Here’s another wild result of COVID-19:

Cost of a Barrel of Crude Oil: Approximately AUD$32.11 (As of 4pm AWST) and plummeting towards nothing.

Cost of a pack of Marlboro Golds: Approximately AUD$43.

You know what this means…

You can call me ‘J.T.’ EWING, COZ I’M GETTING IN THE OIL GAME, BABY!

Honouring historical anniversaries

Did you know – Today marks 50 years since farmer Leonard Casley cracked the shits about wheat production quotas, and declared his farm to be an independent country from the tyrannical Australian government, founding the Hutt River Province, Australia’s longest-running micronation.

Anyway, as we all know, this week is the most important annual week of remembrance in our nation, as we commemorate the anniversary of an earth-shattering moment in Australian history.

Wednesday will mark 10 years to the day since the Melbourne Storm Salary Cap Scandal broke.

If you ask me, it’s one of those all-time ‘Where were you’ moments, like 9-11, the Moon Landings, or Jason Gillespie’s double century.

Where were you… When David Gallop strolled in to that memorable live press conference, and in the stunning span of 3 minutes, struck the 2007 and 2009 Premierships and the 2006-07-08 J.J. Giltinan Shields from the pages of history, blanked the Storm from the 2010 season, handing them a wooden spoon that the Cowboys had a mortgage on, and left 98% of the country at half-mast for a solid 3 days.

They said it was the greatest scandal in Australian sports history…

Until 2013, when everyone found out about Stephen Dank.

Lest We Forget.

The weirdest ANZAC Day in living memory

This is the first year since Dawn Services began in 1927 – So, 1926 – That there won’t be official Dawn Service on ANZAC Day.

This is also the first year since 1976 that there isn’t a AFL/VFL game on ANZAC Day, which feels even crazier, considering my generation has grown up with the Collingwood-Essendon game.

On the bright side, we do get to witness the paradox of the Hawkesbury Gold Cup being run at another remote part of Sydney.

Rosehill Gardens.

Lachie Hunter and Tyson Stengle

While we all ripped shreds off Lachie Hunter for being a completely irresponsible dickhead, Tyson Stengle quietly got 4 games and a $2500 fine from the Crows for being an irresponsible dickhead and blowing 0.125 in an unregistered car on Easter Thursday, but nobody cares about it, because it’s Adelaide, and everyone mistakes Stengle for Tyson Stenglein.

Meanwhile, Lachie Hunter got 4 games, a $5000 fine, a social distancing fine, he voluntarily stepped down as Vice Captaincy, and also got Bailey Smith a social distancing fine for being a good teammate and driving him away.

Clearly the difference was that the SA Police nabbed Tyson before he harmed anything, whereas Lachie cleaned up about 40 cars, so he got the extra $2500… Plus several thousand dollars in insurance claims coming his way.

On the other hand, they both got places in the Dickhead DUI All-Stars from Useless AFL Stats.

Two points.

One – Useless AFL Stats acknowledged the mistake of leaving out Heath Shaw, who had a drink-driving prang in August 2008, which Shaw was initially only fined for… Only for Collingwood to find out he lied about Alan Didak’s involvement, and the pair were rubbed out for the rest of 2008.

Two – I’d like to appoint John ‘Pig’s Arse’ Elliott’ as the President of this disgraced club.

Sky Racing providing us with new morning entertainment

Forget about the morning cartoons – Try the 101m Quarter Horse races at Remington Park in Oklahoma City!

Imagine if we tried a race like that in Australia with our thoroughbreds – It’d be like like trying to toss a coin with 8 sides.

Nature Strip vs Pippie vs Super Too in a race to ping the lids with Chautauqua still refsing to jump.

Imagine a Luc Longley episode of The Last Dance

Just an hour of Luc sitting in a dimly lit room at his house down in windswept Denmark, talking about all the shoulder and knee injuries he picked up, how weird Phil Jackson is, his years of being the Luc Longley Express and clogging the lane, and the simple fact that nobody remembers a 7 foot 2 Australian played alongside the most mythical athlete since Pele.

It’d be the most captivating hour of subscription TV since OJ: Made In America.

Talk about a shit way to go

No, it’s not Todd Greenberg jumping whilst being pushed, it’s about a bloody awful 1-2 punch for Anthony Cummings.

It was only recently that the 3-year-old Vegadaze won the G3 Star Kingdom at Rosehill (March 28th), and went off for a spell after running in the T.J. Smith at the start of April.

In a bad turn of events, Vegadaze had a nasty bout of colic (Which killed great horses like Northerly and Might and Power) in the paddock and went in for surgery on Sunday night.

Then, in what seemed to be a case of natural ‘fight or flight’ behaviour in a horse, the gelding tried standing after the operation, but the anesthesia hadn’t worn off, he broke his leg, and sadly that was that.

Despite decades of advancements in horse care and vet practices, accidents like this still happen.

But if that wasn’t freaky enough, 4 horses (3 fillies and a broodmare) were killed in a float rollover on Creek Road in Euroa last night, near the Hayes family’s Lindsay Park property.

In better news, the driver was unharmed.

Still, much like co-trainer Tom Dabernig, I don’t think I’ve ever seen/read about a float accident that severe… Probably ever.

BetEasy is closing down

And the AFL started to cry at losing one of their their ‘major’ betting partners in the middle of a crisis.

Suck it up, sunshine.

So, here’s the chain of events:

BetEasy as we know it was started in 2013 by Matt Tripp (Who had previously turned Sportsbet into a giant) and associates, before Crown Resorts bought into the brand and renamed it CrownBet, with Tripp running the show.

In February 2018, Canadian company The Stars Group bought a majority stake in CrownBet, who in turn bought William Hill Australia and merged the two brands into the current BetEasy brand – Tripp eventually sold all of his remaining shares in BetEasy to Stars Group in December of 2019.

Now, Irish company Flutter Entertainment (Owners of Sportsbet plus various other brands) & The Stars Group are merging into an unholy superpower, and BetEasy is being swallowed into the morass of former betting brands… Like Luxbet.

To quote Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn…

Honourable Mention for this week’s ‘It Happens’ Moment

Let’s just say I’m… branching out *ba dum tss*

I’m sorry, I can’t not laugh.