Thanks to Channnel Ten News tonight for this gem: "Next up, the pictures that prove koalas and bulldozers don't mix."
I laughed at first, but now it's depressing to think that somebody wrote that, somebody else read through it and approved it, and it still went to air without anybody realising how inane it is.

Thanks to everyone who is reading this for helping to make September another record month for debritz.net. According to my stats, the average number of unique visitors is the highest since the blog was relaunched in January - even higher than in July when my analysis (or, perhaps, mere mention) of the Big Brother "turkey-slapping" incident drove huge traffic here. The icing on the cake is that things are already looking bright for October ...

A couple of mysteries for Brisbaneites to ponder:
* Does anybody ever use the bicycle racks on the front of buses?
* What exactly is the purpose of the laptop computer on the newsreader's desk during the ABC News?

Call it egotism if you like, but Googling your own name is also a great memory-jogger. Until tonight, I'd completely forgotten I'd ever written an article for The Sunday Mail about a woman who claimed to have been abducted by space aliens. In the article, archived here and dated October 21, 2001, I investigated the issue of jurisdiction in alien-abduction cases. A Queensland Police spokesman said it was a matter for the Australian Federal Police, while the AFP spokesman said: "I don't think there is the power in place to arrest an extraterrestrial." Unless things have changed in the past five years, it means ET can get away with anything.

The Turner Prize exhibition in the UK can usually be relied on to reignite the debate about what is art and what isn't. The BBC has reprinted comments from various newspaper art critics on this year's exhibition, which includes rubbish on a floor and people apparently working in an office. Nigel Reynolds of the Daily Telegraph wrote in response to the office installation:
The biggest talking point is likely to be generated by a work that could have been crafted by Harold Pinter for the theatre. ... Was this art? Yes, definitely, because the artist said so, explained Katherine Stout, one of the curators."

Is this blog art? As its author, I say Yes.