If you read the papers (well, online anyway), listen to news broadcasts on the radio, talk to strangers or even listen to conversations between people in public at the moment you would swear that the world is going to end soon.
Fuel prices, food prices, taxes, housing costs, the war against alcohol and cigarettes (or the war on fun as I call it) and last but not least the fear of a violent public attack for no apparent reason.
One thing you learn simply by listening to older members of your family is that prices go up. They never go down other than for exceptional circumstances. We’ve all heard it. “Oh shit, in my teenage years I could go to the corner store with a threepence bit and buy so many jelly babies and toffee apples I thought my teeth would drop out, and I still had change for a milkshake.” Well, if I was a teenager now I’d have to hand over at least $15 to fill up with sweets and a milkshake. Actually, come to think of it, I’d be down at the bottle shop trying to get a few large bottles of beer - not sweets and milk.
As for the fear of violence thing, I find it hard to think of why anyone could possibly be afraid of anything in Australia. It’s the most peaceful it has ever been in its history. Much like catching a flight, take-off and landing are the hardest parts of life really, ie. the first 5 years and the last 5 years. The years in between are for adventure, experience, education, experimentation, sex, work and sleep. Simple really ‘eh?
What’s so bad about life? Why are so many people complaining? Why? I need to know!
As you may have gathered I am very busy at the moment.Added to my 38 hour a week job working for Anna Bligh, my small business is leaving me with no time whatsoever. I am averaging a 80 hour week for cliffsake*.
Enough of the whining, you don’t care and I don’t blame you.
The day job will have to go sooner rather than later. It’s good money and stable money but the job is interfering with my businesses needs. The thing I will miss most about quitting my job is working in a group environment. Working for yourself , even having an employee of your own isn’t the same. I will become an employer one day and I do believe there’s no such thing as a good employer. The fart jokes, the really bad bum humour, the gossip from my favourite lesbian workmate, the craziness from the bi-polar dude and the constant ‘extreme’ swearing from my supervisor will be sorely missed.
Then maybe, I will be back here more regularly offering my uneducated and totally useless opinions and thoughts for my small yet loyal audience.
Ah the political rants, the ranting against social puritans (the anti-fun in pubs type), the links to disgusting things and off-beat music. They’ll be back one day.
Words are hard to come by lately. That is, because like the price of food and fuel worldwide, the price of words has increased 3 fold over the last 12 months. In Europe the term for the inflation of the price of a word is called ‘Palabraflation‘.
The UN has tried their best to overcome the world word shortage but has failed to provide the required relief, especially to developing nations - which are increasingly demanding more words as their populations educate themselves to a better standard each and every year.
For several centuries the developed world has provided itself an artificiality raised sense of pride in its word production levels. These levels are now dropping as compared to the production of words coming out of countries like China and India. Between them, China and India are now responsible for 20% of the world word production at present - a 35% increase on word supply share in just 5 years. If you think that’s incredible, wait, there’s more.
Development of new words in developed economies is falling quickly, just as demand for more words increases. This reduction in research and development for new words by budding word smiths will have a dramatic effect on the income levels in developed nations. We are heading towards a brave new word world, and there will be only one winner - the people who produce the most words.
I recently had my first week-long holiday in several years and found it hard to relax. Somehow I have forgotten what it’s like not to work. Bad thing indeed! I went to Sydney with the Mrs. and stayed with the in-laws. It was very relaxing towards the end of the 7 day break, especially last Saturday when we wandered around Paddington, Darlinghurst, Kings Cross and then Enmore and Newtown from 9 in the morning until 11 that night. Surrey St. in Darlinghurst has a burger joint called BURGERMAN, and if you feel the need for a burger in Sydney, make sure you go there. Fresh and yummy.
I definitely married the right lady because she gave me a pub crawl for our anniversary on that same Saturday. We had a beer at every small little back street pub we passed. My favourite was a little old pub on the corner of Underwood St. and Elizabeth St. in Paddington. If you know what it is called please let me know.
Stanmore, Enmore and Newtown remain my favourite parts of Sydney for some reason (anywhere stencils exist seems a good place for me).
Have you heard about the Russian cult that has hidden its members in a cave to escape from the end of the world? If the world is going to end, it will end in cave as well won’t it? Or is there a clause in the great creator’s ‘end plan’ that says that ‘all underground dwellings will be exempted from being obliterated into sub-atomic particles’.
I was going to rant on for a bit and then discuss my desire to create my own cult…but I’m too tired to subvert the dominant paradigm tonight.
The next blog post will be made after a 980km drive and loads of caffeine. Yep, it’s time to catch up with the out-laws in-laws in ye olde Sydney town.
Spotted on a sign in the Valley, Brisbane.
All the blogs that I love have turned to shit. Including this.
Graham has lost the blojo (my word - short for ‘blog mojo’ - though it’s a little close to a blowjob for my liking but what the heck!). Update: Blojo has already been invented. No matter how hard I try, I can never be original.
Shauna has released a book and has been slack lately blogwise.
Momo is busy living it up Melbourne stylee. Update: Momo has broken her silence in a big, big, big way.
Ben has become lost in his Canadian wonderland.
Alison is making beads too much…either that or somebody didn’t pay the mortgage on her rented apartment and she got kicked out (is every American defaulting on their home loan).
Lightningfield.com hasn’t posted a photo is donkey’s years.
The Monkey Puzzle has gone the same way as this blog.
Zen for Lunch, my favourite Canadian blogginess is rarely updated with the usual craziness.
Grouse is dead.
Fridaysixpm is all static…
and Suki disappeared after the Kevin ‘07 project was pulled off.
Too many more to mention but I must plead with all bloggers to keep it up because I am sick of Facefuck, I mean Facebook friends that haven’t bothered to contact me for 10 years but still want to be buddies, and the proliferation of MySpace crap. Where’s the intelligent humour gone? Where is the whining? Where are the the book reviews, movie reviews and ‘have you heard this new song?’ posts? Bring back the blog!
Today I was admiring a street in Spring Hill, which is an inner-city suburb of Brisbane. I couldn’t figure out why I thought the street looked so nice, so hospitable and so welcoming. I didn’t have my camera with me, which is very unusual. I like to take photos of anything that catches my eye during my day. The admiration took place at about 9 in the morning and it didn’t dawn (or dusk?) on me until 7 this evening that the reason the street looked beautiful was that it didn’t have any power lines or cables hanging from poles.
Australian cities are so bloody ugly with poles and cables hanging everywhere.
What have you noticed lately? Obscure answers will be accepted with pleasure.
I’d turn my back on a conservative any day. Bastards - they had 11 years to apologise for shaming aboriginal people and destroying their families but did diddley squat. Wilson ‘Ironbark’ Tuckey is the biggest conservative fool of all. The only thing ‘Ironbark’ about him is his brain. Solid frigging hardwood - no neurone connections in there, just borers, termites and the occasional knot.
Anyway, it was good to see everything that happened today. Rudd done good!
Question. Does the USA celebrate its indigenous past? I don’t know much about the Indian issue other than that cowboys used to shoot them and people liked watching them get shot in films and television series’.
Lately in Brisbane and most Australian capital cities there’s been a fair bit of talk about rental rights and increasing rental prices. Especially in the state of Queensland, where you can be turfed out of your home with two weeks notice to make way for a tenant with more money than you. Well, it’s much the same over on the other side of the Pacific judging by this story about new rental tenancy legislation in the US state of Washington.
One of the best t-shirts I have seen….
