February 11, 2002, 11:27am. I missed the Opening Ceremony of the Winter Olympics, so this charming moment was brought to my attention via The Age online: “The Iranian team marched out in the parade of nations to be greeted by American broadcaster NBC referring to the competitors as part of President Bush’s “axis of evil”.”

I was going to avoid mentioning the Olympics, but it’s hard to avoid them over here, so here goes. What the hell was with the men’s ice hockey team lighting the flame? Is the US so desperate to remember that they’ve managed to sort-of win a war before? Ra ra ra, they beat the Russians in a hockey game. They still can’t find Osama Bin Laden.

February 11, 2002, 9:30am. The Age with a vag shot? Things have changed since I left Melbourne.

I’ve been doing some of those ‘personality tests’ to pick up nice things about myself to write on my resume. A lot of the American ones ask what race you are, and that really freaks me out. What does it matter to my results? Or do they use it for agglomerate data? Or is it a completely normal question? (And I thought it was bad they they ask what sex you are, as if that mattered!)

Speaking of race, CNN can’t spell Niger.

Maybe the ‘race’ question isn’t so offensive after all – later on in one of the tests, ‘Casino Gambling’ was included as a possible ‘Investing and Money’ interest.

February 8, 2002, 16:28pm. MaxiMadness page done. Now I can go drink beer.

February 8, 2002, 12:34pm. Why do Dutch people think it’s acceptable to talk about someone in Dutch when they’re a) right there and b) understand enough Dutch to know it’s happening? My cow-orkers spent half of lunch discussing the fact that I eat fish but not meat (in Dutch, of course). The fact that they have no vegetarian food I could eat instead doesn’t bother them, but they probably think that dry bread and cheese is a perfectly fine option for lunch five days a week.

lol! I can’t figure out who on earth this is about, but it’s a nice story about a trip to Amsterdam if you don’t mind MS Comic Sans (which, of course, you do, having enough taste to read this page).

February 8, 2002. US Government applies Geneva Convention to white prisoners. Well, that’s not what it says, but it might as well.

You can bet I’ll be doing this IQ/salary quiz.

Google has decided overnight that I need google.nl instead of google.com when I type ‘google.com’. Gee, thanks, google, I never thought of it that way before!

What I’m working on today: MaxiMadness – a page about the mechandising frenzy that was the wedding of Willem and Maxima.

Leaked Milosevic bugs have a funny side: Mr Clinton “must have hid in the plane toilet” so that [Madeleine Albright] could not overhear [him calling Milosevic]”

I’m thinking of heading to Eindhoven on Sunday to check out the carnival.

Would you apply for this job?

“It is Saturday afternoon and I have just had the worst flight back from Holland (gale force winds made our plane bounce around like Pammy Anderson on a space hopper). Anyway I have returned to this beaut of a job. I need a majorly good IT and Internet guru who wants to be a Manager of a growing dept – u will be resp for supporting the Europa wide E-business team (sounds good dunnit?) U need to very exp in Microsoft Web goodies (IIS, ASP – that sort of thing). Job spec very in depth so call now.”

February 7, 2002.The Dutch health minister’s surname is Borst, and borst means ‘breast’. Tee hee. (reference the story on dodgy nuclear power plant)

Watching tv the other day, I came across Melissa George (of Home and Away fame) on Thieves, telling someone locked out by a password dialog, ‘don’t worry, I can program in linux’. Thanks god for that, Melissa, though I’m dying to know what that really means.

Hey, the Home and Away site has Alfisms. Sweet! But they lose points for not having a “flamin’ kids” soundbite.

February 7, 2002. Dirty dirty evil minds (thanks Faye!_

A postcard I sent to friends in Melbourne (hi Cat and Cheryl!) before Christmas only arrived today.

air guitar championships make it to Australia

[News just in: apparently I have a job for another month, at least.]

cat panic, via b3ta.

February 6, 2002. Woomera ‘breaches UN conventions’.

The Vrankrijk squatters are well organised here. Squats tend to last years in Amsterdam, and offer clubs, restaurants and cinemas – underwater amsterdam includes links to settled squats.

Tha Letta Opener of Death wuz practically burnin’ a hole in the pocket of my Membaz Only jacket.

Cook my Sock, and from the same source, porn without the people leads to beautiful watery pictures.

It’s a while since I checked out fawny. I wish I had earlier for the link to googlewhack cos I’m always accidentally doing it.

February 4, 2002. NYTimes on SuperBow(e)l Extravaganza: you couldn’t help noticing that as a scoreboard in the stadium flashed “Freedom!” there was a smaller illuminated sign next to it that read “Bud Light.”.

February 4, 2002. Community Aid Abroad report: “The Howard Government’s “Pacific solution” on asylum seekers has increased instability in the region and diminished Australia’s ability to play a leadership role.” Carmen Lawrence is quoted making a valiant effort but it would have meant more if she’d spoken out before the election.

John Howard ignores it, of course.

February 4, 2002. So the (Dutch royal) wedding has been and gone. I had a great day, a bunch of friends came over to watch the golden coach go past, we ate and drank (and slurped vodka jellies). It was a gorgeous day, sunny and warm.

The BBC’s coverage is short and sweet. A bunch of (Dutch) articles/photos are linked from De Telegraaf and Het Parool, including this cute dog from this gallery. More: orange people, Dam crowd, Maxi-merchandise. The one thing that’s missing is a photo of the ring getting stuck when Willem was putting it on Maxima.

indymedia view of the day (nederlands).

Photos from one of those roaming camera people: (Caroline) Sandra and Vessy, Fraser and his tight orange tshirt and Nikos and Caroline.

Finally saw Asoka this weekend. Hrishitaa Bhatt (who played Devi) is cute, but also looks disturbingly like Alyssa Milano.

The music wasn’t that good but it inspired me to go check out http://www.bollywoodmusic.com/.

Speaking of film, I can’t wait to see Brotherhood of the Wolf (official site with trailers), (trailers one and two at Apple)./

I always lose this link to css box layouts.

Stan Grant, the Eric Bana of news.

Dutch word of the day – afgrijselijk: dismal, abhorrent, hideous.

July 2. I’m almost impressed enough to bother hating him. In Parliament today, John Howard tried to turn the tables on Labor, and suggest that their questioning of the $2mill he allowed for a special taskforce to stir up trouble on the waterfront and force the situation to a head, was unpatriotic.

June 29. The shock of turning 25 has killed most my braincells, and I’ve also been afk for a while for one reason or another, but today I’m proud to announce that I’ve obtained leaked copies of One Nation’s Policy , and I’ve put it up on the net for everyone to read [and now I’ve taken it down cos it was really quite boring and didn’t do much to point out how fucked up One Nation is].
And soon: photos from Parliament’s Gallery of Famous Insects. However, for the moment I’m still trying to decide between Pauline the Cockroach and Pauline the blood-sucking leech.