Luster Whitening

A new teeth whitening system has been released in the US that promises to whiten your teeth up to 6 shades in one hour. The product is called Luster 1 Hour White and it's an Over The Counter (OTC) product that you take home and use yourself.

This particular at-home whitening product is different to other products because it includes an activating light similar to the kind of light a dentist will use when you get your teeth whitened professionally.

It looks like it could be a winner at only around 40 bucks a pop. It's not exactly specified how long the whitening effect will last but the web-site did say that the 6 shades bit was a guarantee.

The product also has FDA approval which, from what I can gather, is unusual in an OTC product. Clinical trials have shown that it will also not cause tooth sensitivity either.

In the quest to give every American citizen a whiter than white smile the Luster Tooth Whitening system seems just the ticket.

The Beijing Games Draw To A Close

The Beijing Olympic Games are all but over and the medals have been won, at least one of them has been chucked away and one referee has been kicked in the head because someone didn’t win one.

Australia finished with 14 gold medals which sits pretty close to expectations, although according to the news reports, Australian sport is in a little bit of trouble because we were down on the Australian Olympic Committee’s (AOC) prediction. As an average Joe, stock standard Aussie, I say rubbish. The haul of medals pulled down by our athletes was right on the money.

I reckon any gold medal tally that sits between 10 – 20 is perfect – just enough to make every last one of them special and able to be celebrated fully. While it would have been nice to win more, you accept that not everything goes to plan and there are always going to be surprises in sport.

And it’s the surprise gold medals that make the greatest impact. Matthew Mitcham winning the gold medal in the 10m Platform Diving on the second last day will long live in many Australian’s memories. That it came completely out of the blue, with even the Australian commentators completely writing his chances off before “that” dive, made it all the more sweet.

Yes, the Olympics are over for another Olympiad, China has put on a great show and Australia can be well proud of their efforts. Memorable moments in the Games for me? It’s got to be Usain Bolt on the track and Michael Phelps in the pool.

Cool Weather - Sally McLellan - Channel 7

Yesterday was reported as the coldest Sydney morning of the year so far, getting as low as 5 degrees Celsius on the coast. We’re pretty lucky with our winters in Sydney because they’re pretty mild compared to other parts of the country. It’s all about being acclimatised to the conditions though and we Sydneysiders really feel the cooler starts.

What we do get are fogs and sometimes they’re as thick as calligraphy ink, but it seems that we have largely missed out on any significant pea-soup events this winter. At least, that’s how it stands with only 11 days of winter remaining.

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It was wonderful to see Sally McLellan’s reaction to her silver medal winning performance in the 100m hurdles in Beijing last night. She had a great start to the race, maintained her form right to the finish line and had a bit of luck. But, for the girl whose goal was to just make an Olympic final, her excitement, jubilation, disbelief and unbridled joy when her name was posted as the Olympic silver medallist was a pleasure to watch.

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Still on the 100m hurdles brings me to the television coverage and brickbats galore go to Channel 7 for stuffing their viewers around once again. They simply refuse to do the decent thing and let us know exactly when events are going to be aired.

From 10pm onwards, every time they went to an ad break we were reminded that Sally McLellan’s race was coming up later but at no point were we given an idea of exactly when the race would be aired which is simply not good enough. The least they could have done was tell us the race was on at 12:15 and Channel 7 would be showing it live. Assholes.

Stupid Interview Questions

I had to laugh out loud while watching the Olympics last night. Sally McLellan had just run a wonderful semi-final in the Womens 100m Hurdles to make the final and she was clearly over the moon. Naturally Channel 7 were there to shove a microphone under her out of breath nose demanding that she talk rather than recover from her efforts.

It was Pat Welsh doing the interviewing and he seems armed with an endless supply of dumbass questions that he is equally capable at trotting out at the athletics as he is at the golf. At some point, wouldn’t you think these guys would pause for a minute, work out some insightful questions and use them rather than the dross they appear to be happy chucking at our athletes?

When Pat asked McLellan “Did you realise you’re the first Australian to make the final in the 100m hurdles since Glynnis Nunn?” she came back with “I don’t care about that, I’m in the final now.” Ka-pow, take that dickhead.

Why the fuck would Sally McLelland care who made an Olympic final more than 20 years ago when she was celebrating the biggest moment of her sporting career. Good on her for her response to a dim-witted question. Are we going to have to take out an AVO to keep these idiot reporters away from our sporting stars?

Rail Lines in Australia

It’s hardly surprising with the ever-increasing rise of fuel prices that more and more talk is starting to be heard about the prospect of new rail links being constructed in various parts of Australia’s more isolated areas. You would have to think that there would be major obstacles with any rail line proposal considering the land issues involved with taking up over a thousand kilometres to stick railway tracks in, so the following two projects would have to be years away.

A new rail link has been proposed between Toowoomba in Queensland and Moree in New South Wales to speed up the shipping of goods between Melbourne and Brisbane by bypassing the more congested Sydney connection.

Another railway line, this one from the north-west Queensland city of Mount Isa to Tennant Creek, which is a distance of around 600km. This particular line would meet up with the north-south line running from Adelaide – Alice Springs – Darwin and would enable ore freight to be moved to a wider spread of ports from the town of Mount Isa. It sounds as though the people of Mount Isa are fully in favour of running the line towards Darwin, now it’s just up to the government to agree to the two plans.

At the centre of both of these projects is Australian Transport and Energy Corridor Ltd, a company that appears to be coming up with plenty of solutions when it comes to alternative goods haulage around Australia.

Under

Underwater, underworld, underground, underwear. Yes, that’s right, I’ve challenged myself to use the word under in a blog post as many times as I possibly can which, truth be told, puts me under pressure. But I’m under no illusions, I reckon I’m up to the task.

Under the terms of my own challenge under which there are an under-abundance of rules, I have decided to attempt to write at least a 200 word article with the word under as the binding theme. If it’s under 200 word I won’t be too underwhelmed, after all, it’s my blog, my show and only I know if I’ve underachieved or not.

Am I feeling as though I’m under stress? Perhaps a little, I’m not going to underplay how I feel about the exercise, but understand this, I will not allow the weight of pressure to send me under. I have some undercover plans that are still under wraps and I will only unveil them if I come under fire or feel as if I’m under duress.

Wait a minute, I can almost hear you muttering under your breath, but under no circumstances am I going to let any negative energy pull me down in its undertow. As a matter of fact, even though it feels as though I’ve only just gotten underway when suddenly, it’s over.

Peanuts

I’ve been thinking for some time now that I should eat more peanuts. Usually I’ll snack on cashews, sitting up late at night just casually munching my way through a packet while watching TV or working online. But for some reason, maybe its just to make a change of pace, I feel more like changing my snacking of choice to peanuts.

I’m actually thinking about keeping a container of peanuts, or even mixed nuts, on my desk at work so that I can nibble throughout the day. As long as there aren’t any people around with peanut allergies I should be okay – not that you hear about too many adults with severe allergic reactions to peanuts.

I find peanuts, well, all nuts in general, are a great healthy way to graze throughout the day. I’m pretty active – I do a lot of running, so I find that I need a constant intake of energy to keep me going. Basically, I’m always hungry because my internal furnace is running hot. My lunch time runs of 10km or more means that I’m ready for a fairly substantial lunch when I’m finished, which often doesn’t satisfy my hunger completely. If I’m not eating peanuts or apples or some other fruit, I’d be eating a chocolate bar and as much as I’d like to do that, I really shouldn’t.

See, now that I’ve been talking about eating peanuts at my desk at work, the craving has grown even stronger which is rather annoying because I don’t actually have any peanuts on me and I’m about to head out for a run.

AFL Messing With Tradition

Here’s a question for the stodgy farts who run the AFL – why are you seemingly do everything in your power to spoil the enjoyment of the game for fans? Of course, I’m talking about the news today that they want to stomp on the tradition of fans running onto the ground to celebrate a 100-goal milestone.

Citing the bullshit excuse that player and fan safety is an issue, AFL spokesman Patrick Keane only succeeded in convincing the whole of Australia that the AFL are a bunch of surly stick in the muds who have fallen out of touch with what the fans want to see. If the AFL was truly concerned about fan safety they would’ve banned Cameron Ling’s ugly mug from ever being shown on the telly, scaring the kids half to death.

I would wager that a good chunk of the crowds coming to watch the last 3 Hawthorn and Carlton matches will be there to see Buddy Franklin and Brendan Fevola kick their 100th goal for the season. And if they’re not planning on actually running out onto the ground I’m sure they’re looking forward to the spectacle of seeing others celebrate the occasion in the time-honoured way.

This is just pathetic ass-covering on the part of the AFL, pure and simple. Let the fans celebrate the milestones ya miserable creeps.

Olympic Gripe #1

The local television station that holds the broadcast rights to the Olympic Games has, quite predictably I suppose, brought a slew of complaints onto themselves after only 2 days of action. They simply refuse to tell their viewers what time the events will be aired and it is seriously pissing everyone off. They’re playing the old “coming up is the swimming finals” game with us, advertising the upcoming events all day but not revealing exactly when the events will be on.

Now, I’m well aware that the TV station wants to keep as many people as they can watching for as long as possible, so to keep everyone hanging around for the promise of a big event is in their interest. But you piss people off long enough and it eventually comes back to bite you in the arse.

Speaking for myself, I’m happy to record the Games and fast forward to the bits I want to see, after all, because the IOC has decided to screw with the 2008 Olympic swimming program (stuff the athletes, as long as the Americans get to watch it in prime time that’s all that counts!!!) the swimming finals are on while I’m at work. So run your ads, I don’t care, when you’re zooming along at 30x normal speed on fast forward, you don’t really take all that much in.

Soft Hands and Calluses

We’re finally getting a winter from the old days. Wet, cold and…well, wintry. The last few years, winter has been dry, dry, dry and not particularly cold. It just doesn’t seem right to miss out on an honest to goodness winter.

That being said, I’ll be glad when the Sparing weather takes over and we start to get the warmer weather again. As a runner, I don’t particularly enjoy running with layers of clothing on my back, all that chafing and what not. Not to mention the fact that we are just about out of firewood this year. Boy, a serious miscalculation on my part thanks very much. With at least a good solid month of cold weather ahead of us it feels like we’re on a serious wood ration, virtually down to burning bark and other scraps. It’s a-scrounging I must go.

Another shocking realisation of just how indentured to the office lifestyle I have become when I did a bit of yard work last weekend. Nothing overly strenuous mind you, just cutting down a palm tree segment by segment. The fibrous nature of the palm means that the saw blade gets continually caught as you work your way through it. Anyway, I’d only been at it for an hour or so when the first blister made its presence felt on my hand. Man, it doesn’t take long for the hands to soften and a bit of hard work really shows you where you’re at.

I did the right thing, though. I sucked it up and kept sawing away until the job was done. I only did a bit of whinging and whining but not so much that I can’t hold my head up in front of the kids!

Most of the palm is still standing ( I really only lopped the top two segment off) but at least it’s getting lower and lower. The next segment will have to done from a ladder – the first couple were so high I was standing on the garage roof to get to them. I’m not sure how I’ll go cutting into the top of a palm tree up a ladder with nothing more than a pruning saw. The effort that has to go into getting through the sappy palm will really get that ladder shaking I should think. Some care…some care. At least my hands should be a little tougher for the next part of the job, I’ve got that going for me.

Soft hands and calluses, the difference between hard manual labour and none. It’s an indicator right there in the palm of your hand that reminds you whether you’ve been putting in the hard yards or not. Hopefully over the next few weekends I’ll be getting my calluses back up to a respectable level again.

Wind

As the house shudders from pillar to post I can hear the wind howling up the valley like a demon on the warpath. The wind that has hit our city this evening is flying through the trees with a vengeance stripping every last shred away from the grasping twigs.

Loose awnings are clattering and the streets are getting pelted with debris that was lying safely in yards until the fury hit. This is going to be one wild night as we huddle indoors and hope the things that aren't nailed down are still nearby in the morning.

Yikes but it's windy as the house next door gives another almighty creak. It sounds as though the wind has doubled its intensity, yet it was already at full cry.

I'm off to huddle under the doonah.