Australian Idle?

January 16, 2007
by Rodney Olsen
2 Comments

How quickly we forget.

I played a song by past Australian Idol finalist Anthony Callea on the radio yesterday. It reminded me of the DVD that Emily borrowed on Sunday afternoon from the local DVD hire place. It’s a look back at Australian Idol …. the very first Australian Idol back in 2003.

While the programme over the past few years has helped some of the contestants do amazing things I was surprised at how little I remembered of many of the top 12 contestants from that first year. We watched a fair bit of the first series at the time but there were people in the final 12 on that DVD that I had no recollection of at all. I remembered a little of the pig farmer and one or two others but I wouldn’t know many of them if I fell over them in the street.

I wonder if any of those finalists who showed such promise, and were hailed by the judges as future stars, are playing in some little club somewhere each night to a group of 30 people, or if they’ve returned to their former jobs. How many of the dozens of bright shiny finalists from the years the show has been running could we name now? How many of them have gone on to live ‘the dream’?

As for not remembering most of them, I’m wondering if it’s a case of bad memory on my part or an indication of how quickly your 15 minutes of fame can be over.

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Religion – Pure and Undiluted

January 15, 2007
by Rodney Olsen
3 Comments

Father Bob has a great post about the perceived rise in atheism.

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Are we killing our kids?

January 15, 2007
by Rodney Olsen
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You might think that holiday time would be the perfect opportunity for our children to get active and increase their fitness before heading back to school. It seems that’s not the case at all.

Children in Australia are enjoying the last few weeks of summer holiday freedom. Before long they’ll be back in the classroom.

According to Bluearth CEO, David Simpson, our kids are in danger of returning to school fatter rather than fitter. He says the summer holidays are the worst time of the year for our kids to maintain healthy habits. I spoke to David during my morning radio programme on 98.5 Sonshine FM today.

Bluearth’s website says, “The Bluearth Institute (Bluearth) is a non-profit charitable organisation founded in 2000. It is operated with the express purpose of improving health and preventing diseases of sedentary living by providing programs and information facilitating the development and integration of mind, body and spirit through participation in physical activity.”

David says, “The relaxed attitudes by some parents towards eating habits and physical activity over the Christmas period give children the message that the holidays are synonymous with an over-indulgent lifestyle. This poses a potential risk to a child’s short and long-term health and well-being.”

If you want to hear what David had to say when we chatted this morning you can use the media player below.



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You know it makes sense

January 14, 2007
by Rodney Olsen
3 Comments

Sam’s back.

Sam Kekovich used to play Australian Rules Football but these days he’s better known for causing controversy around Australia Day each year for simply suggesting that Australians choose to eat lamb on our national day.

Well …. to be perfectly honest it may not be the suggestion itself but rather the way he chooses to phrase that suggestion.

He started his regular Australia Day lamb advertisements a few years back in 2005. He had a number of people heading for the phones to protest when the advertisement he fronted contained the following.

Do you think the diggers in the trenches were fighting for tofu sausages? No. They were thinking of grabbing a lamb chop off the barbie with their bare fingers, sustaining third degree burns, then sticking their hands into a relieving esky to fish out a cold one.

Look at our national song, Waltzing Matilda. It’s about a bloke trying to get a nice bit of lamb into his tuckerbag, not spicy chicken wings.

The soap-avoiding, pot-smoking, hippy vegetarians may disagree with me, but they can get stuffed. They know the way to the airport, and if they don’t I’ll show them.

Some vegetarians were outraged. How dare anyone suggest that they were unAustralian simply because they refused to eat a lamb chop?

The theme has stayed the same since. Sam talks about activities that he thinks are unAustralian with the cure for all our ills being to have a lamb barbecue on January the 26th, Australia Day.

The 2007 advertisements are now showing on the commercial television networks and they run a full three minutes. This year the campaign takes the form of election advertising and suggests you vote for the Australia Day Party.

If you want to see who Sam’s targetted in this year’s rant just head to the campaign’s home page where you can watch the video and even download a poster or two.

The humour is quite Australian so you may not understand it fully if you haven’t spent a bit of time down under. Either way, let me know what you think.

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Don't strain yourself

January 14, 2007
by Rodney Olsen
5 Comments

I think I must be missing something here.

Most Sunday mornings you’ll find me at the local leisure centre. The centre has basketball courts, a library, a swimming pool, function rooms, a gym and much more. The reason I’m usually there is that’s where we join a bunch of other Christians for our weekly church service.

On a number of occasions I’ve pondered the parking at the centre. Today I spent quite a bit of time in the car park (more on that later) and so I had even more opportunity to wonder about a common occurence.

It’s a big car park. It has lots of bays. Most of them are empty on a Sunday morning. Many of the empty bays are reasonably close to the centre’s front entrance.

Also in the car park is a turning area where there is room for people to drop others off or pick them up. It’s also suitable if you need to get in and out of the centre quickly. I imagine it’d be handy if you had to drop in a library book or something similar. There are a number of signs in this area letting people know that they cannot park any longer than 15 minutes there at any time.

The thing that intrigues me is that quite often, and this morning was no exception, big beefy blokes drive up and park in the turning area then head off to the gym for their workouts. It’s obvious that they’ll be a lot longer than 15 minutes but they need to be as close to the centre’s entrance as possible. They are not prepared to park another 20 metres away.

I could understand it if they had mobility issues but these are fit people about to go and exercise yet they’re unable to walk 20 metres. They run on the treadmill, they’ll pump iron, they’ll put their bodies through all kinds of stresses but that little extra walk is too much. How odd.

I’ve noticed similar behaviour at a nearby park where cricket players will park on footpaths and cycleways rather than park in the plentiful bays 15 metres away. They’re prepared to run, jump, stretch and wallop the ball during the game but they are somehow unable to walk an extra 15 metres to and from their cars.

Is it that we are so car dependent that we don’t want to be any further away from our vehicles than we have to? Is it that these people think that their needs are more important than every one else’s? I’m really at a loss to understand the phenomenon.

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