@carriebish writes:

Hey Natwest bank, if I announce on Twitter that I'm in Washington DC you could maybe look at that and not block my debit card #vrm #idiots

This tweet prompts some questions:

1. Is it possible to link your Twitter account with your bank account?
2. If it is, have you done so?
3. If you have, have you worked out how Natwest Bank's computer system is meant to scan your tweets in order to determine where you are? Is it meant to find a particular hashtag for your location?
4. What about the dates you'll be in that location?
5. How do you tell Natwest Bank, via Twitter, that you've changed your dates for that location, or your location for those dates, or that you won't be traveling after all?
6. Do you work in IT?
   

@markgr aka Mark Greenfield writes:

@TimNekritz IMHO - there are no institutions, people are the institution.

... so there is an institution - precisely one institution. Which is people. Which does what, exactly?

This is a typical 'cluetrain' (sorry, #cluetrain) motherhood statement, sounding righteous and wise - of a piece with 'we need a new politics of meaning' - something of a meme, perhaps: the politics of memeing.

Not to pick on cluetrainers (cluetrainees?): it's typical IT evangelist blather, full of weasel sound & fury, etc - ie, they're all doing it. But this one stands out for its quick dissolve into self-cancelation and general meaninglessness.

The Melbourne Age hired Catherine Deveney to be a local Juvenal, and that's exactly what she was in her Logies tweets (which apparently was not an Age-sponsored gig).

So the best thing you can say about the Age sacking her for those tweets - which were mostly acidly funny and spot-on - is that it was cowardly and hypocritical.

But when you think about the fact that a misogynists and racists like Sam Newman, Alan Jones and whoever gave us 21st-century minstrelsy on Hey, Hey It's Saturday all still have their jobs, the perversity is sickening.

The Age - it just gets lamer, stupider, whiter and richer. More features about Hollywood celebs and lifestyle accessories, more inane advice about what absurdly expensive and wildly inappropriate clothing to wear to exotic third-world travel destinations, more footy and MasterChef!

All awards shows are appalling. I want shrewd observers like Deveney watching them and slagging them off so I don't have to.

more homesickness from irregulargirl

Originally uploaded by irregulargirl.

living in melbourne you can't get a decent burrito for 8000 miles.

i should add i love this photo.

golden gate bridge

golden gate bridge
Originally uploaded by irregulargirl.

irregulargirl making me homesick. makes me think of laurie anderson's o superman -

so hold me mom
in your long arms

Le Chaire

Le Chaire
Originally uploaded by O Caritas.

a beautiful shot from o caritas, who's obsessed with texture and detail and light - some of my favorite things.

this crappy photo of mine gives you a better idea of what i'm dealing with - SEVEN of the damn things. when they back the truck all the way to here and then start cranking them in - it's a godawful racket.

lovely little piece at the guardian by john harris on the new franz ferdinand single and how goopy good it is (and it is, tho maybe not as brill as john says). it's always great to see a critic lay down the cudgel and pick up the bong and say 'hey! this used to bug me but now it gives me the heebie jeebies!' (just like it's always great to see them suddenly turn on a hoary old favorite - it's the spectacle of them admitting their own subjectivity, i guess.)

the street photo group at flickr (i've gone a bit flickr mad - can you tell?) has a great thread on graffiti.

Clouds

Clouds
Originally uploaded by Dansk_Cinders.

i'm a sucker for a good cloud shot, and this is a beaut.

Victoria, Australia

Victoria, Australia
Originally uploaded by Heartdisk.

another shutterbug out there snapping up melbourne - heartdisk has some achingly beautiful photos at flickr - many more after the jump.