My mate Tim wants to vent on here so he’s got an account now (!). Watch out for his insightful (?) articles - coming soon! (These arts students are soooooooooo busy - you can’t rush them, you know.)

See - they are really evil!

A man told police not to blame him for crashing his truck into a light post — it was that unicorn behind the wheel. Prosecutor Ingrid Rosenquist said Phillip C. Holliday Jr. initially denied driving the truck involved in the March 7 crash in Billings. He told officers at the scene that a unicorn was driving, she said.

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I guess this Threadless t-shirt was wrong, afterall - they do exist!

The Blair government in the UK is trying to push school sports. However a recent study shows that it may not actually be worth it. Kids that run around like maniacs at school are just going to veg out when they get home and those that don’t run around outside of school hours.

Professor Terence Wilkin, the programme director, said the amount of exercise children get was genetically set, and had nothing to do with access to sports facilities.

“Those children who had little opportunity at school to undertake activity were bouncing around after school whereas those who’d had a lot of opportunity during the course of the school day settled down, and did relatively little,” he said.

“The most important thing (was) if you added the in-school activity to the out-of-school activity, they were exactly the same.”

That is not the only surprise. Professor Wilkin said children’s activity levels had no bearing on their body mass index - their risk of obesity.

“Even looking over a period of years, because we repeat these measures year by year in these children, we have been unable to show any relationship between the physical activity that a child undertakes and his BMI.”

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This comes on the back of the case of the near-100kg eight year old who authorities threatened to remove from the care of his mother. They didn’t remove him in the end but they are keeping an eye on him.

“Bacon. Mmmm… That’s my favorite. Um … chicken , steak, sausage,” the boy told the camera.

Firstly, there is significant evidence to suggest that obesity is, at least in part, due to genetics. That’s hardly the kid’s fault. However, who is cooking all this food for him? Eight year olds don’t cook food. He’ll eat what’s put in front of him. Sure, he may say he doesn’t like healthy food but when the choice is between starving and eating he’ll cave. That scenario is played out in every western household at some point or another. Some parents have a bit more patience than others.

Finally, it’s one of my pet theories that obesity is also due to economic factors. My extremely unscientific observations support this. Fast food and junk food is far more expensive than the equivalent amount of healthy food. (Compare McDonalds prices to a proper restaurant for example) People that are poorer can eat healthily less often than richer people, therefore they have an elevated risk of obesity. I saw the story of this kid on the news and he was certainly not living in Buckingham Palace - rather it did look like his family were doing it tough. Do we need to see the return of food stamps (ie. you must use this voucher to purchase $20 worth of fruit and vegetables)?

Well here’s one of them:

The risk of elderly people falling may be increased if they are helped to see more clearly.

An Australian study of more than 600 people has found that people aged over 70 who received new glasses or underwent corrective surgery were 57 per cent more likely to fall than those who did not receive treatment to enhance their vision.

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Ok, I’m sure that there would be a certain amount of adjustment (I know that I, for one, almost fall over if I take my contacts out, put my glasses on and then walk around) but surely over time the adjustment would be for the better? Obviously not. Explain that, science!

Short men were irresistible to women until mankind’s ancestors learned how to use tools as weapons, research suggests.Being short made modern man’s predecessors more adept at fighting - with a lower centre of gravity and better balance - and guaranteed them huge sex appeal, according to the study by David Carrier, of the University of Utah.The adaptation was so successful that, for two million years, human ancestors with the shortest legs were the most successful.They would also have been the most aggressive, probably because they were confident of winning fights.

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This still doesn’t explain how Verne Troyer (mini-me) married this chick.

So I saw Remote Memory in JB’s the other day when I was looking for a copy of Figure 8 to give to a friend. I thought - why not, I mean I have pretty much everything else related to Elliott Smith. If you don’t know about him, Elliott Smith is a singer/songwriter. I suppose you could call his music indie-rock, although that term is fast becoming so broad that it doesn’t really mean that much anymore. You can tell that Smith listened to a lot of Beatles. I described it the other day as ‘post-Beatles’ and although it’s a little wankish I think it’s fairly accurate. Tragically, his career was cut short (sorry for the pun in bad taste. If you don’t get it click the link underneath his name and see how he died) just as he seemed to be getting his life together.

There’s two kinds of good covers in my opinion. There’s the cover where the coverer takes the song in a whole new direction and the other where the coverer makes subtle changes. Unfortunately the only example of the first case, Leeroy Lee’s version of Southern Belle, falls flat on it’s face. Although kudos should be given for adding a distinctly subcontinental feel it killing the tempo to a crawl doesn’t really suit it. In striking contrast, Edoardo Santoni’s cover of Baby Britain feels immensely Beatle-ish whilst also retaining the multi-layered vocalising melodies that so personified Smith’s work. I was waiting for the drums to kick in but they never did, a gutsy move but one that I think pays off.

I’m not going to go through every track but I didn’t think that The Ramalamas lead singer (whoever he is) had the voice to pull off Waltz #2 (XO) which is a shame because it’s one of my favourite Smith songs. Damian Robison does an excellent acoustic version of Shooting Star. If you’ve heard any of Smith’s live sets (here’s the archive.org link but there are others floating around) you’ll probably agree that his voice is a pretty darn good match.

Finally, a mention to the chicks. They’re all brilliant. I just can’t express more eloquently than that. Lisa Hill, Jodi Martin, Melanie Horsnell, Bridie O’Brien - take a bow. I should probably say more but there’s nothing to nit-pick. The sombre tone of the cello really tips O’Brien’s version of Between the Bars into ‘wow’ territory.

Recommended (if you have Figure 8, XO and From a Basement)