Poke! Lucky fella; Dumping $50,000 worth of gold; supermarkets' dominance (30th August 2011)

Man stabbed himself on the head with shears, NO DIE [Brisbane Times]

Arizona, US - an old man accidentally impaled himself with a pair of pruning shears on the head, but he turned out okay and survived with a near miss. This happened at his place while he was working in his garden. He dropped the shears on the ground landed up-side-down. He then proceed to pick it up but failed to balance himself and fell onto the shear ended up having the handle went through into his eye socket and down his neck. He was immediately sent to hospital and surgeons removed the shears and rebuilt his orbital floor with metal mesh, saving his eye. I shouldn't say 'miraculous' but he is such a hell of a lucky fella.

$50,000 worth of gems and gold, dumped [Brisbane Times]

You old fool! Putting valuable gold ingots and jewellery into a garbage bag when packing for moving houses? This man accidentally threw away $50,000 worth of gold in the bin while cleaning out the family garage as they are moving house. Since then, he has yet to find that 3 bags of gold he had split. Normally it would be impossible for the garbage people to look for it since garbage bags has no indication of where they came from. But well, who knows? Maybe some day in the future they would be able to find it back! Even Caloundra landfill's co-ordinator of recovery and diversion Gary Reeve said 'it is hard enough to find it straight away but imagine going back a week later and trying to find it.' Wish you luck, mister!

Heinz blasts supermarket power [Brisbane Times]

I studied Economics when I was in high school but I didn't end up well in the public exam, but that's my fault. But who could fathom that Australia's two top supermarket chain, Woolies and Coles, are making such a hassle for the global food manufacturers? HJ Heinz, the company that sells my favourite food as a kid, baked beans, singled out the Australian market as the most difficult one to deal with among the rest of the world. Both supermarket companies are taking measures on slashing the prices of their own respective home-brand products, making other branded products lose it margin and pressured them to lower their prices as well. I don't understand the principles behind this, but I surely felt pity for them because it's almost impossible for them to compete when their products are put in places with the cheap home-branded products.

D.