Boot-scooting Mercer Brother?
Illawarra Mercury
Saturday February 6, 1999
Time is running out to get your entry in for the Separated At Birth competition.
Elise Jenkins is certainly right in the hunt with her comparison of Wollongong ironman Darren Mercer and country and western singer Lee Kernaghan. ``It's as if they could be twins," Elise, of Corrimal, said.
Bob, of Dapto, similarly is convinced Prime Minister John Howard was the inspiration for the Furby range of soft toys. I think Bob might be getting his ears and eyebrows mixed up!
Still if he's right, could that mean Kim Beazley was the model for the original Cabbage Patch Doll?
There are those of us at The Illawarra Mercury who genuinely miss the barbed tongue of former Media Watch presenter Stuart Littlemore.
Monday nights just haven't been the same since Stu hung up his famous TV sneer and reverted to his profession as a barrister.
On Thursday Mercury reporter Jenny Dennis, who has been covering the coronial inquest into the death of Wingello firefighter David Quinlivan, had a heart-pounding brush with the ex-Mercury nemesis.
Several barristers at the inquest rose to complain about the inaccuracy of reports of the proceedings by a couple of journalists from rival papers (certainly not us!)
Jenny's heart leapt into her mouth when Mr Littlemore, representing insurance companies, rose from the bar table during the media-related debate ... after all The Mercury was hardly a Littlemore favourite.
She need not have worried.
The high-profile barrister just remarked that the media ``made the odd mistake" and could the proceedings get on with the job at hand.
Talk about the end of an era!
The approach of 2000 has technology-users around the world shaking in their hard drives.
By the way, really cool, up to date people know that the correct terminology for 2000 is Y2K.
I have to admit that when I first saw one of the ``Are You Prepared For Y2K?" billboards, I thought it was an ad for a new nightclub. A nine-year-old neighbour set me straight.
Will the dreaded Y2K bug blow all our computer systems to smithereens?
As digital clocks flick over to mark the first seconds of January 1, 2000, will aeroplanes just drop out of the sky?
The boffins tell us that some computer systems will survive the Y2K catastrophe unscathed. The problem is they can't seem to tell us which are the ones that will be unaffected.
Out in cyberspace the theories abound on how to test to find out if your equipment is ``Y2K compliant".
Cathy Joukador, of Albion Park, has this ``test" for photocopiers:
Take a piece of paper and write ``1st January, 2000". Photocopy it. Check the resulting copy. If the copy reads ``1st January, 2000" your photocopier is Y2K compliant. If it says ``1st January, 1900" then it's not.
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© 1999 Illawarra Mercury