I have explained everything...

...in the post from October 1998 in Archives.

Some Gods are Cooler than Others

Hola.
Ohh my first blog post ever so Hi everybody.
I bought a book in LA for the flight home the other day and its proving to be interesting.
Its called "How We Believe - Science, Skepticism and the Search for God" by Michael Shermer. Its basically about the mind and why and how humans believe in a "higher power" and what they get out of it. I have only just started it so i can't say much more. I guess i should have waited until i know more but this blog does say "half arsed" so i trying to keep in theme.
This is a cool quote

"Sometimes I think we're alone
Sometimes I think we're not
In either case, the thought is quite staggering"

Michael Shermer is a pretty cool guy, he founded the "Skeptics" mag and is directer of the society.
I was looking for his book "Why People Believe Wierd Things" but it was not to be.

Speaking about gods, this is me in Teotihuacan "City of the Gods". On top of the Temple of the Moon, looking towards the Temple of the Sun.

Guilty Pleasures

The PostSecret post has got me thinking about guilty pleasures and how they have changed for me over the years.

As a child guilty pleasures used to be things like eating the cake that my Grandpa hadn't eaten for lunch and gave to me and said don't tell Nanny. Or finding the stash of bandaids and covering my knees in them, cause bandaids rocked when I was three.

At school guilty pleasures were reading under the desk in year 8 English, playing cards in free periods during year 12 instead of studying, or signing ourselves out of school when we were eighteen and going off down the street at lunchtimes. Just because we could, but shouldn't have.

At Uni guilty pleasures included cutting lectures to go shopping in China town, or just sitting down stairs in the bar and watching people go by. Before marriage it was sneaking in naughties when Dave's parents were home without getting caught.

After marriage it was admiring a nice male bottom or set of legs, not necessarily the ones I had married.

Post toddler it seems that my number one guilty pleasure is going to the toilet by myself. It is ridiculous to feel guilty locking the door so I have five minutes peace on the bog, but by the amount of screaming going on outside you'd think that monsters were about to devour my son unless he could sit on Mummy's knee within the next three seconds. A close second is eating a biscuit without those big blue eyes widening in horror that one less biscuit is going to be going into that little rosebud mouth. Third is the guilty pleasure of putting my feet up and reading a book while Charlie is being bathed by Dad.

I wonder what my guilty pleasures will be in 10 years?

public health warning for Sydneysiders

If you plan to be in the Sydney Uni/Camperdown/Newtwon area tonight, you could be taking a large risk to your health. A whole bunch of mathematicians are being let loose after dark.
Since research has not conclusively ruled that socks-with-sandals and tweedjackets-with-elbowpatches isn't contageous, it might be wise to stay in tonight.

(What would the collective noun for mathematicians be I wonder?)

The Morning After

or

With friends like this, who needs to order-in a drunk idiot who puts their bum on your head?

This morning.
harry is looking down at the broken glass at the base of the loungeroom wall.

h: What did you say when you did this?

Matt: What?

h: You took the last swig, said something witty and hurled the glass against the wall.

Matt: Oh, I don't remember. But I don't remember putting my bum on your head either so [shrugs]


You see, sometimes when Lord Mattress Hammer gets drunk he starts flashing his nudeness about. And it doesn't matter if, oh for hypothetical's sake, that this is at a dinner-party where he has met, ooh, say, a particularly nice women called Flygirl for the first time, who is watching all this going on.
Out they/it come/s.
And you just might find yourself sitting on the floor sifting through CDs when you feel someone's bum on the back of your head.
I'm sure everyone has been to one of those dinner parties.

PostSecret

This 'blog' would have to be one of the most amazing things I've seen ever. It's updated every Sunday. People find it many things.. heartbreaking, inspiring.. but I think it's beautiful. So beautiful.

Postsecret
How does it make you feel?

In reverse order of Rank

Sarah Michelle Geller is to play Alice in a movie based on the computer game American McGee's Alice that Ob introduced various people to: http://alice.ea.com/ Dark, crazed. Hopefully directed by someone totally cool.

Cate Blanchett has signed up for the sequel to 'Elizabeth'. It probably won't be called 'Elizabeth 2'.

Kate's post about her brother on Lavartus Prodeo shows why she should be Benevolent Dictator of Australia.

how to make me UNBELIEVABLY cranky.

I was listening to the delightful Dr Karl on 2BL this morning as I drove home through the Blue Mountains, coming back from TMFP(tm) land.

by the way, it was snowing from Mount Vic through to Wentworth Falls. so lovely! I'm just a low-land-lubber who mostly sticks to the coast and so I've never actually driven through fresh, drifting, pretty-as-nothing-else snow. I bought a latte and went down to the Three Sisters to sit in the car and have a short marvel. of course, you couldn't see a thing except the aforementioned atmospheric wonder. and of course, I never, ever want to have to deal with normal life with anything more inconvenient than Sydney summer storms, but hey, it's just great to enjoy when you stumble across it. someone had even built the teeniest tiniest snowman on one of the entrance pillars in front of the Carrington. yes, it had a little face and the weeniest buttons down the front...

I'll stop now, I'm getting gushy.

back to the point!

Polio.

Dr Karl was saying that the World Health Organisation has had a world-wide campaign to eradicate Polio for some years now. they had been going really well and by 2003 there was only 6 countries with Polio cases still being presented...

but then some religious leaders in the north one of those 6 countries, Nigeria (top of the list along with India with the most cases) had insisted on a ban for the vaccine, claiming that USA was contaminating the supply to render their women infertile, or contaminating with carcinogens, or several other totally paranoid reasons, because of anti-muslim sentiments. apparently the government didn't stop or discourage this, because of public opinion and according to Karl, because they didn't want to stick the $$$ involved in the vaccination campaign.

so now, instead of the goal of polio being eradicted by 2005, there are 16 more countries, previously considered polio-free, with new cases which can be tracked back to West Africa, as a direct result of Nigeria's religious leaders being utter PRATFACES. they are - Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Côte d'Ivoire, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guinea, Indonesia, Mali, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Togo and Yemen.

here's what the ABC had to say back in 2003 -
Nigerian Islamic leader declares UN vaccines unsafe
West Africa impedes polio eradication

later, articles in 2004 from the Age,
Nigeria blamed for spread of polio

and the ABC (transcript from PM on 2BL) -
WHO fears polio epidemic

then Nigeria finally bothered to get back on board with vaccination in 2004, but only after being satisfied with the supplies they got from Indonesia. here's an article from the Nine News website -
Nigeria launches polio vaccination bid

finally, some recent news from the ABC (transcript from AM) -
Polio outbreak in Indonesia

also, for more info, here's the website of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative


also, ARGH!!!! this sort of thing totally shits me. people in authority, be it religious or otherwise, whose petty-minded fuckwittery results in innocents having to live with a permanent affliction.

I really, really hate that. it makes me want to do terrible things to the people involved. in this case there should be some general maiming and retribution, at the very least, along with infection with Polio so they can suffer for the rest of their lives. which will be much, much shorter than the poor buggers (mostly children) who have decades of callipers (one L or two? you decide) and pain to look forward to.

Harry, I have a job for you. bring the sword along, we're going to need it.
*storms off in a huff of self-righteousness*

If my circumstances change

Not that I'm suggesting anyone dust off the plans for the final act of Project mayhem, but banks and lending institutions should be blown up by the minions of Tyler Durden and..oh.
I'll start again. I was denied a credit card by Virgin. Repeatedly. And they won't tell me why I didn't meet their 'selection criteria' because that would obviously allow the green eyed zombies to rise from the earth and destroy civilisation one squirming schoolgirl at a time.
Blood. Panty shot. Heaving young breast. Blood. Random splintered bone. Panty shot.
You get the idea.
Obviously I have no wish for this to happen as Lord Mattress Hammer quite likes school girls, and they eventually occassionally become totally kick-arse women who rock and write snarly beats tracks or become a SuicideGril, and there can never be enough of them.
So I gave up my manly pleading over the phone to the woman on the other end and embraced my fate of sticking with ANZ.

My only ray of hope is the "should your circumstances change, please reapply". I note that this comes after the bit about finding some undeclared income or asset - as if someone might have casually forgotten that they work 16 hours a week at Seven-Eleven or own a Mazda MX5. How hopeful can you get?

So I'm thinking of how my circumstances could change quickly and effectively enough for me to get the credit card.
I'm becoming a woman.
Everyone knows that the absence of Y chromosomes magically makes everything cost 50% or more for no reason at all. Women simply NEED credit cards to survive in such a world.
And as part of the sisterhood I can share the other benefits of being a woman. Y'know like... oh... um...

So.
Anyone want to buy a lot of drugs? I pretty sure that counts.

Charlie's Book Meme

Thanks to Sage Salvador aged 2 and 3/4 for tagging me with this meme.

My book meme by Charlie Michael Ellis Johnson aged 2 and 1/3

Total number of books.

I don't know cause I can't count further than about 10 (with a bit of mumbling in the middle) and Mummy forgot to count for me.

Last book that was bought for me.

What made Tidalik laugh? Mummy bought this for me because she remembers it from pre-school. It is about a frog. I like Tiggers better.

Last book that was read to me.

Mummy started reading me Mulga Bill's Bicycle, but she stopped because I wouldn't stay in bed. Last night she read me some crap about Andrew Garrett in an attempt to bore me to sleep. But it didn't work.

5 books that mean a lot to me.

Winnie the Pooh book because it has lots of stories so Mummy can read to me for hours before I finally fall asleep.

Spot takes a Bath because I can read it in the bath and it has ducks in it and bubbles.

Nemo bath book because it has fishies in it. I point them out to Mummy and tell her that they are fish. She always forgets.

Mr Men books. Mummy found them cheap at the Post Office, and then she got two more when she bought washing powder. My Mummy knows how to be a cheapskate too.

Dog book. Another cheapy purchased to keep me quiet in the supermarket. It has pictures of dogs. I like dogs. I haven't yet worked out that I could have a dog of my own, but it won't be long. Mummy and Daddy are hoping that I don't start asking for a dog before we leave Alice Springs. I might get a dog for my birthday.

I am tagging Alex Bean (cause I can't spell his surname), World Peace and a Speedboat, Meg and harry.

I think it's funny to do a poo in my nappy, tell Mummy that I haven't done one when she asks me, then run away giggling when she tries to check.

A Taste Sensation

Waiting for me in my inbox this morning was this email from a friend who is currently working in Chiang Rai, Thailand. Maybe it's just that I'm pre-coffee.. but this doesn't appeal at all....

Hi!

I just wanted to tell you about my latest Thai taste sensation. One of the first things you learn to say in any language textbook here is "Thai food is delicious" and "I don't like foreign food". No-one likes foreign food, and western food, in Chiang Rai at least, is pretty bad. So I've been on a crusade to try and convert the people at work to liking foreign food. Today I bought cornchips and made salsa using Estelle's (delicious) recipe plus three chillis and two big cloves of garlic. They tried it, said it was nice but a bit tasteless, and added fish sauce, spoonfuls of sugar, and sweetened condensed milk! Then, it was apparently delicious! I think it might be a lost cause...

So.. what are YOUR hideous food stories?

why I want to go back to Spain...

...or, Orlando Bloom just isn't the spunkiest thing in Kingdom of Heaven...

went and saw KoH again on tuesday night with The Man From Portland(tm). this time, I got to sit far enough back from the screen so the action wasn't as blurry. yay!

anyway, apart from the mighty boots-n-all action (which I love as much as the next Lemming) it's just so beautifully evocative. all that spunky Arabic armour, the fabrics, the scenery, the souks, Eva Green swanning around in delicious jewellery and fabrics and henna (although they cheated with her fingernails, it wouldn't have worn off like that. it grows out with your nails). all that incense. there are a couple of times where you see people eating oranges, something which would have been a lot more exotic and luscious than we think of now.

and Sala'hadin. woohoo! talk about noble bearing and he had the spunkiest helmet n'est pas?

most of the palace interiors were shot in the Real Alcazar in Sevilla, Spain. it's a beautiful palace, not as mind-blowing as the Alhambra & Generalife in Granada (I could bore you witless with how stunning that is), but you still go wow. here's a picture I took a couple of years ago. so beautiful. so Mummy can I have one?

A man to aspire to

Dylan Moran!!

http://www.smh.com.au/news/TV--Radio/In-the-bad-books/2005/06/11/1118347624634.html

From SMH article:
Moran, however, is sick of the comparison. Known for his dislike of interviews, the 33-year-old Edinburgh resident, who created and co-wrote Black Books and who doesn't mind a drink and a cigarette, says people only need to read one article about him because they all say the same thing. "That I'm a grumpy comic ... who drinks," he says, before quoting in a world-weary tone: "As Dylan Moran fishes out another cigarette from his wine glass ..."
In a "melancholy way", I suggest.
"Yes, melancholy and dishevelled. And he refused to answer my questions and vomited on a passing child," he says.

WTF? Are you out of your mind?

Pretty catchy title hey? Shame this post is about house building. Well, actually about a house that is going to be built, as soon as we can agree on a design. We pretty much know what it's going to look like, what size rooms are going to be etc. We are just discovering that we have completely different, but equally crap, ideas on interior design. You know how some people just have that knack of thowing a few things together, and it works? Well if we do that it looks like we've thrown a few things together and really need to get our crap sorted out. Not the look we are after.

Dave would like to do a spiral or concentric circle pattern of floor tiles in the ensuite. He found some marble tiles he liked yesterday, which were grey and white, which he thought would do nicely. The only catch was that they were effectively $300 a square metre, which would mean it would cost $1200 to buy the tiles for a 4m2 ensuite. This is so not going to happen. Especially since it would also cost a bomb to get a tiler to actually lay them, or Dave would have to do it himself on weekends, which is also not going to happen. Besides that, since when has my ensuite been grey and white? Hello? Little bit of 'I wonder what Mindy would like in her house' would come in handy here. It's all about Me!

We then discussed the double shower that Dave has always wanted. Now I don't have any issues with a double shower, until he suggested that to fit it in, we'd have to shrink the walk thru robe. I nearly ended up with a linen cupboard as a wardrobe, girls. I mean WTF! His complaints that it would be nine feet high fell on very cranky ears let me tell you. We then decided to try other options, like a nifty little toilet whose cistern fits into a corner, with a matching corner basin, or a shower curtain rather than a shower screen, all which would have worked until we realised that if we were both in the bathroom at the same time, one of us would have to stand in the shower because there wasn't enough room for two people to stand together in the ensuite. Back to the drawing board. After much discussion about what had to give, and it wasn't going to be my wardrobe, we measured up the nursery in our current house and decided that it was probably more than big enough for a study, so we pruned 30cm off the study to add to the ensuite, which cunningly added another 30cm to the wardrobes as well. We then masking taped the outline of the ensuite onto the tile floor in the entry way so we could see how everything fit. Yay, we can both stand in it together now.

Later I sat and worried about this being one little room at one end of the house. How is he going to react when I ban beige completely? What about when I want a blue kitchen? Or a green bathroom? (If anyone out there with better colour sense than me thinks I'm going to far please feel free to say so). What about my dark coloured carpet? How are we going to survive planning much less building this house?

A little closer to house building time I'm actually going to set up a separate blog on building the house so I can whinge to my heart's content without putting people off Forbattle! I see some battles ahead...

Give me liberty or give me a smoke detector

This is a good case for how intrusive governments should be: NSW is looking at, or has already made, laws to force all new homes and rental homes to be fitted with smoke detectors.

In effect this is identical to making seat belt wearing mandatory. It is in your best interests to wear the seat belt, but since we can't trust people we're gonna make it illegal not to use them.
The arguement could, of course, be applied to drugs.
Not that I'm suggesting it's a slippery slope from installing smoke detectors in my house to having drug squad sweeps twice weekly, but you get the idea.

Should we let those people who are too stupid to take basic precautions gradually weed themselves out of the population in a series of horrible domestic accidents?
I say yes, and preferably on TV. I mean the only deaths you see on TV these days are Australian sketch shows. Certainly my position that all people capable of foolish domestic death should do so is based on the fact I think most people are a waste of time and their sole use seems to be to make the lines to the checkout or ATM longer. This gets my goat and they should all die.
Now I admit this is a totally indefensible position, but it is kinda funny, and in my book funny counts for lots, whereas serious stuff (such as too much punctuation in the one sentence) counts for very little.
That is why I hate John Howard. He simply isn't funny. Sure, he's funny looking, but the only joke I heard him say ("W-w-w-What's brown and sticky? Bob Brown") was only mildly amusing.

That is why shows such as "Worlds wildest Police Chases" and "World most violent public servants" are intrinsically good. Funny? Yes. Horrible deaths? Also.
Concise? Yes. Plagarising the Office? Also.

The question is: where would you draw the line? What obviously benefitial thing could the government not make mandatory without offending your libertarian ideal?

The wonder of youth

Charlie made a very exciting discovery on Saturday night. He found that if you are holding your penis when you wee you can use it like a hose and wet people with it. Like Daddy. Apparently it's very funny. Poor Daddy was torn between being proud of Charlie for making this discovery and annoyed at being wee'd on. Heh heh. Toddlers rock.

What the bleep do we know?

Go and see "What the bleep don't we know."
Go now.
Just get up, wander down to your nearest independant movie theatre and see it.
No, don't stop to do the washing up.
Just go.
I'm not even gonna suggest what it's about or post a link about it.
Go and take your brain with you.

even while I'm horrified I remain perpetually hopeful...

...because otherwise, what's the point?

thanks for the horrors of the planet's lingering death, Hazman... and even though the concept of encouraging you to be even more righteous absolutely scares the crappe out of me, here's a bone, puppy -

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/tvradio/programmes/horizon/dimming_trans.shtml

it's all about Global Dimming, which if you're worried about the Greenhouse Effect, you'll really, really want to read about. I don't know if you managed to watch this programme earlier on in the year on Four Corners, but I did. I watched the repeat as well, to wrap my head around it properly. and because it was bloody fascinating. read the transcript. it's just mind-boggling with a capital BOGGLE (and I don't mean that game with the dice in a plastic bubble, either).

there's a page on the four corners site with more links about Global Dimming -

http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/content/2005/s1328747.htm

go and sharpen the Flaming Sword, Harry - I'm off to design my Apocalypse-Viewing Frock. man, it's gunna be snazzy.

but you will let me know when it's happening, won't you?


ps - unused as I am to posting Serious Shit, I will endeavour in the next day or two to lighten the mood with a truly frivolous piece of ephemera. god knows we all need it!

Sorry to bum the vibe, but we are screwed

We are about to enter a new Dark Age. No, we really are. The pressure has been coming from a number of directions but the ONE bulwark that could stop us sliding back has been irrepairably damaged.

Of all the things in the world that anyone can slap with their palm and say "This is Truth" there was one where this actually was the case: scientific inquiry. The scientific method is the single best way we have of ascertaining whether something is true or not. The problem is that science has been politicised so much that non-scientists who formerly took-it-as-read or accepted it out of awe can now, justifiably, cast aspersions on anything scientific they want.

There have been great non-battles in the scientific arena: the most obvious and stereotypical being evolution versus creationism. The beauty of this was that evolution holds all the aces, so all creationism could do was chuck a tanty. Creationism was never a threat to science, because it was so easy to disprove creationist arguments, and only those who were wilfully ignorant could accept that evolution doesn't happen.
The problem is that now a particular branch of science - one so popular and well known - has entered the realm of belief. This new belief is The Greenhouse Effect. Sure there has been dogmatism in scientifical circles before. Sure there have been deleterious rivalries and embarrassing gaffs due to personalities and such like, but these are all dwarfed by The Greenhouse Effect, because now everyone has buy in. In this newest incarnation of mob-rule, fostered by the likes of Howard and Bush and their ideological compadres, you don't need to defend what you think.
Why is this bad?
Because that most idiotic of phrases "Everyone is entitled to their opinion" actually has currency now. Because that other obviously stupid concept "My opinion is as valid as yours" has weight.

Why do I think the grey clouds of doom are approaching?
Because this new belief is that the Greenhouse Effect is fact, instead of a credible warning. The debate has degenerated into a swapping of evidence on something that simply cannot be proved, nor disproved.

Ask yourself this question: Why are weather forecasters unable to predict accurately what is going to happen in a week's time?
I mean, we have decades of data; and big computers; and thousands of people working in the field of meteorology: so it seems obvious to make the conclusion that we should be able to do medium-range weather forecasting.
Well we can't.
And we can't because the weather is chaotic. That is, the Chaos branch of science.
Go read "Chaos" by James Gleik for the full skinny.
The basic idea is that a chaotic system is one where there is no end to it's complexity; where there are instantaneous tipping points; and where there is an impossibility of it behaving the same way twice. By definition a chaotic system is unpredictable. There is no way you can look at the previous points of data and accurately predict where the next data point will be. Sure, you can get close. You can get close for the first few data points, but after a certain number your predictions become no different than random chance. That is why weather forecasts are not given for a week: because the only thing you can guarentee about a forecast made seven days in advance is that it will be wrong.

The reason we can't predict the weather is the same reason we can't predict when the earth's magnetic field will reverse again or when the next ice-age will start. They are all chaotic systems.
You will have heard detractors of The Greenhouse Effect say that the computer models that are forecasting long term Greenhouse Effect are unreliable because they show either a desertworld or an iceworld. This is true: some models show an iceworld, some show a desert world. Many show the temperature becoming stable at various temperatures.
The usual defence of these models is that it needs more data points.
This simply isn't true.
No amount of data will help these models. Why? Because in a chaotic system you cannot tell from the previous data points what will happen in the medium to long term.
The irony is that all of these models could very well be right - yes all of them.
Unfortunately, the only way we will know that the "Earth stablises at 10degrees above today's temperature" model is the correct one is when the Earth actually stabilises at 10 degrees above what it is today.
We simply don't know. And we can't know. Not unless there is a scientific breakthrough of such proportions that it makes combination of The Big Bang, Relativity and the discovery of DNA look like the deductions of a mentally deficient two year old. Who doesn't have a head.
Somehow, I don't think that's going to happen. Might as well start praying to God to give you a pristine new Earth.

The problem is that the pro- Greenhouse Effect camp have nailed "We can prove it" to their mast. It is no more than cold comfort to know that it cannot be disproved either, but to the anti-GE camp this is irrelevant.
The point is we can't prove it. And someone's gonna spill those beans pretty soon. And then one of two things happens:
1) The pro-GE camp settles into dogmatism because it has invested too much political capital in their position to ever change without it looking like a rout.
2) The pro-GE says 'Yep it's a fair cop".

Either way the anti-GE camp will cry their victory, false as it may be, from the belfrys. And gleefully go about pouring mercury, PCBs, Patagonian Toothfish and Dioxins into baby formula saying "They lied about the Greenhouse Effect - we need never listen to an environmental scientist ever again. They have nothing but an ideological position."

And when the world gets to that stage I shall take up my sword.

Women in the media

Inspired by this fabulous post by the gorgeous Mon (go read it) I've been getting crankier and crankier about the portrayal of the female body in the media. I've been a little sheltered because I don't watch tv or read magazines... but it's very hard to ignore these chickies as they are plastered all over public transport.

Let me show you this, gacked from the SMH a couple of months ago. Apparently the scrawny little Nikki Webster just isn't thin enough for a men's magazine.. and those moles and freckles are sooooooo HORRIBLE.



Me I've got hips and an arse I can shake and a body worth cuddling. (Not to mention actually being worth talking to!) I've never had problems picking up. So these fake women and the MEN who create them can kiss my wobbly bits.

Bored now!

Right.
I've had it.
I had to use a potato peeler on my ears to avoid that shithouse Delta song.
'Which shithouse Delta song?'
'Any shithouse Delta song.'

BRING BACK HOLLY VALANCE!
Delta is bland, dull, boring and lame. She's been totally eclipsed, and rightly so, by Missy Higgins, so we have no need of her now. Kylie has a much more newsworthy cancer, so she can't even offer that any more.

I dunno about you but I just want to slap her. Sure, it might be mostly because she looks like she could be Pauline Hanson's daughter, but mostly because I get annoyed with her 'I'm Australia's Princess!' routine.
Not my bloody princess. A true Aussie Princess wouldn't be a drippy Princess but a full on Queen with all the majesty and respect that it entails. Not some floppy, droopy, chuxx wipe of a pretty little flimsy thing. Princesses suck arse! Mary Donaldson didn't sit around mooning at the pines or pining at the moon or whatever waiting for some dandy with good hair to waltz in a save her. No. She went out and caught her very own Prince, thereby showing the true makings of a queen. A true Aussie princess would go out fighting bushfires. Somehow I don't see Delta fighting bushfires. Missy Higgins does impromptue pole dancing with Jet. I can see her fighting fires. Sure Delta played a piano that was on fire but the one I want to see her play is the one at the end of 'Epic' by Faith No More. The one that blows up at the end.

So piss off Delta and bring back Holly and all her yumminess.

Dream job?

I always thought I wanted a job that paid well and wasn't very busy. Well now I have a job that pays okay, and isn't very busy and you know what? I'm not content. WTF I hear you ask. Well it's like this. The most exciting thing to happen this week is my boss has come back from maternity leave and brought the baby with her. So yesterday I spent a large part of the day soothing baby off to sleep, rocking her in her pram, holding her so she didn't cry while Mum got some work done. All lovely, don't get me wrong, but somehow not fulfilling, job wise. Made me clucky though.

Today I have been slightly busier and haven't handled baby all day, but then at about midday I finished everything, and have been reading blogs since. This afternoon I get to order a first aid kit. This could be the closest thing I do to work all afternoon. Unless the phone rings. Which it probably won't. Oh no I forgot, I also called the Office place to find out when our new photocopier is going to be delivered. The life of the corporate highflyer, not. I'm not sure how I'm going to sell the whole admin/nanny thing on my CV. I actually sat in front of the fax and waited while it printed out five pages, then picked up each page as it was spat out by the fax stamped it and wrote the date on it. That is today's most exciting event so far. In fact could be the week's most exciting event. Unless the photocopier actually is delivered tomorrow. But this is the Northern Territory so I'm not holding my breath.

If by chance the photocopier is delivered tomorrow, the most exciting thing to happen will be dealing with people whinging about not knowing how to use said new photocopier and expecting me to do it for them. Really tempted to sneak new photocopier in behind my desk and hunch over it, growling, like an alley cat over food, so that no one can piss me off by asking me to show them how to use it / do their photocopying for them. But I'm not sure I'm paid enough to go to all that effort.

...oh my god! oh thank you... thankyousomuch...

* swell of insincere squeals and applause, slowly dying as the microphone is approached*

..thank you... no really... you're very kind. I don't deserve this...

*genial chuckles all round. some think: you're so right...*

well, gosh, lucky I have a little speech prepared.

*almost-but-not-quite inaudible sigh and/or groan*

I'd like to take the time to thank my gracious sponsors here at For Battle! - really, they're wonderful. I could never have done it without them. this is for you guys! *shakes meanless shiny object* Thanks so much for letting me be part of this wonderful, inspirational project. It's changed my life already and can give hope to so many people out there... I just know it... *looks reflective and slightly teary* ...and I'd like to thank my mum and dad, of course, for making me the person I am today.Wow, I'm so overwhelmed, I just don't know what else to say...

*all thinks: get off, now, while you're not pissed enough to pull your skirt over your head*

... so I'd just like to finish by saying that the world really is beautiful, and I'll spend my time here trying to make it even more beautiful, because isn't that the best thing you can do? I mean, making it less... ummmm... ugly? Thank you for giving me this amazing opportunity. I'll make you all very proud of me.

*cheesy music swells as the stage empties and everyone heads for the free alcohol*

Why we should blow up animals.

Now, many of you will have seen Monty Python’s “And now for something completely different” with the cut-scenes that consist solely of animals exploding.
Many of you may not have realized that these cut-scenes have formed the basis of Japanese Oceanic Ecological Research.

The Japanese – okay, not that I think you can actually catergorise an entire nation by the actions of a few, but it just saves time – are proposing to start hunting Fin and Humpback whales because their increased numbers have been detrimental to Minke whales.

“"At this moment, abundance of Antarctic minke whales is stable in Area IV," Dr Matsuoka's paper said. "However, increases in abundance and habitat expansion of humpback and fin whales may be causing competition with Antarctic minke whales."”

So in order to protect the health of the Minke whales that the Japanese would like to blow up, the Japanese are going to blow up other whales. Now I like blowing up animals as much as the next man, well maybe the man next to him,… no, not Kevin, the other guy…yeah, the one with the dead cat strapped to his head, but even I know I like blowing them up because it’s fun. I certainly don’t regularly blow up the neighbourhood dogs to ensure the increased health of the neighbourhood cats (that I secretly want to blow at a later date). I do it cos it’s fun.

SO WHY DON’T THE JAPANESE JUST ADMIT THAT BLOWING UP WHALES IS FUN instead of this fucking bullshit about increasing the thickness of blubber in Minke whales? Do they think that they'll get Experience Points faster and go up a level? And I don’t for a second believe that the Japanese actually like eating whale - it’s just that the price of seafood is so expensive of over there, so some cut-price whale chunks are a welcome addition to any bowl.

Apparently the Minke whales’ blubber is getting thinner (and how do they know it’s getting thinner? Because they’ve been blowing them up for fourteen years and have the graphs to prove it. You remember the outcry when Aussie gymnasts were given pinch tests? Well imagine the outcry if the way they testes gymnasts’ fludoobedas was to BLOW THEM UP?), which indicates stress and less food, because there are more other whalesout there and there isn’t enough krill to go round. But guess who else eats krill? The Japanese!

Now I’m a bright guy. Maybe not as bright as a thousand suns, but I know some things about whales.
1) Whales are identified by the rest of the world by their distinctive flukes. This is a far less fun way of counting whale populations than blowing them up, but it is more polite.
2) Whales are cool. This is the only reason to preserve whales. Any talk about ecological niches is bullshit. Without whales we’ll just have more fish – the ecological niche is filled again. Gerald Durrell defended conservation best when he concluded an introduction to one of his books with “Because the world will be a darker place without them.”
3) Whales are not “the cockroaches of the sea” as one Japanese exponent of whaling claimed. Whales do not scatter when the light goes on. If you rip whales’ heads off they don’t keep living. Whales do not freak you out when you’re taking a crap at ten o’clock at night.

At least the Norwegians pretend that they are preserving their culture and the Inuit use hand thrown harpoons to take the bastards out. They don’t claim they’re doing it for ecological reasons. They claim they are doing it because they’ve always done it. And too right! It’s like Aussies taking the piss out of the Japs. We do it, because we’ve always done it. We didn’t go to war with them because we were worried about them encroaching on the ecological niches of the Chinese and Papua New Guineas. We did it because war is fun. And war has got infinitely more fun since you can actually blow people up. Imagine how boring it had to have been to actually stab someone with your own spear! It’s only since the Japanese have started making Anime and selling still-warm school girls panties that anyone in the West has taken them seriously. And frankly if they can justify their big-eyes-little-mouth and panty-shots with the all-encompassing Truth of “Cos it’s fun” (which it is), then the fact they can’t come up with even a half-arsed justification for destructive scientific sampling just says they can go get rooted. This reasoning isn’t even quarter-arsed. It’s not even a brief flash of buttock – and if anyone can teach us about the briefest flash of buttock it’s the Japanese. This reasoning is just embarrassing. Maybe they know that the only people they have to convince are the Americans and if anyone understands the idea of solving a problem by blowing something up, it’s the Yanks.

Look, the Japanese didn’t take too kindly to the destructive scientific tests delivered upon them in the past. So, it’s hard to see how they can think it’s such a good idea now.

It would be funny.. but it's NOT

According to the channel 7 news last night our pollies are looking at an average of ~$300 a week extra pay (including tax cuts and super) .. whilst similtaneously debating the $6.00 a week tax cut for low income earners. In other news, business and the government is fighting the ACTU over rise to minimum wage rates As reported here.

I'm not even going to go into corporate executive pay, the computer monitor here doesn't belong to me, and I don't want to get it all dirty when my brain explodes all over it.

*update*
"The Australian Industrial Relations Commission has today awarded Australia's lowest paid workers a pay rise of $17 a week.
The wage case finding is likely to be the commission's last before the Howard Government's proposed Fair Pay Commission takes over." more

Just coz I can...

A pinch and a punch
For the first day of the month
And no returns :)