Monthly Archive for May, 2006

Sarah Blasko: Don’t Dream It’s Over

Well, it’s been bloody ages since I’ve published anything here, so I figured while I have the motivation (and time) I’d stick an introduction on a draft I’ve had sitting here for ages and hit the publish button, so here goes!

I’ve written about Sarah Blasko before but I think she deserves another plug.

Over the weekend [long, long ago] I managed to finally download a recording of her performance at the Melbourne Commonwealth Games closing ceremony[1]. The song she performed was one I’d been getting into since Christmas when I received the Neil and Tim Finn tribute album She Will Have Her Way . On that album Sarah covers the Crowded House classic Don’t Dream It’s Over simply beautifully.

  1. Go get yourself a copy. The torrent will be a little slow because the number of seeders tends to range from 1 to 5 and the video is a high definition recording of Channel Nine’s coverage. []

And a New Legal Entity is Born

I did something for the first time today. I registered a company. I am now officially a company director and a company secretary.

Economics is fun!

FreakonomicsLast weekend I did some thing I haven’t done in a long time, read a novel from cover to cover in under two days. The book in question was Freakoncomics by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner which I got for my birthday. Having studied finance I’ve had a big enough taste of economics the know how much fun it can be[1] and this book confirms it. Economics can be applied to anything and heaps of really cool observations can be made.

Freakonomics uses interesting questions to give you a lesson in economics and teach you something you might not have know. The questions answered (or explored at a minimum) are:

  • What to school teachers and Sumo wrestlers have in common?
  • How is the Ku Klux Klan like a group of real estate agents?
  • Why do drug dealers still live with their Moms [sic]?
  • Where have all the criminals gone[2]?
  • What makes a perfect parent?
  • Perfect parenting, part II; or would a Roshanda by any other name smell as sweet[3]?

Rather than reading a review of the book written by me which would likely be very boring, you should take my word that it’d a damn fine book which you would enjoy, then go to a book store or to your local library and get your hands on a copy. After that you should read it. Then you should let me know how right I was[4].

If you don’t think you can bite off a whole novel worth of economics you could start with some smaller and almost as interesting articles around the web that have an economics bent. Phu over at (the wonderfully rebooted) If…Else has obviously had a bit of an economics binge this weekend himself because he has pointed out two such interesting articles.

  1. Yes, the title was serious. I actually do think economics is fun. []
  2. This question has a seriously interesting answer, the book is worth reading for this question alone. []
  3. Wondering why there are so many parents giving their children really, REALLY stupid names in recent times? This section will give you an answer. []
  4. By the way, I’m not the only one who thinks it’s a great book. It is, after all, a New York Times Best Seller. []