Feb 12, 2008

Act I: In Which I Can Suddenly Speak Mandarin SFX: Phone ringing AUTOMATIC VOICE: We are now transferring your call to a consultant. Please hold the line. LADY ON PHONE: HellosirwelcometoStandardCharteredhowmayIassistyou. ME: Hi; I’d like to cancel my credit card please. Pregnant pause ME: I’d like to cancel my credit card, please? LADY ON PHONE: Hello? ME: Can you hear me? LADY ON PHONE: Hello, sir? ME: Can you hear me?

Sep 11, 2007

Presented without comment, via Boing Boing and Reuters: _A protest action by a group of Singaporeans with Japanese anime figurines such as the 5-inch tall Ultraman, robots and monsters with placards met some real-life police in the city-state._ A handful of fans of Japanese anime had turned up at a Singapore public park on August 25th with armfuls of the toys to protest against a clampdown on Internet downloading of anime material by Singapore animation distributor Odex.

Aug 31, 2007

A few weeks ago, someone noticed an enormous open interest position in the 700-strike calls on the S&P; 500, for September expiry. These are pretty much useless - the equivalent of just being long the index - unless the S&P; were to drop about 50% in the next month. So, of course, that’s what everyone on the intertubes assumed was going to happen. OMG OSAMA BIN LADEN IS INSIDER-TRADING, etc. etc.

Jun 21, 2007

Roy Morgan Research has just completed a comprehensive survey of AFL supporters, and found a few little gems. Compared to other AFL supporters: Carlton fans are 30% more likely to agree that “I sometimes use force to get things done”; Collingwood fans are 12% more likely to agree that “None of this stuff about the information super-highway makes sense to me”; Essendon fans are nearly twice as likely to have consumed Red Bull in the last seven days;

May 19, 2007

It’s almost done. Three weeks, five sets of going-away drinks, two eBay auctions, twelve boxes, and six articles of checked baggage later, I’m sitting in Melbourne airport waiting for my flight. Here is an appropriate picture of a cat, with a grammatically incorrect caption. Apparently it’s what all the cool kids are doing these days. If you thought that was interesting, here’s an academic deconstruction of the above, with the funniest caption you’ll see all day.