One thing that I was meaning to write on my blog on Friday was a discussion I had with someone regarding reality television. Pretty much the person I was talking to was trying to tell me that everything on reality television is real and that there’s no way that the TV networks deliberately edit footage to suit their own needs. He used the show “Kid Nation” as evidence. Now admittedly before Friday I had never even watched a scene of the show so my argument was based purely on my views toward TV stations. He told me that he thought that an 11 year old (I think) contestant on Kid Nation, Taylor DuPriest was a (and I quote) “Total bitch”, now how you can call an 11 year old a “total bitch” astounds me but it’s not the point of the argument. I argued that without a doubt, what we were seeing on TV about this contestant was really what the network (in this case CBS) wanted us to see and what was going to get them the most ratings, and it in no way reflected this persons true personality (I think we can all agree that people do ‘act’ on reality TV). He of course argued that we were seeing the “whole picture” and that the networks had a vested interest to show us the truth. Now how someone could actually believe that what they saw on TV was ‘real’ mystifies me, but after googling this contestants name you will come some very nasty things that have been said including death threats which just goes to show just how many people believe everything they see on television. Unfortunately our media is controlled by advertisers and the dollar, and unfortunately many peoples opinions are controlled by the media so I guess I’ll just have to “Deal with it” (sorry had to throw that one in somewhere).

Today we had a garage sale which was very successful. We managed to sell over 20 years worth of useless knick knacks and artifacts netting us a healthy profit. After our wonderful garage sale we decided that the pub was beckoning and we had what is now our traditional Sunday pub night. Thats all for now

Well it seems my rather long break is coming to a close and in its place will be the demands of Uni and work. I am looking forward to it since at the moment I have almost nothing to do, it will be good to be busy again not too mention productive as well. Today I was at Monash for their “this is a lecture, this is a tutorial” speech thingy which wasn’t particularly exciting. I will be heading down to Haileybury again tomorrow to work on these last stages of the magazine (looking forward to it being all over). Apart from that there’s not much else to report on.

Yes we all fondly remember these wonderful breakfast treats. Unfortunately in 2005 the Kellog’s  company decided to put profits before people and Pop Tarts were removed from the Australian market. So imagine my pleasure when I was walking through David Jones’ Foodhall and saw these wonderful pieces of heaven in pastry imported direct from the USA. So tomorrow morning I will be opening those wonderful silver bags and having Pop Tarts for breakfast.

NOTE: No I haven’t gone nuts.

Well today I headed into the city to pay for my RSA Course which I’m doing tomorrow. It never ceases to amaze me the great amount of effort that is required just to get out of Flinders Street Station.

Firstly you have to get off the train, which can be quite difficult since everyone is also attempting to get on the train at the same time to grab those oh so elusive seats that are so hard to find on a midday train from the city. You then have to try and get on the escalator which can be quite a task since the bottom seems to be where everyone enjoys standing and having a chat. Now the next part is usually pretty easy, walking to the ticket machines to actually get out of the station, but then you are faced with a new problem, you have those people that are trying to come through the other way despite there being a big X on their side. So after this you would think it was clear sailing, well its not, you then have to play a game of ‘try not to step on an emo’ while at the same time tell some guy thats trying to hand you a pamphlet about human rights abuses in China that it’s really not the best time. After all this, well your out of the station, now you just have to try and make your way through the crowded city streets to your destination.

Also I ran into Nick Kong and Matthew Robinson in the city today, just thought you should know.

Today the Australian Prime Minister, Mr. Kevin Rudd apologised on behalf of the nation to the Indigenous Australians. Everyone of course has an opinion on this event, some people agree with the Prime Minister’s apology and say that it was long overdue, some disagree on the grounds that the current government should not have to apologise for a previous governments actions.

I personally agree with the apology on the grounds that I think it will move us forward, enable us to tackle the important issues like health and education and in the eyes of the rest of the region, will remove the view that we were the ‘colonialists that won’, which in the past has hurt our trading relationship with many Asian nations that were previously colonized themselves. So to the Indigenous Australian’s, sorry for the past injustices.

Well I’ve spent the last day fixing some of the problems with my blog and I’m happy to announce that you will no longer be prompted in spanish to add comments. Other issues fixed include adding proper META tags in order for the website to be better identified by search engines such as Google, Yahoo and Alta Vista. I have also added geographical targeting to my domain meaning that it will now appear in Google as an Australian search result, which has resulted in the my humble blog appearing as the top search result if you search for ‘Matthew Kennedy’ in Google Australia. One thing that I’m still working on fixing is my RSS Feed which seems to be having all sorts of issues.

There was once a time in my life where my parents would pay for anything I needed; clothing, food, entertainment; everything. However recently there has been an alarming trend, my parents pay for less, yet I require more. There are certain things that you never really think about until you receive the bill for them, for example car insurance, car registration, car repairs, gas (for the car), and sometimes even car parking (picking up a trend?). Add this all together with things like alcohol (admittedly a non-essential but still important), Uni textbooks (seriously, $90 for a 75 page book, someones having a laugh at my expense) and after all this your once healthy account balance is not so healthy and your left wondering whether you will have enough money in the account to pay for the account service fee (which if there isn’t you ironically get charged another excessive fee because the bank had to borrow money off itself to give to itself). So is there an easy solution to this problem? well of course there is, get a job (one that is more than 1 day a week that is) which is something that is being worked upon as we, well I, speak.

Well the New York Giants have come from behind to beat the New England Patriots 17-14 in SuperBowl XLII. Being a Giants fan I could not be happier about the result. A special mention must go out to Giants quarterback Eli Manning who through his fantastic performance won the game for the Giants.

Well last night we had our monthly poker night at Pat’s place. A good night was had by all (except Luke who was apparently sick and pulled out at the last moment), with drinking, poker, drunken tennis in the dark and watching movies being the most popular activities. We are all eagerly anticipating next months night which will no doubt be just as entertaining.

In other news, Uni starts soon which is a pretty major thing at the moment, and it will mean I have to get a job (a proper job I mean) in order to pay for the things I enjoy most (driving, drinking and buying things from JB Hi Fi).