Accenture has had enough of its high-profile mascot, Tiger Woods — he has gone from its websites around the world. He was there at midday (AEST), spruiking for the company, and gone when I next looked at 4pm, replaced by someone doing ski manoeuvres.

Political advertising gone mad. Check out this blog, Iconophilia, who write:

Here we were in Nimitabel last weekend, in the centre of the bellwether seat of Eden-Monaro, face to face with the groundbreaking Fourteen-Silver-Birch-Tree-Led-Stimulus-Package. Yes, there are fourteen new bits of steel, concrete and Birch Tree in the main street of Nimitabel, all in the name of the Government’s Nation Building Economic Stimulus Plan.

Good cheer was in abundance at the Save Albert Park end of year Christmas wind-up last weekend. That was until the Sappers latest movie was shown: SAP*ART*EXPO*2004. It was a good movie showing the efforts of Sappers fighting to save a public park from corporatisation and from being handed over to two multimillionaires for their commercial benefit.

Also shown in the movie was John “no water” Thwaites loudly urging on the Sappers at a number of rallies to even greater levels of resistance. Loud boos could be heard because Sappers remember that as soon as John Thwaites got into the Cabinet he didn’t want to know the Sappers. He then publicly supported the government’s support of the race and the massive subsidies that are needed to prop it up. Talk about a stunning backflip.

Next day, at the poorly attended Melbourne Ports ALP Members end-of-year BBQ, an ALP member confronted him over his treachery. Well you should have seen Judas Thwaites explode. He was speechless when confronted by his treachery. He walked away then came back and went right off his rocker, loudly spitting chips and told the member to take his SAP newsletter back and to stick it. The key point was that he just couldn’t answer the points about how SAP members were so saddened and loathed his treachery.

Just to let you know the Victorian government has mailed out its Fire Ready Kit to every person over 18 in every household in regional Victoria. We live in Aireys Inlet and received two kits. A household only needs one kit.

So if there are five people over 18 living a household that household receives five kits. This is a waste of resources and money. Instead of multiple copies of kits being sent to households, that money could have gone into equipment.

Had a new battery installed in the car by mobile battery installer. Tried to pay with my debit card on “credit” —  the CBA unit rejected saying “credit limit exceeded”. My heart sank because I thought that my bank a/c had been hacked.  Tried again with “savings” again I was blamed for the rejection with “limit exceeded” or similar.

By this time I was feeling sick.  Phoned wife to use her card manually and,  thank goodness, hers was rejected too. Five minutes later my card worked.  Presumably a problem with CBA? My question is:  why would CBA “shame” me by saying I had no money when in fact a fairer description of the problem would be “sorry,  system is down again”? The contractor was annoyed because it wasted his time and stated that problems with CC payments had only occurred since they had changed to CBA.