gobbledonk

Man are from Mars and women are from another freakin' universe.

Top Gun director Tony Scott (Ridley Scott's brother) dead at 68 - apparent suicide. I've said it before, but its not just the Pattaya skydiving team that elects to check out after a particularly nasty midlife crisis. My link TOP Gun director Tony Scott has jumped to his death in California. The LA County coroner’s office confirmed that the 68-year-old scaled and jumped off the Vincent Thomas Bridge in San Pedro at around 12.30pm on Sunday. His body was retrieved from the water by the police and coast guard. Scott's death was being investigated as a suicide, Los Angeles County Coroner's Lt. Joe Bale said. Police confirmed that several witness saw Scott jump, apparently without hesitation. Several people called 911 around 12.35pm to report that someone had jumped from the bridge spanning San Pedro and Terminal Island in Los Angeles, according to Los Angeles police Lt Tim Nordquist. A dive team with Los Angeles Port Police pulled the body from the murky water several hours later, Nordquist said. Scott's body was taken to a dock in Wilmington and turned over to the county coroner's office. One lane of the eastbound side of the bridge was closed to traffic during the investigation. A suicide note was found in his office and another note in his black Toyota Prius, which was parked on one of the eastbound lanes of the bridge.

Yep - I'd be looking to make that 4.99999999% the day I got the diagnosis. They reckon 'old age isnt for wimps' - I think that goes double for surviving cancer.

6 people dead and a Police officer critical after a gunfight and this doesnt deserve its own news item ??? WTF, Kamui ??

Here's a wonderful story from Minnesota: Vodka Mom and self-appointed executioner Gotta love your media commentators.

Gotta love this quote from Uncle Ted: In a Romney stump speech at the 2012 NRA Convention in St. Louis, Nugent said, "If Barack Obama becomes the president in November, again, I will either be dead or in jail by this time next year." He also compared the Obama administration to coyotes who needed to be shot, and encouraged voters to "chop [Democrats'] heads off in November."[60] Nugent received a visit from the Secret Service for these remarks. Ted, its just as well you can play a guitar, old mate, or you would have been in jail/dead long before this. Michiganiacs must be wondering if old Ted spent a little too long out in the woods - I know I am.

I'd completely forgotten Andy ! On 5 March 1988, Andy Gibb celebrated his 30th birthday in London, England, while working on a new album. Soon after, he entered John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford complaining of chest pains and died five days later on 10 March 1988, as a result of myocarditis, an inflammation of the heart muscle caused by a recent viral infection Wikipedia dont seem to have a problem reminding Barry that the clock is ticking - cant say Maurice's death sounds like much fun either - give me the cliched Horse OD in a short-time room any day over this lot : Maurice Gibb died at a Miami Beach, Florida, hospital on 12 January 2003 of complications resulting from a twisted intestine (volvulus).[3] His brothers Barry and Robin retired the name Bee Gees for a time, declining to perform as a group.[4] However, as time passed, they decided to perform occasionally under the Bee Gees banner.[5] On Sunday 20 May, 2012 at 10:46pm, his fraternal twin Robin Gibb died, following his complications and battle with colo-rectal cancer. Older brother Barry is now the sole surviving member of the famed Bee Gee brothers.

Still cant quite believe he was younger than my sister, but the timelines sorta line up. She was only two years older, but had no interest in anything newer than Elvis ..... I loathed the disco era, particularly Saturday Night Fever, but the Bee Gees blazed a trail long before the current crop of Aussies set up shop in LA and environs. 62 is too young.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Peterson_(surfer) Unquestionably one of the most naturally gifted surfers ever to paddle out, but whatever deity gave him that gift must have gotten out of the wrong side of the bed. Still, many who knew him in the 70s wouldnt have laid odds on him making it to 2012. I hope he has found the peace that eluded him for much of his life.

Yep, and we both know what Bonobo do for 99% of each day Sadly, we also know what chimps are capable of, but we seem to be the worst ape of the lot: http://au.news.yahoo.com/world/a/-/world/13300899/ukrainian-girl-dies-after-horror-gang-rape/ A chimp rips someone's face off and the cops shoot it on the spot - we should be doing the same thing to the animals responsible for this.

If we are talking big, hairy and completely incapable of coherent thought, I suspect that I may have already woken up next to her, er, it. Still the only woman I've ever turned down when she suggested we keep seeing one another purely for the sex. Throw in the hangover from hell and thats a morning I'd prefer to forget. I'm pretty sure she did have opposable thumbs, given that her hand was wrapped tightly around my tallywhacker when I tried to get up and take a shower .... :doh:

Another epic necro - you have no idea how many times I have wished I could go back to mid-2007 and do it over, but there's nothing to say that it would have turned out any differently. I might not have walked into THAT bar, or talked to THAT girl, but there is always a bar and a girl lying in wait, isnt there ? She called me a couple of nights back - somehow, it still hasn't quite registered that I wont give her any money, for any reason. I particularly wont give her money to open a bar ........

Its amazing just how tough the human body is when you consider that its a conparatively frail creation alongside many other mammals. Early man might not have had our giant brains, but he must have been a tough mofo. I guess he had a pretty basic choice - tough or dead. For all this talk of 'thin bones', I have never had a fracture worthy of medical attention (rarely even go near a doctor's surgery) - lets hope that sort of luck holds up.

I guess years of a sedentary lifestyle are catching up to me, cause I eat a mountain of dairy and tuna - supposedly the thing for calcium and vitamin D. Long story short, I had an x-ray on my lower back and it revealed a crushed vertebrae and 'thin bones'. If you want to avoid the crushed vertebrae, dont get hammered and fall over in the shower - the rest is down to pure laziness. Time to get off my butt and start putting these old bones to work.

Guys, no question that her latter years werent her finest, but if a mate went to Patts and drank himself to death, is that the part you would want to remember ? They replayed 'The Bodyguard' the other day, and I could definitely see where all the praise came from - the tragedy is the number of dweebs who insisted on having 'Always Love You' blasting through a cheap PA at their wedding/engagement/circumcision. I'm sure it also got a hammering in Karaoke bars, but the instant I see some bitch lurch toward a microphone I leave. No amount of alcohol can drown out a Karaoke ambush - the horror, the horror.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitney_Houston No question that it was a steady downhill slide from the mid-90s, but its ironic that she survived an abusive marriage only to die in a bathtub. I question 'accidental' whenever someone combines prescription drugs with gallons of alcohol, but I guess some folk have been doing it for so long that it seems like just another day on planet earth. RIP Whitney - your Superbowl anthem rendition is what you should be remembered for. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jeUINzHK9o

Exactly - I just assumed that there were several chimps playing 'Cheetah'. Jane Goodall, probably the foremost authority on chimpanzees, claims their personalities mirror humans in every way. Her biggest disappointment was when she realised they will kill their own kind, just as we do. I'm not an authority on Darwin, but didnt we get said personality traits from the apes ? One thing she said that I didn't realise is that you can safely transfuse blood from a chimpanzee with the same blood type as the human recipient. Something very dark about that, IMO - shades of the Chinese milking bears for their bile.

This little girl wasnt famous, but I hope she finds more peace in whatever-comes-next than she did on this fucked up planet: http://au.news.yahoo.com/world/a/-/world/12462779/us-babysitter-beats-dismembers-girl/ May his time in jail be long, brutal and completely without possibility of parole.

Good point, but Singapore wasn't inherently 'corruption free'. Whatever his faults, I often wonder if Australia could use a benevolent dictator like 'The Father of Singapore'. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Kuan_Yew Like many countries, Singapore had problems with political corruption. Lee introduced legislation giving the Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau (CPIB) greater power to conduct arrests, search, call up witnesses, and investigate bank accounts and income-tax returns of suspected persons and their families. Lee believed that ministers should be well paid in order to maintain a clean and honest government. In 1994, he proposed to link the salaries of ministers, judges, and top civil servants to the salaries of top professionals in the private sector, arguing that this would help recruit and retain talent to serve in the public sector. I found the 'well paid' paragraph interesting - several here have pointed to the low pay that most Thai cops get as prime motivation for ongoing corruption, particularly as the gap between rich and poor widens in Thailand. Somehow I cant see the middle class agreeing to higher taxes to increase the pay packets of the boys in brown.

Jesus, suddenly my life doesnt seem so bad. Good luck with it - I've spent a lifetime avoiding 3 places : courtrooms, hospital beds and jails. God favours fools and drunks, I guess.

I'm tempted to say more about Ali, but you guys are right - this is about Joe. RIP.

Damn - Munchy must have a direct freakin' link to the Obit section at AAP ! I always thought Frazier was under-rated, and I agree that a lot of people lionised Ali while ignoring Frazier and Foreman. All 3 were streets ahead of most who came after them, particularly other heavyweight boxers. I dont remember anyone trying to bite his opponent's ear off, although I will concede that the 'accidental' headbutt seems to have been a feature of the sport for a long time.

92 isn't a bad innings, and its not as if he lived most of his life perched in front of the telly with a beer and a TV dinner. Now, where did I leave that beer ?

Phew - at 52, I can only manage 2 of your 3 pet hates ! (am I the only one who loses 10 kilos when I start walking the streets in LOS ? Seriously - hit those Skytrain steps on a hot, muggy day and I look a lot better within a week or so)