New Zealander and US Open golf winner Michael Campbell is actually, apparently, an Australian. That’s how radio and the newspapers over there have been reporting it. Because he has an Australian wife.

Idiots! My wife is a red-head. Does that make me a red-head? No, it does not! Well, actually, my mother is a red-head, and, when I didn’t used to shave my head, I used to have some natural red highlights. But … what was my point again…?

The Sydney Morning Herald asks: "Can't we at least claim Campbell as, at the very least, an honorary Australian?
"Crikey, the Kiwis can have Russell Crowe back if they wish."

No, we bloody Do Not Wish.

Even the Brits are trying to claim Campbell as one of their own. They have been quick to highlight the golfer’s Scottish ancestry: “Britain can claim a small piece of Michael Campbell – thanks to his Scottish great-great-great-grandfather."

Idiots! Britain can claim the majority of NZ by that thinking. Most of us have European blood.

I’m English-Welsh-Scottish-Irish-Scandinavian (etc), but did you British bastards extend to me the same courtesy that you offer to EU passport holders when I came to visit? No.

And to think that we still have The Queen on our currency and the Union Jack on our flag. And to think that I had to have some smartass Yank point that out to me while standing in the six-mile-long non-EU line at UK immigration. While EU-passport holders like Germans got preferential treatment over me, a member of the Commonwealth. Za Germans! Didn’t we fight a couple of world wars against them?!

Yes. I am still sulking.

The NZ Herald is today reporting that 13,000 Kiwis may have had their credit card details hacked in a big security breach in the US.

This has me freaked because yesterday I ordered a Bud Buckley album online.
This morning I got this email from the outfit handling the financial transaction for the album. They are called CD Baby.

Here’s the email:

CD Baby loves D-Man!

Your CD has been gently taken from our CD Baby shelves with sterilized contamination-free gloves and placed onto a satin pillow.

A team of 50 employees inspected your CD and polished it to make sure it was in the best possible condition before mailing.

Our packing specialist from Japan lit a candle and a hush fell over the crowd as he put your CD into the finest gold-lined box that money can buy.

We all had a wonderful celebration afterwards and the whole party marched down the street to the post office where the entire town of Portland waved 'Bon Voyage!' to your package, on its way to you, in our private CD Baby jet on this day, Tuesday, June 21st.

I hope you had a wonderful time shopping at CD Baby. We sure did. Your picture is on our wall as 'Customer of the Year'. We're all exhausted but can't wait for you to come back to CDBABY.COM!!

Thank you once again,

Derek Sivers, president, CD Baby
the little CD store with the best new independent music

Can you see why I’m worried? The e-mail’s funny and all, but I can’t now help shaking this uneasy feeling that the next email I get from these bastards will be to say “Ha-Ha, Sucker!” Because, I mean, that’s the sort of thing I’d do if I were an Internet Scamster.

(If by some chance this isn’t a scam – how cool is that?! I’m customer of the year!)

Sapphire at Drenched in Wine did this fun little thing recently:

Go into your blog’s archives.
Find your 10th post (or closest to).
Find the seventh sentence (or closest to) and paste it in my comments.

Here's what I found.....