surprising

Apparently the Oporto vegie burger sans mayo is vegan. I am surprised. Also - 3am drunken snacking here I come!

Mixed metaphors in Austria: Jörg's demise

There is clearly something lost in translation in this comment on Jörg Haider's death and the subsequent visits in preparation for the service:

'"We wanted the kids to feel the enormity of the occasion. After all, he is our Lady Di and this is our 9/11,"says Anton Krem, 45.'

Eh?

The truth is apparently also insulting:

'In the Pumpe pub on Benediktiner Platz in Klagenfurt, drinkers sit around whispering about how Haider died. The figure "142" is repeated often. That is the speed (in kilometres an hour) at which he was driving when he crashed his VW Phaeton on Saturday night. The news has by now filtered down that he was drunk at the wheel.

"Some say he was criminal because he was drunk, but that's an insult," says Christa, a 17-year-old who was among the country's new young voters (the voting age is 16), who gave her support to Haider's BZO in elections two weeks ago. "He did so much for everyone."

And therefore couldn't be drunk? Teutonic logic has obviously not extended into Austria.

Also - there seems to be some inevitable rule that the more conservative a politician is the more likely he is to die returning from a gay bar under the influence of drugs or alcohol. I'm just sayin'...

More politics

Judge people by the company they keep?

Goths for Obama FTW!

LOL Summaries of complex political issues

Snowed under with uni and travel packing but still finding time to procrastinate/contemplate the state of politics through LOLs. Its amazing how a well captioned picture can stand in for such complex political moments.

The Joe the plumber saga (nb Joe the 'uncommitted voter' is also a registered member of the Republican party):

On the idea that black people who vote for Obama are voting purely on racial lines:

And those slurs? Well...