Dan_Crad

Competing in a dance competition won't exactly help his case that his knee was too painful to continue playing competitive cricket.

In other news, number two-placed WA look set to hand Queensland their first Shield match loss of the season. Disappointing second innings by the Bulls, as it would've been good to see Boyce bowl at a target on a fourth-day pitch. However, McDermott has ripped through the first four batsmen, with 25 runs left to score. Cutting took another 5-for in the first innings.

Speaking of McDermott, I checked out his List A stats and I can see why whatwhat has him in his ODI. I might have to bump Cutting from my squad for the ranga.

Last week, Khawaja scored his second ton from as many Ryobi Cup matches this season to bring his career average up to 43. Surely he'll get a look in for the Australian side at some stage.

Knocking even harder on the door is Tom Cooper, who is the comp's leading run-scorer with 315 runs at 100, and has a ODI average of 54 in 18 matches for the Netherlands. He saved the match for SA against VIC last week with an unbeaten 60 in a total of 9/124. I can see why they chose Forrest - they're eyeing him off as a potential Test player - but surely Cooper's equally good Shield form can't go unnoticed, either.

And it looks like Jon Holland has turned the corner this season. Nineteen wickets at 28 so far in the Shield, and 10 wickets at 19 in the Ryobi Cup, including a 6-for against SA last week. Hopefully he can keep improving.

Yes, someone please bring them out! Magnificent Fiend is one of my fave records of the last decade.

I'm liking the snippets of the new album on this YouTube vid.

Did anon himself plagiarise from Austen Tayshus's 1985 classic 'Lounge Lizard Live'?

''What's the difference between Queensland and yogurt? Yogurt's got an active culture.''

Hmmm... ;-)

I hear Set Sail are pretty free at the moment...

i wonder how much off other peoples music has john butler ripped off...

I bet he ripped off these guys.

New website and URL (link is the same, underlying URL is new):

consumer.vic.gov.au/renting

Whysat, tinyman? Holes in catalogue? Feels odd not 'obtaining' files/physical product?

Just curious. I have the above issues occasionally, but I love having so much on tap. I still love buying CDs, ripping them and building my iTunes library too, though. Tragic.

Yaaaay!

Ditto.

It's a seriousness in the approach taken to the songwriting, in a stoicism to craft a quote-unquote perfect song which ultimately creates music that feels quite formulaic and emotionless.

Agreed. But with many of these songs, I think the problem of craft is more to do with there being far too great an emphasis on production and concept to the neglect of actual composition. Again, this may be a conscious or unconscious decision to create an angle for publicists and reviewers to hang their hats on.

Too many records 'sound' good, but the songs are forgettable. The perpetuation of the album format's importance (in spite of today's a la carte music consumption) and too many reviewers being obsessed with aspects such as 'concept', 'flow', and 'arc', doesn't help. These things often are important for many 'artier' bands, but for those self-described 'pop' bands, it seems a major encumbrance to writing something with Shaun's 'splash'.

Any act that can come up with a killer pre-chorus, chorus and middle eight in the one song will stand out because a) so few contemporary bands employ these devices well, if at all, and b) when done right they work equally well with serious and fun songs.

Either way, hopefully they'll both bump it up once 4G/LTE hits critical mass.