The above two ads are part of the Western Australian Government’s awareness campaign about the new laws against “one punch deaths”. One punch deaths are so called because the victim dies from falling and hitting their heads as the result of a punch. In the ads, a common scenario is depicted: 3 friends out clubbing and drinking, and as they are walking at the end of the night, a stranger bumps into one of them. What happens next will change the course of two person’s lives.

Why is this special law needed?

Attorney General Jim McGinty said that under the new law, it did not matter whether the death was foreseeable or whether the attacker actually intended to kill.

“If the victim dies, the attacker can be held accountable for that death and be liable for up to 10 years’ imprisonment,” Mr McGinty said.

“There have been several high profile one-punch cases in WA where attackers have been acquitted of manslaughter because it could not be proved that they could have foreseen their actions would cause their victims to die.

“The victims’ families have been rightfully outraged that the people they hold responsible for their loved ones’ deaths have not been convicted of a crime.

“This new offence reinforces community expectations that violent attacks, such as a blow to the head, are unacceptable. When people die as a result of such attacks, their attackers will now be held accountable for the full consequences of their violence.”

Campaign to warn on new ‘one punch’ laws. : thewest.com.au

As a person who goes out a lot, hanging around bars and clubs and boozed up people, I can confirm that what the TV ads show is very real. The ad campaign will also see posters and coasters displayed in drinking venues (in the toilets too I hope). I think it’s tax payers’ money well-spent because it can potentially save more from reduced hospitalisation, prosecution and incarceration.

Yeah there will still be people who will be too drunk on the night to remember or care about this new law but they will be the minority. And if they kill someone, at least now they won’t get off that easily.

phre3a @ stock.xchng

Being the good neutral friend takes effort. Picture these dilemmas:

• There’s a gathering, a dinner or a house party, clubbing, going out. Everyone knows each other except some of the people in the group aren’t told about it. Over the week, you strive to not talk about the gathering to those who aren’t going. But they ask you what you are doing on the weekend. Do you lie or tell the truth?

  Me: Lying would just make a bigger mess of things, so I’d just tell the truth but I’d employ some tact and try not to sound too excited about it.

• You know friend A for a long time. Then you meet friend B, a long time friend of friend A. Friend B and you click very well and you end up seeing each other more than friend A. Do you feel guilty about it, and do you try to split your time between the two equally, or try to involve both friend A and friend B in whatever plans you might have?

  Me: if I know friend B no longer enjoys friend A’s company then I’d try to split my time equally. Forced company is not good company. And if you are fair about it, then the problem between friend A and friend B isn’t really yours to worry about.

• You hear friend A make a small complain about friend B. It’s something really petty and it’s probably nothing. Do you tell friend B anyway? And do you care that friend A will know that you were the one who told friend B?

  Me: I’d shut up about it. I won’t even add my two cents into it. I’ll just listen and let them vent. If friend B is also bitching about friend A, then I’d subtly ask them individually this question, “why are you still friends?”

Although it takes effort, being the good neutral friend is a good long term strategy I think. When one doesn’t lie, is fair and is discreet, then I think one would earn other people’s trust. And trust is a very good foundation to build a long lasting friendship on.

Last week I had blogged about my approval of the new Mother energy drink. The next morning, I received a nice email from the PR rep handling the product.

I replied with a “Hell yeah! Send me some free stuff!”

A week later, a non-descript box landed on my doorstep. It felt heavy and I could hear the clanking of metallic cans. Awesome.

Inside it were 9 cans of Mother, a letter with a crushed can of the old Mother, and a mysterious looking piece of brown plastic.

What was it? This! Bullsballs.com! Balls to drink Mother? I has them!

Oh and this is how big a 500mL can looks in my hands. Yes I’ve got small hands, but it’s still a big 500mL can of caffeine and sugary, artificial fruit juice goodness! Yeaaaah boyyyyy!

Yeah I know - I’m doing exactly what the PR company had wanted me to do. Send me some free stuff, watch me blog it, and get some cheap publicity and advertising. But hey, I got free merchandise too so it’s a win-win situation. Besides, I wouldn’t say I like drinking the stuff if I didn’t. And yeah, Converse and Adidas? I like your stuff too.

And so, being the good corporate shill that I am, I interrupt this post with some words from our sponsor.

Personally, they should have just sent me some of that old Mother instead of crushing them. But hey, this is the price of progress! Thanks again Stuart!

This made news headlines and I can see why. The real story isn’t that the girl lip-synced but rather, she lip-synced to the voice and song of another girl. Personally I don’t see the fuss. I mean, we already know that the Chinese government mandated that factories closed and cars banned from the roads in Beijing so that the image of the Olympics is nothing but perfect.

This thing with the two singing girls, like the grand opening ceremony and the use of CGI to enhance the televising of the fireworks, was orchestrated and tweaked to project the best image possible for China.

They manipulated all that so why not the girls too?

Silencing the star in red - News - Olympics - smh.com.au

Though I must agree with the sentiment of one of the commenters in the Gizmodo post about this story:

But there’s one thing you gotta ask yourself - how come in a nation of 1.3 billion people they couldn’t find a girl that looked “cute” and “sings good”. Come on you can’t tell me that combination doesn’t exist among that many people.

Olympics: Little Girl Substituted By Cuter Little Girl In Olympic Opening Ceremony

Surely China, which now includes the territories of Macau and Hong Kong, which have produced hundreds of hottie singers and actresses from its own entertainment industry, shouldn’t have had the problem of doing the above?

But I can understand why people feel the need to talk about it. I saw how the local tabloid TV beat it up. To some, this supports their notion that “made in China” means low quality and that since the Chinese are good at making counterfeit goods and general fakery, why should we be surprised?

Besides the slight xenophobic tones and racism of how some choose to interpret this event, I think that only some Chinese netizens, who’ve felt that the other girl was wronged and was robbed of her rightful limelight, and this post at Jezebel grasped the real problem with it and that is,

Is it appropriate to tell a little girl that she isn’t pretty enough to represent her country?

Opening Ceremonies: The Kid Stays Out Of The Picture

Last night, my friends had prior engagements earlier in the night and will only be going to the clubs late at around 2am, and I wasn’t sure I’d be in the mood to wait till then. Yet I was antsy and bored at home. I thought I’d popped a caffeine pill, listen to some dance music and have a party by myself in my room and not go out at all.

So, there I was tweaking on a caffeine high, listening to the music blaring through my headphones and surfing the net looking at anything and everything. Pretty soon, in a span of about an hour I had bought stuff off Amazon, Think Geek, the Apple store and the iTunes store. Yeah, on this night boredom plus caffeine made me buy stuff.

All of a sudden at around 11:30pm I felt this intense urge to just get out of the house and be around people. I had changed my mind and it didn’t matter that I’d be alone. I know I will know at least one person at The Deen, Sam the bartender so I quickly changed and hopped into my car. Half an hour later, I was amidst the loud music and party-goers.

I saw Sam, chatted with her for a while and quickly bought two drinks from her. I downed the Jager bomb and nursed my Jack and Coke for the next half hour. I was buzzing, smiling and people watching. Seeing pretty girls was invigorating.

Although, there’s something about being alone in a sea of people that can make one depressed. I saw a couple making out in the queue earlier and that made me wished I was there with someone. Then out on the dance floor, I saw this girl with tears in her eyes lose it completely and was yelling at her boyfriend without caring who was looking at them. And I thought, “Ok, sometimes being with someone is not necessarily better than being alone.”

I was there for close to 2 hours by myself being entertained by the house music and the spectacle of other people. 2am came along quickly to my delight. I had managed to kill time in a most pleasurable way and I was elated.

The Deen was closing so I hopped to The Rise where I was suppose to meet up with Simon, Lydia and Kayo. And my night continued and began anew. I didn’t get home till about 5am. I was so glad that I didn’t stay home after all.

Spotted outside my local K-Mart.

I can see how this grammatical error could have been made. The train of thought probably went like this:

Yeah, you’d get caught, then you’d go to court … so yeah, don’t get court!

Spell-check won’t have picked it up either since it’s spelt correctly. And I guess in this context, people can understand it anyway. But still. Heheh.

TV ad for Mother, v1.0

I first tried Mother, the energy drink by Coca-Cola Amatil for the Australian market at Two Tribes Music Festival 2006. I had liked it but it appears that I was in the minority. A lot of people thought it tasted too medicinal and it was pulled from the market after a year or so.

It was recently relaunched with the tag line, “New - Tastes Nothing Like The Old One!” and with the ad below parodying how serious and how sorry they are for botching it up in the first place.

TV ad for Mother, v2.0

My colleagues Phil and Sam, who is now in Melbourne have this tradition called “3 o’clock Red Bull” which is exactly what it means. Like Wednesday is the hump of the working week, 3 o’clock is the hump of the working day. Sometimes you just need that little push to get over it.

Today Phil had wanted to try the new Mother, and that prompted me to get one too because I didn’t sleep well last night. Off to the supermarket I went - $3 for a 500mL can! Bargain!

After my first few gulps of the new fruity flavoured Mother (apple and lemon FTW!), I felt the buzz slowly built up. There was a warm tingling sensation in my limbs. Had I been in a dark nightclub with loud music playing I would have been jumping up and down. As it was, I just sat in my desk arms and fingers fidgeting, and legs shaking away. Good for energy!

I said to Phil, “This is good buzz.” He agreed. I was physically trying to talk slower and I think I succeeded but my fingers were typing at a crazy speed, but with no errors though. Good for concentration!

I felt the buzz and tingles for a good two hours as I gulped the drink away. This was expected as I was drinking the equivalent of two cans of Redbull. Sweet! I could feel my heart racing so this is probably not a good drink to be drinking a lot of on a daily basis. But still … sweet! If they sell this in the clubs, it’d definitely do well. It’s now my new favourite party drink. Yay!

p.s. Any Coke reps out there reading this? Send me a case of this stuff!