Once I arrived I got out the measuring tape and measured the dimensions of the rear door. Walking into the store I then headed straight to fridge section and set about measuring the fridge I’d seen earlier.

5 cm too wide.

Mulling about what my options were I disappointedly trundled off to the find an assistant and asked if Costco had any delivery options yet.

None.

I do remember the assistant mentioning they were working on it but here we are nearly a year and a half after Costco opened and still there’s no delivery options. Unfortunately it doesn’t appear like there’s going to be any delivery service soon either. As Costco CEO Joe Sinegal puts it;

Costco is able to offer lower prices and better values by eliminating virtually all the frills and costs historically associated with conventional wholesalers and retailers, including salespeople, fancy buildings, delivery, billing and accounts receivable.


So, for those of us without a huge truck, van or friend who has either, a third party commercial delivery service appears to be our only option. And even then there’s no guarantee things will go smoothly, as Rachel from ‘Discovering Melbourne‘ found out;

My only problem surfaced when I tried to get my items home. On a previous trip I had been told that Costco does not provide delivery service (you have to arrange that yourself) so I had called a moving company to come and pick up my items and deliver them to my apartment.

Before I left the store I spoke with the merchandise pickup guys to check and double check that my items would be released to the delivery guys as long as they had my details (member number, receipt, etc.)

But of course when the delivery guys showed up there Costco said no way could they give them my stuff without the receipt, don’t worry I got on the phone and let them have it, luckily I had the name of the guy I had talked to and they allowed my items to be delivered, whew.

But for future reference don’t try it!


Disappointed I wound up looking elsewhere for a fridge and Costco lost the sale.

Finally someone seems to have decided there’s a bit of money to made here and in October this year Fairdinks was launched.

Fairdinks are a delivery company and they plan to conveniently bridge the gap between Costco and your doorstep. Although they are supplied by Costco, Fairdinks are a third party company and are not directly affiliated with Costco. Infact ‘Costco’ is barely mentioned anywhere on Fairdinks’ website and instead they use phrases like ‘our supplier‘ and ‘the large American wholesaler in the Docklands‘.

Here’s a quick run down of the pros and cons of using the Fairdinks service;

The pros of Fairdinks delivery


1. Costco stock in an online catalogue

Due to their policy of no frills, Costco do not provide a catalogue to customers. Although limited in scope and far from a complete representation of Costco’s range, Fairdinks does provide a sizeable sample of what can be found instore.

Apart from being convenient for Fairdinks’ own customers, this can also be of use to those who are contemplating a Costco membership but are worried about committing to a membership first.


2. You don’t appear to need a Costco membership to order

I haven’t confirmed this with Fairdinks, but as far as I can see there is no Costco membership requirement needed to purchase from Fairdinks.

Fairdinks themselves handle the financial transaction and then go off and buy what you request from Costco, thus your transaction is with them rather then directly with Costco. Presumably this means Fairdinks use their own membership ID(s).

Furthermore Fairdinks also handle refund requests and provide customers with a separate tax invoice to the one Costco provides (I assume Fairdinks keep the Costco one).

I also searched Fairdinks website for any information regarding this and couldn’t see any mention of the requirement. The Fairdinks order form doesn’t ask for a Costco ID and neither do you need to provide one to signup for an account with them.

Again, I haven’t verified this for sure but as far as I can tell no Costco membership is needed to purchase from Fairdinks.


3. Flat rate delivery

Fairdinks charge a flat rate of $20 for what they state as ‘most Melbourne based orders‘. I’m not sure if they have fixed limits to their delivery zone but I’d assume this means the metro area.

If you fall outside of this area, as far as I know they’ll still deliver but you’ll be looking at a higher cost. Note that for larger items (Fairdinks cite ‘large lounge suites as an example) will also attract additional delivery charges. This appears to be on a case by case basis rather than any sort of structured pricing policy.


4. Delivery available from Costco if you purchase the goods yourself

If you’re not happy with the online range offered by Fairdinks you also have the option of requesting delivery from the Costco store after you’ve finished shopping. Fairdinks claim to be available at Costco every day but note that store delivery is priced differently to the flat rate $20 online fee.

Again this appears to be a fluid pricing structure as no fixed prices are provided on Fairdinks website.

The cons of Fairdinks delivery


1. Limited range

From memory there was usually only a few items on offer in any particular grocery category but Fairdinks go one step further and only showcase one brand, with a preference to Kirklands if available.

If you’re more of a discerning shopper or don’t like being restricted in choice unfortunately this means you’re still going to have to visit the Costco store yourself.


2. Price discrepancies

I think it’s kind of silly to assume Fairdinks will make any sizable profit on $20 deliveries to Melbourne metro so I can only assume there will be a slight difference in the prices they offer online and those found instore.

Unfortunately I’m not in a position to confirm this but I think even if it’s only a few dollars per item (scalable of course) then this might be worth considering when ordering from them.

Costco also tend to vary their prices from week to week (sometimes quite drastically), so how often Fairdinks update their own website is something to take into consideration as well.


3. Cancellation fee and minimum order spend

If you decide to cancel an order instore it’s just a matter of walking out,  Cancelling a Fairdinks order however incurs a cancellation fee of $50.

There’s also a $100 minimum order fee so don’t expect to be using Fairdinks for any small orders you want to place.


4. Delivery might take 72 hours

The Fairdinks website states that delivery will usually be met within 24 to 72 hours. Not much more information is given other than that Fairdinks offer SMS notification of delivery progress.

Whether delivery is only during office hours, if weekend delivery is available or if their delivery times are negotiable is a mystery. This could very well be a potential problem given the next con;


5. No signature required for deliveries

Fairdinks don’t need a signature for goods and providing you don’t order products that require age verification, they’ll also happily just leave the goods at the premises indicated.

If something pops up, you accidentally forget about your order or make a mistake with your address, there’s a good chance your new Costco lounge suite will be left sitting outside your door for anyone to steal.

Conclusion

All up there’s one more con over the pros of using Fairdinks delivery for Costco orders but overall I think there’s more weight on the pro side.

The two biggest pros, not requiring a Costco ID and being able to browse an online catalogue (even if it’s not complete) far outweigh the cons.

Assuming what you’re after is covered by Fairdinks catalogue and you live in the Melbourne metro area, then using their delivery service for your groceries might very well be a cheaper and more convenient alternative to visiting Costco yourself.

I’d love to hear from anyone who’s used Fairdinks’ delivery service! Feel free to leave a comment below about your experience.

To cut a long story short, Trkulja is claiming that Google made him look like a criminal. By caching a third party website, when you searched Google for ‘Michael Trkulja’, the search results came up allegedly linking Trkulja to Melbourne’s underworld.

Despite Google obviously having nothing to do with the original publication, Trkulja has tried to drag them to court for some profit and failed three times previously.

Since writing about about the Trkulja vs. Google case I hadn’t really heard anything about it until a curious email popped up in my inbox a few days ago.

Somehow I’ve invariably wound up on what appears to be a mailing list of Trkulja’s. The entire email was in Serbian which was kind of pointless seeing as I can’t speak or read Serbian.

How I got onto Trkulja’s mailing list I have no idea but I was able to decipher the gist of it via Google translate.

The subject of the email was kind of laughable. Titled ‘David protiv Golijata, srpski biznismen tuži Google SVET – internet izdanje’, or translated, ‘David against Goliath, a Serbian businessman sues Google WORLD – Internet Edition‘, an amusing attempt at drawing a comparison between being a righteous underdog and suing a large company to make a quick buck.

The email opens with a photo from the Herald Sun and an article in Serbian by some guy called Predrag Vučinić. Vučinić appears to write for ‘the World Media’ and I’ve provided an English translation of the article below;

Milorad Trkulja businessman from Melbourne in the Serbian community known as the most successful pop manager. He was the golden age of Yugoslav music scene, when the concerts in Australia brought together tens of thousands of Yugoslavs brought the biggest stars of that time: Saban Saulic, Miroslav Ilic, Safet Isović, Nedu Killers, “Rockers from Morava” …

Milorad after the breakup of Yugoslavia turned to other jobs , and his name is these days the main interest of the Australian public.

Highest circulation newspaper in Australia, “Herald Sun” released on 31 October article titled “begins litigation against Google.” The paper explains that Milorad Trkulja “music promoter and community leader in the former Yugoslavia” has sued the giant, one of the world’s richest companies, “Google.”

Basis Trkuljine complaint is that when someone types in his name in Google search, his name appears along with the most famous Australian criminals, and with a clear association to belong to the top of Australia’s organized crime.

As the paper says 2004th The unknown assassin is Trkulji, in a Serbian restaurant in Melbourne, shot back and wounded him. He was blamed for the attempted murder of the local Serbian priest, but the police did not agree with that, considering that there are other Mott.

Newspaper learned that the “Google” tried several times through their lawyers that the case of “silence”, because if you get Trkulja dispute that could have, according to court experts, and dramatic consequences on the future of search methods on the Internet.


As you can see, the article heralds Trkulja as the second coming of Christ, or at least as the most successful pop manager ever. Oh, and apparently he’s the golden age of Yugoslavian music himself.

Oh and apparently Google are trying to hush hush the case up. Yeah, Google want to ‘silence’ Trkulja because they don’t want to deal with ‘dramatic consequences’ of future search methods… that sounds plausible.

The email continues with what appears to be commentary from Trkulja himself.

I also got an offer from Yahoo.com dishes before the first $60,000 to stop the trial, my lawyers have advised me to decline.

Important note that this is the first trial in the world against the two giants in the world, it is important that I could not stop to the U.S. billions.

This is Australia and the law must be respected nemoze no one to put my picture with the Australian criminals.

Owner www.serbiancafe.com gosp. Kuzmanovic I gave a chance to erase my name from www.serbiancafe.com and to provide all the IP addresses of all who have put a variety of rigorous reportage against Milorad Trkulja.

Milorad Trkulja
(email removed)
Tel: (mobile number removed)


I’m not sure if Yahoo actually offered Trkulja $60,000 to settle, but it’s an interesting claim. As for putting Trkulja’s picture with the Australian criminals, given that a third party published the website, I still have no idea why Trkulja is suing Google.

The SerbianCafe bit at the end was of interest and after firing up my browser and having a quick search I found that no mention of Trkulja on SerbianCafe was to be found.

Curious, I sent off an email requesting any further information about the claim and received a rather concise response;

Hello,

Mr. Trkulja reported some forum posts for deletion and we complied with all of the requests. That’s all from us.

Sincerely,
SerbianCafe.com Team


No word on whether legal action was pending and I’m still unclear as to what ‘rigorous reporting‘ is. Either it’s a bad translation for ‘writing nasty things about me’ or Trkulja himself is trying to stop people discussing the himself and the case.

That’s pretty much all that’s in the email and as I said I’m not entirely sure why I received it or how I got onto this mailing list. I say mailing list because this email appears to have been sent to over one hundred people.

After reading the email I had a quick look through the internet to see if any other news had been published regarding the case and did find this little exchange between Trkulja and ‘Marko’.

Marko wrote

I could not believe when I read the title, and then the text.

Milorad Trkulja, whom I know personally from Melbourne, not at all a businessman, but a man who sorrow all around looking to pull compensation.

Never a single lawsuit is not won, but it must be noted that most of them ran against our immigrants, why are many Zavicajna society teamed in the complaint that he be stripped of legal capacity to sue when randomly just want to obtain financial gain.

Otherwise, throughout his life he engaged in selling pirated video projects, local music, TV shows, movies, etc., as well as for being sued (of course all the complaints were rejected) all Serbian bishops in Australia from the 70s onwards, the leader of the conspiracy against him etc…etc…


To this Trkulja replied;

Veljko Veljko Velho
you will not be able long to hide behind false names.

I therefore sue Google and Yahoo a lot of you are game worldwide matletirali poor people through the Internet.
Nazalos your IP address can not be hidden. You are not FINANCIAL, bjede you are a mental patient and nazalos bjede in the head.

All can check

Milorad Trkulja


Interesting reading.

My opinion on the matter remains largely unchanged. Firstly I still fail to see how Google or any other search provider are responsible for content indexed by third parties and secondly, where there’s smoke there’s fire.

Trkulja’s been publicly named as an ‘associate‘ of Mick Gatto, one of the most famous and persistent personalities  in Melbourne’s underworld. For me, being linked to Gatto and having hitmen after you in broad daylight isn’t mere co-incidence and nor is it the result of an internet search.

That and seemingly wanting to throw around the fact that you’re able to sue anyone who publishes anything negative about you (and demanding IP addresses from third party publications) isn’t a good look either.

At the latest hearing between Trkulja and Google, the court struck out several parts of Trkulja’s statement of claim and asked that he ‘provide further and better particulars of the allegation of publication‘.

The strike outs are a good start and I can only assume that there’s an air of doubt by the court of the actuality of insisting that Google themselves published what is clearly a third party website.

How Trkulja intends to prove Google themselves published a third party website I can’t wait to see. No idea when Google and Trkulja are back in court but hopefully it’s not too far away.

Federation Square is a jumbled mess of architectural vomit, nobody visits the docklands, the Southern Star Oberservation Wheel was a colossal failure and that giant space near the Yarra river, Birradungarunga-something-ma is nothing to write home about.

Our towers are nice but well, no different to towers anywhere else in the world. Melbourne’s nice to look at from a height, but it’s not going to take your breath away anytime soon.

A few days ago, building firm Grocom announced a project to build a landmark apartment building in Carlton. The thirty two storey high block is set to be a visual delight due to the inclusion of the face of Aboriginal elder William Barak.

Design wise I have to admit I was worried when I first read about the project and was all too willing to write it off as yet another landmark embarrassment our city seems to love indulging itself in. Having seen the artists rendition though, if it stays true to the concept design it seems finally Melbourne will be getting a new landmark that isn’t something I embarrassingly share with people.

William Barak is the guy who features on our two dollar coin and in his time was a prominent artists and spokesperson for Aboriginals; a stark contrast to the mostly abysmal state the aboriginal community is in today.

The design itself is quite striking and, unlike Sam Newman’s horrendous Pamela Anderson apartment, quite successfully conveys a sense of modernity against a historical backdrop.

The guys behind the design are touting it as a city ‘bookend’ in line with the Shrine of Remembrance and I can sort of see where they are coming from. What I do hope doesn’t happen however, is that the building be turned into some kind of rallying point for opportunist degenerates that plague other sites around Melbourne such as St. Paul’s Cathedral.

These gatherings are a blight on Melbourne and serve no other purpose the the misguided notion that drunken louts will somehow reinforce fictitious feelings of guilt the greater community supposedly has towards Aboriginals.

I’m sure once Portrait is built these people would love to set up a camp or some other rubbish around the base and watch the $295,000 to $1,000,000 price tags plummet.

Hell I wouldn’t be surprised if some of them even demanded a free apartment or two. Y’know, in the name of cultural tolerance and all.

For me, the importance is far more significant then personal gain or acknowledging a great man in a time long past.

Portrait isn’t about one-upping the Shrine or creating some kind of contrast to the post war sacrifices we acknowledge as a city. William Barak was an Aboriginal man who did great things and his solemn face watching over the city doesn’t contain a message of guilt or sacrifice.

Baraks face is a reminder to Aboriginals that individually and as a people they were and are capable of great things. In an era of decrepitness and wallowing in self pity it’s never too late to dig yourself out of a hole and truly make a difference to a people.

This I believe is the greatest lesson modern Aboriginals have yet to learn and hopefully the addition of Portrait to Melbourne’s skyline is a step in the right direction. Long after speeches and individuals are buried and forgotten the face of Barak watching over the city will remain…

…waiting and watching silently for the day his people make something of themselves again.

Thankfully however there appears to be at least one judge on the judiciary who gets it.

In 2007 Ashley Brooks robbed and bashed a 71 year old grandmother. Typical of the softly softly approach, Brooks was sentenced to two years in youth detention. On appeal this was increased to three years but all that did was seem to postpone the inevitable.

Nine days after being released from youth detention, Brooks was drinking at a pub with a Mark Wresinski. The two had met that night near a Fitzroy hotel and then proceeded to kick back and enjoy a few drinks together.

At the end of the night Brooks told Wresinksi that he had no way of getting home and Wresinksi kindly offered to lend him his bike. Keep in mind these two were prior strangers and had only just met that night.

So… granted the kindness of a stranger and a bicycle to get home on, how did Ashley Brooks repay Wresinksi?

He beat the crap out of him, broke his arm and then stole his wallet.

How shattered would you be? You lend a stanger your bicycle to get home after what I presume was a good night out and he turns on you and leaves you bruised and battered.

Upon being caught and facing court, it was up to judge Michael Tinney hand down a sentence that should have been given the first time Brooks faced court. Tinney sentenced Brooks to four and a half years jail, six months more then the prosecution asked for.

The reason?

The community is sick and tired of this sort of public violence.


Hear bloody hear. Not only are the public sick of this sort of violence but we’re rather sick of the pissweak sentences coming out of the legal system too. I’d have bet Brooks would have been given another stint in rehab so it’s great to see an actual punishment dished out for once.

And from the looks of it, it isn’t the first time Judge Tinney hasn’t been afraid to hand out an appropriate sentence.

Earlier this year Tinney jailed Glenn Pullar after he punched a plain clothes police officer in the back of the head.

Pullar had been on one of those party bus things with a group of about twenty something guys. At one stop in the CBD, Sergeant Brett Ward (who was in plain clothes at the time), tried to move Pullar’s brother on citing ‘he was being a nuisance‘.

Twenty something guys, a party bus and lots of alcohol, we’ve all seen these public nuisances out and about ruining a good night out in the CBD.

Not happy with someone ‘harrassing’ his brother though, Mark Pullar decided to punch Ward in the back of the head for his efforts.

In the capable hands of Judge Tinney, the end result was a minimum four month jail sentence and a warning that ‘violence on city streets needed to be denounced‘.

Again, hear bloody hear.

Is there any reason Michael Tinney isn’t heading up a judge rehabilitation program already? The guy definitely seems to have his head screwed on right and I’d love to see him take up a more prominent role in Victoria’s court system.

Amongst a sea of impotent political correctness, one judge appears to have not forgotten the entire reason they preside over cases to begin with and I for one am thankful. Good on ya mate.

If I hire a plumber to do a job at my house and the work fails, the plumber is entirely liable. If I pay a doctor to perform surgery on me and through the doctor’s negligence something happens to me, the doctor is then liable.

Why is it then that if a judge hands down a pathetic sentence and the offender goes on to re-offend we can’t put them on trial to establish whether or not the sentence given was adequate?

Four years in youth detention and just nine days upon release Ashley Brooks was out brutally bashing members of public.

Like much of these softly softly punishments, to say youth detention is woefully ineffective is a gross understatement.

Not surprisingly Baldwin eventually lost control of the car and hit a tree. Melissa presumably wasn’t wearing a seatbelt and was thrown out onto the road upon impact.

The car Baldwin was driving then crushed her to death as she lay on the road.

All of the above is factual and there’s no disputing of the events as they occurred. Despite this however, when facing the Australian court system, Baldwin was found guilty and received a three year suspended sentence.

For no other reason than Jayke Baldwin is a cross dresser.

In what is arguably the most appalling sentence handed down this year by the Australian courts, Jayke Baldwin was spared actual jail time because

Victorian County Court judge Marilyn Harbison ruled that because of Baldwin’s cross-dressing and effeminate presentation he would be bullied in jail.


No really. Guy on P plates speeds, crashes car, kills girlfriend and is then spared jail because poor diddums might get bullied in jail.

How is this suspended sentence even remotely a representation of justice?

What I don’t get it is, as far as I know, everyone has to wear the same clothing in jail… and unless he’s got connections, is it common place for inmates to secure makeup in prison?

I can only assume make up is what judge Harbison meant by ‘effeminate presentation’ otherwise it’s even more ridiculous Baldwin was let off due to his natural appearance.

Forget coming up with some wank story about your childhood, how that resulted in severe emotional trauma and now you have some mental illness… the next time you find yourself fronted up in court over a murder charge just borrow or steal some of your wife/girlfriend/daughter/sister/aunties/your next door neighbour’s panties and be done with it.

With the advent of such a justice crushing precedent it’s going to be a hell of a lot easier to avoid jail now. And why just leave it to a murder charge?

Forgot to pay a parking ticket – I have ambitions to be a woman!

Left your kids in the car on a hot day – I want to be a woman one day!

Defrauded the government of millions of dollars – It’s what any woman would do, and I’m one…LOOK AT MY CLOTHES!

Here’s to the continuing complete and utter incompetence of the Australian judicial system.

Not knowing who Chaouk was, I paid little attention to the initial reports of his death. Some guy I’ve never heard of died in one of Melbourne’s trashy western suburbs gets a big yawn from me and it’s onto the next news story.

Despite the irrelevance of this Chaouk guy, coverage of his death has remained persistent in the media and yesterday climaxed with the Chaouk family basically telling the media to sod off.

Ok guys, now you’ve got my full attention – so let’s see what you’ve got to say.

A statement read out by Chaouk’s nephew on behalf of the Chaouk family declared;

We are Macchour’s family and contrary to all media beat up, would like to declare to our fellow Australian’ that;

1. There is gross exaggeration in dealing with this sad event and its coverage. For example, using “underworld killings”, “war in the suburbs” and “vicious gun culture”.

2. We want to strongly believe that the Australian justice system and police will secure the rights of the innocent victim and his family in bringing the killer(s) of this terrible crime to justice.


Curious as to what warranted such ‘gross exaggeration‘ I decided to have a look into Macchour Chaouk’s history.

Turns out he’s not so ‘innocent’ after all.

Chaouk’s history reads like any other criminal. Man starts work in Australia in honest job, man gets sick of honest work, man turns to crime, man makes bucketloads of money,  man makes lots of enemies and finally, man winds up dead.

The Herald Sun puts it more succinctly;

In 1975, Macchour Chaouk was charged with his first offence — assault with a weapon after he beat another man with metal bars at a factory.

In 1983 he was convicted of trafficking heroin, and two years later was charged with assaulting police.

And his crimes were not just restricted to Victoria. In 1984 he was charged with assault and burglary by NSW police.

In 1985 he was incapacitated by two motor accidents, and has not worked since.

In 1986, Macchour Chaouk was admitted to a psychiatric hospital, and spent years on anti-depressants.

He was charged with recklessly causing serious injury after beating a man over an allegedly stolen bike in 1991.

In 2000, Chaouk was sentenced to five years in prison for trafficking in heroin.


Hardly a model citizen and from the sounds of it as far from the ‘innocent victim’ label the Chaouk family are bandying about.

And as for the Chaouk family themselves, in October 2004 Victoria’s Organised Crime Squad launched Operation Vapor because they feared ‘for the safety of the (Chaouk) family’s enemies‘.

Within six months, investigators on Vapor had gathered sufficient evidence to lay a number of charges against some family members and their associates.

The charges included attempted murder, false imprisonment, drug offences and serious assaults, as well as perverting the course of justice.


Right. Well Macchouk’s family sound like a bunch of swell chaps too.

Regardless of whether or not Macchour was innocent or involved in anything illegal leading up to his death (indirectly or otherwise), it’s clear that money would most likely have been funneling to him from somewhere within his family. How this money was earned is most likely only known between those directly involved in its earning and the police.

For this reason I find the plea to their ‘fellow Australian citizens‘ by the Chaouk family a bit of a hard pill to swallow. Yes it’s sad when a family member dies but expecting the rest of the country to sympathise with you is a bit much.

From one fellow Australian to a family seemingly full of criminals;

Let’s not pretend Macchour was some kind of model citizen now that he’s dead. Obviously he and the rest of his family were/are involved in shady drug business and as a society it’s more then likely for the greater good that he’s gone.

Was Macchour murdered? Yes. Did his grandkids need to witness it? No. Was he an innocent victim? Hardly.

You only need to look at the bikies and associated criminals that rocked up to his funeral to decide what type of character Macchouk was.

God knows what mess he was involved in this time but a random killing this was not. Get caught up in organised crime and this is the kind of crap your family can expect to happen to you. Moreso if they themselves are also involved in the ‘family business’.

I’ve got no idea who killed Macchour Chaouk but hope that this doesn’t start another wave of stupid underground killings. If for nothing else then the fact that I can’t bear to put up with another season of Channel 9′s Underbelly.

Sadly, the only tragedy here is that Macchour’s death most likely paves the way for some other kingpin to take his place in Melbourne’s drug empire.

No doubt we’ll hear about the great tragedy and loss of an innocent life claims from their family when they get taken out as well.

Such is life Macchour, such is life.

One particular tweet from Wikileaks caught my eye;

Hilarious WikiLeaks rap gets it right. Is comedy the only honest commentary?


Hilarious Wikileaks rap? What did Wikileaks have to do with rap?

There was a link included in the tweet so naturally I clicked on it to check out what this rap business was about. Within seconds of the video starting and host Robert Foster taking the screen, I struggled to remember where I’d heard the all to familiar voice before.

About a half minute later it clicked, Robert Foster sounded a hell of a lot like Melbourne rapper Hugo Farrant. But surely I was wrong…

…was I?

Hugo Farrant first flew onto my radar after collaborating with the Treats on Keep Pedalling. Keep Pedalling was nice enough to listen to and the lyrical connection with bicycles resonated with me, but I had great difficulty not writing Hugo off as just another freeloading northern suburbs waste-of-space hippie.

With that said, Hugo seems to have completely reincarnated himself in this new clip from Juice Media. Having graduated from the backstreets of Brunswick and Fitzroy and abandoning the supporting cast of crazy no hopers, Farrant shines as the sole star both lyrically and visually.

Here’s the clip Wikileaks linked to in their clip, titled ‘Rap News: WIKILEAKS vs Censorship – INTERNET WARS’:


Now Rap Wars is a far cry from the fist pumping infectiousness of Rage Against the Machine I hold fond memories of, but it certainly puts an interestingly creative spin on the news of the day.

From one wordsmith to another it’s with great appreciation that I salute the work that Farrant and his partner, Giordano Nanni, have put into creating the rap news clip. So complimentary are the caricatures and general production quality of the clip itself to the music and lyrics, that I find the track incomplete to listen to without the video playing.

Once you get over the fact that Hugo’s pronunciation is impeccable, the fact that he’s not black and that his vocal register is a tad higher than the norm, you begin to appreciate just how much modern hip hop or rap has lost its political message. Not that I’m an avid follower of the genre(s) but Farrant’s effort is clearly the most politically driven production I’ve seen in a long time.

Since first hearing Rage Against the Machine all those years ago, politics and hip hop’s rhyming vocals have always had a special place in my heart.

Farrant and Nanni undoubtedly have the talent to hopefully turn this into a regular thing so here’s hoping that they do. The Wikileaks rap video isn’t the first production they’ve done under their Juice Media production company. Thus far four rap videos have been made and each is as entertaining and lyrically complex as the Wikileaks one. Definitely compulsory viewing and I’ve embedded the remaining three clips below.

Unfortunately date wise the rap clips are appear to be quite sporadic. I’m assuming this is due to the creative complexity needed to creat the beats but also the development of the lyrics themselves. I find it often a challenge to express myself exactly how I want to in a written sense, I can only imagine the compounded difficulty of trying to do so via rhyming lyrics set to music.

Anyway, whatever the reason take this as me sending my heartfelt encouragement to you guys. The fact that they live and work out Melbourne is just a bonus.

Here’s the other three clips Juice Media have produced to date;

Nasa Bombs the Moon, 4/10/2009

Obama wins the Nobel ‘war is peace’ prize, 11/10/2009


Climate Change: Lord Monckton rap battles Al Gore, 17/11/2009

The reason?

Bugger all infrastructure, extremely limited job opportunities (not everyone wants to be a carpenter, plumber or mechanic) and having to live with a bunch of poor people and struggling families.

This is the reality of Melbourne today. And yet instead of working on solving our current urban sprawl problems, Victorian parliament yesterday decided that Melbourne could do with a further expansion of 43,600 hectares.

In light of this carefully thought out and well planned decision I have just one question:

Seriously, are you guys out of your bloody minds?

As it is, living on the fringes of Melbourne means you have to rely on a car and even if you want to use public transport it takes half the day to get anywhere. Then there’s the fact that if you want a decent career you’re looking at spending half your natural life commuting back and forth from the CBD or inner suburbs.

Then there’s the fact that there’s nothing to do entertainment wise except run around bashing Indians or pretending to be in a Sudanese gang and beat randoms up at train stations. Coles shuts at midnight so unless you’re lucky to have a 24hr McDonalds nearby, come the weekend you’re shit out of luck.

A trip into the city isn’t much point either. If you leave on a Saturday night to head out by the time you get anywhere it’s almost Monday morning and time to go home again.

Yet despite this, Victorian parliament has signed off on expansion areas in Melbourne’s far west, north and south east. As if these fringe area’s weren’t hellholey enough to live in, we’re going to start building houses even further out.

The reason for this madness?

Developers argue the decision, and any subsequent residential development, will ease pressure on housing supply and affordability.


So ultimately it comes down to housing affordability. People think houses cost too much? Cool, so we’ll start building McMansions in the middle of nowhere… because that’s where people want to live.

It’s not like this new housing is going to be high density sensible housing either. You can bet it’s going to be full of carefully planned sprawling 19 bedroom houses with 8 home theatre rooms, 3 kitchens, 8 garage car port and 4 swimming pools.

Everytime the government has approved an expansion on Melbourne’s fringes this is exactly what’s happened. Meanwhile housing demand for the rest of Melbourne doesn’t change because people still don’t want to live in barren wasteland suburbs.

The only reason housing is cheap in these new development areas is because they have about as much functionality as dropping two horny quadreplegics on either side of a football field in an effort to study human sexual activity.

There’s a threshold where cheaper housing is outweighed by the massive detrimental effect on the quality of life you accept when moving there. As far as Melbourne goes, we surpassed that threshold years ago… probably around the time Caroline Springs et al. were being advertised ad nauseum on tv.

Speaking of which, anyone care to comment on the state of infrastructure in those areas, now that they’ve been around for a good decade or so. Last I remember there wasn’t any train or tram services out that way being built anytime soon.

Having moved to Taiwan last year I’ve come to appreciate high density housing even more. Families still have 4-5 bedroom houses here with home theatre rooms but the difference is they build up on small blocks of lands. Unless you live in the country, yards are non existent meaning public parks are all the more utilised (when was the last time you saw kids or anyone using the planned parks scatter over the outer suburbs?).

Along with this you of course have your apartments and what not offering diversity in accommodation. Infact the only thing that’s missing here are the barge arse houses we’ve come to expect from housing developments back in Australia.

The trade off? Nobody unwillingly has to live miles away in a backwater far from any form of infrastructure. This is on an island roughly the size of Victoria but with the population of Australia living in it too.

Yet there’s still vast ranges and open areas of scenic ranges to enjoy despite the population concentration.

Ever expanding Melbourne, or any Australian cities borders is simply put a short sighted ridiculously stupid idea. Furthermore it flies in the face of Gillard’s recent withdrawal of support from Rudd’s ‘Big Australia’ vision of half the worlds population living here by 2035.

As much as the baby boomers will tell you it’s not so, the fact of the matter is that it’s building up, and not across that is going to solve our housing problems. Either that or we need to first establish credible outer suburb business districts.

Given that mostly poor people flock to the outer suburbs I doubt this is going to happen anytime soon. In the meantime with the government continuing to expand Melbourne horizontally it’s a fair bet that for the next ten to twenty years or so things are going to remain horribly stuffed.

And here’s the biggest joke of all;

The government says it has an integrated housing and transport plan with housing-growth areas tied to existing or planned transport links.


Sorry, what existing transport links? And as for planning? Well we all know how long that takes or worse still never happens.

As other cities enjoy their world class facilities and infrastructure focusing on a smaller centralised concentrated populations it appears Australia is determined to head in the opposite direction.

Thank Christ I got out of there when I did. As much as I love the place, watching Australia attempt to further develop itself from an outside perspective is utterly painful to watch.

I wonder if proposals like this would get voted in part of the deal was forcing Victoria’s state politicians to move into these new areas and commute into the city on a daily basis? Somehow I think not.

Couple that with problematic worldwide jurisdiction, internet companies making billions and clueless internet users will dollar signs in their eyes and you’ve got a melting pot of litigation.

One such clueless internet user is Melbourne man Michael Trkulja.

Internet search engines cache snippets of the internet and present them in a searchable index for the general public. Common sense would dictate they don’t actually (inhouse content aside) create the vast majority of material published on the internet.

Search engines do have typically have a lot of money though and that makes them a target for money hungry opportunists.

Michael Trkulja was having dinner in 2004 with his mother in a St. Albans restaurant (the western suburbs, surprise surprise), when he was shot in the back by a man wearing a balaclava.

The police investigated and found no link between the shooting and Melbourne’s underworld. That however didn’t stop Trkulja from launching legal action against Google, Yahoo and Utah based hosting company BizHosting.

Some news reports are mentioning Yahoo and some are mentioning Google so I’m not sure if both were named in the court case or if Trkulja is suing them separately.

Here’s an article from News.com.au on Trkulja suing Google and another from APCMag on Trkulja and Yahoo.

For the purposes of this article I’ll just refer to them as ‘the search engines’, assuming Trkulja is looking to double his earnings and is suing both.

BizHosting were the company hosting the well known ‘Melbourne Crime: A journey into the Melbourne Underworld’ website. Originally hosted at http:/melbournecrime.bizhosting.com the site no longer works.

Trkulja insists that when someone punched his name into a search engine, the results displayed from the Melbourne Underworld website wrongfully linked Trkulja to Melbourne’s underworld.

Trkulja is ‘suing on the basis that the Yahoo page made it look like he was a criminal in the Melbourne crime scene, and so much so that someone had hired a hit-man to kill him.’

…really?

Not being a part of it I don’t profess to be an expert on Melbourne’s underworld but surely you need a bit more to go on then an internet search if you’re going to call in the hitmen?

Presumably Trkulja is claiming that he doesn’t have anything to do with the Melbourne Underworld, which then begs the question why was he shot? I mean if he truly doesn’t have anything to do with it, why would someone go and shoot him based off a search result? I’d have thought he’d have had to have done something, alleged or otherwise for there to be motive to kill.

Furthermore a police investigation found there to be no connection between the Melbourne Underworld and the Trkulja shooting.

So why was he shot?

Well one reasons could be that the western suburbs, let alone St Albans are the cesspools of Melbourne. Home to some of the scummiest people in Australia, people running around shooting, robbing, knifing and raping eachother is a daily occurrence.

If you live in such an area getting shot, although by no means justified, isn’t all that surprising.

Another reason could be Trkulja’s ethnic allegiance. Trkulja

says he is an organiser and a leader of the community of the former Yugoslavia in Australia and is well-known within that community.


Yugoslavia hey? Anyone who’s been to the Australian Open will testify that the entire Yugoslavian community is a little bonkers. Running around and shooting people, especially those ‘well-known within that community’ again doesn’t surprise me in the slightest.

Regardless of what the reason is however one thing is for certain, search engines Yahoo and Google did not author or publish the information linking Trkulja’s links to the Melbourne Underworld.

The website in question, Melbourne Crime: A journey into the Melbourne Underworld, appears to have been taken down by its host BizHosting in early 2008. As far as I can see, apart from Trkulja’s legal action there doesn’t appear to be anything else on the internet linking him to Melbourne’s Underworld.

If we humor Trkulja and hypothesize a win and payout for him, has anyone actually thought of the consequences?

Back in March 2009 there was an estimated 25.21 billion webpages and 109.5 million websites. Search wise, although no official numbers have been released, it’s estimated that Google alone provides results to roughly 2 billion search queries daily.

A win for Trkulja would mean some serious ramifications for search engine providers displaying results in Australia. Obviously nobody has the manpower to filter search results to ensure nobody’s feelings are hurt.

The greater problem though would be the certification that search engine providers are responsible for content published by third parties. Either we as the general public want the broadest information cached for our searching leisure or we don’t.

Even via the smartest AI currently available there’s simply no way to determine whether or not information is possibly defamatory based on local jurisdiction via content analysis alone.

Publishers are already liable and if found guilty of defamation or they voluntarily choose to remove content, procedures are already in place for the removal (either manually or via automation) of content in search results.

Between internet filters and stupid court cases like Trkulja’s, one can’t help but wonder just how much of a laughing stock of the internet Australia is. I think it’s high time a redraft of our laws that apply to the internet was at the very least considered.

The internet is only going to get more technologically advanced and sadly our judiciary are still living in stone ages.

After the sun goes down there’s more then a few areas out in the western suburb wastelands of Melbourne that you couldn’t pay me to walk through. The apex of which is probably Sunshine station.

Sometime over the last decade or so Sudanese refugees have decided to take over Sunshine station and now anyone walking in the area after dark faces being eyed off and, if you look vulnerable enough, set upon.

These gangs of Sudanese youth have been at times caught and when faced with the repercussions of the law stood opposite some pretty hefty charges.

Unfortunately leniency doesn’t even begin to describe the atrociously abundant generosity Australian courts have towards Sudanese refugees.

Kanan Kharbanda was walking with a friend to Sunshine station back in 2008. Upon nearing the station Kharbanda and his friend were approached by a gang of Sudanese refugees. One of them asked Kharbanda for a dollar and then the gang proceeded to kick the crap out of Kharbanda and his friend.

As a result of the attack Kharbanda ‘suffered a fractured eye socket and broken nose. He has lost the sight in his right eye‘.

So, two innocent people walking around Melbourne set upon by a gang and viciously beaten. Once apprehended what would you expect an appropriate sentence to be?

Deportation…? Nope.

Jail time…? Nope.

Anything remotely resembling justice…? Of course not, this is Australia.

The three youths charged over the attack on Kharbanda all got off scott free.

The two younger youths were sentenced to youth supervision orders. A youth supervision order means you have to see a youth worker a few times a week and perhaps do some community work. Crap on about how hard life was in Sudan macheteing people every day and bing badda boom you get to live your life unchanged.

Bit different to losing an eye for no apparent reason.

Meanwhile the third gang member charged, Majang Ngor was yesterday handed down a suspended sentence.

The judge suspended the jail term for 15 months and ordered Ngor to do 40 hours of community work, saying the greatest public benefit would come from his rehabilitation.


Sorry but how does the public benefit from this thugs rehabilitation? If I was facing serious jail time I’d probably stop binge drinking, finish year 12 and get a job at McDonalds too.

These actions are hardly a sign of Ngor having worked ‘hard to reform himself‘ as Judge Cohen put it. Working hard to appease a lenient court system perhaps but going above and beyond the rehabilitation process to warrant a suspended sentence?

Not even close.

What really irks me is the pitiful sentence Ngor got seems to be a result of the inexplicably lenient sentences the two other youths involved in the bashing received.

In Ngor’s case the prosecution called for a four year jail sentence, which in my mind is completely adequate given the circumstances.

Judge Cohen refused to sentence Ngor to anything remotely close to jail time noting that

Prosecutors had wanted him jailed for four years.

this would be unjust, given the penalties imposed on gang members who were more culpable. Ngor hadn’t been an instigator or a ringleader.


So because two other judges handed down completely unjust limp dick sentences, a third man is then by precedent also handed down a similarly limp dick rule.

Is there some unwritten rule that judges must not show any signs of independent thinking?

The Director of Public Prosecutions is appealing the Youth Supervision Orders handed down to the two other youths, one would think an appropriate sentence would add sizeable weight to their argument and pursuit of actual justice.

Instead we get a judge who acknowledges overly lenient sentences were handed out in two prior cases and like a sheep follows suit. Y’know, judicial status quo and all that.

The wider implications of these cases are that it sends a clear sign to Sudanese gangs that it’s open season on anyone living in Australia. Go and attack someone, get it out of your system, then stop drinking, crap on about life in Sudan, get a job and we’ll look after you.

By handing down such pathetic sentences when real crimes have been committed, the courts are actively encouraging that Australians are nothing more then punching bags to be used by the Sudanese to rehabilitate themselves.

Kanan Kharbanda lost an eye after being attacked by a gang. Somehow we’re supposed to believe that it’s in our best interests this gang be reintegrated into Australian society?

Australia, there’s nothing like it.

Reader bushrat concluded

Yep, up here thy are great out of the gate, but about six months on, after a few times in court, all the eagerness is gone, then they just drop the ball.


I agree completely and this is the exact sentiment I felt when I woke up this morning and had a read of the news.

The news.com.au article starts off by painting an innocent enough picture;

The five males, aged from 16 to 20, were enjoying a night out in Geelong.


Only they weren’t just simply ‘enjoying a night out‘, they were driving around hurling eggs at other vehicles.

One of their targets was a taxi driver and after egging his car

the taxi driver pursued the boys and attempted to force their car off the road by crashing into them.

The boys efforts to escape the taxi driver came to a grinding halt when their car blew a tire after hitting a gutter.

Police believe the taxi driver then crashed into the side of the boys’ car and jumped out armed with a tire iron and a knife before angrily smashing every window of the car, including the tail lights.


I’m not generally a fan of vigilante justice but in this case fair enough. If one man was able to subdue a carload of five young males throwing eggs around at other vehicles then I don’t particularly care how he did it.

The police response?

It is expected he (the taxi driver) will be charged with conduct endangering life, assaults, criminal damage and numerous traffic offenses.

The 17-year-old boy who threw the egg, received a caution from police for discharging a missile.


sorry what?!

Throwing eggs at moving cars is the same as hurling rocks from overpasses. It’s extremely dangerous, can obstruct the view of the driver and cause widespread road carnage.

But apparently if you engage in the act of throwing eggs at cars you just get let off with a caution. Bravo police, I’m sure that’ll send a message to all the other dropkick teenagers in Geelong.

Meanwhile the taxi driver is probably looking at jail time. If the taxi driver killed any of them then fair enough, but he didn’t.

The correct police response here is to charge the entire carload of young male idiots for being total fuckwits and to give the taxi driver a medal. This recent action by the Geelong police takes ex-police commissioner Nixon’s softly softly approach to all new lows.

Victoria Police issued a statement this morning titled “Nobody wins” regarding the egg-throwing incident.


At least the Victorian police and I agree on this point though. It’s a shame that society didn’t win when these guys wrapped themselves around a pole trying to flee the taxi driver.

If only…

Not really fussed about it, it was still a little intriguing to read that nobody was prepared to give up any information as to why. Williams was serving a thirty five year sentence at Barwon prison for his part in Melbourne’s underworld war.

Today news has just broke that Williams is dead under extremely suspicious circumstances…. co-incidence? I think not.

The Victorian Police, Williams’ former partner Roberta Williams and The Victorian State Government all refused to clarify exactly why the police were fronting the money for Williams’ daughters school fees. The Herald Sun newspaper was unable to publish the reason due to “legal reasons”.

I’m going to assume that if a newspaper can get to the bottom of why the Victorian Police are paying Carl William’s daughter’s school fees then those still playing in Melbourne’s underworld were able to too.

Williams sustained head injuries before going into cardiac arrest, strongly suggesting he was bashed to death. I don’t know about you but Williams dying less then 24 hours after it’s reported the Victorian Police are paying school fees on his behalf doesn’t sound co-incidental to me.

At this stage all signs are pointing to whatever the reason is the Victorian Police were paying the school fees over. Locked up in jail for years to come it’s kind of obvious the only commodity Williams had left to barter was information.

My money’s on somebody not wanting that information to get out.

Barwon Prison, where Williams was being held, is a maximum security prison located in Bacchus Marsh, Victoria.

Barwon Prison provides accommodation and services for maximum security mainstream prisoners including a 20-bed facility for high security prisoners and a 60-bed facility for maximum security protection prisoners.

With such a small prisoner population and no doubt copious amounts of surveillance due to the prison’s high security ‘clientele’, there’s no doubt footage of the incident must have been recorded.

The question I guess is whether or not we the general public will ever hear about it. The further implications of footage existing of course bearing clues into why Williams died and who murdered him.

Then of course there’s the question of were the media to blame. I’m not suggesting Carl William’s death was a tragedy in light of what he was convicted of, but does the media have a responsibility when it comes to leaking potentially deadly sensitive information?

I think it’s pretty clear had the school fees story not run last night, Williams would probably still be alive today.

It works because short of mass manufactured lobotomies and mainstream homosexuality, males are always going to be attracted to females and vice versa.

Despite this there seems to be an ever present contingent in society that refuses to give up. It seems they won’t be happy until we all live under an indistinguishable single sex society in a deluded feminist utopia.

The latest attack comes on our public schools and guess what, it’s too late for you to do anything about it.

The Labor government recently announced they’ve spent four hundred and sixty three million dollars on policy consultants and it’s good to see we’re getting our moneys worth.

A VicHealth report recently presented to the Education Department has recommended that

Teachers be trained in gender, violence and sexual health issues so they would be comfortable discussing “taboo” issues.

The report says programs for all students should start at primary level and be reinforced across all year levels in subjects including drama, English, science and sport.

It said feminist theories were best at explaining the link between gender power relations and violence against women, and must underpin the programs.


‘Today kids we’re going to learn about extracting pure copper via electrolysis. Everyone got their lumps of unrefined copper?

Right, now what I want you to do is follow me to the school bus. First we have to take our lumps of copper out to have a romantic lunch.

Over this meal I want you to look into it’s eyes and have a meaningful discussion about how you plan to refine it. Talk about the reasons why this needs to be done, reassure your lump that nothing bad is going to happen, that it won’t feel any pain and make it comfortable by telling it you’ll be right there the entire time.

Only those students able to obtain the full co-operation from their lumps of copper will be allowed to continue on with the experiment. The rest of you are potential wife bashers and will have to undergo extensive gender counselling for the rest of the semester.

Previously we’d have just gotten on with it but I’ve been advised this is now physical abuse and/or electrolysis rape”.

Welcome to the new state sanctioned curriculum. It’s not enough that there’s stuff all (straight) male teachers left in the profession because if you so much as breathe the wrong way you’re a child molesting pedophile, now we have to destroy the last remnants of masculinity in the student population too.

Give it a half decade or so and we’ll have an entire country full of genderless single mothers demanding their artificially inseminated babies come with skin that matches their designer handbags and come with government funded nannies, you know so they don’t miss any of the goss at work.

Not surprisingly is the reason behind the introduction of male bashing into our education system;

It’s crucial that students were taught that sexist attitudes and unequal relationships between the sexes were central to explaining violence.


‘Gather round kids, today we were going to learn about Pythagoras theorem but I’ve got a new curriculum from the government.

Alright now I want all the guys in the classroom to gather around in a bunch and all the girls to make a circle around them. Ok good, now what we’re going to do girls is one by one point at the guys and blame them for something. Anything you want.

And guys you just stand there and listen. I want you to think carefully about all those women you haven’t had the opportunity to discriminate against yet. Remember this is for your own good.

Ok who wants to go first?’

‘Me me me. It’s YOUR FAULT I don’t have breasts!’

‘It’s YOUR FAULT Jane spread rumours around the whole school that I’m a slut!’

‘It’s YOUR FAULT I got my first period yesterday!’

‘It’s YOUR FAULT I have a moustache!’

‘It’s YOUR FAULT daddy touches me at nigh-’

‘uh.. wait what?’

The problem with feminism is that while there are moderate feminists who will shout ‘omg Oz you’ve totally missed the point!’, ultimately male bashing is the road modern feminism is travelling down. Hijacked by man-hating harpies or not, this is just the way it is.

One example is the campaign slogan of female only gyms Fernwood, “No Tom’s, No Harry’s, No Dicks”. Whilst obviously gender discriminatory it was heralded by feminists as having set

the standard for a humorous, edgy PR program that exploited the gender divide and positioned Fernwood as a place where women had their own special space and were “empowered to shine”.


Talk about your spin. I believe this slogan is still used to advertise Fernwood on company cars.

Recently gentlemen clubs in Melbourne won the right to continue operating as male-only environments. Imagine the outcry if one of them adopted the slogan ‘Fuck off slags’.

Stripping away the layers of soft vagina coating, that’s the basic equivalent of the Fernwood campaign.

Two days ago was National White Ribbon Day. In a nutshell you wear a white ribbon and show your support for stopping violence against women.

Sounds great on the surface.

A few years back I worked in a predominantly female environment and I remember White Ribbon Day rolling around. One of the ladies I worked with came up and asked if I wanted to wear a ribbon. Being the only guy in the department meant I had two options;

a. Refuse to wear a ribbon and admit I beat my girlfriend each night.

b. Wear a ribbon and admit that whilst I used to beat my girlfriend each night I was now reformed because I chose to wear a white ribbon.

I chose to wear the ribbon and show my support but for the rest of the day felt like I was repenting for something I’d never done or been apart of.

But why wait until the adult years to instill this sense of guilt into the male population?

The introduction of feminist doctrine into primary school male children means the same manufactured feelings of guilt I felt can now be instilled in males before they’ve even got a grasp of the greater issues involved.

In essence we’re cultivating an entire male population of guilt on the presumption they will hit, beat, rape and abuse women later in their lives.

And the best part? Without any public input or consultation feminism in schools is already a reality.

Education Minister Bronwyn Pike said four schools would run anti-violence pilot programs from early next year.


Educational castration at its finest.

The first case I wrote about yesterday involved a gentlemen from the Northern Territory faking testicular cancer. He scored points for ingenuity and sheer display of, pardon the pun, balls.

This second case which surfaced today is a little more cliched and involves a young aspiring actress (who just happens to be a hot nurse) and an infatuated co-worker.

Part of me can’t believe there’s still girls out there that are this naive but the other part of me is off secretely celebrating the same fact.

So the story goes infatuated co-worker Jordan Hennig wasn’t having any luck with hot nurse Belinda Fitzgerald. So he does what any normal guy would do, he creates an online persona posing for a talent agency and convinces her to send him nudie pics.

Hennig sent Fitzgerald emails under the alias ‘Megan Jones’ and claimed to work for talent agency StarNow, who’s featured talent page looks more like a dodgy Myspace profile directory.

Seriously…?

Hennig convinced Fitzgerald that she was applying to be the covergirl of a beauty company ‘Completely Bare’. To gain her trust Hennig sent Fitzgerald nude photos supposedly of his alias, Jones. These were infact photos of a porn actress.

Of course once Hennig got the photos he told Fitzgerald the deal had broken through but that he’d keep them to masturbate over the photos would be kept on file for possible future use.

Here’s the kicker;

(Fitzgerald then) sent more revealing pictures to the fake Megan Jones and even allowed her exclusive access to a private Facebook photo album of her own racy images.

Yes this happened after Hennig told her the deal had fallen through.

I don’t use Facebook all that much and maybe when I do I’m just not searching for the right type of people but when did people start hosting racy photo albums of themselves on it?

Why do I feel so shamefully naive asking that question out loud?

In her defence sure she was being mislead but cmon, from the sounds of it this one was ready to go and fell for the one of the oldest tricks in the book. It’s 2009 and women are still falling for the ‘send me porn and I’ll make an actress out of you’ routine?

Fitzgerald somehow caught onto the ruse when she “stumbled across links to Megan Jones on Hennig’s work computer”. Whether this means she was reading his emails or she found a folder with the nudie pics in it I have no idea but it does beg the question what was she doing snooping around on his computer?

I presume the two knew eachother in an official work capacity beforehand but surely she must have suspected something to have a look around his desktop?

For someone so seemingly cunning to get her to front the nude pics in the first place it does seem rather weak to be caught out on a work computer of all things. You’d at least think he’d be doing something like this from a secured PC and not leaving evidence of it lying around… but I guess this is the world of scammers.

Why didn’t he just ask her out?

How people get into these situations I have no idea. What with all the internet stalking and crazies out there you’d think sending nude photos to anyone over the internet would be a giant no-no. Are there really naive attractive girls out there still willing to take this risk?

If you send nude photos to strangers over the internet where exactly do you think it’s going to lead to? Name one successful actress who got a start in porn (actresses who have porn leaks after their acting careers are established don’t count!).

This particular matter has since wound up in the magistrates court and Hennig is up for fraud and stalking. Whilst admitting that his actions were ‘dishonest and immoral’ Hennig is arguing that what he did isn’t fraud.

Yes creating an imaginary profile, pretending to work for a company and sending nude photos of a porn star to gain someone’s trust isn’t fraud.

Good luck defending that one mate.

Sidenote: As far as I can tell the Belinda’s nude photos haven’t leaked out yet (not sure if leaked is the right word seeing as they’ve already travelled online but anyway). It’s instances like this where I sometimes wish I lived in the US. They go crazy over this kind of stuff and always deliver the goods.

Mrs Beauty Pageant USA nudie pics anyone?

Regardless of the reason however, after passing into law back in April it seems the mistress laws are here to stay.

The basic idea behind these new laws was that if you were together with someone for two years in a de facto relationship, you now had a financial bounty over your head.

Naturally it didn’t take long for Australia’s cougar population to line up and start suing. Sadly if the first case involving the laws is anything to go by, these new laws are just going to be instant jackpot payouts to naive delusional women.

When I first wrote about the laws (The Australian Government’s alliance with golddiggers), I saw this bitter retaliation from scorned females coming a mile away. I even wrote up a list outlining several possible ludicrous scenarios that the mistress laws would facilitate.

Back then they were just a series of extreme and what I thought exagerated potential cases however now I’m not so sure.

The first case involving the new laws was heard in Melbourne and involves your usual corporate high flyer with wife and some hopeless woman who falls for the ‘he’ll leave her any day now’ routine.

“I gave him the best years of my life.”

“He always told me he would look after me, then he left me. I had committed myself fully to him for all those years and it just came to a dead end.”

The affair went on for over 20 years and if you thought my article title was a bit harsh read how the mistress describes her affair:

“I saw our relationship as a loving companionship.”

“He got a lot of relaxation away from the stresses of his business life. When he came to me he did not have to worry about business.”


…relaxation hey. When most couples talk about being together it’s usually a mutual thing. Stating a guy comes to you to indulge in escapism paints a pretty specific picture.

Still too harsh? The article continues;

Mary accompanied Tom on several overseas and interstate trips and she often joined him at dinner functions.

“They had a mutual commitment to each other and Tom promised he’d look after her. But he was married and still is married.”

“I provided him with a lot of moral and emotional support.”


Just how dumb do you have to be to fall for the oldest worm dangling excuse in the book? Of course ‘Tom’ promised to look after you – he was banging your brains out love.

If you’d asked him to promise to make you the next queen of England just before you opened your legs he’d have probably promised that too.

And what’s this nonsense about moral and emotional support?

What better way to show your moral support by having an affair with a married man… and emotional support? Since when did ‘Hay I come to you for sex’ equal emotional support?

Talk about glamorising sleeping with a married man geez.

But Oz… that still doesn’t explain the harshness!

Though Mary worked and had her own home, Tom also gave her a monthly allowance running into four figures.


Woman gets allowance for travelling overseas and to dinners with guy to provide ‘emotional and moral’ services support.

…what does that sound like to you?

Tom ended the affair this year.

Mary said she was devastated at being dropped.

Then she learned of the law change and her legal team sent a letter of demand - quoting the new legislation - to the man.

“It settled (out of court) within weeks,” her lawyer said.


In four sentences we pretty much cut to the reason this case went to court. Woman gets dumped and new laws allow her to see it as cha-ching in just a few short weeks.

That’s not quite how she puts it though;

Now I am beginning to come to terms with life again. The money provides me with a security in my later years.

This is also about giving our relationship a validity. It is a recognition that I have added something of value to his life.

He behaved like a gentleman toward me throughout our relationship - except at the end - and now he has been a gentleman again by doing the right thing.


What better way to validate an affair then by having both parties names suppressed by court order. And nothing says “I’m a gentleman” more then paying out your mistress a hundred grand after receiving a letter of demand from lawyers.

For someone who was working, owns a house and received a minimum of twelve grand annually, is a once off $100,000 payment really going to bankroll retirement security?. Sure it’s not just about financially screwing over the guy who dumped you love?


These new mistress laws are clearly there to be abused and I suspect we’re going to see many more of these types of cases in the near future. To be honest I’m surprised this first case wasn’t a whole lot messier. I really can’t wait for one to come along where the husband doesn’t just cave into financial demands within a few weeks.

At the end of the day there’s no moral high ground to take if you’re knowingly somebody’s mistress yet these laws attempt to instill a sense of moral decency in whores/escorts/mistresses or whatever you want to call them. That I believe is a dangerous message to send out.

I mean honestly, if the sum total of 20 of the “best years” of your life is a measly hundred grand, clearly your life wasn’t really going to amount to much anyway. Why we’re all of a sudden legally and financially rewarding adultery and cheaters I have no idea.

Note: When first published I misread “four figure” allowance as five figure allowance and after reader DB brought it to my attention, made some changes to the article in accordance.

The other time I wound up being stuck behind someone who had their ticket eaten by the boomgate machine and then had to wait sandwiched between cars.

When the machine eats your ticket you have to get out of your car and go and find somebody (god forbid somebody comes to you). This for me has meant running across the carpark and up the stairs because apart from trolley guys there’s no other employees down there.

I did ask the tyre changing guys and they just said someone should be floating around (there wasn’t).

Last weekend the ticket machine once again ate my ticket (FIX YOUR STUPID PARKING MACHINES COSTCO!) and this time I cracked it.

After walking around a bit I ditched the usual rigmarole of finding someone and instead made use of this convenient exit.


You’re welcome.


Earlier this year I was given a gift voucher for a 60 minute Kenkou mineral stone therapy massage at Geisha Melbourne. Not really knowing what stone massage therapy was (“they’re not gunna pound me with stones are they?”), I figured nonetheless this was probably one of those things you take your girlfriend along too and make an afternoon of it.

Long story short that fell through and after consideration I came to the conclusion that a stone therapy massage is probably not something you want to take a girl on a date out too.

‘Hey wanna come with me to get a stone massage?’

‘Woah slow down there cowboy. Take it easy, shouldn’t we like get married first or something?’

With the voucher expiry date looming ever closer I eventually decided to suck it up and book myself in, solo.

Walking into Geisha Melbourne is probably about as gender stereotypical for a massage place as you can get. There were women everywhere and for the life of me I couldn’t see a guy in sight.

Not that I was complaining but I did feel kinda out of place. Kinda that same feeling when a girl drags you into a clothing store and you just stand around and try not to get in the way.

The inside decor of the building was quite nice. They had dark polished floorboards and the building had been done up to look oriental. A Japanese garden thing near the waiting area was a nice touch.

After checking myself in I was given a questionnaire thing to fill in which kind of left me a bit open. Answering health questions and ‘which areas would you like us to focus on’ when you’re perfectly healthy kind of left me scratching my head as what to put down.

The form even asked me if I was pregnant or not… by which time I was starting to think I was the only guy that’d ever been to Geisha.

I thought it was probably a good idea to go to the toilet before a massage as I imagined it wasn’t  very relaxing holding it waiting for the massage to end. Just a quick note, if you’re planning to use Geisha’s toilets after walking up 100 flights of stairs (don’t you just love old buildings), be careful when you use the cubicles (sorry guys there’s no urinals).

I wasn’t paying much attention and didn’t realise the roof is extremely low in the toilet area. When you walk into a cubicle the roof actually slants down to the wall pyramid style and if you’re not paying attention you’ll walk right into it – like I did.

On the plus side it does give you something to put in the ‘what areas would you like us to concentrate on today?’ section of the questionnaire.

After meeting my masseuse I was taken upstairs into the massage rooms. They have those traditional (paper I think it is?) Japanese sliding doors and are quite well done up. Unfortunately I was too busy taking the experience in that I forgot to take a photo until after my massage.

Naturally when I walked in the bed was all nicely done up, (I thought about quickly tidying it up for the photo but didn’t want the masseuse to come back and think I was some kind of obsessive neat freak).

Relaxing music drifts through an inhouse speaker system although there must be a clothing store or something nearby as throughout the massage the inhouse music (not that it was up loud or anything), was interrupted by a thumping baseline which was a bit distracting.

The Kenkou massage itself was quite relaxing. I’m far from a massage connoisseur but I do know the difference between a painful massage and a relaxing one.

First I was presented with the choice of just a back massage or a front and back. Myself having no idea I did the best I could and asked what was the most common and was told that most people just get the back done. It’s a bit more relaxing if you don’t have to getup and turn yourself over mid massage.

Next we chose the massage oil fragrance we were going to use. By this stage I think the masseuse kinda triggered I didn’t have a clue so we did a blind smell test. From memory I picked out rosemary which is for “rejuvenating & relaxing”.

Suits me!

After having lying down and having the oil applied the massage starts. There was basically three components, the hand massage, the slightly rough stone massage and then the smooth rounder stones. I believe the stones used were Malachite and Zincite, I think Zincite was the smoother ones.

The stones are heated up in a little oven thing and are wonderfully warm to the touch when applied. I found it was a very complimentary addition to the standard hand massage. The smooth stones did at times feel a bit like a small rolling pin was running over my body but it wasn’t a bad sensation, just different.

The Kenkou stone massage basically covered the entire back of my body, from toes to my head. At the conclusion of the massage the rougher stones are placed all along your body, then you’re lightly covered and left to enjoy the warmth for 5-10 minutes or so.

By this stage I was completely relaxed and it was difficult to not fall asleep!

I left the bicycle at home for this outing feeling that even a relaxing slow ride would probably undo the relaxing feeling a good massage give you. Driving home from Geisha was kind of like a surreal experience.

I was wide awake but didn’t really care what was going around me on the road.

Once I got home I spent most of the evening on the couch and sleep later that night is where I really noticed the difference. I’m usually a pretty light sleeper and unless I’m really tired rarely drift off into that deep ‘black mind’ sleep that just flies.

I slept like a baby for 10 hours that night and didn’t stir once.

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Geisha Melbourne is located in the heart of the CBD on the first floor, 285 Little Collins Street. Ideally you’d want to take someone there and share the experience (they do spas and what not as well) but if you’re flying solo it’s just as relaxing.

I don’t know why but everytime there’s an award night the media try to make out like Australian ‘celebrities’ have some sort of glamorous fashion sense. As the Logies and all the other annual awards nights in Australia consistently show, the truth couldn’t be further removed.

I mean cmon, Crown doesn’t even have a red carpet – IT’S BLUE!

I’m not going to pretend like I’m some fashion guru or authority but I do know what makes me cringe. Last night’s Brownlow award was a perfect example of why Australia should keep our awards nights to ourselves.

The guys

Although Tom Harley on the right is rocking his suit, the other three clearly have that uncomfortable schoolboy look in their eyes. I imagine Joel Selwood, Stephen Johnson and Andre Mackie would be much more comfortable running around in fluoro coloured polo shirts posing at a bar.

Having poor fashion designer Godwin Hili do up your tie isn’t really helping either guys.

The girls

Chantelle Raleigh on the right here is a perfect example of why you should roadtest your dress before leaving the house (or preferably in the store before you buy it).

Functionality issues aside I do like the dress though provided you have the legs to pull it off which clearly Raleigh does. I guess if someone is going to have a potential wardrobe malfunction then it’s probably a good thing it’s her.

Meanwhile I can’t decide whether Hamish McIntosh is helplessly looking on or simply making the most of the moment.

Oh dear. Whoever told Brynne Gordon this was a good look needs hand in their fashion license immediately.

Seriously nobody thought to tell Gordon that looking like a Las Vegas Stripper dressed for the winter wasn’t a good idea?

Sure plastic sculpted breasts deserve their moment in the spotlight as much as any other breasts but there’s a time and a place.

…oh my god IT’S A SEQUIN BIKINI!

I’m going to hope that Gordon had someone tell her what to wear and that this wasn’t an organic creation. Even if it was, I hope she seriously considers hiring someone and then firing them just so she can claim it wasn’t her idea. That’s a career ender costume right there.

You know those curtains your parents used to hang over their windows? You might want to call them up just to check they’re still there, it seems Tania Hird has raided some poor pensioners lounge room.

The shape of the dress is nice and Tania’s body definitely does it justice, but why she chose a Franco Cozzo print I’ll never know.

Rolling it back further into the 80′s comes Justine Viney.

When you call your parents to check if their curtains are still there get them to have a look at the couch too, they might just find that Justine’s stolen their cover.

Hopefully whichever opshop Justine dug that dress out of does returns.

I don’t know if there was a gale force wind behind Donna Johnson but she seems pretty confident there rocking the power stance, all she needs is an air guitar.

Note to women everywhere: If you’re being photographed in a dress keep those legs closed!

As for the dress, it left me wanting a big tub of chocolate icecream…

I’ve been told the biggest fear of wearing a dress out is walking back into the room after a toilet break with some paper on your tail.

Sarah Williamson seems to have perfectly captured this feeling and encapsulated it into a dress. Now you too can spend the night with a mobile shit stain following you around.

Honestly which designer thought it’d be a good idea to create a ‘I just walked through a puddle of sewerage and ruined my dress’ look?

The stain even travels up the dress giving it that really soaked in look.

(from left to right)

Catherine Chappell: Again with the shiny? Jesus I know we’re in the middle of a financial crisis but do we really need to remake household furnishings into clothing?

Hayley MacCann: The studs on this dress make it look like a breastplate armour piece, very Xena Warrior Princess. Also, if you pay attention you’ll note the studs create arrows that all point to Hayley’s vagina (uh… not that I was paying attention or anything).

Tania Buckely: Unless you’re auditioning for a Peter Pan movie – NO!


Thankfully not all of the women at the Brownlow ceremony were fashion disasters. Some of them actually looked pretty nice!

(again, from left to right)

Rebecca Twigley: I know I know, plastic fantastic and all but credit given where credit is due. That’s a nice blended dress and she’s definitely got the figure to pull it off.

Lauren Tscharke: Lauren’s dress I think was the most ‘elegant’ out of all the ladies. It’s simple, has a rich colour and flows nicely.

Emily Marshall: Love the dark colour contrast. After the horrendousness of Gordon it was nice to see a darker tone dress done properly. Love heart attachment thing is slightly cheesy but I guess it adds to the cuteness.


All in all there were by far many more misses then there were hits on the night. I’m not sure if this is because of a lack of fashionable dresses in Australia or crappy choices made by organisers and/or the women themselves.

How about next year we just let the guys run around in tshirts and boardies and fly in some professionals to pick out wardrobes for the women?

It’s not like it could be any worse.

You can see the full Brownlow Gallery over at news.com.au.

The second time I went there I was slugged with the $5 Harbourtown carpark which was marginally annoying but acceptable.

After having finished my larger shopping trips today I head out on the Long Haul Trucker to see how bicycle shopping at Costco would work.

Thank god I didn’t bring the car, the Costco parking charges are now on display and they must be delusional if they think their rates are even remotely fair.

The one hour free period is a joke. I was there on my bicycle today, browsed a bit to check the prices of some bigger ticket items I am keen on, bought 2 packs of beef, milk and Nutella (I was going to buy Cocopops but the big box wouldn’t fit in my pannier!) and had a hotdog + drink afterwards.

I came in at just over 40 minutes.

I fail to see how anyone doing a larger shop is going to come in at less then an hour unless they ram people out of the way, don’t eat at the cafe, somehow manage to get a queueless register, FLY back to their car and just throw everything into the boot however it fits.

At 6 for 2 hours parking, even if you went once a month you’ve already raised your savings threshold from $60 (the membership cost) to $132. Two visits a month and all of a sudden you’re trying to saving threshold becomes $204. That’s on top of extra petrol to get there.

For a company that is providing a carpark for it’s loyal membership customers and presumably not relying on carpark fees, charging inflated hourly rates is a joke. Especially when there’s a much larger (but more inconvenient to take a trolley back to) Harbourtown carpark next door charging $5 all day.

In comparison Ikea down at Victoria Gardens have a brilliant parking system. It’s free for the first hour and if you spend more the $5 at Ikea it’s free for four hours. They validate your carpark ticket at the checkouts and if you forget they even have a person out the front who’ll validate it for you.

Now that’s good value.

Sorry Costco but you’re carpark charges are rubbish. Fix them.

The cafe today was a bit of a schmozzle too. The prices are still great but the coke machines were utterly broken. Two had no ice left and the other one had ice but was completely empty of drink. The Pepsi max I got from one of the no ice left machines was also ridiculously flat. Like cordial flat.

The sauces didn’t look to grubby today so I tried them out with my hotdog, mm nice. The onions though were a different story, I’m not sure who designed that machine but instead of getting onions out of them all you got was onion juice.

Probably won’t be going anywhere near that thing again.

On a plus note while snooping around the carpark I did spot an underground bicycle parking facility I hadn’t seen before.

Interestingly they’ve gone for the vertical peg style system which is kinda annoying but better then nothing. I’ve enhanced the brightness of the photo otherwise it was very dark and dinghy in there. As you can see there is lighting but for whatever reason it was switched off.

The undercover bicycle parking area is sandwiched between the tyre fitting area and the stairs leading up to the main entrance.

Personally I still prefer the convenience of the red beam parking out the front but if it’s raining I’ll probably leave my bike down here. I’ll most likely just wind up securing it to a sign in the carpark though rather then hoist it up in the bike parking area.

Long Haul Trucker’s aren’t exactly light.

Lastly I took it upon myself to use the Costco feedback forms (located to the left of the ‘merchandise pickup’ area behind the registers to give Costco my feedback.

Dear Costco,

What’s up with the carpark prices, you guys need to rethink those prices pretty quickly.

Also PLEASE stock some freaking milo already!

Love,

OzSoapbox

Armed with a shopping list, an idea of where things are and my meanest ‘GET THE HELL OUT OF MY WAY’ face today I headed back to Costco to stock up.

After 6 days of trading you’d think the pace might have slowed down at least slightly…

Like hell it did.

The line out the front for membership was even longer, somebody seemed to have invited half of all indians and east asians living in Melbourne to come down and the carparks, all three of them were batshit crazy.

It might sound kinda stupid reading how to shop at a supermarket but believe me this is the only way you’re going to get through it without

• punching someone in the head for being a moron.
• deliberately running over someone’s kids with your trolley because they are blind
• avoid a punch on over the last available trolley
• crack it and drive through the wall ‘hollywood style’ of the carparks upper levels because THE FREAKING EXIT QUEUE HASN’T MOVED FOR HALF AN HOUR!


If you’re thinking of heading down there, here’s what I’ve learnt after two visits.

1. Getting into the Costco carpark

Although Costco’s on-site carpark is huge, it’s nowhere near big enough so pretty much forget about it unless you’re going there on a weekday and it’s (relatively) quiet. The most painless way to get access to the Harbourtown carpark is going down Wurundjeri way, going straight past the Docklands Highway and then doing a right turn at the first set of lights.

Don’t bother looking it up in Google maps as it’s out of date and the street doesn’t even show up, well it does as a white line but that’s kind of useless.

Note that there are two Harbourtown carparks, the smaller one you get to by turning right just before the Bolte bridge turnoff on the Docklands highway is a waste of time. It’s too small and you just wind up being waved past the entrance and then have to navigate your way back to the main carpark anyway.

I didn’t get into the Costco carpark so I don’t know if they’re charging but any of the Harbourtown carparks will cost you $5 after one hour. Considering you might be waiting 30 mins+ to get out of Costco and then navigating your way back to the carpark, assume you’ll be paying $5.

Today it took me nearly 20 minutes just to get into the carpark (I wasted a lot of time stuffing around trying to find a shortcut from my previous route) and then nearly 40 minutes just getting out of the damn place.

I kept my cool but some people were losing it, I recorded this video while I waited because I found it amusing. There was so much honking the drivers could have cut a music album if they got their shit together.


Apologies over the jerkiness but all your seeing is my lap as I slowly driving around towards the exit. I didn’t have the balls to put the camera up near the windshield, seriously people were going apeshit crazy!

I don’t know why Costco only built one level of parking but they need about five extra levels of it under their store.

Alternatively there is bicycle parking just outside the entrance (yay!) on these giant red railings. Just take into consideration that for your first few shops you’re probably going to struggle to get everything home on a bike.

2. Eat food before you go in

Don’t worry about eating before going leaving for Costco, the food is so ridiculously cheap there you might as well enjoy it. Sure it’s not gourmet but at these prices who cares.

• Pizzas $3 a slice or $15 whole (I believe these are the same pre-baked pizzas available in store)
• Meat pie $3
• Chicken bake log roll thing $5
• Chicken Cesar Salad $6.50
• Sundae with topping $2.99
• Frozen Yogurt $2.49
• Fruit Smoothie $2.99
• Pork hotdog + unlimited 600ml refill softdrink $2.50


Personally I can’t go past the hotdog deal. If you grab one before you go in it’s light enough not to weigh you down and helps curb the munchies and stopping you from impulse buying too. The unlimited drinks refill is awesome too (chuga chuga softdrink!)

I’m not fussy and am happy to just have bread and a sausage for the price but there is condiments available (sauces, pickles, onions) if you want. Unfortunately it is self serve and the general public are slobs so I won’t be adding anything to my hotdogs anytime soon.

I was however tempted to crack open my bottle of Nandos sauce and pour it on but decided against it (someone might have asked me to share EWWWW).

The hotdog deal is so good hell I’d even stop there just riding through the docklands forget about shopping. Also note they don’t ask for Costco ID at the cafe although you’ll probably need one to get into the store unless you’re sneaky.

3. Bring a shopping list!

There’s definitely savings to be had at Costco but one thing that can screw up your budget is the impulse buys. Before I left the house today I sat down for five minutes and made a list of what I needed and what I was sussing out for possible future purchase.

If it’s stuff you’re regularly buying it helps to jot down the rough price (or exact if you know it) on the list, that way once you’re in at Costco you can do a quick comparison and see if you come out in front.

Some stuff is a no brainer though, for example mixed salad is $3 for a 500g bag ($6 a kg) at Costco, meanwhile Coles sells 250g bags for $4 or mixed salad loose for $16 a kg.

4. Stick to your shopping list!

Look around sure but don’t stray from that list you made before leaving unless it’s a something you forgot to put on there to begin with!

It’s very easy to walk around Costco and see a huge jar of something and want to buy it ‘just because’. I mean a 1kg jar of Salsa for $10 or whatever sounds AWESOME but if you’d only normally buy salsa when throwing a party, well then you’re not really saving anything by buying it as an impulse buy.

Infact you’re costing yourself money.

As hard as it is, make the list and stick to it. If something catches your eye you can always jot it down for next time that way you’ve got some time to think about it and do a price comparison as well.

5. Areas to avoid

1. The confectionery aisles

Stay away from the confectionery aisles, located to the left of the home theatre area when you’re walking in. Seriously if you have a weak non-existant will when it comes to lollies these aisles will murder your soul.

Stay further away from them if you have kids, this isn’t like Coles where you get to the register and notice a sneaky $2 Kinder Surprise in your shopping. At Costco it’s ‘the hell, $300 of what lollies now?!’

2. The muffin wall

Muffins at Costco come in big plastic tray things and it oh so easy to stand there and make yourself hungry. Unless you regularly bulk buy muffins from somewhere and have a damn good excuse, RUN!

3. Soft drinks

Even though I swore myself off buying cans of soft drink earlier this year due to skin problems (I can chug softdrink like it’s water) I couldn’t help myself. I seriously wanted to buy all the energy drink variety slabs and as many of the regular soft drink varieties as would fit in my mini.

I walked away with a box of the energy drink ‘Rush’ which was insane value at $20 for a box of 24 (although I have no idea how it tastes, expect a review tomorrow!) and two slabs of the 330ml Coke cans for $13.

I had to slap myself into not buying any more.


As you can see a little bit of modification to how you usually shop and some self control are key to making Costco savings work. Hopefully the mass crowds die down over the next month or so and the experience of shopping there can become a little less nightmarish.

Happy shopping!

Still trying to decide whether you want a Costco membership or not, why not read my article on Everything you need to know about Costco membership. You can also check out my first impression of Costco on their opening day.