Offensive? Moi?

Met some folks today in Hamilton, had a couple of beers, talked about a skit show we wanted to get up and running on community TV. Showed them a copy of a skit I wrote. It was called Racists Against Sexism. They seemed to think it had the potential to be offensive.

OFFENSIVE? Pull the other one. I mean, it's not like I was endorsing sexism, or anything like that. See for yourself - check out some of my PROPOSED CAMPAIGN SLOGANS:

We hate all wops, wogs, and the entrenched patriarchal institutions in our society

If you want Equal Employment Opportunities in the Workplace, you’re Allwhite by us

Whites Who Fight for Women’s Rights

Pure-bred Anglo-Aryans of every sex, fight for Non-discriminatory Workplace Practices

The KKK thinks Working Gals are AOK

Just because we don’t like wogs doesn’t mean we have to perpetuate outdated gender stereotypes

It doesn’t matter if you’re male or female, married or single, gay or straight, queer or bi – so long as you’re white

So Discriminating, we even Discriminate in our Discrimination

I mean, apart from the virulent prejudice against anyone not from an Anglo-saxon background, what's offensive about that? Really? I mean, SPEAK TO ME, people, WHAT HAVE I DONE WRONG?

*sound of crickets chirping*

... hello? Is there anyone out there?

I Feel Pretty (Bloody Pissed Off)

A while ago, I applied for the position of Hot, Horny Asian Girl, advertised on Yobbo's website. And did he get back to me? No, sirs! Not once!

I mean, sure, I may not live up to conventional standards of beauty, Asianess, or horniness, but as you will soon see, I'm positively shameless, and there's probably nothing I won't do to get myself a job.

I've included a 'hide-me' option with Javascript, so if there are any more delicate souls out there who don't wish to see photos of an ugly bastard like me, please don't go any further. Click here, instead, to go to a happy little website about bunnies.

For the rest of you - you were warned. And so, to the strains of Leonard Bernstein's I Feel Pretty (slightly altered for the occasion), let's begin...

Hide Me!
Show Me!
Click Here to Go to Comments (and if anyone could give me information about how to make this JavaScript thing work better, I'd like to hear from you...)

Solo shot of me...
Originally uploaded by willtypeforfood.

I feel pretty,
Oh so pretty,
I feel pretty, and witty, and bright...

meindrag2
Originally uploaded by willtypeforfood.

And I pity
Any girl boy non-gender-specific person who isn't me tonight...

What Just Happened???

I notice this web-site has just hit the 2000 mark. Who was the 2000 reader? Did you get a screen-shot?

Position Vacant

Local Employer requires an experienced and flexible Girlfriend of exceptional abilities.

Requirements: She must be kind, loving, sharing, tolerant, enthusiastic, willing, eager, shy, athletic, must like rugby, football, soccer (in that order), be willing to watch endless re-runs of The A-Team, have big tits, be willing to pick up after him, and be totally and absolutely devoted to his physical, emotional, spiritual, and mental well-being. Oh, and did I mention she must be totally shaggable? 'Cos she has to be that, too.

THIS IS A CASUAL POSITION. You will be paid $10 per hour, working at the employers discretion. The position has the potential to develop into a permanent part-time position depending on circumstances.

Please Note: The advertiser is an Unequal Opportunity Employer. If you're not a fully hot and bonkable employee, forget it. Oh, and you're not allowed to get jealous if he employs a hot blonde secretary, either, and then asks her out for drinks every night.

Job Description

I Am

- Familiar with current affairs
- Quick to form an opinion
- Happy to make an argument

I tend to

- Gather in packs with people who agree with my opinions;
- Drink a lot, fuck other people very much, and fuck other people over all the time;
- Lie
- Lie in a vain attempt to make my own arguments seem superior to other arguments
- Make a career out of the misery of others

I pretend to

- Care

But do I really?

- Not usually, no.

AM I:

a) A journalist?
b) A politician?

(I'll give you the answer later)

UPDATE - The answer was, of course, c) - None of the above. Think about it:

I Am: Familiar with current affairs

Since when was this an accurate description of either politicians or journalists????

Quote of the Day Night

You're pierced, I'm a freak, let's go!

Mathematical Problem

Suppose, just hypothetically speaking, that I had spent a night reading poetry in a Sydney pub and listening to others reading poetry. Then, for the sake of argument, suppose that I had gone out with some friends afterwards and had one or two or ten drinks. Then suppose, in theory, that I had gone to catch the train afterwards and drank coffee with one of the poets for an hour while waiting for another coffee to come in. Assume, further, that I was unable to sleep on the train journey home. And that by the time I got home it was light anyway and that I decided not to go home at all, but to on and do - like, you know, STUFF - at Raymond Terrace.

Assuming all these things to be true:

a) Should I feel more tired than I do now?

b) Would this have an effect on my productivity at work tomorrow - practically speaking?

Communist Propaganda

What can I say, it's like the spirit of Marx possessed me...













Of course, we all know that if the Commies had their way, all the sweatshops would be outlawed and li'l Tibor wouldn't get to eat at all...

PS Sorry about the length of download time, my computer still has issues and i don't have much photo software at the moment to perform editing...

PPS I've bumped the post up to the top, 'cos the photos have been fixed now, it looks much better, I'm rather proud of this one, and - well - just because.

Claimant Was a Strawberry Sponge

The other day at the office I overheard a conversation about star-signs.

Hmmmm...

DESCRIPTION

Age: 50 solstices
Height: Hey, let's not get all restricting and scientific here, man.
Build: Why are you insisting on limiting the Claimant to narrow western stereotypes about body weight?
Distinguishing Features: The Claimant was a Virgo.

Slacker Backtracks Election Tracker

Election Tracker website is winding up.

Speaking of which, I seem to have been winding up Tim Martyn. He seems to think that we should pour public money into inefficient technologies like solar power, as a way of assuaging the current media hysteria about the Greenhouse effect.
He also seems to think that people who believe in a global warming (like him) don't have to provide any evidence at all to support their theories, and that it's the people who don't believe in global warming (like me) have to provide all the evidence.
Then again, maybe he's all conflicted about this interview with James Lovelock, on Lateline the other night - where the old environmentalist says that the Greenhouse effect is happening, and that the best way of combating it is to switch from coal power to nuclear power.

On a happier note, Hailey Baldwin has set up her own blog. Apparently, she has a marmoset that needs shevelling. (The URL for that website is http://www.dishevelledmarmoset.blogspot.com).
Hailey was easily the best of the Election Tracker bloggers - maybe because her blogs so rarely had anything to do with politics, and didn't have any of the wanky, pseudo-intellectual analysis found in some of the other Trackers' blogs...
But seriously, the girl is a great writer. Check out some of her posts here.

UPDATE - Well, that Hailey Baldwin link worked for me a week ago, at work - but I haven't been able to get it going since. What happened to it?

Misogophobia!!!!!

Hey! You think it's cool being homophobic? Think again! Homophobia is so passe, man - there are much more up-to-date phobias!

There's monophobia (fear of monogamous relationships) and biphobia (fear of bisexuality)! There's polyphobia (possibly fear of polygamous relationships, or maybe fear of polysexuals, whatever they are)!
And, as EvilPundit pointed out - Phobophobia, "Fear of fear itself" can even be interpreted to mean fear of the heavenly body, Phobos.

Then there's -

Misophobia! (Fear of hatred, or possibly hatred of fear)
Misogophobia! (Fear of hatred of men)
Misandrophobia! (Fear of hatred of women)
Misandrogophobia! (Fear of hatred of androgynous peoples)

And, last but not least:

Misandrogomonopolyphobia! (Which I suppose means fear of hatred of androgynous peoples in monogamous relationships with polysexual peoples).
Get cracking, peoples! There's a whole load of phobias out there just waiting to be discovered - leave suggestions in comments!

My Work

I work part-time at a place in Belmont writing reports on other people who fake illness or injury because they don't want to work.

The fundamental strangeness of my job hasn't come home to me yet. There are five other report writers there - some part-time, some full-time - and maybe one of the ways in which we protect ourselves from guilt is by not thinking too much about the job that we do. Quite simply, to do the job properly we must be prepared to intrude quite significantly on other people's lives.
We work with video and investigators reports. The investigators are instructed by insurance companies, lawyers, or businesses, to take out surveillance on certain people. They then go round to those people's houses, or somewhere else where they can be sure to get good footage of 'The Claimant', and capture minute details about the persons movement, demeanour, etc, on tape. It's usually very hard to tell for sure whether they are faking injury, or whether they really do need workers compensation. So we are required to be inherently suspicious.
The reports we write are monotonous - deliberately so. Phrases like,

'The Claimant moved his head to either side'
'The Claimant repeatedly tapped her chest with her left hand'
'There was no activity.'

Are common.
The office atmosphere is almost clinical. Most of the people are friendly and open, and the boss is generous, but it's as if we have to maintain the detached nature of our work in our personal relationships. Somehow I can't see this sort of work leading to any romance. Imagine the come-on lines:

'I love the way you move the little finger of your left hand repeatedly through your hair while tilting your head several times up and down.'

I mean, it just doesn't do it for me!

I made a bad joke at work yesterday. We were talking about bipolar disorder - presumably someone was claiming that as the illness. There was some banter about the nature of bipolar disorder - what was it? It sounded to me like schizophrenia. B., from the desk behind me, said, 'No, it's more like manic depression.'

'I want it!' I said. 'I want bipolar disorder!'
J., the editor, from the desk next to mine, said quietly, 'No you don't.'
Not hearing this, I went on: 'I want it. I want it all! I want the crazy highs! The devastating lows! The awful in-betweens!'
J. says, 'Shut up, Tim.'
Which was enough to stop me from going on.

Well, it was a bad joke. But I was also part serious. I'm very curious about mental disorder, to the extent that I wonder what it is like to experience these things. No, I don't really want to wish pain on myself, or anyone else. But to actively wish for that sort of illness - is it any worse than to passively sit and take out reports on people who fake 1illness for reasons of their own?

Maybe one of these days I'll have an ethical crisis with this job, similar to the ethical crisis I had when I decided I just had to get work. For the moment, I'm just happy to sit back, do work, and let the money come in.

So How Was The Gulag

Mum got back from Russia about two weeks ago, and I had a chance to look at her photographs of the place today. But, despite my urgings, she got hardly any decent snapshots of crumbling socialist architecture.

Still, she did lend me this postcard of the Hotel Cosmos in Moscow:

Now that's what I call ugly.

Haiku

Haiku Written By A Man Committing Suicide By Jumping Off a 50-storey Building

Whhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhy did it haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaave tooooooooooo
Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeend this waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay? Aaaaaaaaaaall I ever
Waaaaaaaaaaaaanted was soooooome lo...
SPLAT!!!

Supplication Letter #2

To: drake@drake.hl.com.au

From: Sir Gribbles, Dragon Slayer

A thousand salutations upon the good people in your company. Let me introduce myself. I am SIR FORQUILLIDAR GRIBBLES, (of the house of Von Dikkle.) I am a Dragon Slayer by trade, but of late I have fallen upon penury and hard times.
Life as a Dragon Slayer has always been hard; I myself have risked my life on several occasions whilst carrying out my professional duties - rescuing wenches, defending rustic villagers, and doing the biddings of various Earls and Barons. The pay has been low, and, more often than not, non-existent. However, there have always been plenty of grateful people, and they have given me plenty of gifts in return for my duties - a spare goat here, a tankard of ale, a night with the Tavern Harlot - and aside from the occasional week here or there, I have never gone without a bed to sleep in or a meal.
Nevertheless, the quantity and quality of dragons to be slain has dropped off quite significantly lately; so much so that many of my fellow Dragon Slayers have turned to other jobs. My good friend, POMPILIUS ERGOMATIC THE SECOND, who made quite a name for himself in the Middle Ages when he destroyed Inglebingiar the Green-Firedrake with one hand tied behind his back, has indeed given up on the Dragon Slaying profession altogether. He suggests that I turn my skills to a more lucrative and - indeed - less risky profession, such as Typing, Reception, or Administration.
I, however, cannot agree with him there - I have always been a Dragon Slayer, and it is too late for me to learn new skills now, even if I want to. I have therefore decided to register with various Job Agencies, in the hope of more effectively spreading the word about my Dragon Slaying.
I will therefore close by appending to this Epistle a brief resume, listing my skills and experiences, and some contact details, in the hope that you will be able to help me in my quest to find some more dragons to slay and wenches to rescue.

I am,
As Ever,
Yours Faithfully,
Truly,
And Most Veritably,

Sir FORQUILLIDAR GRIBBLE, DRAGON SLAYER, OF THE HOUSE OF VON DIKKLE.

Birthplace: New Bonn, Germany

Experience: Rescuing Wenches
Dealing with Earls, Barons, and various Potentates
Destroying Ogres, Trolls, Various Heroic Activities, & co & co.

Contact Me On: SirGribblesDragonSlayer@yahoo.com.au

Let's see how they deal with that one...

Sloganology

Newcastle could be the place slogans come to die. One poster I saw in Belmont recently:

No War In Iraq!

Dated, 2002.
On the wall of the Community Arts Centre:

Vote 1 Beazley!

On the side of a building (under construction) in Charlestown:

Out John

And - most poignant of all - a sign I saw on a Union office just off Beaumont Street:

It's Over.

It was only afterwards that I saw the first two words, above that: Tell John

Newcastle, the most leftist, collectivised, unionised of all Australian cities - full of the echoes of past campaigns, littering the city, everywhere you go: past failures.

It's over

... But don't Tell John. Over and out.

A Poem By Edgar A. Leer

You've all heard of Edward Lear, right? The man who wrote The Owl and the Pussycat, The Yonghy-Bonghy-Bo, and The Dong With the Luminous Nose? No?
Then how about his cousin, Edgar A. Leer, and his poetical masterpiece The Nose With the Luminous Dong?

In a land long ago, in a time far away
Lived a man twice as high as a year and a day
And this fellow, he kept a miraculous pet
That was fabled in stories and song -
No, nothing more marvellous has been seen yet-
Than the Nose With the Luminous Dong, Dong, Dong,
Than the Nose With the Luminous Dong.

And the fame grew and grew of this curious Beast,
'Till it was twice as big as the Beatles - at least -
And talk of it spread all over the place -
Through kingdoms - and cities - and towns -
Yes, ladies in tearooms would talk of this case,
And it turned half the world upside down, down, down,
Yes it turned half the world upside down.

Folks would travel the world to see this strange creature
With its rather peculiar Proboscal feature
They'd travel by shoe, by sandal or thong,
By ocelot, zebu, or car
To hear the Nose sing - 'Trillabong! Trillabing!
What a beautiful pussy you are, are, are,
What a beautiful pussy you are!!!'

And sculptors would cast this Nose-with-a-dong
In marble (or fibreglass - made in Hong Kong!)
And artists would paint it - in oil and ink-
And many a bad poet would make a bad rhyme
There was even a film made about it (I think)
To preserve this Nose-Dong for all time, time, time,
To preserve this Nose-Dong for all time.

In a land long ago, in a time far away
Lived a man twice as high as a year and a day
And this fellow, he kept a miraculous pet
That was fabled in stories and song -
No, nothing more marvellous has been seen yet-
Than the Nose With the Luminous Dong, Dong, Dong,
Than the Nose With the Luminous Dong.

Don't like it? Hey, YOU try writing poetry on the bus to work and see what you come up with!

Don't Temp-t Me!

This is my first post since rising the stellar positon of Will Type For Food blogger and the pressue is on to make it good. I actually started writing a post last night that was so witty and urbane that it would have made your pants explode with joy... but my computer froze and I lost it forever. So, I thought I'd continue on from Tim's post on temp agencies and give you the inside shit on what happens if they do get you work. I've been temping for over 12 months and had some very good experiences I must admit, but then there are some really crumby bits too.

The worst part of temp work is that you get screwed over by the taxman big time. Just say you get some work and you need the money to feed your starving kids and it's a cold, cold winter so you work your fingers to the bone and put the time in so you get enough money to survive another week. So then you go up a tax bracket or two and you realise you could have worked less hours for around the same money. Well, that's how the system works and it happens to everyone. But then the next week there is no work so you are back to foraging through dumpsters for your dinner.

Now if you were getting paid fortnightly your tax would be averaged over that period, and would drop down to a reasonably-ish level but you are getting paid weekly so you just have to wear it.

And the only compensation is that you might get it back at tax time (which somehow doesn't seem to happen to me).

Another shitty thing is that you should be getting paid about 25% more than a permanent employee -- as a casual you get compensated for no sick leave and no holidays and none of that other good stuff. But it never seems to work out that way. Of course, you are unlikely to ever find out what the permanents are getting but I've made some pretty educated guesses and, at most, I've been getting a dollar or two an hour more.

Then you get work for places that call you "the temp" -- if they even bother to talk to you.

There are some advantages to temping though -- once you get in with a temp agency you get a pretty steady flow of work and it is much easier than trying to get a permanent job. The best thing though is whenever you are asked a question, you can look all wide-eyed and innocent and reply ... "I dunno, I'm only the temp."

On Matters Blog

This blog is now becoming a group blog: please welcome wondrous werd-mistress KathrynO to the fold! I've laid down VERY strict conditions on her becoming a blogger - she must be willing to post at least one post, EVERY millenium, plus the most must be in some way related to getting a job, (unless it's not).

In other matters blog, I've just been linked by Vikki McNaughton of the Applicant, who - I believe - is still hunting for a job. Never fear, Vikki, WillTypeForFood is here! I hereby pledge to use my power of blog to get you a job! Everyone, go to her website immediately and post a job offer through to her!

PS - Don't know any Green-haired Liberal voters, do you, Vikki?

Temping Rage

Oh yeah. Temping agencies. Don't mention Temping agencies to me. I'm likely to leap out of the computer at you and throttle you. I first registered with ten temping companies about a year ago, expecting - foolishly - that my skills would be immediately recognised.
Boy, how wrong I was. Over the next 12 months, as I fretted, fumed, frowned, and stared at the wall of my house for hours at a time, the temping agencies did their level best to frustrate me even more.
Oh, I've got stories about them all. There are the big ones. Forsythes. Drake. CGI. Skilled. Manpower. The local ones. Centre Staffing. Mazden. MAS. HGI. HGT. And the specialist ones. MediTemp. Labour Co-op. More frigging temping agencies than there are jobs! You'd imagine that you could just rock up, hand in your resume, speak to somebody about the job you want - but no. There are forms to be filled in. In triplicate! With multiples signatures! There are tests to be done. Typing! Numeric! Alpha-numeric! Numeric-alpha-numeric! Symbols! Comprehension! Each agency have got their own test, and each - supposedly - sets them apart from the rest. Don't imagine that you can go to one temping agency, with the results you got from another temping agency, and say, 'hey! Here you go!' No. You have to do another pointless test - again - that either tells you something you knew already (YOURE TYPING SPEED IS 80WPM) or something completely different. Either way, it's completely meaningless.
Then there are the Government temping agencies. These are the frigging-abso-frigging-lute-frigging PITS! With private temping agencies, there is at least a chance that you will be able to sit down with somebody understanding. Not with Government agencies. My worst memory is of walking into a Wesley Mission office in Mayfield, asking about a particular job they had advertised ('Menial Office Worker', maybe). A small guy in glasses took me into his office, sat me down, then - and I swear this is true - he looked at the back of his glasses while he told me, 'I'm sorry. The position has been filled. You've got a good resume, but have you ever considered taking up work in a Call Centre?'
Just as bad were Forsythes. These guys are big. Like, their reach is INTERNATIONAL. I registered with them first a year ago; when I left my resume with them, I asked Amy (for some reason, these places are all staffed by women called Amy) 'When will I hear from you regarding a job?'
'Oh, we'll call you in in a few weeks when a job comes up. Then we can sit down and give you an interview.'
Good. A job in a few weeks time. It's what I wanted. So I kept in constant contact with them, and the weeks stretched into months and the months stretched into half-a-bloody-YEAR! Then one day I call them, ask about a particular job they have advertised, and the person on the other end says, 'Okay. If you're really interested in the job, you can come in and have an interview with us.'
'What?' I spluttered. 'You said that you'd call me in when a job came up for me.'
'Oh no!' they said. 'We won't even know what sort of a job is suitable for you - ' (any bloody job, I muttered under my breath) ' - until we call you in for an interview!'

Great. You can't get recommended for a job until you get an interview and you can't get an interview until you get recommended for a job. It just says it all about temping agencies - gigantic, disorganised bureaucracies which exist to fuck the little people around. (And guess what? I'm still registered with at least 18 of them, and not ONE of them has called me back regarding jobs.)

Oh yeah. Temping Agencies. I know them. I know them too bloody well.

In Other News

In other, completely false news, readers of this blog have indicated their voting preferences in the poll to the right. 2 votes each were cast for:

Fluffy Bunny, the Cuddly-Wuddliest Candidate Ever;
Mr Whoop-whoop-ding-dong-niddly-whoop-Weylan-Jenkins-Smith, Leader of the Extremely Silly Party (Australian Branch);
and Mr I WILL CRUSH YOUR CHILDREN AND HAVE SEX WITH SMALL ANIMALS, leader of the Relatively Evil party;

However, the election turned out to be a dead heat between Voldemort, Lord of Darkness and Nastiness and a generally not-very-nice guy and One of those REAL candidates, whatever their names are, both securing 4 votes each.
However, since this is MY blog and I'll do whatever I like, I declare the election to be won by Voldemort. From henceforth, Australians shall now tremble as Voldemort brings us under his control. The streets shall run with blood! There shall be slaughter! There shall be torturing of small furry animals! There shall be evil laughter aplenty! FEAR THE COMING OF THE MIGHTY VOLDEMORT, Oh ye of Australia! BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Also in today's headlines: I had a salami sandwich for dinner today, with Camembert cheese, Osama bin Laden admits that he was a Vegan Lesbian In Disguise, and You Stink.

And Now for a Word from William Shakespeare

Bum.

Knew Poles!

Despite all indications to the contrary, this is no longer strictly a get work blog. The work has been gotten and - though I'm always looking for new work opportunities, etc - I'm looking to take this blog in new directions. To this end, I've put up a new poll, designed to help me overcome this blogs identity crisis:

What does a Get Work blogger do with his blog once he has - well - got work?

a)Get lost
b)Get fucked
c)Get rich
d)Get ebola
e)Get Carter
f)Turn his or her blog into the biggest internet pornography site ever
g)Turn to God

(I've placed the poll over to the right)

Global Boring

Being getting into some interesting debates lately about Climate Change. Anonymous (what's your name, Anon?) - commenting in an earlier post - seems to think that the increase of CO2 in the atmosphere will make something happen. Marcus W, in an email exchange, thinks that something bad is bound to happen at sometime in the future, he's just not sure what, when, or where. He writes:

What level of potential catastrophe is a reasonable risk?

Well then:

a) Sure, Anonymous, the levels of CO2 in the atmosphere might have some effect. About as much effect as sunspot activity, the sun, the moon, the effects of other planetary bodies, comets, asteroids, the occasional volcanic eruption which pumps thousands of tons of sulphur gases into the atmosphere, the normally variable weather patterns of the earth (which lurch from ice-age to temperate age with little warning), the movement of the earth's magnetic poles, the effect of the earth's biosphere, and about a thousand other things which also affect the weather. That is, on their own, they probably won't have much of an effect at all.

b) Marcus, if all the Theory of Climate Change does is say that Something Really Bad will Happen to Someone Somewhere, then it isn't a real theory. Make some specific predictions!

Okay, so here's the deal: Marcus mentions some possible occurences like:

- The flooding of Nauru and Bangladesh.
- A change in temperature in some areas.

If you think that global warming is happening, then you must be willing to commit yourself to these statements. Put your money where your mouth is! I tried to make a bet with Marcus, and I'm making another one now:

MAKE A CLEAR, VERIFIABLE PREDICTION ABOUT THE EFFECTS OF CLIMATE CHANGE. IF I ACCEPT, I'M WILLING TO LAY $500.00 ON THE LINE!

Some proposed bets:

- That Bangladesh will be flooded in 30 years time.

- That the polar ice-caps will have melted in 50 years time.

- That the Sahara desert will be covered in snow, all year round, by 2040.

Don't like them? Mail other suggestions through to me, or leave them in comments. My point is that if you really believe in climate change, if you really believe that it's going to make a difference to the way of life of everyone on this planet, then you must be willing to back up your claims with STRONG EVIDENCE. And, in a weather system as large and complicated as the Earth's, this is the sort of evidence that is required.

The Morning After the Day Before

It's a beautiful cool Sunday morning. The birds are singing, it looks like we might have a shower or two later in the day. The TV is on and playing Disney cartoons. Somewhere down the street, kids are blowing a whistle and dragging a cart along behind them as they deliver the Sunday Telegraph and the Sun Herald from door to door. Mums and Dads sit out on their verandahs and chat about how there's nothing to chat about. In the distance, you can hear the soft hush of cars travelling up and down Broadmeadow Road, like the rhythmic tidal hiss of the ocean. It looks like it's going to be a good summer. Nature is in a kind and gentle mood.
But the Right Wing Death Beasts are raucuous. Over at Blair's coop, there is screeching and cackling and gloating and shouting and swearing and back-patting aplenty. Somewhere to the Left, there is yowling and howling and growling and weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth.
Elsewhere, a Prime Minister is waking to three more years of power, while a disappointed Opposition leader wakes to - what?

It's a beautiful cool Sunday morning - but what will the next three years be like?

Vote Vote Vote Vote Vote

Today I went into a polling booth and made a non-choice between the non-politics of two major parties. I did it a) Because I was made to b) Because it's important to exercise your democratic freedoms and c) Because I was made to.
After reading through a handy checklist of the policies offered by all the major parties - find it here - I came to the depressing conclusion that they all offer nothing of real interest or usefulness to me and, instead, are grasping after the votes of significant minorities (older voters, families). The Coalition had the edge in regards to Iraq, Kyoto, and energy policy, but only marginally. Labor wants the 'troops out of Iraq' by Christmas but will keep them in the Gulf (whatever that means) and will also redeploy Australian troops in our own region (whatever that means.) Labor will sign up to Kyoto, but this is again only marginally worse than the Coalitions policy - to not sign up to Kyoto, but simply ensure that Australia does everything it can to appease continental Greenies who are to be blamed for the protocol in the first place.
Labor had a slight edge in relation to the arts, public health, and public education. Labor actually favours a new television station, while the Coalition simply wants the profits to continue to be shared out amongst Kommissars McManus, Singleton, Packer, etc - ie, they will continue to protect an already over-protected industry.
I will continue to support private education and private medication, but agree with Latham and the Labor party that, for them to be truly private, they must be willing to stand on their own two feet and submit to market forces, instead of continuing to rely upon limited Government funds, which really do need to be redirected into public schools and hospitals.
The Coalition favours the privatisation of Telstra - which would be a nice thing if it did happen. Labor supports 51% public ownership of Telstra. But both parties are broadly even on this issue - the Howard government is simply too cowardly to try to force the privatisation of Telstra through. They haven't done it in the past three years, and they won't do it (if they get in) in the next three years, either.
In the end, I voted - 1, Labor, 2, Liberals. Why? Well - a) It's time for a change, anyway - Governments should be changed regularly b) The Labor party had slightly better policies in areas that seemed to relate to me - the arts, youth, employment c) Under Latham's leadership, they've already brought about several important changes, and I think they may quite possibly be lying about Iraq, Telstra, etc, to get into power d) Latham may just be able to bring about some decent reforms - fixed terms, politicians salaries, limiting Government expenditure, and so on.

So that's it - my excuse, or my explanation. I think - no, wait, I KNOW that I'll be disapppointing a hell of a lot of Right Wing Death Beasts out there. I don't mind so much about that; what I do mind is being made to vote by politicians who are too cowardly to offer clear-cut policies, too timid to say what they mean, and too mendacious to do anything other than lie, lie, lie to an Australian public in order to get into power.

I would have voted anyway. But would they have acted the same way if I didn't HAVE to vote?

BY THE WAY - I live in Newcastle, one of the safest Labor seats in the country. So a Patriotic Vote for the Liberal party wouldn't have made a difference.

I Hereby Apologise to Everyone In The World...

... Another ill-considered, poorly-written political rant has been posted by me on the Election Tracker website. On the plus side, the hate mail is coming in already!

I think slandering every journo whose analyses receive wider acclaim than yours makes you feel important. There's a difference between being witty and just downright twitty.

While we're on the subject - of the Election Tracker website, not hate mail - I received a comment from Rachel (the editor) regarding a previous article I published. I wrote that the pictures had been censored out, and Rachel replied that some of the links didn't work anyway, and they would rather have included the pictures as just that, pictures.
I still prefer hate-mail, Rachel.

Speaking of hate-mail, everyone should send some to this girl.

UPDATE - he he he he he, more hate mail:

don't pull that 'put up or shut up' crap. take responsibility for what you've put into the public domain. also, of course you would write that the greens would drive the economy into the ground because you've uncritically accepted the coalition's codswallop, along with everyone else, that the economy is completely seperate from health, education and the environment. that somehow interest rates magically respond to john howard's whims, when the reality is our economy is essentially affected by how educated we are, by how healthy we are, and how well we look after our natural resources. fucking loggers. you won't have a job in 10 years if you cut down all the trees. fucking Come Fuck ME Union, what type of union says anything positive about this coalition government. just like everyone else they lost sight of the big picture. and Labor used big pictures and big targets, but underestimated how small the australian people are. we've got the prime minister we deserve. (different guest to before)

Follicle Politics

The Toupee of Doom
A Moral Allegory,
or,
An Allegorical Moral
(I'm not sure what)

It came from the depths of outer space... from a planet wrenched and wracked by wars, death and destruction. It had evil on its mind, and universal conquest as a plan.

It also had very bad manners.

It was the EVIL TOUPEE OF DOOM!
Pretty soon it found its unknowing victim... a little girl by the name of Margaret Anne who lived in a small town in England...

Dear sweet innocent little thing, totally unaware of what is about to happen to her...

With unerring instinct, the toupee wrapped itself over the little girls head. Follicles quickly pierced the little girls skull and inserted themselves into her brain. Before she knew it, the old little girl had ceased to be. Instead, the toupee-girl had become a new and fearsome entity ... the THATCHEROS!!!!

I am the dreaded Thatcheros! Bow before me, all, or FEEL MY WRATH!!!

"YES!" cried the Toupee. "NOW MY EVIL PLANS FOR WORLD DOMINATION CAN COMMENCE! I WILL BEGIN BY BREAKING THE BACKS OF THE UNIONS! AND ALLYING MYSELF WITH THE MOST CONSERVATIVE AMERICAN PRESIDENT TO HAVE EVER EXISTED! AND BY CONTINUING TO OPPOSE THE SOVIET UNION! AND PRETTY SOON, A NEW ERA OF ECONOMIC PROSPERITY WILL DAWN - AND ALL SHALL BE MY SLAVES! BWAHAHAHAHAHA!"

So the toupee set about putting its plans into action.

Boo hoo hoo.

"Boo hoo hoo" cried little Margaret Anne. "Let me go, please let me go."
But the toupee had other plans, and using Margaret Anne's body as a vessel, had soon spawned other toupees, who found themselves around the world...

Sweet little Bronwyn Bishop of Australia...

And innocent little Madeleine Albright of America...

"EXCELLENT", smirked the Thatcheros. "IT'S ALL FALLING INTO PLACE..."

Excellent...

The End

Subject: Gouranga

Call out Gouranga be happy!!!
Gouranga Gouranga Gouranga ....
That which brings the highest happiness!!

That is possibly the nicest email anyone has ever sent to me.

zINERS at TINAs

Highlight of the TINA festival is, was, and always will be the Zine fair - a massive four-hour tradeathon, full of weird, wild, wonderful, often whacky, sometimes wanky, and frequently whackadaisical small-time publications by all manner of artistes. Some of the goods on offer this year:

- Ferocious foam-flecked fulminations by that Baron of Bile, Mr. David 'Metal City' Elliot.;

- A deliciously, heart-fibrullatingly, pulsatingly, pulmonatingly witty zine from Kath titled '26 Internet Dates';

- Gemanations galore! Here's one entry:

I had this beautiful moment with a leaf. You know how in Autumn the leaves go brown and then fall off the trees and you feel like being a K-Mart ad and running through them in a beanie and scarf and grabbing a pile and flinging them at your sister?...Anyway...I was walking down Bourke St when this leaf began to fall from way up above my head, revolving in tiny perfect circles like a crunchy brown ballerina, just spinning straight down toward me like it was being wound down a skinny pole. I stopped to watch it and smiled like a maniac and felt my heart grow bigger and squelch open and leak strawberry serotonin smoothie all over my lungs and ribs and out through my nostrils and navel and onto my toes. It came to rest on the ground right in front of my feet. I decided it was a good omen, and ceremoniously stepped on it and crunched it to bits, which might seem a little discordant with my leaf-loving ebullience, but it was more in recognition of my omen being only for me, and it needed to be sealed with a fate that was different to all the other leaves around it. Kind of like throwing someone's ashes to sea, or burning photos of your ex.

People say I'm easily impressed. That's ok. It's good to fall in love with a piece of dead foliage once in a while.

Great stuff.

- Green party propaganda. IE, some paper called Forest Voice which had articles by three Green politicians on the first three pages. "If you'll just listen to me, and look at the paper, you'll see that it's got a wide range of voices from many different people," said the hippy chick I got it off. Yeah, right.

- More Comic Nasties from Steve Carter - delicious, pornographic, and bizarre.

- My own zine, a five minute effort produced in the morning called Green Haired Hippies for John Howard. Amongst other things, it contains some commentary on the girl I saw on Saturday wearing a 'fuck all Liberals' T-shirt. No complaints received yet, though Sam, who was sitting at our table, said that a girl picked up the zine, glanced through it, scowled, and finally put it down, saying, 'what a bizarre person'. Anyway, they were quickly distributed - all twenty copies of them! If you really want a copy, I can get one through to you, too...

- A fresh copy of InZine, the local youth zine I write for. It is, of course, the Number One publication in the world, but apart from that, it's quite a good read.

So - were any readers at the zine fair? Anything to add to this list? Any personal favourites, comments, etc? Any complaints to hurl at me about my zine? Tell us all about it!

Random Thought

I'll start off this post by putting something up for all the Howard haters out there:

Grrrrr! I hate you! You are an exceedingly unattractive little man, and I have serious philosophical differences with your neo-liberal policies!

Good. Now that we've got that out of the way, let's get on to a much more important subject. Croissants. I love croissants - don't you? I think there's nothing that tastes better than a crisp warm croissant with jam and butter along with your cup of morning coffee. "Of all sad words that have been said, there is nothing sadder than - I almost had some croissants" a great man once said. And he was right.
And yet, the other day, I walk into a cafe, ask for a short black and a croissant with jam and cream, and what do they say?
"Oh, we only have the ones with ham and cheese left."

What the...?

A cafe that doesn't serve croissants is bad enough. A cafe that serves croissants with ham and cheese? That's awful, atrocious, vile, disgusting; an offence against every unwritten culinary law in the known universe. Croissants are not a savoury food. To suggest otherwise is to descend into howling insanity, blind idiocy, mere nonsense. And yet, in cafes all across the country, people are daring to serve these delicacies - first developed as a celebration of the victory of Western forces over the Turkish Muslims at the gates of Vienna (or so I hear) - smeared in cheap unprocessed cheese.

Truly, we are living in a new dark age.

Blogroll - Doesn't That Word Strike You As Being Slightly Obscene?

During my time away from the virtual portals of the internet, I've actually spent my time boozing up in several pubs during the Newcastle TINA festival, and making friends with the gorgeous KathrynO, and David. They are duly added to the blogroll. Of course, David is a die-hard Commie*, but when we Fascists have taken over the world, we can implant electronic computer chips in his brain, and win him over to the cause.

*Don't take that comment literally. David is actually an Opera-singing banana from Mars, but he runs a good blog.

Hello

I've had computer problems over the last week, so as a result have been completely unable to blog. As a result, I've spent my time doing other things - such as Having a Life. It's been an interesting experience, full of People, Events, and Things, and I heartily recommend it to you if you have time to spare. On the other hand, it's possibly not suitable for children or the elderly, so be careful.

At any rate, I'm back now. Anything happen while I'm away?