Frist School Assembly

My eldest son had his first ever performance in front of the school assembly this morning.

I watched his year standing at the front to sing 'Advance Australia Fair' followed up with 'Bananas in Pyjamas'.

One our official national anthem, while the second was sung by the children with such gusto that just for a minute I was firmly convinced that it should be.

US Presidential Elections 2008

Current betting is on Hilliary Clinton versus John McCain. With Hillary going on to win the Presidency.

Thing is I'd be surprised if either of these candidates wins the nomination from their respective parties. That's just my personal take on it, although when you think back to my previous predictions I did remarkably well two years ago predicting both the US and Australian elections correctly well in advance.

However seeing as I'm not putting up cold hard cash perhaps I'm reading the US electorate incorrectly. We'll know in 2 years.

Let's try it again

I had to reorder my Dvorak symphonies last night. Amazon couldn't charge my credit card or something so they cancelled my order.

So while I was on the site I also ordered The Lord of the Rings trilogy soundtrack by Howard Shore. Quite expensive, but I'm a sucker for movie soundtracks. Then I through in a hardcover copy of Mark Steyn's new book coming out in October. Someone who can always bring on a good chuckle when you need one. Then for good measure I added on another $50 worth of dot to dot books for my 2 oldest kids. $50? That's crazy.

Even more crazy is the fact that Amazon allows you to order used copies of Dot to Dot books.

What the heck?

Guild Elections

It's that time of year again. Guild elections.

The young and ambitious who feel they need to get elected to something in order to succeed in business or politics are out on mass.

The worst part is when they come in to my lectures and ask for speaking time at the beginning. I have 400 students and I'm sure they would much rather be generally listening to my dulcet tones than the inane chatter of the hopeful electee.

I had one such student yesterday. Promising she would talk for 30 seconds who managed to waffle for about 4 minutes about nothing (as far as I could tell). A lot of talk of community but I never actually heard her mention who she was, which party or what she proposed to actually do for the university community.

I drifted off into sleep only to be awoken by applause from the 400 students. What the heck? Well I'm glad they knew what she was talking about, but then we generally do get the politicians we deserve. Maybe they deserve this one?

Perhaps I'm just resentful because the urchins standing around the polling booths don't even try to burden me with pamphlets anymore. When I first started here they often mistook me for a fellow student as I walked around campus. Sometimes I had to take great pains to avoid them.

Now some ten years later no-one make that mistake anymore. I can walk boldly through a crowd of election workers and no-one will thinks for a second I'm a young willing potential voter.

I wore my old jeans today. Maybe I'll stick an ipod in my ear and try and walk through the horde one last time.

Two Years Later...

It's interseting to see that two years ago tomorrow I posted about oil supplies.http://domitar.blogspot.com/2004/09/oil-supplies.html

Back then according to the CIA we (the world) had enough for 37 years. Today two years later the CIA estimate we have enough for 46 years. I'm sad to see that Australian figures haven't been updated.

While I know that countries tend to overestimate their supplies (particularly OPEC countries who's production quota is tied to their proved reserves) it's still an interesting trend.

Certainly it's indisputable that it is an extinguishable resource so it is of interest, but unless you're an insider there is really no way to know the true figures.

This year we've seen a huge jump in the price of oil, but recently it's been trending the other way. Supply and demand as I see it. With the price jumping significantly production appears to have jumped leading to an oversupply at the current high price. Economics 101 but it I always stick with occam's razor where I can.

Still the only thing we can do is sit back and watch these numbers over time. There's too much money involved in energy for anyone not in the industry to be able to believe anything either side of the various energy debates puts forward without many giant teaspoons of salt.

More Odds From the Antipodes

The next Australian Federal Election:

Coalition Victory: $1.65
Labor Victory: $2.20

Source: Sportsbet

Comments Enabled

Well I just worked out how to enable comments. However I have no idea if doing so will be something I'll live to regret.

Probably not, I can't imagine my reader is going to cause that much trouble. I have to pay him to read this stuff anyway.

Over to you...

15-Man Ony

Yeah it's been done with less I know, but 15 man Ony. Damn that's a lot of fun. Pushing your limits is far more exciting than farming instances with 40 people. It actually feels like your actions make a difference. That's the key.

My favourite exchange of the night was when we were disussing the idea of putting everyone on the same side.

Someone said (over teamspeak): "Isn't that a little risky?"

Reply heard "I think we already accepted the fact that it was risky when we zoned in without the other 25 people".

Touche.

Mental Capacity

I'm no expert on research into mental aptitude but I can certainly enjoy watching the debates.

Here's a news story that came out today. 'Men more intelligent than women'.
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,20430001-36398,00.html

Classic comment at the end.
But women needn't feel despondent, with scientists saying they can achieve just as much as men - as long as they work harder.

I chuckled.

First priority... mail this one to Queen Dom.

The AFL

I watched 10 minutes of AFL on Friday night. The first football I've watched this year (being an old North Melbourne supporter from way back perhaps you can understand this).

They asked my son at pre-primary about two weeks ago who he supported and he had no idea as he's never seen any football in his life. We don't have time to watch TV. All the other kids mainly supported either the Eagles or Dockers and fearing for his social development we made him choose one.

He picked the Dockers, so I was pleasantly surprised to see them win versus the Demons in my 10 minutes of interest.

Whether I now am personally qualified as a fanatic is open for debate but here are the updated odds:

• Sydney $ 2.60
• West Coast $2.90
• Adelaide $4.00
• Fremantle $7.50

Looks like I better get him to enjoy it while he can.

Amazon

I ordered Dvorak's 7th, 8th and 9th Symphonies yesterday. I'm looking forward to them arriving in a few weeks.

Listening to Siegfreid's Death and Funeral March right now. Surpisingly uplifting for a morbid title.

US Elections - Market Odds

Current Odds

US Senate GOP Control
Bid 81%
Ask 88%

US House GOP Control
Bid 51.6%
Ask 54.2%

Source: tradesports.com

What I find amazing is that
http://www.electoral-vote.com:2006/
is currently predicting a 50-50 senate using recent polling data.

I accept that there may not be a balanced distribution around the midpoint but surely something is way out of line in those odds. Do we go with the futures market or the polling data? Your call. I tend to believe the market.

Be interesting to watch these odds over the coming months.