Monthly Archive for October, 2001

For all those poor souls

Published on 31st of October 2001 in General. 0 Comments

For all those poor souls who endure the pain that is ’sharehousing’ here is the book for you. Cleaning the Fucking Kitchen – for dummies™. (via brainsluice et al.)

I didn’t miss much over the last week while I was offline due to my ‘puter shiteing itself. Shauny seems to be settled into her new abode, Graham seems to be spending his pay on CD’s and Hamilton has gone all yellow on us. Oh, and the date has returned to English now. I hope you have all learnt the names for the days of the week in Spanish. There will be questions in the exam about them.

One of the best sites to visit whilst all this Afghanistan biz is happening is theatlantic.com. It is the companion site to the magazine ‘The Atlantic Monthly’. I subscribed to this mag about 2 months ago and am not disappointed. Clear, concise and well researched articles abound in this publication. Anyhoo, one article caught my eye on the website. It is a collection of links to previous articles about Afghanistan – dating from the late 1950’s until present. Very well worth reading. There is one passage of text that caught my eye commenting on events after the Soviet army withdrew in 1989.

Because the Afghans lack the material wealth that people in the West are terrified of losing, they were psychologically able to go on fighting and suffering…. The very underdevelopment of the Afghan economy made it difficult to destroy….

In the end what "worked" in Afghanistan was not reason or negotiation or the advent of perestroika but the Afghans’ willingness to die.

I don’t agree with the comment that Afghanis in general have a willingness to die though. Maybe some do, but right now I’d reckon that most want to live in peace just like the rest of us. Enough said already…on to other things like……

Birthdays. Happy birthday Shauny.

As far as the election goes, I’m quite worried about enduring another term of Liberal antics. I remember as a 23 year old pre-polling (before the 1996 election) in the Brisbane CBD covered in dirt from gardening in a major city park (it was my job – I didn’t go into the city to do a spot of gardening). I pre-polled because I was leaving for my English working holiday before the election. Three ’suits’ caught the elevator with me back to street level after we had all done our deed. They were cracking all sorts of jokes about Paul Keating, some of them quite funny. One of them stated that only dirty, filthy labourers voted for the Labor Party, glancing at me for a reaction. I returned fire with several punches, kicks and tirades of abuse. Yeah, I was young and stupid then and would never dream of using violence to get my point accross now. But the arrogance, ignorance and conceit that these three ‘men’ displayed towards a fellow hard working citizen has come to typify the attitude of this present government towards average people.

Needless to say I have decided to vote Labor after several weeks of swaying towards the Greens and a crackpot Socialist Alliance candidate. I am even going to hand out ‘how to vote’ cards for the ALP at my local booth, 200 metres from home. Fuck it. Go with the devil you know, the devil who might take more care when making decisions about education, health, industrial relations, immigration and foreign policy issues.

By the way, check out the seat of Melbourne’s candidate list. One independant candidate has his occupation listed as ‘wizard’. I might just change my vote after all. What we all need is a local member who can perform majik!

Finally I have a PC

Published on 30th of October 2001 in General. 0 Comments

Finally I have a PC that works. Yippee doo dah.

Whoah! Sorry about the pause

Published on 27th of October 2001 in General. 0 Comments

Whoah! Sorry about the pause in the blog. Basically my PC is shitting itself. I installed a new hard drive but just cannot get the modem to respond. So here I am back with a very unstable, old and haggard hard drive. Computers and cars – you just have to love them don’t you.

I hope to be back soon when I get my modem operating on the other hard drive. Wish me luck.

Every now and again when

Published on 22nd of October 2001 in General. 0 Comments

Every now and again when someone asks ‘What’s the date’, I can answer. Tell me one thing, why do people not know what date it is? How fucking stupid is that? Argh. Read a newspaper, keep a diary or a blog for that matter or look at your bloody calender upon waking up you fools!

Neighbours. Most people don’t know them. Most people can’t get along with them. I tend to know every person in the street within 3 months of moving in. I don’t know why. All I know is that now it is becoming a pain in the arse and I’m wishing I was one of those people who you live nextdoor to, but never speak to. I didn’t come home on Saturday night and returned to a neighbourhood in turmoil. Nextdoor to me is a houseful of 19 year olds from Bendigo (a country town in Victoria) who have awesome parties and very good taste in music. They don’t bother me at all. Sometimes they are a tad noisy but I can live with that, after all I live in the inner-city and with that comes the need to tolerate other people having fun. Admittedly, their good taste in music does temper my need to tell them to ’shuddup’.

Anyway, when I parked my van outside my front door and waddled up the front stairs at 11am Sunday morning, my Doc Martens crunched a few shards of beer bottle glass and what looked like the remains of a lamp shade. ‘Woo hoo’ I thought. Then came a constant stream of concerned neighbours from up to 6 houses away asking me to join a petition to kick my nextdoor neighbours out of their rental house. I promptly told all of them to bugger off and get a perscription for sleeping pills. None have waved at me this afternoon so far during my cigarette breaks on the front verandah. Maybe it’s a good thing.

I went nextdoor and visited Prue, Maria, Evan and Chris (the 19 year olds) to tell them of the petition plan and saw a house under re-construction. Apparently Prue had a work party and when it wound down at 2am Sunday morning, she promptly invited all 40 employees of a city camera sales shop to kick on at her place.

It seems that several work related gripes were sorted out between some of the angrier young men at Prue’s place of employment. The result being, 4 broken windows, no usable crockery, a CD player with an uncooked pappadum lodged in the CD tray and last but not least beautiful black carpet. It was white last time I visited them in the middle of last week. Ohh to be 19 again. That was 10 long years. I assured my youthful neighbours that it was no big deal and gave them a card with my mobile phone number on it. I informed them that they were NOT allowed to have anymore parties like that…unless they call me and invite me. I can’t help it. I want my youth back. Maybe the only reason the rest of the street doesn’t like these guys is because they have something that most people haven’t. Energy and youth. Remember how it felt?

I’ve been enjoying myself too

Published on 21st of October 2001 in General. 0 Comments

I’ve been enjoying myself too much this weekend. After a lovely day of cricket yesterday I partook in some male bonding for a while. Most of my fellow cricketers bond the same way. Let’s call it beer bonding. Oh, thanks go out to the friend of mine who sent me 9 emails and 22, yes 22 voice messages on my mobile (within a 25 minute window) – no doubt inspired by similar activities to those mentioned above. I don’t consider it stalking just yet, but…

Now here’s a great search

Published on 19th of October 2001 in General. 0 Comments

Now here’s a great search request. I+hate+real+estate+agents+brisbane. I agree, but not necessarily Brisbane real esate agents. In all my years of renting houses I never had problems with Brissy agents…but here in Melbourne I’ve had nothing but hassles. Squatting is looking attractive.

This evening I had a visit from my local member of the House of Reps. Lindsay Tanner, the Labor member for Melbourne. He seemed surprised that I knew his face when he knocked on my screen door. Of course I gave him an earfull. Challenging him on the poor state of Universities (staffing, infrastructure and places) and his lack of moral high ground on the issue of asylum seekers. He was very unconvincing with his promises for a better education system. And more importantly, he danced around my accusation that he was a collaborator, for supporting the outsourcing of the processing of refugees. He got my vote last time around and having never voted anything other than Labor, I am afraid to admit that I will not be doing so this time. I have a socialist, a green, a lib, a labor fellow and 2 indies to chose from. It’s a toss up between the crazy socialist or the Green’s candidate I think. Labor getting #2 of course. I don’t want another three years of Menzism, thanks very much!

Thanks go out to Shauny,

Published on 18th of October 2001 in General. 0 Comments

Thanks go out to Shauny, she’s the only person in the world that noticed I had attempted to make improvments to this page. You’ll get a birthday present for that dearie. Update your wishlist and you can guarantee that I will get the cheapest thing on it. Maybe I’ll just buy you some Red Rooster…will a quarter chicken and chips do? (drumstick or breast?)

I’m excited! Not many people at my cricket club are aware that Wally Meanie (of The Meanies and Even fame) is playing cricket with us this year. He did alright on his first traning night knocking back an impressive number of cans. After all, that’s what cricket is all about, isn’t it? So, if you’re in the vicinity of Burnley Oval in Richmond (Melbourne) this Saturday, come and see cricket at it’s finest.

Election ‘01. The subject of conscription has been brought up. Oooooo, that’ll scare the pants off a few young voters (if there are any) and get people thinking a little bit more about what being involved in a war really means.

Well, 24 hours has passed since the rebadging of this blog and as promised above there was no critical thinking. Mission successful.

I thought I was being

Published on 17th of October 2001 in General. 0 Comments

I thought I was being original in picking ‘the horse’s mouth’ as my official title for this blog (After 7 months I might as well pick a title I suppose). Alas, there is already a site called horsemouth.com. I hope my redesign is visually appealing for the masses. I’m no friggin graphic designer, but it looks ok to me. Let me know if it is up to your expectations.

It was a long day at work today and on the way home I drove down Brunswick Street here in Melbourne. I spied a shop I hadn’t been to in a while so I parked my van and ran into…SOUVLAKI KING! Please everyone, remind me to never, ever eat a souvlaki before sitting a university exam. Don’t get me wrong, the food was lovely but I was holding back one of the most horrendous farts during the entire exam this evening. I was just too scared to let it go for fear of commiting an olfactory offence. Garlic sauce, well cooked chicken and onion obviously stirred up something in my intestinal tract this evening.

After my exam I went shopping and grabbed some flour as I’m planning on making some pizza bases (and pizzas) this weekend. On the way out of the shopping centre my plastic bag broke due to the unbelievable weight of two 2 litre bottles of lemonade. My flour packet broke when it hit the footpath, just outside the sliding doors of Safeway in Collingwood. I left behind a pile of flour. Picking everything up, I went home only to think of all the poor Safeway employees being sprayed with pine-o-clean while standing in Smith Street. So, if you read this and then hear of an anthrax scare in Collingwood tonight – shhhh!…keep quiet…it was only me and my plain flour. OK? Good, now forget you even read this.

Celebrity signed toilet paper…I kid you not. I suppose this is one person who’d never risk running out of dunny paper.

It has been on the

Published on 15th of October 2001 in General. 0 Comments

It has been on the cards for a while. Now the gentrification of inner Melbourne looks like claiming another icon. The Punters Club, one of the icons of Melbourne’s music scene, looks like being swallowed up and turned into a restaurant/clothing shop/townhouse.

For the first time in a long time the flu has beaten me. I was ignoring my sore throat and fever, but after 30 minutes of work this morning I had no other choice but to drive home and sleep. It’s 1245pm now and I am wide awake but feeling like somebody has booted me in the back and rubbed my throat with highly abrasive sandpaper.

So, Smurfs do have a use. What a nifty links page this is.

Another birthday has passed. I’m

Published on 14th of October 2001 in General. 0 Comments

Another birthday has passed. I’m not one for birthday parties and I had everything under wraps yesterday. I don’t like having that stupid fucking song sung at me for a start. The day passed well at the cricket club after my game was washed out due to a recently formed swamp in the outfield. I sat around and watched one of our club’s other sides play a one day game (and tie it). Sometime around 9pm my secret was discovered, I had THAT song sung at me and before I knew it I had a mountain of alcoholic beverages shoved in front of me. I love a challenge, and the mountain quickly became a molehill. Then I turned into a something that must have resembled a mole. Argh! Can’t remember getting home…

The
fall of the American Empire? (via VM)

Grouse has an interesting site of the day. A short piece on Afghan history in Australia.

I’m glad I don’t freak

Published on 12th of October 2001 in General. 0 Comments

I’m glad I don’t freak out about my age. I turn 29 tomorrow and am not the slightest bit worried at the idea of growing older. Frankly I can’t wait for the day when I can kick back in my recliner – I probably won’t be able to walk anyway. I suppose I’m more concerned with what sort of planet I will be living on in 20-40 years from now. If life isn’t quality it’s no use having quantity is it?

The Melbourne club cricket competition kicks off for me tomorrow. Whoo hoo! So don’t expect an entry tomorrow night. I will be too tired, sore, and if the guys at my cricket club find out that it is my birthday, too drunk.

Ten things to know about the Middle East makes for interesting reading. It is a little skewed, but then again, anything you read is skewed.

Today I’m in a much

Published on 11th of October 2001 in General. 0 Comments

Today I’m in a much better mood. Probably because around 1kg of hair was removed from my head. Tonight was haircut night and considering that it only happens every 4 months or so, it is quite an occasion for me. $42 is a little dear for a cut but I like to pamper myself every now and again – besides, the hairdresser give good head massages before and after the cut. One thing remains on my mind in between each visit to my hairdresser. Why do posh salons always go for a minimalist feel? You know, a mirror and a few chairs, coat rack on the wall, a front desk with nothing on it. No plants, no magazine racks to trip over, no leggo to amuse the 3 year old while mum get her tips done. I like a shop with crap everywhere. Probably the best example of a messy shop is a second-hand bookshop (I think it’s called Antique Books – not sure) in Charlotte Street, Brisbane. It is huge and desperately in need of some organization but that is part of the charm. I used to spend my lunch hour browsing a different subject each day. If you go to Brisbane, make sure you visit this bookshop.