Hot As Hell: Australia's Worst Natural Disaster

By now you'll have heard of the fires that screamed through Victoria, Australia at the weekend. Currently the official death toll is at 131 with the final grisly number expected to be much higher as emergency workers sort through the rubble making this the worst natural disaster ever in Australia.

One of the towns totally destroyed by the fire was Marysville where I visited only a few months ago. Finding the following photo is what prompted me to write this post as I have an almost identical photo from November last year. What was a luscious green country town is now a smoking heap as you can see here...

Before (November 16, 2008)


After (February 8, 2009)


My hometown of Warragul and its neighbouring town Drouin were both on alert on Saturday but were given the all clear later on Sunday. I'm just thankful that my family is OK even though my brother said burning embers were landing in his backyard in Drouin.

The ABC website has a page where you can ask or offer help. We've given clothes and food and have offered housing if anyone needs it.

It seems to be a time to break records with Melbourne recording its hottest 3-day streak last week with a 43c+ (109.4f) hat trick and its hottest day on record on the day of the fires where it got up to a horrible 46.4c (115.4f). Throw in gale-force winds and pyromaniacs and you have the perfect recipe for disaster.

Today, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said that if the Victorian fires had been deliberately lit it would amount to "mass murder". Later, Attorney-General Robert McClelland agreed saying, "Anyone who lights fires deliberately, with reckless disregard for the safety of their fellow Australians, in our view establishes the requisite criminal intent that would sustain a charge of murder." ...so say we all.

Pay Attention, Drive Safely

Once again it's the holiday period and people are on the roads driving further, longer and less safely than normal. So far this year Australia's road toll has hit 55 and that doesn't include people permanently injured or families and friends affected by the deaths.

Car Advice has posted a video (embedded below) of a series of road safety ads from around the world some of which are quite confronting (I couldn't watch it all the way through on my first attempt) and all with a serious message.

Most show the effects of not paying attention or speeding/overtaking in unsafe areas and are not for the feint hearted but really, anybody who drives a car should watch these and take heed.

It's also interesting to read through the comments people have left on Car Advice after viewing the video with most people praising the videos.

Australia to Become A Better Place

Great news everyone! Australia usually gets shafted when it comes to big new technologies that require brand new infrastructure due to the amount of whitespace between cities but today we got some great news.

Better Place, "a California-based, venture-backed company that aims to reduce global dependency on petroleum" has just announced that their next target for building a nation-wide electric car charging network is the good old Land Down Under. They say, "[w]e will build an electric vehicle network capable of supporting the switch of Australia’s 15 million gas cars to zero emission vehicles.", just in time for me with my Holden Volt!

I like Better Place's stance on why they chose Australia as their next area, "If Australia can do it, so can others.". I assume they're talking about the previously mentioned wide expanses rather than us being so stupid that anything we can do, others can do (better).

About Better Place, Wikipedia has this to say, "In January 2008, Better Place announced a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Renault-Nissan to build the world's first Electric Recharge Grid Operator (ERGO) model for clean transportation in Israel. Under the agreement, Better Place will build the electric recharge grid, and Renault-Nissan will provide the electric vehicles. In 2009, Better Place expects to deploy hundreds of charging stations as the company moves toward wide-scale deployment in 2011.". I guess they'll be doing something similar here.

Yay Australia!

No Surprises In Top Aussie Film Survey

The Australian Film Institute (AFI) held an online poll to celebrate 50 years of the AFI Awards recently and found that the country's top five films of all time are, in no particular order, The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, The Castle, Muriel's Wedding, Lantana and Gallipoli.

No surprises there although I get the feeling that Baz Lurman's Australia, coming out in a month or so, is hoping to be on the top 5 list next time the AFI run an online survey. The AFI will announce which film was number one at the 50th AFI Awards on December 6.

Personally I'd have put Two Hands and Mad Max in there somewhere near the top, maybe boot out Muriel and Lantana. While we're on the subject, it's about time we had nice cleaned up releases of Two Hands and Gallipoli, my DVD of Two Hands is especially nasty.

Thanks for the tip news.com.au.

Finally, A Good Use For A Playstation 2

A couple of Canadians and a Kiwi thought it'd be a great idea to stash 3,400 ecstasy tablets in an old PS2 in order to trick the customs officers at Sydney Airport on their way in to the country.

Well, they seriously failed when customs spotted them at the airport and, instead of jumping them there, they tracked them all the way up to Surfers Paradise in Queensland, 850 kms away. Imagine thinking you'd gotten away with a scam like this after driving for 12 hours only to be busted when you made it to your destination.

If found guilty, they face a maximum penalty of $825,000 and/or life imprisonment. At least here in Australia we don't have the death penalty for possession of drugs (I'm looking at you Bali!).

Thanks for the news Kotaku.

Volt Visits Down Under

Seeing as I didn't make it to the Australian International Motor Show (AIMS) in Sydney this year I have to settle for news coverage from CarAdvice.com.au, the only useful Australia-oriented motoring news site.

I was pleased to see amongst their thorough coverage of AIMS that the Chevy Volt has made the trip down to the Southern Hemisphere to give us a wave and a nod before heading back to the US. G'day Volt! *waves*

As mentioned previously we'll most likely be seeing the Volt in one way, shape or form here in the land of Oz by 2011 or thereabouts. It may be branded as a Holden, it may not even look like the Volt or GM might just give up and just move the steering column over to the right side and sell it on city corners.

Regardless of how it'll get here I still want one. More pics and plenty of coverage of the Volt (and AIMS in general) over at CarAdvice.com.au.

Jussy In Technicolor

As promised earlier, here's the video of Jussy's stint at the 2008 Australia Tech.Ed.

Yanks Love Aussie V8s

While I think a 6.2 litre V8 isn’t exactly the thing we should be driving these days it is still heartwarming to see the local (Aussie) car manufacturers getting some love from the USA.

Autoblog often waxes eloquent about the local grown produce and comes across as having a warm fuzzy place in their car-loving hearts for the Pontiac G8 (AKA Holden VE Commodore) not too suprising through after considering it will eat up the road using all 415 horses (309 kw).

Reading up on the G8 on Wikipedia I found this interesting tidbit. "...Some G8 buyers are removing all traces of the Pontiac brand from their vehicles by installing Commodore front bumpers and other parts.". I've noticed the opposite here with Aussie hoons choosing to replace their Holden markings with Chevy logos and whatnot. Weird.

For comparison here's a photo of a similar Holden, the VE SS V-Series.

Fallout 3 Is Go For Aussie Release

The Fallout 3 saga continues but hopefully this is the final chapter. The news today is that the Australian Office of Film and Literature Classification has given Fallout 3 an MA 15+ rating for the slightly modified version of the game.

The rating was given for "Strong violence, drug references and coarse language". Originally it was these "drug references" that caused the ruckus as the use of them in-game was too realistic. Word on the street is that when you used morphine in Fallout 3 your character felt better. Weird hey... so the OFLC refused classification on that basis. Now you get a "health pack" in-game which makes your character feel better. The whole game has changed!

EB Games says Fallout 3 will be in stores in October (nice and precise there EB!). Anyway, read a little more about it over at Kotaku.

Matthew Reilly Finally Gets On IMDb

I just read on the inside sleeve of Matthew Reilly's recent novel Six Sacred Stones that he had written a TV pilot episode for ABC. A quick check on IMDb confirms this to be Literary Superstar, "A look at the life of an overworked book publicist." starring Jenna Elfman AKA Dharma from Dharma and Greg.

Not only is it on IMDb but tv.com also has a little bit of info on the show.

It doesn't really sound like something I'd be interested in but I'll give it the 6-episode test (if they make more than the pilot). Now Matthew just needs his Bruckheimer movie to be made and he'll be happy. My money is on Ice Station, that'd make a great action flick!

Artist Makes Carpark Signs Interesting

I love getting news about Australia via international sources, especially when it's something as cool as this.

A German-born, Aussie resident designer by the name of Axel Peemöller has taken the perspective-based ads we see a lot in sports television these days and painted up some signs in the carpark of the Eureka Tower in Melbourne. These mind-bending signs use simple mathematics and some thinking ahead to produce words that appear to float in space but only from the right angle.

Head on over to Autoblog for photos of the other signs.

Game Ratings In Oz: Yes, We Suck

Kotaku put me on to a great post on abc.net.au by Tom Crago on the current Australian games classification system. Tom is the chief executive of Tantalus and president of the Game Developers' Association of Australia (GDAA) so you'd hope his words carry some weight.

Tom mentions that there are 2,000-odd game developers living and paying taxes (we hope) in Australia yet some of the games they work on can't be sold here due to the lack of an R rating (18+) for games using Fallout 3's effective banning as a good example.

One interesting quote is "Australia's absence of an R18+ category, and the financial imperative of getting a game onto store shelves in a timely manner, means that many games intended for adult audiences (and rated 18+ in other countries) are inappropriately shoehorned into the existing MA15+ category in Australia. Far from protecting minors from adult content, our uniquely incomplete classification system has allowed them, in many cases, to legally purchase and access such content.".

Read the entire thing, it's not long and points out how stupid our government (yes, even you KRudd) is in the eyes of the world.

Tim's Crap of the Day

I got this hilarious video today with the following text:

It's a worry if these buffoons are debating agricultural issues in parliament.

As they say, politics is show business for ugly people.

The "buffoon" in question is Mr Jason Wood MP, Member for La Trobe.

2009 Chevy Camaro In Melbourne, Wears Black

You've probably already heard that the 2009 Chevy Camaro has come out of the closet and waved its 1970s inspired butt around a bit. Well, not only did it wave said butt around at GM HQ in the US it also waved its butt around at GM Holden’s Melbourne headquarters where the Aussie team involved in the design of the Transformer car were present.

At the Melbourne reveal a few earlier versions of the Camaro hung out with their cool little brother who was dressed appropriately for the occasion in Melbourne black. Included amongst the old folks was the 1969 Camaro SS of reigning V8 Supercar Champion Garth Tander.

More photos and video over at CarAdvice.com.au.

Western Aussies Most Deadly Drivers

The Australian Transport Safety Bureau released its annual road safety report yesterday and for the third year in a row Western Australia has scored the worst (or best depending on how you look at it) road toll with 10.4 deaths per 100,000 residents.

The next worst region was Tasmania, with 8.3 deaths per 100,000. Queensland had 7.9 deaths per 100,000, South Australia 6.8, Victoria 6.3, New South Wales 5.7 and the ACT had just 4.4 deaths per 100,000 people.

Zero deaths would be preferable but the only way to do that would be to stop people driving.

The First Production EV To Go On Sale In Australia?

South Korean car manufacturer CT&T has announced it will be opening a manufacturing plant in Fiji (of all places!) for their little electric cars.

As per the company's website, the eZone is basically a fancy golf cart that can go 70km or 110km on a single charge (depending on the battery pack you get) and can only reach 55 kph top speed. Still, according to their video, it only costs $5 a month maintenance (no mention of your electricity bill), has zero emissions and uses zero oil.

Seeing as Fiji is neighbours of New Zealand and Australia perhaps we'll be seeing these little buzz boxes on our streets sooner than any other production EV, just so long as they stay out of my way in my iMiEV. Thanks for the heads-up ABC.

Check out the promotional video below and try not to cringe at the odd choice of voice over talent.

It's Official, Xbox 360 Price Drop

I just got some spam from the Australian Xbox site telling me that I can now get (another) Xbox 360 for the low low price of $349 AUD (around $333 USD) RRP.

Obviously that'd be the arcade edition but this still means the Xbox 360 is now cheaper than the Nintendo Wii!

A quick check on the Kmart website shows that you can pick up a 360 for $299... $50 off the RRP.

NBC Says "Look At Moi Kimmy. Look at Moi!"

You may be aware that NBC is remaking the Australian comedy hit Kath and Kim but today NBC announced that they're extending the order of episodes from 6 to 13, all without showing a pilot.

This is almost unheard of in this day and age where broadcast networks can a show after 1 or 2 episodes if it even survives the pilot stages.

In the words of the suburbanites, "Actually that's noice, different, it's unusual".

Queenslanders Wake Up, Invent New Engine

Revetec, a Gold Coast, Australia-based company has created a new type of internal combustion engine, dubbed the "controlled combustion engine", which uses half as much fossil fuels, is half the weight and is cheaper to make than a similarly sized modern engine.

If that's not enough, because the engine delivers higher torque, and can perform and operate well at much lower revs than a conventional engine, the noise levels are lower.

gas2.org reports that Revetec have a prototype which has been attached to an actual vehicle and independently tested to substantiate their claims.

Even in the foreseeable future we'll be needing secondary engines to give battery powered cars extended range by charging batteries on the go. Platforms like GM's E-Flex system, to be used first in the Chevy Volt, are designed in such a way that the secondary motor can be replaced with pretty much anything that can generate electricity. GM should talk to Revetec.

Thanks for the tip Ottey!

HSV W427 Price and Release Date

HSV has issued a press release confirming that HSV's super rocket, the 375kW/640NM W427, is due for release this August.

HSV plan to release only 427 of these $150,000 AUD beasts but with a 7 litre engine you'll need that much again just to run it.

Check out more details over at Car Advice.