I can sing a carols, but can Carol sing Timothys?
I can roam the dales all day long, but can Dale roam the Timothys?
I can wear trilbies on my head, but do Trilbys wear Timothys on theirs?
I can put Martins on my feet, but do Martins ever put Timothys on theirs?
I can romp in the clover, but does Clover ever romp in the Timothys?
I can do things in any number of johns, but can John do things in any number of Timothys?
No, no, no, no, no and again no.
These all seem to be, thankfully, quite one-sided arrangements.
Saturday, July 19, 2008
It's all in the delivery man
Every Friday afternoon at work, a man comes up the stairs and replaces the chocolates and the chips and the biscuits and the muesli bars in the lolly machine. I secretly envy this man: it must be nice, I think, to be the bringer of so much joy to so many poor and benighted office workers, the deliverer of happiness and light into the land of the wage slaves. That, I think as I bang away at another transcript, is what I want to be when I grow up.
But for all I know, the delivery man might think differently. He might have a bad back from shifting all those boxes of chips, and he might have aching legs, and a dental problem, and an ingrained aversion to chocolate, and a bad cold that he just can't shake off. This delivery man might secretly hate his job, and long to be a transcriber - banging away at another transcript.
I suppose, in a way, we are all delivery men.
Although, in another, more accurate way, I'm not a delivery man at all, I'm just a transcriber banging away at his transcripts every week. Still...
But for all I know, the delivery man might think differently. He might have a bad back from shifting all those boxes of chips, and he might have aching legs, and a dental problem, and an ingrained aversion to chocolate, and a bad cold that he just can't shake off. This delivery man might secretly hate his job, and long to be a transcriber - banging away at another transcript.
I suppose, in a way, we are all delivery men.
Although, in another, more accurate way, I'm not a delivery man at all, I'm just a transcriber banging away at his transcripts every week. Still...
Friday, July 18, 2008
They walk amongst us
I just went into the toilets at work, and while I was there, another guy went into the cubicle next to mine. After I'd done what I needed to do, I got up to wash my hands. Just a bit afterwards, the guy got up too, and left the toilet - without washing his hands.
He's probably out there, right now. And he probably still hasn't washed his hands.
They walk amongst us, these people. Every day. There could be one sitting next to you - right now. You never know...
Gem has a post category called 'Important things the whole world should know'. This is one of those things.
He's probably out there, right now. And he probably still hasn't washed his hands.
They walk amongst us, these people. Every day. There could be one sitting next to you - right now. You never know...
Gem has a post category called 'Important things the whole world should know'. This is one of those things.
Thursday, July 17, 2008
Like a possessed baritone, I can't stop bloody singing it!
Messages. All ads have messages, no matter how subtle they may be. For instance, the promotional material at New Zealand Natural icecream has the message that if you eat their product, you will instantly transform into a slender 20-something girl leaping the bubbling brooks and climbing the snow-topped mountains of New Zealand. The ads for Eclipse chewing gum posted all over the city have a message that if you are an attractive young person, you will stand about wearing a shirt with an inane slogan on it (I don't think the chewing gum really has anything to do with this one). Previews for cars currently screeningg at the movies suggest that when you drive your car, you will for some reason start singing 1970s pop songs that were better left forgotten. It's all about the message.
But the message for a radio advertisement I heard yesterday has got me frankly baffled. The problem with radio advertisements is that you can't hear the commas, but this one is trouble enough with commas. It was a simple jingle, with innocuous words:
One three one
Double oh eight
Silvertop taxis
Why wait.
These words were repeated at higher and higher pitches for what seemed like five or six times. It's simple, eh? But what does it mean? Perhaps it should read:
One three one, double oh eight. Silvertop taxis? Why wait?
(Why bother waiting for Silvertop taxis anyway?)
Or:
One three one, double oh eight. Silvertop taxis: why wait?
(People driving Silvertop taxis, why bother waiting for a passenger? They'll never come.)
Or:
One three one, double oh eight. Silver? Top taxis! Why? Wait!
(After typing in a phone number: Hello Silver! You have top taxis! I'll tell you why after the break.)
Or again:
Why wait, one three one double oh eight? Silvertop taxis.
(Agent 131008, why are you standing around waiting? Catch the taxi!)
Or again:
One three one double oh eight silvertop! Taxis? Why wait?
(There are one hundred million and thirty-one thousand and eight people with silver hair dye in this city. On a completely unrelated matter, why wait for taxis when you can walk?)
Or again:
Won three! Won double! Oh, ate. Silvertop. Taxis? Why? Weight!
(I won three medals, one for a double event, at the recent track and field. Then I had a meal afterwards, of a fish called silvertop. Then I caught a taxi, because I was feeling a bit heavy.)
Or, then again, perhaps - but this really does seem to be stretching the interpretation into areas that it couldn't possibly go - perhaps the ad meant to say:
Our number is 131 008. We are the company Silvertop Taxis, and we have a speedy and prompt service. Why stand around waiting when you can use us?
Nah, couldn't be.
But the message for a radio advertisement I heard yesterday has got me frankly baffled. The problem with radio advertisements is that you can't hear the commas, but this one is trouble enough with commas. It was a simple jingle, with innocuous words:
One three one
Double oh eight
Silvertop taxis
Why wait.
These words were repeated at higher and higher pitches for what seemed like five or six times. It's simple, eh? But what does it mean? Perhaps it should read:
One three one, double oh eight. Silvertop taxis? Why wait?
(Why bother waiting for Silvertop taxis anyway?)
Or:
One three one, double oh eight. Silvertop taxis: why wait?
(People driving Silvertop taxis, why bother waiting for a passenger? They'll never come.)
Or:
One three one, double oh eight. Silver? Top taxis! Why? Wait!
(After typing in a phone number: Hello Silver! You have top taxis! I'll tell you why after the break.)
Or again:
Why wait, one three one double oh eight? Silvertop taxis.
(Agent 131008, why are you standing around waiting? Catch the taxi!)
Or again:
One three one double oh eight silvertop! Taxis? Why wait?
(There are one hundred million and thirty-one thousand and eight people with silver hair dye in this city. On a completely unrelated matter, why wait for taxis when you can walk?)
Or again:
Won three! Won double! Oh, ate. Silvertop. Taxis? Why? Weight!
(I won three medals, one for a double event, at the recent track and field. Then I had a meal afterwards, of a fish called silvertop. Then I caught a taxi, because I was feeling a bit heavy.)
Or, then again, perhaps - but this really does seem to be stretching the interpretation into areas that it couldn't possibly go - perhaps the ad meant to say:
Our number is 131 008. We are the company Silvertop Taxis, and we have a speedy and prompt service. Why stand around waiting when you can use us?
Nah, couldn't be.
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Benedict gets down wid da homies
Yo, listen up, yo homies at the WYD -
I'm the top o' the pops o' the Dioceses -
I'm bigga than the jiggaz in the White House, too -
You don't know me, homey,
Cos you don't got to know me -
I've got the keys to heaven -
I'm the P-O-P-E!
He's the P, O, P, E,
P-O-P-E!
I got the news for protestants, and atheists, too -
You ain't lookin' for God, but God is lookin' fo you!
Look at you watchez, bitchez, cos yo time is up -
An you don't know me, homey,
Cos you don't got to know me -
I've got the keys to heaven -
I'm the P-O-P-E!
He's the P, O, P, E,
P-O-P-E!
Fornication in this nation, it has got to stop -
For the devil is the Devil, an' he just don't hip-hop
An instead of fame and glory, he's in purgatory -
Yeah, you don't know me, homey,
Cos you don't got to know me -
I've got the keys to heaven -
I'm the P-O-P-E!
He's the P, O, P, E,
P-O-P-E!
I'll blast yo ass to God, or I'll send yo to hell,
I'll cap yo for yo sinnin and make you confess, well
Heard of original sin? I'm the original sinner!
I say that black mass backwards seven times befo' my dinner!
I've done menial and venial and mortal sinnin', too -
Yeah, you don't know me, homey,
Cos you don't got to know me -
I've got the keys to heaven -
I'm the P-O-P-E!
He's the P, O, P, E,
P-O-P-E!
Yo, listen up, yo homies at the WYD -
I'm the top o' the pops o' the Diocese -
I'm bigga than the jiggaz in the White House, too -
You don't know me, homey,
Cos you don't got to know me -
I've got the keys to heaven -
I'm the P-O-P-E!
He's the P, O, P, E,
P-O-P-E!
Saturday, July 12, 2008
And stay up there!
Activists spend night perched up power station chimneyI think they should stay up there! Word is they were originally threatening not to come down until the Swanbank Power Station was shut down. Well, I'd like to send a message to the protesters right here and now (I'm sure they'll get the message - after all, they had time to put up blog posts and have a few mobile phone interviews with radio presenters). Protesters, the energy future of Australia is much too serious to stop now; you should stay up that power stack until the entire nation - no, the entire world - goes solar! Stay up there forever if need be!
Four Greenpeace activists have spent a cold night sitting on top of a smoke stack at the Swanbank Power Station west of Brisbane.
The activists - protesting against coal-fired electricity - have been on the smoke stack for more than 24 hours after breaking into the power station early yesterday morning.
It wouldn't be too difficult to find other reasons for them to stay up there. Why, we need to send out a strong message to the Labor Party that this is not a time to be flirting with nuclear energy, and what better way of sending out that message than for you to stay up that smoke stack? And what about the issue of mulesing? True, it's got nothing to do with Australia's energy future, but it's important, dammit - important enough to keep you guys up the smoke stack, that is!
I think we should send out a strong and appropriate message here and now to these protesters, who are - at least according to one radio interview - getting paid and recompensed by Greenpeace for their 'principled' actions: protesters, stay up that big old smoke stack and show the world how much you care... and we'll show you how much we care, too!
Friday, July 11, 2008
I still don't know
Sitting at the back of the tram, watching out the rear window as the city receded by, I noticed a rack on the wall with pamphlets sticking out. The text at the top of the pamphlets read, 'DID YOU KNOW...'
Maybe if I opened up the pamphlet, it would have answered the implied question with a completely inconsequential statement such as 'I really like buttons!' Or 'Today, I saw a cloud that looked like an elephant!' That would have been quite interesting, actually. Though more likely it would have been a mind-clobberingly-boring set of details about safety on public transport.
Preferring not to sully the good impression the pamphlet had left on me, I got off the tram a couple of stops later without picking one out of the rack, and headed up Normanby Avenue to my home.
Maybe if I opened up the pamphlet, it would have answered the implied question with a completely inconsequential statement such as 'I really like buttons!' Or 'Today, I saw a cloud that looked like an elephant!' That would have been quite interesting, actually. Though more likely it would have been a mind-clobberingly-boring set of details about safety on public transport.
Preferring not to sully the good impression the pamphlet had left on me, I got off the tram a couple of stops later without picking one out of the rack, and headed up Normanby Avenue to my home.
Epigrams of the tax office
Better take the tax out of the man than the man out of the tax.
***
Taketh from the rich to give to the poor. Taketh from the poor to give to the politicians. Do not taketh from the politicians at all - are you crazy, man?
***
Honour thy father and thy mother. But don't forget to invoice them.
***
For every act, there is a time; for every town, there is a place; for every man, there is a tax file number, bank account details, serial code, collection of data, and crack investigation team ready.
***
Be as sly as serpents, and as gentle as serpents.
***
Everything that lives is holy. But only man produces money.
***
There is God, there is the Devil, and then there is the Health Department.
***
Tax the rich man more than he can afford, to give the poor man less than he needs.
***
A penny saved is a penny earned is a lucrative opportunity for broadening the tax base burned.
***
Conan, what is the best in life?
To tax the villagers and hear the lamentation of the women.
***
A vast and bloated bureaucracy is not nearly big enough.
***
Tax the rich in adversity: they can afford it.
Tax the poor in adversity anyway.
***
Time is best spent working. Work is best spent earning money. Money is best spent according to the whims of various government departments.
***
If it moves, tax it. If it stops, tax it. If it drops, tax the hell out of it. Then call for the ambulance, and tax them too. Then tax everything in sight. Then tax everything else.
***
The taxpayer who sleeps happily in his bed of a night is obviously cheating.
***
Pay up, or the budget gets it!
***
Tax is legal. Crime is not.
***
There is only one thing certain in this life - taxes. Death, on the other hand, is debatable.
***
Money doesn't make the world go around, but we're working on it.
***
The Lord giveth, and the tax office taketh away.
***
Destroy them all!
***
If you like looting and plundering, you might consider taking up a lucrative career with us!
***
The GST is AOK at the ATO!
***
Fairness has nothing to do with it.
***
Some tax is better than no tax. More tax is better than some tax.
***
KICS: Keep It Complicated, Stupid!
***
Thrift is an outdated concept.
***
Pay up, buster!
***
He suffered from a common form of madness: he thought he earned money for himself.
***
Tax is just the cake. The niggling guilt of the taxpayer is the icing, and their consequent life-long anxiety is the cherry on the top.
***
You don't get what you earn, you get what's left over.
***
Why do we take from you? Because we're allowed to.
***
Every morning
Every day
Love your wife
But make her pay.
Tax her up
And tax her down
Tax her here there
All around.
As the boss
Will often say
"Tax them every
Fricking way."
Every morning
Every day
Love your wife
But make her pay.
***
We are the ones who get to say who needs what, when, and how.
***
A hidden tax is a secret joy.
***
The threefold path: tax, tax, and tax again.
***
The anguish of the poor man who has just had thirty per cent of their pay packet docked for the year is a blessing to the hearts of tax men everywhere.
***
Basically, we own thirty per cent of your soul.
***
Technically speaking, money is an artificial concept anyway. So does it really matter how much 'money' we 'take'?
***
The public service: wasting your money in as inefficient way as possible.
***
We waste your money so the public service can waste your time. Simple!
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Coleridge never had to work for a media monitoring company now, did he!
I just found myself quoting Coleridge as I walked down the corridor:
For he on honeydew hath fed
And drunk the milk of paradise.
I had just got a Cherry Ripe from the sweets machine. And an instant coffee.
For he on honeydew hath fed
And drunk the milk of paradise.
I had just got a Cherry Ripe from the sweets machine. And an instant coffee.
Tuesday, July 08, 2008
The Quibs and Bunning Writers Exchange Program #2
The gas bill, written by Shakespeare
Dear citizen - O fair and goodly friend -
Fain were I thy most valued loved offend;
Nay, if fiends of hell, no less, would thee attack -
We'd face them with our swords, and turn 'em back:
Fair friend, my bosom brother, dearest coz -
For thee I'd sell my kingdom and my horse.
So 'tis with grief I must inform thee now,
I am (being bound by antient sacred vow
To represent the _____ Corporation,
A name you hold in highest veneration),
I am, I do repeat, made to ask you
For the sum of ... (let me see now) ... $692.
Willliam Shakespeare, representative of the ______ Corp, gas and electricity.
PS:
Of course, dear coz, if payments get behind
I must inform you that you will be fined.
Master Basho's haiku, as written by the author of overdue gas notices
Lotus at evening:
The petals fall slowly. Your
Bill is overdue.
I sigh... sorrowfully.
Failure to pay could result in
Fiscal penalties.
I observe the lark
Singing daily: Alas! If
Only you would pay.
We will be sending
Officers soon to discuss
Your legal options.
Pay up, buster. Or
We will have to prosecute
On this sad evening.
Dear citizen - O fair and goodly friend -
Fain were I thy most valued loved offend;
Nay, if fiends of hell, no less, would thee attack -
We'd face them with our swords, and turn 'em back:
Fair friend, my bosom brother, dearest coz -
For thee I'd sell my kingdom and my horse.
So 'tis with grief I must inform thee now,
I am (being bound by antient sacred vow
To represent the _____ Corporation,
A name you hold in highest veneration),
I am, I do repeat, made to ask you
For the sum of ... (let me see now) ... $692.
Willliam Shakespeare, representative of the ______ Corp, gas and electricity.
PS:
Of course, dear coz, if payments get behind
I must inform you that you will be fined.
Master Basho's haiku, as written by the author of overdue gas notices
Lotus at evening:
The petals fall slowly. Your
Bill is overdue.
I sigh... sorrowfully.
Failure to pay could result in
Fiscal penalties.
I observe the lark
Singing daily: Alas! If
Only you would pay.
We will be sending
Officers soon to discuss
Your legal options.
Pay up, buster. Or
We will have to prosecute
On this sad evening.
Monday, July 07, 2008
The eternal wisdom of SuperTed
Quotes from SuperTed - the most awesome show in the history of the universe!
SUPERTED: Blithering blancmange, Spotty!
***
SUPERTED: Oh, what a horrible noise! It's enough to shake me out of my stuffing.
***
SKELETON: Ooh, tell our fortune, Tex. Go on. Be a devil.
TEX: Sure I will. But first - cross mah pahm with gold.
SKELETON: Oh, Tex. You're so mean and evil!
***
GYPSY WOMAN: Two black ravens overhead...
SPOTTY: Means it's time to be in bed! Ooh, I don't like this, SuperTed!
SUPERTED: Spotty!
***
SUPERTED: It may be grizzly. It may be grim. But a bear who isn't brave just isn't a bear!
***
SUPERTED: Pulsating prunes, Spotty!
***
SPOTTY: Great moons of Spot! They've got SuperTed!
***
SPOTTY: There's only one way to make sure my spotty pancakes are lighter than air. Cook them in zero gravity!
Ooer! My lovely spotty pancakes!
***
SUPERTED: Rocketing raspberries!
SPOTTY: By the four moons of Spot!
***
SPOTTY: It is him! I know it! It's Texas Pete!
SUPERTED: They all look like that in Texas, Spotty.
***
SKELETON: Ooh look! That terrible Teddy. Tex, you're brilliant!
TEX: Ah suure ahm!
***
SUPERTED: You stay here. I'll mosey on after Texas Pete as fast as my rocket boots can take me. Adios, Amigo!
UPDATE! - Absolute and utter awesomeness, distilled and purified down to its absolute awesomeilicious essence!
SUPERTED: Blithering blancmange, Spotty!
***
SUPERTED: Oh, what a horrible noise! It's enough to shake me out of my stuffing.
***
SKELETON: Ooh, tell our fortune, Tex. Go on. Be a devil.
TEX: Sure I will. But first - cross mah pahm with gold.
SKELETON: Oh, Tex. You're so mean and evil!
***
GYPSY WOMAN: Two black ravens overhead...
SPOTTY: Means it's time to be in bed! Ooh, I don't like this, SuperTed!
SUPERTED: Spotty!
***
SUPERTED: It may be grizzly. It may be grim. But a bear who isn't brave just isn't a bear!
***
SUPERTED: Pulsating prunes, Spotty!
***
SPOTTY: Great moons of Spot! They've got SuperTed!
***
SPOTTY: There's only one way to make sure my spotty pancakes are lighter than air. Cook them in zero gravity!
Ooer! My lovely spotty pancakes!
***
SUPERTED: Rocketing raspberries!
SPOTTY: By the four moons of Spot!
***
SPOTTY: It is him! I know it! It's Texas Pete!
SUPERTED: They all look like that in Texas, Spotty.
***
SKELETON: Ooh look! That terrible Teddy. Tex, you're brilliant!
TEX: Ah suure ahm!
***
SUPERTED: You stay here. I'll mosey on after Texas Pete as fast as my rocket boots can take me. Adios, Amigo!
UPDATE! - Absolute and utter awesomeness, distilled and purified down to its absolute awesomeilicious essence!
Living in the leaky-styrofoamed lap of luxury
This morning my exclusive second-floor establishment saw the delivery of not one, but two essential items for the modern chap: one combined television-DVD player, and one mattress.
Now, with these items of comfort lying before me, I don't think I have any excuse. It's time to hold an exclusive mattress-television party! Activities include: lazy lying, langurous leaning, lassitudinous lazing, louche lounging on pillows, and lazy loafing on lounges - all while watching daytime television. Preferably Oprah. And maybe repeats of A Country Practice as well. Guests will be entertained with servings of Panne a la Mildew (Italian, for day old toast); cups of tea from the finest bags this side of High Street; and jam, cream and butter scones without the scones. Wearing of day old stubble is encouraged (ladies especially); dramatic recitations from the Herald Sun television guide is compulsory.
Then again, maybe I won't hold that party after all. Do you know how expensive Panne a la Mildew is these days? I wouldn't want anyone else to hog it, after all.
Now, with these items of comfort lying before me, I don't think I have any excuse. It's time to hold an exclusive mattress-television party! Activities include: lazy lying, langurous leaning, lassitudinous lazing, louche lounging on pillows, and lazy loafing on lounges - all while watching daytime television. Preferably Oprah. And maybe repeats of A Country Practice as well. Guests will be entertained with servings of Panne a la Mildew (Italian, for day old toast); cups of tea from the finest bags this side of High Street; and jam, cream and butter scones without the scones. Wearing of day old stubble is encouraged (ladies especially); dramatic recitations from the Herald Sun television guide is compulsory.
Then again, maybe I won't hold that party after all. Do you know how expensive Panne a la Mildew is these days? I wouldn't want anyone else to hog it, after all.
Saturday, July 05, 2008
The public transport chronicles, #1001
Drunks, bums, bums on drugs, bums asking for money, aggressive bums beating you up for money - all these things, or a combination of all these things, are a common enough sight on the trains if you travel often enough, late enough at night. But I never expected to get beaten up if I refused to take money off a loud threatening drugged-up guy on the train. It just isn't the way of the world.
Well, I was on the North Melbourne train travelling into Spencer Street Station; it was about a quarter to nine on a Friday night. Requisite Drug Guy was halfway up the passage, shouting loudly at the guys in the seat next to him if 'this was the train to Flinders Street Station'. As if it wasn't; any trains running that way at that time of night went to Flinders Street.
Anyway. The train was pulling into Spencer Street, and I got up to get off. As I did so, I spied on the floor a ten cent coin. Being ever the one to get distracted by shiny things (hey, maybe that's why I read blogs), I bent to pick it up. This immediately got Drug Guy's attention, who walked straight over to where I was.
Me: Oh, I'm sorry, was that yours?
Drug Guy (shouting): It probably was.
Me: Here, take it, I'm getting off.
Drug Guy: No way bro! (Takes his wallet out of his pocket and empties the coins out into his hand) Here, take them!
Me: What? No. I don't need it. Here, you take this.
Drug Guy: No, you give me that ten cents. I'll give you this dollar.
Me: ?????
Drug Guy: No man. I know what it's like! I've been there!
Here the Drug Guy waved the dollar around in a menacing fashion and placed it in my hand. Like a fool, I took it, tried to give it back, found I couldn't, and gave him the ten cents instead experimentally, and watched his hand close over it. Then I got off the train.
It was only a minute after that I figured it out: I'd just had ninety cents forced on me against my will. Forced, I tell you! What the hell kind of situation was this? If the Drug Guy had threatened to beat me up if I didn't take 50 dollars off him, I probably would have taken that, too.
(And felt bad about it afterwards - call me a conservative if you like, but the old system whereby you get beaten up if you don't give up all your money sounds simpler and more sensible to me.)
Anyway, the upshot of it was I stumbled onto the Epping train a few minutes later and who should walk on but - Drug Guy? A weird conversation ensued between us, as if we were best friends. I again repeated my offer to give him the dollar back and he refused. ('Don't tell me you threw it in the bin. I'll be CRAZY if you threw it in the bin!' he said, in an ominous shout*.) For the rest of the voyage he spent the time walking up and down the carriage talking to every one of the passengers loudly, and at one point shouting at a person who just got on, 'Hey! Is this the Epping train?' (He got off when I got off, too. Maybe he was planning to stalk me to my house - and beat me up until I took all his cash.)
What the hell kind of world are we living in? First it was Blanders being forced by his boss to take a holiday, now it's me having cash from strangers forced on me in dubious monetary exchanges. I blame Kevin Rudd!
Anyway. Does anyone want a dollar? Oh, all right then. Ninety cents?
*Of course, this is opposed to his usual tone of voice, which was merely complacent and avuncular shouting with just a casually menacing tinge to it.
Well, I was on the North Melbourne train travelling into Spencer Street Station; it was about a quarter to nine on a Friday night. Requisite Drug Guy was halfway up the passage, shouting loudly at the guys in the seat next to him if 'this was the train to Flinders Street Station'. As if it wasn't; any trains running that way at that time of night went to Flinders Street.
Anyway. The train was pulling into Spencer Street, and I got up to get off. As I did so, I spied on the floor a ten cent coin. Being ever the one to get distracted by shiny things (hey, maybe that's why I read blogs), I bent to pick it up. This immediately got Drug Guy's attention, who walked straight over to where I was.
Me: Oh, I'm sorry, was that yours?
Drug Guy (shouting): It probably was.
Me: Here, take it, I'm getting off.
Drug Guy: No way bro! (Takes his wallet out of his pocket and empties the coins out into his hand) Here, take them!
Me: What? No. I don't need it. Here, you take this.
Drug Guy: No, you give me that ten cents. I'll give you this dollar.
Me: ?????
Drug Guy: No man. I know what it's like! I've been there!
Here the Drug Guy waved the dollar around in a menacing fashion and placed it in my hand. Like a fool, I took it, tried to give it back, found I couldn't, and gave him the ten cents instead experimentally, and watched his hand close over it. Then I got off the train.
It was only a minute after that I figured it out: I'd just had ninety cents forced on me against my will. Forced, I tell you! What the hell kind of situation was this? If the Drug Guy had threatened to beat me up if I didn't take 50 dollars off him, I probably would have taken that, too.
(And felt bad about it afterwards - call me a conservative if you like, but the old system whereby you get beaten up if you don't give up all your money sounds simpler and more sensible to me.)
Anyway, the upshot of it was I stumbled onto the Epping train a few minutes later and who should walk on but - Drug Guy? A weird conversation ensued between us, as if we were best friends. I again repeated my offer to give him the dollar back and he refused. ('Don't tell me you threw it in the bin. I'll be CRAZY if you threw it in the bin!' he said, in an ominous shout*.) For the rest of the voyage he spent the time walking up and down the carriage talking to every one of the passengers loudly, and at one point shouting at a person who just got on, 'Hey! Is this the Epping train?' (He got off when I got off, too. Maybe he was planning to stalk me to my house - and beat me up until I took all his cash.)
What the hell kind of world are we living in? First it was Blanders being forced by his boss to take a holiday, now it's me having cash from strangers forced on me in dubious monetary exchanges. I blame Kevin Rudd!
Anyway. Does anyone want a dollar? Oh, all right then. Ninety cents?
*Of course, this is opposed to his usual tone of voice, which was merely complacent and avuncular shouting with just a casually menacing tinge to it.
The five greatest commas in literary history
Dr Blotpage is author of The 17 Commas of Highly Ineffective People, An Anthology of the Fin-De-Siecle Comma, and The Adventures of ',' on the High Seas. He is almost as widely read amongst scholars of punctuation today as he is ignored by them. Please make him welcome to this blog.
There are those who talk of the timeless beauty, elegance, and dramatic potential inherent within the Shakespearean comma, but I think they're crackers. I prefer the Spenserian comma myself.
Hi, I'm Dr Blotpage. You might remember me from such commas as ',', and ',', as well as ','. They appear, to widespread popular acclaim, from one end of the sentence to the other!
I'm here today to talk about the five greatest commas in literary history. We've had to deal with a wide field, starting with the inception of the comma in western literature from renaissance times through to the present day. Naturally, there's a whole lot of glorious commas that we've had to omit. For instance, the rhetorical brilliance of the Elizabethean/Jacobean comma (who could forget the furiously anachronistic commas in Donne's idiosyncratic Holy Sonnets?) has had to be passed over. Nor have we had time to observe deeply the stark emotionalism of the Greater Romantic Comma, those fierce markings that so set apart the commas of Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Shelley from their classical forebears. The radical modern experiments with commas - who could forget that dramatic first comma in T S Eliot's 'The Wasteland'? - here cannot be examined either. Yes, the comma devotee has a lot to appreciate. So let's get right into it!
5. The Austen Comma, from Pride and Prejudice.
,
This classic comma from Austen's most widely-loved collection of commas, Pride and Prejudice, so neatly and aptly demonstrates the reasons for Austen's fame amongst comma lovers. It implies so much! And yet says so little! In fact, so great is the power of implication in this elegant comma, that if I were to say what it implied, then it's implied powers of implication would be significantly diminished. Consequently, we pass over this beautiful example of the powers of commas to an even greater comma.
4. Boswellian commas, from The Life of Dr Samuel Johnson
As comma afficionados know, the punctilious and witty Boswell produced many of literatures most widely-quoted commas.
,
Many comma lovers have, of course, objected that Boswell merely acted as a scribe to the generally greater and more prolific producer of the classical comma, Dr Johnson. And it is certainly true that we are indebted to Boswell for preserving for posterity many of Dr Johnson's justly famous commas. However, in this instance, Boswell grandly rises to the challenge of producing a comma that speaks to generations of comma lovers, and does so with both elegance and wit.
3. The Great Germanic Comma, The Collected Scientific Papers of Goethe
For our next comma, we turn to Germany, and the brilliant Man of Letters (and commas) Goethe. Although many of the finest commas of literary history are to be found in that epic book of commas, Faustus, it is not from that text that we draw our comma today. (I might note, in passing, here, that there is currently a significant quarrel between different comma lovers as to the significance of the umlaut in Faustus, and as to whether or not the commas in that poetic drama are not merely an elaborate conceit for the furtherance of the umlaut ideology; we do not propose to deal with this lengthy subject today.) Instead, this comma is drawn from Goethe's collected scientific papers.
,
In that single comma, does not a sublime new universe of possibility open up before you? It is indeed a grand comma, the comma that seems to encapsulate the dreamings of the romantic comma lovers on the English isle, and suggest new comma perspectives to discover.
2. The Original English comma, Hamlet
Although the science and study of commas was already established by Shakespeare's time, discerning comma lovers should not be surprised that it was up to Shakespeare, in his famous play Hamlet, to show the true potential of the comma. Consider the following fiercely original deployment of the comma in the tragedy:
,
could any other punctuation mark have so simply, so profoundly, so pathetically expressed Hamlet's tragic indecision? 'Here is an option', the comma seems to say. 'And here is another'. To be, or not to be? This is the comma that sounded down the ages!
1.The Henry Fielding Comma, Tom Jones
The following comma needs no words: its beauty and power are clear from the very first line.
,
Such a comma! Such wit! Although he never died again rise to the marvellous heights of expression inherent in this comma, Henry Fielding nevertheless continued producing brackets of fine commas, spicing his sentences, until his death. Such noble dedication to the cause of commas is truly to be admired.
There are those who talk of the timeless beauty, elegance, and dramatic potential inherent within the Shakespearean comma, but I think they're crackers. I prefer the Spenserian comma myself.
Hi, I'm Dr Blotpage. You might remember me from such commas as ',', and ',', as well as ','. They appear, to widespread popular acclaim, from one end of the sentence to the other!
I'm here today to talk about the five greatest commas in literary history. We've had to deal with a wide field, starting with the inception of the comma in western literature from renaissance times through to the present day. Naturally, there's a whole lot of glorious commas that we've had to omit. For instance, the rhetorical brilliance of the Elizabethean/Jacobean comma (who could forget the furiously anachronistic commas in Donne's idiosyncratic Holy Sonnets?) has had to be passed over. Nor have we had time to observe deeply the stark emotionalism of the Greater Romantic Comma, those fierce markings that so set apart the commas of Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Shelley from their classical forebears. The radical modern experiments with commas - who could forget that dramatic first comma in T S Eliot's 'The Wasteland'? - here cannot be examined either. Yes, the comma devotee has a lot to appreciate. So let's get right into it!
5. The Austen Comma, from Pride and Prejudice.
,
This classic comma from Austen's most widely-loved collection of commas, Pride and Prejudice, so neatly and aptly demonstrates the reasons for Austen's fame amongst comma lovers. It implies so much! And yet says so little! In fact, so great is the power of implication in this elegant comma, that if I were to say what it implied, then it's implied powers of implication would be significantly diminished. Consequently, we pass over this beautiful example of the powers of commas to an even greater comma.
4. Boswellian commas, from The Life of Dr Samuel Johnson
As comma afficionados know, the punctilious and witty Boswell produced many of literatures most widely-quoted commas.
,
Many comma lovers have, of course, objected that Boswell merely acted as a scribe to the generally greater and more prolific producer of the classical comma, Dr Johnson. And it is certainly true that we are indebted to Boswell for preserving for posterity many of Dr Johnson's justly famous commas. However, in this instance, Boswell grandly rises to the challenge of producing a comma that speaks to generations of comma lovers, and does so with both elegance and wit.
3. The Great Germanic Comma, The Collected Scientific Papers of Goethe
For our next comma, we turn to Germany, and the brilliant Man of Letters (and commas) Goethe. Although many of the finest commas of literary history are to be found in that epic book of commas, Faustus, it is not from that text that we draw our comma today. (I might note, in passing, here, that there is currently a significant quarrel between different comma lovers as to the significance of the umlaut in Faustus, and as to whether or not the commas in that poetic drama are not merely an elaborate conceit for the furtherance of the umlaut ideology; we do not propose to deal with this lengthy subject today.) Instead, this comma is drawn from Goethe's collected scientific papers.
,
In that single comma, does not a sublime new universe of possibility open up before you? It is indeed a grand comma, the comma that seems to encapsulate the dreamings of the romantic comma lovers on the English isle, and suggest new comma perspectives to discover.
2. The Original English comma, Hamlet
Although the science and study of commas was already established by Shakespeare's time, discerning comma lovers should not be surprised that it was up to Shakespeare, in his famous play Hamlet, to show the true potential of the comma. Consider the following fiercely original deployment of the comma in the tragedy:
,
could any other punctuation mark have so simply, so profoundly, so pathetically expressed Hamlet's tragic indecision? 'Here is an option', the comma seems to say. 'And here is another'. To be, or not to be? This is the comma that sounded down the ages!
1.The Henry Fielding Comma, Tom Jones
The following comma needs no words: its beauty and power are clear from the very first line.
,
Such a comma! Such wit! Although he never died again rise to the marvellous heights of expression inherent in this comma, Henry Fielding nevertheless continued producing brackets of fine commas, spicing his sentences, until his death. Such noble dedication to the cause of commas is truly to be admired.
Friday, July 04, 2008
Schmuck Friday
Times have not been good for the Great Australian Schmuck. While recent years have seen a resurgence in the numbers of the Putz, the Nebbish, and the Spotted Whooping Noodle of Canberra, the numbers of the much-loved Australian Schmuck have continued to dwindle. While environmentalists are not certain what has caused the population of the Schmuck to continue to fall, there seem to be a number of causes at work. For one thing, the typical habitation of the Schmuck - the university, the public service, or the media - have seen a lift in educational and cultural standards lately, which of course has had a negative effect for numbers of the Schmuck. Although successive Governments continue to do what they can to assist the Schmuck to flourish in ever greater numbers by mismanaging public and private education, and cutting money to valuable educational resources, the Schmuck continues to decline.
It is heartening, then, to know that at least one species of the Great Australian Schmuck has adapted to the modern environment with ease, which may make it easier for future generations of the Schmuck to make a comeback. We are talking, of course, of the Speckled Southern Schmuck, commonly known as the Hugh Mackay.
Whether it's through the authoring of dubious opinion columns, the writing of questionable books, or the participation in various media fora, the productions of the Hugh Mackay are many and varied. Ecologists and naturalists have marvelled at mating season when in sight of the Hugh Mackay ruffling its marvellous plumage.
Aside from being an inspiration to Schmucks everywhere, the Hugh Mackay has adopted, as a particular survival strategy, a claim to absolute and Godlike insight into the thought processes of Australian Schmucks all over the country. Observe here this Schmuck's marvellous deployment of an all-inclusive pronoun to describe other Australians:
THE election was one of those remarkable elections where people felt they were not just getting a new government but a new order. They thought this was a Government that was going to, if not perform miracles, then at least do something dramatic to the spirit of the nation.
Or in some previous examples:
How we're feeling about John Howard is therefore a far more pressing issue than how we're feeling about Rudd.
Again:
He reinforces our materialism. By conflating politics with economics and by placing emphasis on material prosperity, Howard has encouraged the idea that money is the key to happiness, that share-ownership is a symbol of success and that the rich should be praised and rewarded for being rich.
That, in turn, reinforces our moral laxity, partly because that's the usual result of an over-emphasis on material values. Howard's unwavering commitment to the strategy of "toughing it out" also encourages, by example, our thoroughly human tendency to be self-serving and, when it suits our purposes, dishonest.
If the resilience and survival instinct of the Hugh Mackay species of Schmuck is anything to go by, the future for the Great Australian Schmuck looks bright indeed.
UPDATE! - Does anyone else have inspiring stories about encounters with the many noble species of Schmuck?
It is heartening, then, to know that at least one species of the Great Australian Schmuck has adapted to the modern environment with ease, which may make it easier for future generations of the Schmuck to make a comeback. We are talking, of course, of the Speckled Southern Schmuck, commonly known as the Hugh Mackay.
The Great Australian Schmuck in its natural habitat.
Whether it's through the authoring of dubious opinion columns, the writing of questionable books, or the participation in various media fora, the productions of the Hugh Mackay are many and varied. Ecologists and naturalists have marvelled at mating season when in sight of the Hugh Mackay ruffling its marvellous plumage.
Aside from being an inspiration to Schmucks everywhere, the Hugh Mackay has adopted, as a particular survival strategy, a claim to absolute and Godlike insight into the thought processes of Australian Schmucks all over the country. Observe here this Schmuck's marvellous deployment of an all-inclusive pronoun to describe other Australians:
THE election was one of those remarkable elections where people felt they were not just getting a new government but a new order. They thought this was a Government that was going to, if not perform miracles, then at least do something dramatic to the spirit of the nation.
Or in some previous examples:
How we're feeling about John Howard is therefore a far more pressing issue than how we're feeling about Rudd.
Again:
He reinforces our materialism. By conflating politics with economics and by placing emphasis on material prosperity, Howard has encouraged the idea that money is the key to happiness, that share-ownership is a symbol of success and that the rich should be praised and rewarded for being rich.
That, in turn, reinforces our moral laxity, partly because that's the usual result of an over-emphasis on material values. Howard's unwavering commitment to the strategy of "toughing it out" also encourages, by example, our thoroughly human tendency to be self-serving and, when it suits our purposes, dishonest.
If the resilience and survival instinct of the Hugh Mackay species of Schmuck is anything to go by, the future for the Great Australian Schmuck looks bright indeed.
UPDATE! - Does anyone else have inspiring stories about encounters with the many noble species of Schmuck?
Thursday, July 03, 2008
The Quibs and Bunning Writers Exchange Program #1
The Quibs and Bunning Writers Exchange Program #1: The performance poet and the train timetable guy
Hi guys, here's just a few poems I wrote the other night waiting at Flinders Street Station, an experience I think a lot of us have in common. I hope you like them, I think they've got a certain something to them. Excuse me. *Clears throat*
8.15 to Hurstbridge
Eight twelve at the station,
I'm just waiting at the station
With the
other
passengers.
And if the train don't come, the train won't come
So I'm waiting at the station
For the wheels to come,
And my frustration at the station,
At the station where we're at, at the station that we're in,
Has made my mind go numb.
(But the steel hums, the wheels run)
Eight-thirteen at the station
(Clitter clatter clitter clatter)
It doesn't matter to me,
Don't you see, we're not free,
(Clitter clatter bitter batter)
Political correctness is just the frustration of our nation
At the train that doesn't -
(Clitter clatter made as hatter)
At the train that won't -
(Clitter clatter clatter shatter fast food makes you fatter clitter clatter what's the matter)
- come.
Eight-fourtee... *Coughs*
Oh, I'm sorry. Lost my place there for a second.
EIGHT-FOURTEEN! And my oration
At the station
Is a statement of frustration
At this whole vast system of negation
(You're the system's sucker, fucker)
(Clitter clatter mad as hatter)
And the patience at the station
Longs for an innovation
FUCK THE SYSTEM!
FREE THE TRAINS!
DON'T LIVE YOUR LIFE ACCORDING TO TIMETABLES, RULES, SYSTEMS, RIGHT-WING AUTHORITARIANISM, HYPER-FASCISM, GODS, DIETS, COMMERCIALISM, ADVERSERIAL ADVERTISING, NEO-LIBERAL QUASI-NAZISM!
This is my commendation.
Eight-fifteen at the station. All on board!
| The Epping and Hurstbridge train timetable, as written by a performance poet |
Hi guys, here's just a few poems I wrote the other night waiting at Flinders Street Station, an experience I think a lot of us have in common. I hope you like them, I think they've got a certain something to them. Excuse me. *Clears throat*
8.15 to Hurstbridge
Eight twelve at the station,
I'm just waiting at the station
With the
other
passengers.
And if the train don't come, the train won't come
So I'm waiting at the station
For the wheels to come,
And my frustration at the station,
At the station where we're at, at the station that we're in,
Has made my mind go numb.
(But the steel hums, the wheels run)
Eight-thirteen at the station
(Clitter clatter clitter clatter)
It doesn't matter to me,
Don't you see, we're not free,
(Clitter clatter bitter batter)
Political correctness is just the frustration of our nation
At the train that doesn't -
(Clitter clatter made as hatter)
At the train that won't -
(Clitter clatter clatter shatter fast food makes you fatter clitter clatter what's the matter)
- come.
Eight-fourtee... *Coughs*
Oh, I'm sorry. Lost my place there for a second.
EIGHT-FOURTEEN! And my oration
At the station
Is a statement of frustration
At this whole vast system of negation
(You're the system's sucker, fucker)
(Clitter clatter mad as hatter)
And the patience at the station
Longs for an innovation
FUCK THE SYSTEM!
FREE THE TRAINS!
DON'T LIVE YOUR LIFE ACCORDING TO TIMETABLES, RULES, SYSTEMS, RIGHT-WING AUTHORITARIANISM, HYPER-FASCISM, GODS, DIETS, COMMERCIALISM, ADVERSERIAL ADVERTISING, NEO-LIBERAL QUASI-NAZISM!
This is my commendation.
Eight-fifteen at the station. All on board!
| A short poem about my girlfriend, by the guy who does the train timetables |
| Description Your red hair in the morning sunlight You swearing You telling me off for picking my nose when I thought you weren't looking You kissing me and making up The way you move Watching me watching you drink coffee Seeing you go to the evening shift at work Various reminiscences of you | Emotion felt Highly interested Fairly interested/slightly offput Like a puppy whose bone has been taken away Highly interested/Very highly interested Relatively interested A little distracted Saddened Various emotions, swinging from very high interest to medium interest to distraction to sadness, as well as three random thoughts about spaghetti at one point | Time of day 8.27 9.01 9.32 9.45 10.01 1.30pm 2.00 3.00 - 7.00 |
Tuesday, July 01, 2008
Junk food ads for people with eating disorders
A Mars a day helps you blerk, rest and play!
Have a steak. Have a Kit Kat.
Snickers spatters thighs!
Have a steak. Have a Kit Kat.
Snickers spatters thighs!
Monday, June 30, 2008
The link that should have stayed missing
(With apologies to the Club and the real missing linkers.)
| The link that should have stayed missing All the news fit to chisel on a cave wall: blog links for Primitive Man. ISSUES The blogger in the cast-stone cave maintains: "Just because we're troglodytes doesn't mean we have to act like one." Oz Neanderthal proposes a bold new idea for the furtherance of his progressive ideals amongst his fellow neanderthals. He calls it the patriarchy. Big Man Lambert warns his tribe of the dangers of the coming glacial age. Meanwhile, the Merkelman invents the wheel and tries to patent it. Small problem: the patent office isn't going to be in existence for another ten thousand millenia... The religious debate we had to have! Cro-Magnon Lad extols the virtues of the Earth Mother, "The Ever Fruitful one, who has given life to us all!" Meanwhile, The Druid proposes we all make human sacrifices to propitiate the wrath of the Mighty Sky God! INTERNATIONAL Caveman Blair is feeling understandably patriotic, and proposes we adopt a new anthem: "Let them all go to hell, except cave 17!" Could the discovery of fire be used as a weapon by terrorists? The Cro-Magnon Lad says yes. Amazon About Town dares any man to face her tribe of Amazons and live to tell the tale! ARTS Primitive Theatre Notes attends three avant-garde sacrificial ceremonies. Her verdict? NOT ENOUGH BLOOD! The Purple Tribe, meanwhile, attend the opening of the new Lascaux Caves conceptual artspace, finding that "while the play of light and shade is exquisite, and the compositions are skilfully conceived, there is very little truly original in this rendition." Homo Slammaticus is present at the creation of music, and says: "To much rock, not enough roll." SNARK, STRANGENESS AND CHARM The Piltdown Man has a blog, and dares you to prove otherwise! Australopithecine Lefty is a shy and gentle woodland creature living off the nuts, roots and berries of the forest floor. He is also a left-winger. Why not pay him a visit? Nailpolish Ochres invents beer, and celebrates by inventing drunkenness. Homo Lexiconicus has been invited to work in an exciting new Government project, the Tower of Babel. Will she accept? |
Sunday, June 29, 2008
Braking News!
SHOCK! CONCERNS OF MEDIA MISREPRESENTATION IN THE MEDIA!
As you've probably heard by now, there are growing concerns that the media may be being increasingly misrepresented in the media. Several media figures have come forward in the past day to complain about their wilful misrepresentation by several other media figures, who also claim to have been misrepresented. But are these claims of the media (being misrepresented) being misrepresented (by the media)? Or are these media figures fairly representing the unfair misrepresentations by other media figures? And what does this all mean for democracy in Australia?
To find out, we asked several respected media figures.
LENTIL MCLENTIL, COMMUNITY JOURNALIST: These claims of media misrepresentation of the mainstream media by community journalists are complete misrepresentations of the truth.
JONES FOTHERINGTON-MONEYBAGS, MAINSTREAM MEDIA EXECUTIVE: Claims of mainstream media misrepresentation made by community journalists are misrepresented claims, that's what. And any misrepresentations to the contrary are misrepresented misrepresentations, that's right!
PYJAMAS SMITH, BLOGGER: A number of misleading comments have been made by the mainstream media in the past couple of months regarding the amount of cat photographs I publish on my blog. I would like to say here and now that these misleading claims about my fondness for cat photographs on my blog are completely misleading. I publish much more cat photos than they suggest.
While the debate about media representation of the media is unlikely to be settled soon, it is worth asking, can the media do anything to change widespread perceptions of bias against the media? A number of prominent media figures who claim to have been misrepresented by other media figures are calling for an investigation into their misrepresentation by other media figures Hard-hitting current affairs programs have come out with incisive analysis of their misrepresentation by other hard-hitting current affairs programs, who have hit back with incisive analysis of their own. Respected newspaper pollsters have published revealing polls of other pollsters in the process of publishing revealing polls of their own, and their verdict is unanimous: all other polls into media misrepresentation of the media are misguided misrepresentations of the real misrepresentations. However, all sides come together to agree forcefully that the other side is wrong.
It is hard to know where to go from here. Many prominent media executives little known outside their respective companies are calling for the sacking of many other prominent media executives, little known outside their respective companies, too. However, other media figures are calling for moderation and restraint, and would simply like to see the misrepresentation of the media by other media to be misrepresented in a more fair way. Some Government-funded media sources, meanwhile, are claiming that they will need more Government funding in order to find out ways to improve their misrepresentation of other media sources. Other Government sources disagree, arguing that the misrepresentation of other media sources is a private responsibility and should not be performed on the public purse.
As you've probably heard by now, there are growing concerns that the media may be being increasingly misrepresented in the media. Several media figures have come forward in the past day to complain about their wilful misrepresentation by several other media figures, who also claim to have been misrepresented. But are these claims of the media (being misrepresented) being misrepresented (by the media)? Or are these media figures fairly representing the unfair misrepresentations by other media figures? And what does this all mean for democracy in Australia?
To find out, we asked several respected media figures.
LENTIL MCLENTIL, COMMUNITY JOURNALIST: These claims of media misrepresentation of the mainstream media by community journalists are complete misrepresentations of the truth.
JONES FOTHERINGTON-MONEYBAGS, MAINSTREAM MEDIA EXECUTIVE: Claims of mainstream media misrepresentation made by community journalists are misrepresented claims, that's what. And any misrepresentations to the contrary are misrepresented misrepresentations, that's right!
PYJAMAS SMITH, BLOGGER: A number of misleading comments have been made by the mainstream media in the past couple of months regarding the amount of cat photographs I publish on my blog. I would like to say here and now that these misleading claims about my fondness for cat photographs on my blog are completely misleading. I publish much more cat photos than they suggest.
While the debate about media representation of the media is unlikely to be settled soon, it is worth asking, can the media do anything to change widespread perceptions of bias against the media? A number of prominent media figures who claim to have been misrepresented by other media figures are calling for an investigation into their misrepresentation by other media figures Hard-hitting current affairs programs have come out with incisive analysis of their misrepresentation by other hard-hitting current affairs programs, who have hit back with incisive analysis of their own. Respected newspaper pollsters have published revealing polls of other pollsters in the process of publishing revealing polls of their own, and their verdict is unanimous: all other polls into media misrepresentation of the media are misguided misrepresentations of the real misrepresentations. However, all sides come together to agree forcefully that the other side is wrong.
It is hard to know where to go from here. Many prominent media executives little known outside their respective companies are calling for the sacking of many other prominent media executives, little known outside their respective companies, too. However, other media figures are calling for moderation and restraint, and would simply like to see the misrepresentation of the media by other media to be misrepresented in a more fair way. Some Government-funded media sources, meanwhile, are claiming that they will need more Government funding in order to find out ways to improve their misrepresentation of other media sources. Other Government sources disagree, arguing that the misrepresentation of other media sources is a private responsibility and should not be performed on the public purse.
Saturday, June 28, 2008
The film with the big titulars
Perusing, as is my wont, the titles of some recently released examples of cinema verite on a trip to the local picture palace today, my eye happened to fall idly upon the title of the latest film from the M Night Shyamalan stables. The Happening, the film was called. Film titles are of course meant to be generic, but you can't get much more generic than the happening that is The Happening. It's an almost perfectly ambiguous, and hence ambiguously perfect film title. It gives nothing away, but then, it promises nothing, either: the best title for the sort of film that you spend a lot of money to go and see, and feel vaguely disappointed with after you've seen it. (This is more or less the opposite to gore-fest Snakes in a Plane, in which you know exactly how disappointed you'll be in the film before you pay to see it, but you still pay to see it anyway.) Conversation on the film, one imagines, would go something like this:
A: What just happened?
B: The Happening, that's what happened.
A: Oh dear.
I'm not going to see The Happening. I have no particular interest in what happens in The Happening, and am quite content to let The Happening happen quietly for the next month or so. But really, what a title! You might as well just call the film The Event. As a matter of fact, maybe that very title was considered for The Happening. Perhaps we could apply the same logic to other films. Romantic comedies, for instance, could be described as The Series of Happenings that Happen to Bring Two Random Characters Together in a Romantic Situation. Disaster movies could be called The Thing That Happened, and the Other Things that Happened After The Thing. Science fiction movies, The Series of Rather Improbable Happenings In Big Metal Objects With Lasers.
I eagerly await the planned sequel to The Happening, with the working title The Minor Incident That Occured In the Place With People, and the Insigificant Events that Precipitated As a Result Of It.
A: What just happened?
B: The Happening, that's what happened.
A: Oh dear.
I'm not going to see The Happening. I have no particular interest in what happens in The Happening, and am quite content to let The Happening happen quietly for the next month or so. But really, what a title! You might as well just call the film The Event. As a matter of fact, maybe that very title was considered for The Happening. Perhaps we could apply the same logic to other films. Romantic comedies, for instance, could be described as The Series of Happenings that Happen to Bring Two Random Characters Together in a Romantic Situation. Disaster movies could be called The Thing That Happened, and the Other Things that Happened After The Thing. Science fiction movies, The Series of Rather Improbable Happenings In Big Metal Objects With Lasers.
I eagerly await the planned sequel to The Happening, with the working title The Minor Incident That Occured In the Place With People, and the Insigificant Events that Precipitated As a Result Of It.
Friday, June 27, 2008
My day, experienced as a series of mathematical equations
1) On the time spent making a sandwich for work.
T > t
T = The time spent making the sandwich for work, t = The time the bus arrives on which one is supposed to get with the sandwich that one has made for work. Clearly, T is greater than t.
2) On the amount of food I put on my sandwich.
F > f
Here, F is the amount of food I have actually put on my sandwich, and f is the amount of food I SHOULD put on my sandwich to prevent it overflowing. Here, F is clearly greater than f. (Not to mention s = Sandwich)
3) On the likelihood of tomatoes sploshing on the keyboard.
(p + 5): 100 = 1:1, therefore, p = 95.
In this equation, the unknown variable, p, is the probability that when I unwrap my sandwich at work, a big fat juicy slice of tomato will fly out from my sandwich and splosh face down on my keyboard. From the equation above, we can see that this is pretty bloody likely indeed.
4) Amount of time spent in procrastination at work as an exponential curve:
Here, the vertical axis stands for 'time spent procrastinating', while the horizontal axis stands for 'time of day'.
5) Amount of comments left on blogs while at work:
a = 2b2 + 16c3 - 17d - 4 + n.
a = Amount of blog comments left at work, b = Idle passing whims, c = My propensity to become involved in online arguments, d = The disturbing but increasingly frequent feeling I have at work that someone might be creeping up behind me, and n = an arbitrary, whole number integer.
6) The likelihood of having an excellent day at work:
l = 5/1000i
Here, l equal to the probability that the manager will ask me into his office and offer me a $10 million a week pay rise, after tax; and i = The square root of minus one, an impossible figure - ie - pretty fucking impossible.
7) The power relationships between people at work, expressed as a simple-to-follow flow chart.
T > t
T = The time spent making the sandwich for work, t = The time the bus arrives on which one is supposed to get with the sandwich that one has made for work. Clearly, T is greater than t.
2) On the amount of food I put on my sandwich.
F > f
Here, F is the amount of food I have actually put on my sandwich, and f is the amount of food I SHOULD put on my sandwich to prevent it overflowing. Here, F is clearly greater than f. (Not to mention s = Sandwich)
3) On the likelihood of tomatoes sploshing on the keyboard.
(p + 5): 100 = 1:1, therefore, p = 95.
In this equation, the unknown variable, p, is the probability that when I unwrap my sandwich at work, a big fat juicy slice of tomato will fly out from my sandwich and splosh face down on my keyboard. From the equation above, we can see that this is pretty bloody likely indeed.
4) Amount of time spent in procrastination at work as an exponential curve:
Here, the vertical axis stands for 'time spent procrastinating', while the horizontal axis stands for 'time of day'.
5) Amount of comments left on blogs while at work:
a = 2b2 + 16c3 - 17d - 4 + n.
a = Amount of blog comments left at work, b = Idle passing whims, c = My propensity to become involved in online arguments, d = The disturbing but increasingly frequent feeling I have at work that someone might be creeping up behind me, and n = an arbitrary, whole number integer.
6) The likelihood of having an excellent day at work:
l = 5/1000i
Here, l equal to the probability that the manager will ask me into his office and offer me a $10 million a week pay rise, after tax; and i = The square root of minus one, an impossible figure - ie - pretty fucking impossible.
7) The power relationships between people at work, expressed as a simple-to-follow flow chart.
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Sunday, June 22, 2008
Snortripping yarns!
I've just finished reading four short stories by Arthur Conan Doyle, after having picked them up recently at a book sale in Melbourne Central. The book, "The Lost World and other thrilling tales", is a Penguin republication, and rolls in two of his 'Challenger stories' - novelettes, really - complete with the pictures that, one assumes, originally appeared in the newspapers in which the stories were published; as well as two other shorter pieces which seem almost like prototypical horror stories; and the usual long introductory essay by the scholar who may or may not know what he's talking about.
Conan Doyle of course is best remembered for his detective stories, though as this book shows he could adapt nicely to the demands of the adventure or scientific romance genres of the time . This adaptation may have partly coincided with his growing interest in spiritualism, and there's certainly an interesting ongoing argument about scientific discovery and revelation in these stories. Doyle references H Rider Haggard in the title story, 'The Lost World', which is a well-shaped adventure story about a scientific expedition to find a surviving biological enclave of dinosaurs. The second story, 'The Poison Belt', bears remarkable similarities to H G Wells' novel 'In The Days of the Comet', though it's less successful than Wells' novel.
You certainly find yourself more than a little shocked at the politics of some of these stories. They are all written in the British empire's heyday, directly before the first world war. They celebrate the virtues of adventure, of courage, of daring and adventure and scientific discovery - but also celebrate more questionable virtues. The narrator of the first story, Edward Malone, is spurred to take part in an adventure after being told by his love interest, Gladys, that 'I do want to marry a famous man.' Malone later falls in with a small band of friends (including the Professor Challenger, mentioned above) who, to varying degrees, seem to embody the sort of fame and courage that Gladys requires. Travelling to the Amazon, they are betrayed by a Mexican servant (for no reason that is immediately apparent other than that it is useful for the narrative) and left isolated on a plateau with dinosaurs. There, the Professors Challenger and Summerlee occupy their time in finding live examples of animal life and killing them. (Sometimes, to balance out the plot and make it more exciting, the live specimens spend their time chasing the live characters around and trying to kill them, too.) They are also kidnapped by a race of semi-intelligent missing links, or 'ape men', after which - again with not much plot justification - they decide to side with a group of Indians also living on this (increasingly improbable) plateau, and make war on the ape-men.
There's often very little time amongst these fast moving plot events for much description of the dinosaurs or other extinct life encountered - although there are a few important exceptions to this, one of the best being the discovery of a nest of pterodactyls:
Creeping to his side, we looked over the rocks. The place into which we gazed was a pit, and may, in the early days, have been one of the smaller volcanic blow-holes of the plateau. It was bowl-shaped and at the bottom, some hundreds of yards from where we lay, were pools of green-scummed, stagnant water, fringed with bullrushes. It was a weird place in itself, but its occupants made it seem like a scene from the Seven Circles of Dante. The place was a rookery of pterodactyls. There were hundreds of them congregated within view. All the bottom area round the water-edge was alive with their young ones, and with hideous mothers brooding upon their leathery, yellowish eggs. From this crawling flapping mass of obscene reptilian life came the shocking clamor which filled the air and the mephitic, horrible, musty odor which turned us sick. But above, perched each upon its own stone, tall, gray, and withered, more like dead and dried specimens than actual living creatures, sat the horrible males, absolutely motionless save for the rolling of their red eyes or an occasional snap of their rat-trap beaks as a dragon-fly went past them. Their huge, membranous wings were closed by folding their fore-arms, so that they sat like gigantic old women, wrapped in hideous web-colored shawls, and with their ferocious heads protruding above them. Large and small, not less than a thousand of these filthy creatures lay in the hollow before us.
As science fiction, then, it works amazingly well as an adventure story. As an adventure story, it might have been able to work even without the science fiction.
The second story, 'The Poison Belt', is more of a failure - though in its own way a far more interesting failure than 'The Lost World' is a success. For one thing, the story is based upon a long-outdated, and by now forgotten, scientific theory, 'the ether' (it's a kind of substance that permeates the entire universe). Apparently the earth moves into a portion of the ether that is poisonous to life. Thanks to Professor Challenger's prompting, the main characters secure themselves oxygen tanks, which sees them through the worst of it. This necessitates the wonderfully arbitrary sentence on page 216 of my book -
... I took a taxi, and, having ascertained the address from a telephone book, I made for the Oxygen Tube Supply Company in Oxford Street.
In order to ration their oxygen successfully, Malone, Challenger, and friends spend most of the story holed up in Professor Challenger's living room, which is a decidedly curious narrative choice on Conan Doyle's part. It affords a rather narrow perspective of the world and the human race in its death throes - and a limited perspective is more or less contradictory to the spirit of these sort of tales.* Finally, when the 'poison belt' of ether passes, they are able to go out and wander about the dead world. In one particularly poignant touch, they encounter an old woman who has been prescribed oxygen for a medical condition, and has hence survived: all she does is wonder what this will do to her stocks in a certain company. The whole odd tale concludes with the world coming back to life, in another improbably convenient twist of the plot.
A lot of the charm of these stories, of course, is the way they combine futuristic and/or visionary narratives with outdated early 20th century science. The plot device of the second story - the passing of the earth through a different form of ether - harks back curiously to nineteenth century scientific theories about the universe. Similar plot devices recur in the final two stories, especially the concluding piece, 'The Horror of the Heights', in which an airman ascends above the clouds in a pre-world war I aeroplane, and discovers what he refers to as 'the jungle of the sky' - a whole tangle of bobbing, gaseous jellyfish and airy snakes amongst the upper atmosphere. That's the sort of tale that couldn't have been written even thirty years later, but it's still wonderfully imaginative.
You probably shouldn't let the politics, and late-colonial values of these stories stop you from reading them. They're at the very least excellent entertainments by a master storyteller. And once you get past the scene-setting and the laborious plot devices, you may find hidden treasures aplenty -
Charmed magic casements, opening on the foam
Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.
*One of the pictures early in the story shows the four major characters sitting in a room together, discussing the imminent destruction of the world by poison, while smoking cigarettes. Which is really quite charming.
Conan Doyle of course is best remembered for his detective stories, though as this book shows he could adapt nicely to the demands of the adventure or scientific romance genres of the time . This adaptation may have partly coincided with his growing interest in spiritualism, and there's certainly an interesting ongoing argument about scientific discovery and revelation in these stories. Doyle references H Rider Haggard in the title story, 'The Lost World', which is a well-shaped adventure story about a scientific expedition to find a surviving biological enclave of dinosaurs. The second story, 'The Poison Belt', bears remarkable similarities to H G Wells' novel 'In The Days of the Comet', though it's less successful than Wells' novel.
You certainly find yourself more than a little shocked at the politics of some of these stories. They are all written in the British empire's heyday, directly before the first world war. They celebrate the virtues of adventure, of courage, of daring and adventure and scientific discovery - but also celebrate more questionable virtues. The narrator of the first story, Edward Malone, is spurred to take part in an adventure after being told by his love interest, Gladys, that 'I do want to marry a famous man.' Malone later falls in with a small band of friends (including the Professor Challenger, mentioned above) who, to varying degrees, seem to embody the sort of fame and courage that Gladys requires. Travelling to the Amazon, they are betrayed by a Mexican servant (for no reason that is immediately apparent other than that it is useful for the narrative) and left isolated on a plateau with dinosaurs. There, the Professors Challenger and Summerlee occupy their time in finding live examples of animal life and killing them. (Sometimes, to balance out the plot and make it more exciting, the live specimens spend their time chasing the live characters around and trying to kill them, too.) They are also kidnapped by a race of semi-intelligent missing links, or 'ape men', after which - again with not much plot justification - they decide to side with a group of Indians also living on this (increasingly improbable) plateau, and make war on the ape-men.
There's often very little time amongst these fast moving plot events for much description of the dinosaurs or other extinct life encountered - although there are a few important exceptions to this, one of the best being the discovery of a nest of pterodactyls:
Creeping to his side, we looked over the rocks. The place into which we gazed was a pit, and may, in the early days, have been one of the smaller volcanic blow-holes of the plateau. It was bowl-shaped and at the bottom, some hundreds of yards from where we lay, were pools of green-scummed, stagnant water, fringed with bullrushes. It was a weird place in itself, but its occupants made it seem like a scene from the Seven Circles of Dante. The place was a rookery of pterodactyls. There were hundreds of them congregated within view. All the bottom area round the water-edge was alive with their young ones, and with hideous mothers brooding upon their leathery, yellowish eggs. From this crawling flapping mass of obscene reptilian life came the shocking clamor which filled the air and the mephitic, horrible, musty odor which turned us sick. But above, perched each upon its own stone, tall, gray, and withered, more like dead and dried specimens than actual living creatures, sat the horrible males, absolutely motionless save for the rolling of their red eyes or an occasional snap of their rat-trap beaks as a dragon-fly went past them. Their huge, membranous wings were closed by folding their fore-arms, so that they sat like gigantic old women, wrapped in hideous web-colored shawls, and with their ferocious heads protruding above them. Large and small, not less than a thousand of these filthy creatures lay in the hollow before us.
As science fiction, then, it works amazingly well as an adventure story. As an adventure story, it might have been able to work even without the science fiction.
The second story, 'The Poison Belt', is more of a failure - though in its own way a far more interesting failure than 'The Lost World' is a success. For one thing, the story is based upon a long-outdated, and by now forgotten, scientific theory, 'the ether' (it's a kind of substance that permeates the entire universe). Apparently the earth moves into a portion of the ether that is poisonous to life. Thanks to Professor Challenger's prompting, the main characters secure themselves oxygen tanks, which sees them through the worst of it. This necessitates the wonderfully arbitrary sentence on page 216 of my book -
... I took a taxi, and, having ascertained the address from a telephone book, I made for the Oxygen Tube Supply Company in Oxford Street.
In order to ration their oxygen successfully, Malone, Challenger, and friends spend most of the story holed up in Professor Challenger's living room, which is a decidedly curious narrative choice on Conan Doyle's part. It affords a rather narrow perspective of the world and the human race in its death throes - and a limited perspective is more or less contradictory to the spirit of these sort of tales.* Finally, when the 'poison belt' of ether passes, they are able to go out and wander about the dead world. In one particularly poignant touch, they encounter an old woman who has been prescribed oxygen for a medical condition, and has hence survived: all she does is wonder what this will do to her stocks in a certain company. The whole odd tale concludes with the world coming back to life, in another improbably convenient twist of the plot.
A lot of the charm of these stories, of course, is the way they combine futuristic and/or visionary narratives with outdated early 20th century science. The plot device of the second story - the passing of the earth through a different form of ether - harks back curiously to nineteenth century scientific theories about the universe. Similar plot devices recur in the final two stories, especially the concluding piece, 'The Horror of the Heights', in which an airman ascends above the clouds in a pre-world war I aeroplane, and discovers what he refers to as 'the jungle of the sky' - a whole tangle of bobbing, gaseous jellyfish and airy snakes amongst the upper atmosphere. That's the sort of tale that couldn't have been written even thirty years later, but it's still wonderfully imaginative.
You probably shouldn't let the politics, and late-colonial values of these stories stop you from reading them. They're at the very least excellent entertainments by a master storyteller. And once you get past the scene-setting and the laborious plot devices, you may find hidden treasures aplenty -
Charmed magic casements, opening on the foam
Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.
*One of the pictures early in the story shows the four major characters sitting in a room together, discussing the imminent destruction of the world by poison, while smoking cigarettes. Which is really quite charming.
Friday, June 20, 2008
Two poems inspired by blog comments
A tale of moulden times
For The Kingsley
I forged a blade of IRONY,
Of irony and gold; -
And it did gleam with mystic sheen,
A wonder to behold.
And with my sharp IRONIC blade,
I fell with savage force
Upon mine antient enemy
Without fear or remorse.
With angry lust, I carved its crust -
Its casements brave and bold:
Yea, I fell upon this barb'rous loaf
Like wolf upon the fold.
"Begone, foul fiend!" I shouted then,
Midst battle-din and strife;
And then - lo! - I did butter it,
With my IRONIC knife.
With buttering and battering,
I cut up chicken cold -
Crying "HOW ARE THE FLIGHTY FALLEN!"
I sheathed my blade so bold.
But woe betide that condiment,
Be it marmite, jam, or sauce
That challenge my IRONIC blade -
Or it shall feel its force.
I forged a blade of IRONY,
Of irony and gold; -
And it did gleam with mystic sheen,
A wonder to behold.
Substitute Cat (One cat T S Eliot forgot to write about)
For PC
Substitute Cat -
I'm the substitute cat -
For the child that wasn't -
For the couple that won't.
Substitute cat
That sits on the substitute mat
In the room in the swanky and semi-
affordable flat.
Substitute Cat -
I'm the Substitute Cat -
The might-have-that-isn't,
The will-do-but-don't.
Substitute cat
Is growing quite fat
When his owners don't look
He nibbles their hats,
Without even a thank you
Or may I or please -
His substitute life
Is all pleasure and ease.
Substitute Cat-
I'm the Substitute Cat -
For someone to have a second-hand sort of
Mumsy-and-Dadness
(Which Jellicoe Cat thinks
A quiet form of madness.)
Substitute Cat
He don't care at all -
Substitute Cat -
I'm the Substitute Cat...
For The Kingsley
I forged a blade of IRONY,
Of irony and gold; -
And it did gleam with mystic sheen,
A wonder to behold.
And with my sharp IRONIC blade,
I fell with savage force
Upon mine antient enemy
Without fear or remorse.
With angry lust, I carved its crust -
Its casements brave and bold:
Yea, I fell upon this barb'rous loaf
Like wolf upon the fold.
"Begone, foul fiend!" I shouted then,
Midst battle-din and strife;
And then - lo! - I did butter it,
With my IRONIC knife.
With buttering and battering,
I cut up chicken cold -
Crying "HOW ARE THE FLIGHTY FALLEN!"
I sheathed my blade so bold.
But woe betide that condiment,
Be it marmite, jam, or sauce
That challenge my IRONIC blade -
Or it shall feel its force.
I forged a blade of IRONY,
Of irony and gold; -
And it did gleam with mystic sheen,
A wonder to behold.
Substitute Cat (One cat T S Eliot forgot to write about)
For PC
Substitute Cat -
I'm the substitute cat -
For the child that wasn't -
For the couple that won't.
Substitute cat
That sits on the substitute mat
In the room in the swanky and semi-
affordable flat.
Substitute Cat -
I'm the Substitute Cat -
The might-have-that-isn't,
The will-do-but-don't.
Substitute cat
Is growing quite fat
When his owners don't look
He nibbles their hats,
Without even a thank you
Or may I or please -
His substitute life
Is all pleasure and ease.
Substitute Cat-
I'm the Substitute Cat -
For someone to have a second-hand sort of
Mumsy-and-Dadness
(Which Jellicoe Cat thinks
A quiet form of madness.)
Substitute Cat
He don't care at all -
Substitute Cat -
I'm the Substitute Cat...
Thursday, June 19, 2008
Possible definition of obsession
Possible definition of obsession: when the person playing Scrabble with you puts the name of their football team as a play, only getting some seven points for it.
Another possible definition of obsession: my playing so much scrabble that it happens in the first place.
Another possible definition of obsession: my playing so much scrabble that it happens in the first place.
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
A blogger's review of real life
I must admit that for the past couple of years, I've been an enthusiastic user of 'real life'. Although the real life technology is still backward, and has a number of flaws and glitches in the system, a growing number of bloggers are using it. Why, it seems like only yesterday that I ran into Armagnacd's 'actual' persona in the Melbourne botanical gardens. What a surprise that was!
Having an actual personality is, of course, one of the most difficult and challenging aspects of real life. It stands in sharp distinction to a blogger's ordinary practice of maintaining a number of different identities, sign-in names, joke personalities, and anonymities depending on which site they are visiting or using at the time. In 'real life', frequently, a person is required to make a statement and, astonishingly, stand by it! This couldn't be more different to blogs, obviously.
I'm still not quite sure what the attraction of real life is. I suppose real life is - well, it just is. Thankfully, the technology is becoming increasingly more accessible to bloggers, who can upload themselves into 'the world' with a few swift clicks of the mouse. This 'world' - the base for all operations in the real life technological platform - lies just beyond the computer screen, and is astonishingly varied and detailed. Many parts of the real life world now are almost as good, or at the least quite similar to, their blog equivalents! For instance, just the other day I participated in a real life functionality known as 'going down the street to get the papers'. Whereas previously we had to go to other websites to read about the news, all I had to do in real life was go to the newspaper agency.
There are still, regrettably, a number of deficiencies to real life technology. For instance, when I want to go down the streets in real life, or go to the shops, or go somewhere, I can't just hyperlink there - so the journey can take quite some time. And for the moment, real life is without a proper comments facility. I feel it would greatly enhance the usability of real life if people were able to type in comments while engaging in one of its functions.
On the other hand, unlike blogs, real life has 'morality', a new and exciting function that I feel has great potential to be developed more. Users of real life are expected to strictly conform to certain 'moral' notions. This is a great innovation, though I'm not sure where the innovation came from, exactly. Anyway, it's one of the principal attractions of real life, and helps to explain why an increasing number of bloggers are using it every day.
As an added attraction, currently, real life is not owned by any major corporation. Bill Gates has recently attempted to buy out the copyrights for real life, without success. (Though apparently sponsorship deals are being worked out with a number of major companies.)
Still, I wouldn't use real life all the time. The strain is just too much, and some of the functions are too primitive. But I can heartily recommend it for those who are just simply curious, or want to log off the computer for a while and wander around.
Real life: four stars out of five.
Having an actual personality is, of course, one of the most difficult and challenging aspects of real life. It stands in sharp distinction to a blogger's ordinary practice of maintaining a number of different identities, sign-in names, joke personalities, and anonymities depending on which site they are visiting or using at the time. In 'real life', frequently, a person is required to make a statement and, astonishingly, stand by it! This couldn't be more different to blogs, obviously.
I'm still not quite sure what the attraction of real life is. I suppose real life is - well, it just is. Thankfully, the technology is becoming increasingly more accessible to bloggers, who can upload themselves into 'the world' with a few swift clicks of the mouse. This 'world' - the base for all operations in the real life technological platform - lies just beyond the computer screen, and is astonishingly varied and detailed. Many parts of the real life world now are almost as good, or at the least quite similar to, their blog equivalents! For instance, just the other day I participated in a real life functionality known as 'going down the street to get the papers'. Whereas previously we had to go to other websites to read about the news, all I had to do in real life was go to the newspaper agency.
There are still, regrettably, a number of deficiencies to real life technology. For instance, when I want to go down the streets in real life, or go to the shops, or go somewhere, I can't just hyperlink there - so the journey can take quite some time. And for the moment, real life is without a proper comments facility. I feel it would greatly enhance the usability of real life if people were able to type in comments while engaging in one of its functions.
On the other hand, unlike blogs, real life has 'morality', a new and exciting function that I feel has great potential to be developed more. Users of real life are expected to strictly conform to certain 'moral' notions. This is a great innovation, though I'm not sure where the innovation came from, exactly. Anyway, it's one of the principal attractions of real life, and helps to explain why an increasing number of bloggers are using it every day.
As an added attraction, currently, real life is not owned by any major corporation. Bill Gates has recently attempted to buy out the copyrights for real life, without success. (Though apparently sponsorship deals are being worked out with a number of major companies.)
Still, I wouldn't use real life all the time. The strain is just too much, and some of the functions are too primitive. But I can heartily recommend it for those who are just simply curious, or want to log off the computer for a while and wander around.
Real life: four stars out of five.
Saturday, June 14, 2008
Tip for the day
Eat lots of Smarties. This delicious food is healthy, enervating, good for the arteries, and, most importantly of all, slimming. Eat lots of Smarties today!
Apologisathon
They certainly like apologising, Labor politicians. They'll even go out of their way to do it for other people.
I'd loved to have seen the apology Della Bosca wrote to himself here. Just how, exactly, do you go about writing something like this?
Della Bosca wrote apology to himselfNow, it's obviously not altogether uncommon for people to go out of a night, have a few too many drinks, get into a fight with staff, and then wake up not remembering anything about it. John Della Bosca and Belinda Neal have gone one better here: they've gone out of a night, had a few too many drinks, got into a fight with staff, and then woke up to find that the staff didn't remember anything about it, either.
New South Wales Education Minister John Della Bosca says he wrote the apology given to him by a central coast nightclub over a row involving him and his wife, federal MP Belinda Neal.
The statement was issued by the management of the Iguanas Waterfront restaurant and nightclub after staff claimed Mr Della Bosca and Ms Neal abused and threatened them.
I'd loved to have seen the apology Della Bosca wrote to himself here. Just how, exactly, do you go about writing something like this?
TO: Mr John Della Bosca
Dear Sir
You, the undersigned, would like to express your complete and full regrets to myself for the event that I say happened at the Iguana Nightclub on the evening of ____. It was due to a number of unfortunate oversights on your part that the events I allege to have happened did actually happen. You offer your most sincere and heartfelt apologies for these alleged events, and can only offer me your promise that what I allege to have happened (and did actually happen) won't ever allegedly happen to me again.
Furthermore, you would also like to say that after extensive consultations with your staff, you have determined that the events that you allege to have happened didn't actually happen as you allege them to have happened. You have found, after these consultations, that the interpretation of the events as you allege them to have happened was flawed, so that they didn't happen; and that on further consultation, the events that I allege to have happened did actually happen. You would further like to reassure me that the staff responsible for the incident that happened as I say it happened have been reprimanded for making it happen.
Again, you would like to offer your most sincere and heartfelt apologies for the entire incident. Which happened.
You're welcome.
Sincerely, not to mention allegedly, yours,
YOU
John Della Bosca, MLC, Minister for Education and Training, Minister for Industrial Relations, Minister for the Central Coast, Minister assisting the Minister for Finance, and Leader of the Legislative Council
Friday, June 13, 2008
Isn't science fun!
Just spotted this headline today:
Pregnancy is great for sex: Angelina
Yeah Angelina, and apparently sex is great for pregnancy too!
Pregnancy is great for sex: Angelina
Yeah Angelina, and apparently sex is great for pregnancy too!
An unprejudiced survey of far left opinion
Well, I've just had to listen to 10 minutes of ABC's new show Q and A, and I don't know how anyone could say it was politically prejudiced. It was the most unbiased representation of left to far left opinion that I've ever encountered.
My head is awhirl with important questions about pressing international affairs*. Is it right for Japanese fishing vessels to hunt Burmese orphans in the open seas, or has the Government reneged on its promise to grant a free laptop to every child in a Myanmar school (or, for that matter, their promise to give foreign aid to Australian children living inside Australia)? And what about the issue of mulesing of live experts, and whether we should really be shipping these experts to Saudi Arabia for agricultural purposes? Wouldn't they be better kept in our universities along with students instead of being inflicted on the rest of the world? And isn't it more important that we focus on the education of young minke whales, for the future of the nation? Certainly, this show demonstrates for once and for all that the sort of critics who said that there's no way a number of difficult political issues can be discussed in a detailed manner in the short space of one hour are exactly the critics who would say that sort of thing.
These are pressing issues indeed. However, I think we can all agree with the audience member who stood up and said this:
I'm just a little bit confused.
Finally, an opinion I can wholeheartedly endorse!
*Or should that be pressing questions about important international affairs? I forget now.
My head is awhirl with important questions about pressing international affairs*. Is it right for Japanese fishing vessels to hunt Burmese orphans in the open seas, or has the Government reneged on its promise to grant a free laptop to every child in a Myanmar school (or, for that matter, their promise to give foreign aid to Australian children living inside Australia)? And what about the issue of mulesing of live experts, and whether we should really be shipping these experts to Saudi Arabia for agricultural purposes? Wouldn't they be better kept in our universities along with students instead of being inflicted on the rest of the world? And isn't it more important that we focus on the education of young minke whales, for the future of the nation? Certainly, this show demonstrates for once and for all that the sort of critics who said that there's no way a number of difficult political issues can be discussed in a detailed manner in the short space of one hour are exactly the critics who would say that sort of thing.
These are pressing issues indeed. However, I think we can all agree with the audience member who stood up and said this:
I'm just a little bit confused.
Finally, an opinion I can wholeheartedly endorse!
*Or should that be pressing questions about important international affairs? I forget now.
Thursday, June 12, 2008
The ordinary in wild and savage contrast with the everyday
It was there when I got on the train. And, despite the logo on the bottom saying 'Melbourne on the move', with whizzy little arrows all around it, it was there when I looked up and got off the train. Yes, bad train poetry is back this winter. These three-line poems that Connex are putting up on their walls are the sort of three-line poems that make you look up, read them, and then say to yourself, 'Hmmm. I've just read a three-line poem.' They are not, as a rule, significant - although they often try to be.
You might, if you wanted, detect a certain change in the poems this year. Previously, they had specialised in vague-but-pretty natural images, like mist or vapour. Popular cliches in the poems - they don't really rise to the level of themes, or metaphors, or ideas - now include nature, as well as generic inner-city references, and sport.
I jotted this one down last night:
pigeon -
why do you choose
the black wire?
And there you go - a natural image in the first line, closely followed by a generic inner-city reference. All that's missing are the sporting references, found in other poems:
Cup Day -
why am I no longer
his favourite?
That's a sporting reference, a Melbourne tradition, and an implied reference to nature (ie, the horse). I don't suppose I need to go on.
Lazy grammar is typical of the poems. They almost never start with a capital letter, and indeed, seem to be chopped out of longer, more meaningful (albeit just as banal) sentences. There is very little discernible rhythm or metre: they typically mimic the 'short-long-short' three-line structure of the haiku, though display even less formal rigour than that poetic genre, which is often learned in the seventh grade. They don't rhyme, and alliteration, symbol, metaphor, and so on, if they occur in these poems, are often incidental - if not accidental.
I find it difficult to say why I despise these poems so much. When I contemplate them, I get the vague impression that they lumber through the English language, picking up random words that were good, useful, and meaningful, and suck the life out of them. I'm not sure whether I'm wrong about that, actually: one of the traditional functions claimed for poetry is that it adds new meanings to language, or revitalises old meanings. That's a hard thing to claim for these poems, since they eschew almost any rigorous technique, and seem to exist simply to chronicle the banal, the inoffensive, and the everyday. T S Eliot once made a claim about boredom being an essential part of modern life; but then, to Eliot and other modernists, boredom and meaningless were one of their satirical modes. The banal, the ordinary, and the everyday was contrasted with the bizarre, the strange, and the surreal.
In these poems, that contrast doesn't exist anymore. All you get is the ordinary in wild and extravagant contrast with the everyday. I seriously doubt that anyone cares.
You might, if you wanted, detect a certain change in the poems this year. Previously, they had specialised in vague-but-pretty natural images, like mist or vapour. Popular cliches in the poems - they don't really rise to the level of themes, or metaphors, or ideas - now include nature, as well as generic inner-city references, and sport.
I jotted this one down last night:
pigeon -
why do you choose
the black wire?
And there you go - a natural image in the first line, closely followed by a generic inner-city reference. All that's missing are the sporting references, found in other poems:
Cup Day -
why am I no longer
his favourite?
That's a sporting reference, a Melbourne tradition, and an implied reference to nature (ie, the horse). I don't suppose I need to go on.
Lazy grammar is typical of the poems. They almost never start with a capital letter, and indeed, seem to be chopped out of longer, more meaningful (albeit just as banal) sentences. There is very little discernible rhythm or metre: they typically mimic the 'short-long-short' three-line structure of the haiku, though display even less formal rigour than that poetic genre, which is often learned in the seventh grade. They don't rhyme, and alliteration, symbol, metaphor, and so on, if they occur in these poems, are often incidental - if not accidental.
I find it difficult to say why I despise these poems so much. When I contemplate them, I get the vague impression that they lumber through the English language, picking up random words that were good, useful, and meaningful, and suck the life out of them. I'm not sure whether I'm wrong about that, actually: one of the traditional functions claimed for poetry is that it adds new meanings to language, or revitalises old meanings. That's a hard thing to claim for these poems, since they eschew almost any rigorous technique, and seem to exist simply to chronicle the banal, the inoffensive, and the everyday. T S Eliot once made a claim about boredom being an essential part of modern life; but then, to Eliot and other modernists, boredom and meaningless were one of their satirical modes. The banal, the ordinary, and the everyday was contrasted with the bizarre, the strange, and the surreal.
In these poems, that contrast doesn't exist anymore. All you get is the ordinary in wild and extravagant contrast with the everyday. I seriously doubt that anyone cares.
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Homer is where the heater is
A poem for Anonymous, who has noted my flaws, amongst others. Plenty of flaws in this poem. Knock yourself out, Anon.
As you come up the old set of stares,
And open the scratched wooden daw,
I hope you will notice the walls -
They are used to hold down the flaw.
My flaw - it is made out of bawds,
And if all the flaw bawds weren't there,
You'd fall through the flaw - of this I am Shaw -
Right down to the side of the stare.
Sometimes, under my daw
I'll find several items of male -
All on my flaw, right along with the bawds -
Each one with a different tail.
My windows, they have several pains,
And several Venetians (blind);
But through them, I can sea all the street
And keep out the cold winter wind.
If you come to my house, I'll serve T
Or coughy, and biscuits with chips;
They're in the kitchen, right next to the flower -
And just by the four-set - that drips.
In the corner, I have a small hearter,
A hearter I use to do hearting -
When my finger freezers in cold winter breezes -
And with frost bight my ere lobes are smarting.
The paint on the daw is pealing,
The flaw has many loud creeks.
The liver room is full of old couches
And many old cheep dusty and teaks.
But still, it's my house and I like it,
Along with its flaws and its stares.
So come and have coughy some time
And sit in my old and teak chairs!
As you come up the old set of stares,
And open the scratched wooden daw,
I hope you will notice the walls -
They are used to hold down the flaw.
My flaw - it is made out of bawds,
And if all the flaw bawds weren't there,
You'd fall through the flaw - of this I am Shaw -
Right down to the side of the stare.
Sometimes, under my daw
I'll find several items of male -
All on my flaw, right along with the bawds -
Each one with a different tail.
My windows, they have several pains,
And several Venetians (blind);
But through them, I can sea all the street
And keep out the cold winter wind.
If you come to my house, I'll serve T
Or coughy, and biscuits with chips;
They're in the kitchen, right next to the flower -
And just by the four-set - that drips.
In the corner, I have a small hearter,
A hearter I use to do hearting -
When my finger freezers in cold winter breezes -
And with frost bight my ere lobes are smarting.
The paint on the daw is pealing,
The flaw has many loud creeks.
The liver room is full of old couches
And many old cheep dusty and teaks.
But still, it's my house and I like it,
Along with its flaws and its stares.
So come and have coughy some time
And sit in my old and teak chairs!
Sunday, June 08, 2008
Games for the neurotic generation
Join the Rorschach Ink-blot dots
Chinese whispers for control freaks
Multiple personality disorder solitaire
Correspondence Freudian word-association
Colour in your own hallucination books
Chinese whispers for control freaks
Multiple personality disorder solitaire
Correspondence Freudian word-association
Colour in your own hallucination books
Sunday Essay: the significance of cows in modern literature
Cows are very significant in modern literature.
Friday, June 06, 2008
Cigars all round
I got an email recently from some friends in Hong Kong telling me that they'd just had a baby. Yes, this is how much I keep in touch with friends. I was completely flawed by the news, and I'm still not sure whether to give them congratulations or commisserations. Still, since I'm unlikely to have a baby myself at any point in the near future, for reasons which shall remain undisclosed and obvious, I feel completely unqualified to offer my Hong Kongese friends on advice into their future as parents. So I will anyway.
| A PARENTS FIRST VOCABULARY Words that will acquire new and unexpected meanings for you as a parent! | |
| WORD | POSSIBLE EXAMPLES OF USE |
| TIME | What time is it/Is it your turn this time/Everybody should be in bed at this time/What is it this time/I didn't even know this time existed/Time out/This is the absolutely last time I'll.../This is absolutely definitely the last time I'll.../This is absolutely definitely and definitively the last time I'll... |
| DON'T | DON'T pick your nose/don't eat that/don't hit your brother/sister/father/cousin/relative/pet/don't hit that random man on the street/don't do that, you're not a dog/don't throw that, it might break/smash/explode/shout |
| NO | NO, you can't do that/There will be no walking to school in your pyjamas/No, you'll have to put something more on than that/No, not that either/No, you can't do that/No, you can't have that/No, do you think I'm made out of money?/No, I'm not getting out of bed |
| WHERE/WHAT/WHEN | Where did you get that/Where have you been/Where do you think you are going/What is that/What on earth are you doing with that/Just what do you think you are going to do with that/Just when were you planning on telling me that... |
| LOOK | You look like something that cat dragged in/You look worse than something the cat dragged in/Look at that thing the cat dragged in, and then take a look at yourself in the mirror/It's rather difficult to look at you through all that mud/Look at the time, you'd better go to bed. |
| ASK | Ask your mother/Ask your father/You asked your mother and she said ask your father/Ask her again/Why are you asking these things anyway?/I don't mind you asking, but I can't answer that/Mind if I ask just what you've got all over you face...? |
| VOMIT/PEE/POO | (Examples too numerous and disgusting to mention here) |
Thursday, June 05, 2008
And they didn't even pinch a handkerchief
Tens of thousands of prisoners are opting not to apply for early release amid allegations that Britain's prisons are now so comfortable that they are effectively "expensive bed and breakfasts".
The figures were released on Tuesday by Jack Straw, the Justice Secretary, who also disclosed that dozens of people have been caught trying to break into prisons over the past few years... Between 2003 and 2008, 42 individuals were detected attempting to break into prisons. The number of prison break-ins has increased from five in 2003-04 to 19 over the past year. Most were people breaking into open prisons.
The Telegraph
So it's come this far, has it? When did the people trying to break into the prisons start thinking they were entitled to this? Getting into prison is hard, and you have to work for it! Sometimes, it takes years of dedicated law-breaking before people get into one of those prisons. Just look at Jeffrey Archer. Many corporate offenders steal billions and billions of shareholders money in an effort to buy their way into one of these institutions, without success. And yet these people just blithely come along and think they have an equal right to the same services as all those hard-working thieves, murderers, rapists, and common old criminals out there!
Speaking as an Australian - a nation founded by convicts who worked stole hard to get where they were - I am shocked and appalled at the appalling and shocking sense of entitlement by these would be 'criminals'.
Tuesday, June 03, 2008
And you thought you had it bad
Shocking tales of birth deformities!
#37
If you thought you had a bad day, consider this man:
'Peter' (not his real name) has been deformed from birth. He has been born with a generic black bar across his face, obscuring important facial features, and making him effectively indistinguishable from shady con men who appear on tabloid television shows.
"It's been hard," confesses 'Peter' in an exclusive interview with WTFF. "Very hard. Every time I went for a job interview, employers would immediately single me out as 'that guy with the black bar across his face. Very probably a criminal.' I began to wish that they could look beyond the black bar, and see that I had a very impressive resume to back up my application!"
Although eventually securing long-lasting employment for the Department of Workplace and Training, 'Peter' admits that his facial deformities have affected every part of his life.
"Even as a kid, I was singled out in the playground as the one most likely with criminal connections. Nobody would want to play Chasie with me. And they kept on accusing me of cheating in hide and seek!"
'Peter' has also had substantial difficulties in forming long-lasting relationships, and apparently family get-togethers remain 'difficult' and 'fraught'.
"I mean, sure. Mum doesn't think I'm a criminal," admits 'Peter'. "But every now and then, I catch her looking at me in a very suspicious manner. She knows I can't help looking the way I can... but she's only human I guess. But that doesn't make it any easier."
'Black bar face', or, as it is called in formal medical jargon, 'black bar face syndrome', is notoriously difficult for doctors to operate on. "Children are born with the black bar attached to the front of their cerebellum," says Doctor Lieu, of Sydney Children's Hospital. "So we can't just remove the bar. There's no easy way to fix them of this deformity, like cosmetic surgery. It can't be done."
When asked, 'Peter' informs us of several conversations he has had with his doctor. "At one stage, the doctor said he might be able to lessen the severity of my condition. He could operate on my face so that, instead of having a black bar over it, it could be pixellated instead. That would downgrade me from tabloid con man to member of a witness protection program."
Unfortunately, the trouble with looking like someone from a witness protection program, 'Peter' was told, was that he could actually be mistaken as someone from a witness protection program. "Which could be quite dangerous".
"So for now, I'm just going to have to stay like this." continues 'Peter'.
'Peter' finishes his coffee in the cafe we have been talking, and walks to the front door. As he reaches the door, two young boys who are about to come in look up, see his face, and shrink back in fear. 'Peter' puts his hands in his pocket and trudges away. It's just another day for him. Just another day.
#37
If you thought you had a bad day, consider this man:
'Peter' (not his real name) has been deformed from birth. He has been born with a generic black bar across his face, obscuring important facial features, and making him effectively indistinguishable from shady con men who appear on tabloid television shows.
"It's been hard," confesses 'Peter' in an exclusive interview with WTFF. "Very hard. Every time I went for a job interview, employers would immediately single me out as 'that guy with the black bar across his face. Very probably a criminal.' I began to wish that they could look beyond the black bar, and see that I had a very impressive resume to back up my application!"
Although eventually securing long-lasting employment for the Department of Workplace and Training, 'Peter' admits that his facial deformities have affected every part of his life.
"Even as a kid, I was singled out in the playground as the one most likely with criminal connections. Nobody would want to play Chasie with me. And they kept on accusing me of cheating in hide and seek!"
'Peter' has also had substantial difficulties in forming long-lasting relationships, and apparently family get-togethers remain 'difficult' and 'fraught'.
"I mean, sure. Mum doesn't think I'm a criminal," admits 'Peter'. "But every now and then, I catch her looking at me in a very suspicious manner. She knows I can't help looking the way I can... but she's only human I guess. But that doesn't make it any easier."
'Black bar face', or, as it is called in formal medical jargon, 'black bar face syndrome', is notoriously difficult for doctors to operate on. "Children are born with the black bar attached to the front of their cerebellum," says Doctor Lieu, of Sydney Children's Hospital. "So we can't just remove the bar. There's no easy way to fix them of this deformity, like cosmetic surgery. It can't be done."
When asked, 'Peter' informs us of several conversations he has had with his doctor. "At one stage, the doctor said he might be able to lessen the severity of my condition. He could operate on my face so that, instead of having a black bar over it, it could be pixellated instead. That would downgrade me from tabloid con man to member of a witness protection program."
Unfortunately, the trouble with looking like someone from a witness protection program, 'Peter' was told, was that he could actually be mistaken as someone from a witness protection program. "Which could be quite dangerous".
"So for now, I'm just going to have to stay like this." continues 'Peter'.
'Peter' finishes his coffee in the cafe we have been talking, and walks to the front door. As he reaches the door, two young boys who are about to come in look up, see his face, and shrink back in fear. 'Peter' puts his hands in his pocket and trudges away. It's just another day for him. Just another day.
Sunday, June 01, 2008
My whole day, in halfs
This morning, I dragged myself out of bed at half-past the hour, of half-past the half-past the hour. I may only have been half awake, but didn't realise it as I was half asleep at the time. (Or should that be the other way around?) I poured myself half a bowl of rice bubbles before the packet ran empty, and then made half a cup out of the coffee I had left. Later, I stumbled into the bus on High Street at half past eleven and got off at Coburg, where I met my ex-flatmate.
I stumbled down the old hallway and scrutinised my bookshelf, which was either half fallen apart, or half put back together, depending on which way you looked at it (that is, the wrong way, or the worse way.) Then we went into the kitchen, and had a look at the bills. We did it this way: we halved the price of the bills, and then on some parts of these bills, we halved it again, and kept on halving it until we came up with a price that looked wrong. Then I paid them.
In the evening, I logged on to the computer and read Halfway to Hotzeplotz and Halfhearted Hack and considered whether this was a glass half empty or a glass half full kind of day. Whichever half it was, it was probably the wrong half. And that ain't half bad.
I stumbled down the old hallway and scrutinised my bookshelf, which was either half fallen apart, or half put back together, depending on which way you looked at it (that is, the wrong way, or the worse way.) Then we went into the kitchen, and had a look at the bills. We did it this way: we halved the price of the bills, and then on some parts of these bills, we halved it again, and kept on halving it until we came up with a price that looked wrong. Then I paid them.
In the evening, I logged on to the computer and read Halfway to Hotzeplotz and Halfhearted Hack and considered whether this was a glass half empty or a glass half full kind of day. Whichever half it was, it was probably the wrong half. And that ain't half bad.
Saturday, May 31, 2008
The social pages: official opening ceremony held to great acclaim
THE OFFICIAL OPENING CEREMONY of the Timothy Train door, in Thornbury, Melbourne, was held today to great acclaim, with officials from all over the world attending. Speeches were read, bands played, and there was widespread jubilation as the dignitaries attending the event actually opened the door then proceeded inside.
Following the merriment and jubilation at the official opening of the Timothy Train door, universal mourning and sorrow was held at the OFFICIAL CLOSING CEREMONY. There was much talk of the good times had during the Official Opening of the Door, the going through the door, the thoughtful contemplation of the opening of the door and the contemplative thinking of the going through the door, all leading up to the sorrowful and melanchloy event that was the closing of the door. Following this, the door was actually closed.
The following is a selective list of some of the attendees at the official opening and closing ceremonies, including, but not limited to, all of them. They will be read out in alphabetical order:
Train, Tim
***
An OFFICIAL OPENING CEREMONY for the Timothy Train cupboard door was to be held today in Thornbury, but the Official Opening Ceremony was closed before opening, due to the fact that the Timothy Train cupboard door that was due to be opened was in fact already open, and therefore there wasn't any need for an opening ceremony before the opening of the cupboard door to be opened.
Train briefly considered holding an OFFICIAL CLOSING CEREMONY and then closing the cupboard door, but he would have had to have held an OFFICIAL OPENING CEREMONY first of all. Otherwise the official closing ceremony would have been the opening ceremony, which seemed more than a little contradictory. He retired to consult the matter over with his public servants, of whom an all-inclusive, but by no means comprehensive, list follows:
Train, Tim
That is all.
Following the merriment and jubilation at the official opening of the Timothy Train door, universal mourning and sorrow was held at the OFFICIAL CLOSING CEREMONY. There was much talk of the good times had during the Official Opening of the Door, the going through the door, the thoughtful contemplation of the opening of the door and the contemplative thinking of the going through the door, all leading up to the sorrowful and melanchloy event that was the closing of the door. Following this, the door was actually closed.
The following is a selective list of some of the attendees at the official opening and closing ceremonies, including, but not limited to, all of them. They will be read out in alphabetical order:
Train, Tim
***
An OFFICIAL OPENING CEREMONY for the Timothy Train cupboard door was to be held today in Thornbury, but the Official Opening Ceremony was closed before opening, due to the fact that the Timothy Train cupboard door that was due to be opened was in fact already open, and therefore there wasn't any need for an opening ceremony before the opening of the cupboard door to be opened.
Train briefly considered holding an OFFICIAL CLOSING CEREMONY and then closing the cupboard door, but he would have had to have held an OFFICIAL OPENING CEREMONY first of all. Otherwise the official closing ceremony would have been the opening ceremony, which seemed more than a little contradictory. He retired to consult the matter over with his public servants, of whom an all-inclusive, but by no means comprehensive, list follows:
Train, Tim
That is all.
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