Published on
30th of November 2001 in
General.
And then there were two. Harro’s croaked it. Now we’re going to have to put up with Paul McCartney churning out another bleeding heart tribute album. The world economy needed it though. Beatles re-releases will bring the world out of recession and into a new era of love, peace, happiness, prosperity and bowl cuts.
I’m glad I’m not at home visiting my parents tonight. All the old vinyl albums will be crackling their way through the warm Brisbane air this evening. As will the sound of a few corks being pulled from bottles.
Published on
29th of November 2001 in
General.
So, Mr. Grudnuk got a rogue email from me ‘eh. That’s funny because I don’t have him on my email list. I also got a message from colesmyer telling me that they didn’t accept my email. I have read a fair bit about this virus (badtrans.b) and it doesn’t say anything about what I suspect has happened. The afternoon of the infection I looked at coles myer’s website with the intention of buying an AFL jumper. I looked at Virulent Memes, Pussycat etc. My usual daily sites. The virus must parse each website the user visits and send an email to any address it finds on the page. That’s the only explanation I can think of anyway. And yes Graham, I am a nong.
All this nonsense about immigration lately has finally filtered to the very core of Australian society. Cricket clubs. Yes, the last bastions of freedom and equality. Last night I attended a meeting of the Eastern Cricket Association, the competition that I play in. Some fuckknuckle put forward a motion that each club in the league should have a limit on the number of foreign players registered to their club.
It’s not as if the competition is professional or anything – for gadsake most guys play with hangovers and off-white t-shirts. I had my say and was lambasted by the hoards of grey haired, middle aged, outer suburb dwelling A-holes present at the meeting. My case was that inner city clubs, like the one I play for have a very different demographic to the richer outer-suburban clubs. We have students from India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka as well as one asylum seeker playing for us. God help this fucking nation – we have become so insular. What is foreign, and what difference does it make to a game of bloody cricket if a well tinted man with poor english wants to be a part of a social activity? White Australia has lots of explaining to do.
London: The Biography by Peter Ackroyd. Sounds interesting. You have to live in that shithole of a city to get to love it. When I first landed in London, found a job and place to live, I wanted out. It took three months to learn to appreciate what sort of city I was living in. In a word – diverse. In a few years I could definately go back for another stint. I love the place.
Published on
28th of November 2001 in
General.
I hardly ever use Outlook Express. But a few days ago I did for some unknown reason, and I paid the price. My machine became infected by the W32.Badtrans.B@mm virus. What a bastard it is too. Luckily I don’t have a address list on Outlook so not many others would have got it but apparently the worm sends itself to any address that happens to be within the inbox.. It’s my own stupid fault . I just hope I haven’t spread it to many other people. I am a dickhead, I know, I can see you all shaking your heads.
I promptly downloaded Netscape’s latest. 6.2. I thoroughly recommend it. It’s heaps better than the last version. Oh well, it’s the first time I’ve ever been infected by a virus. I suppose I had to get one to wake me from my very blasé approach to security.
Published on
27th of November 2001 in
General.
The machine looks as if it will roll on. God this shit makes me sick. Especially the quote below.
"Afghanistan is just the beginning," he roared to an audience of soldiers at Fort Campbell, Kentucky. George W. Bush
Published on
26th of November 2001 in
General.
For the last 2 months or so we’ve had to listen to all the crapola surrounding ‘The War Against Terrorism’. I really think we need to start ‘The War Against Hipsters‘. For the last week or so I have been out and about with an English friend of mine indulging in Vietnamese cuisine and beer-tasting sessions. Whilst leaning over a pint or two and discussing life, world politics, fashion and meerkats, we came to the conclusion that hipsters are the scourge of the modern world.
Now before you start calling me a sexist pig, hipsters were also seen being worn by males (about 30%). The main reason for wearing hipsters seems to be that tattoos on the belly and lower back are more easily seen and showed off. Great! I might start wearing them to show off the lovely patch of black hair surrounding my umbilicus (belly button). I’m sure the fashion world would be in rapture. Also, people that insist on wearing hipsters with approximately 5 kilos of flesh hanging over their belt should have a $50 fine stuck to their pants, similar to parking tickets. Let’s call it an ‘unauthorised gut’ offence.
First prize goes to a 20-something male who walked away from the bar at my local pub with a swagger only Vinnie Babarino could have beaten. As he swaggered past a group of young ladies he suddenly noticed that his fly was down. His hipsters were tight, even tighter than his TOOL t-shirt, so the fly was bursting apart – exposing his pubic hair. His t-shirt was correct…and boy did girls at the table let him know.
Published on
24th of November 2001 in
General.
Well, my week of relaxation has finally come to an end. Not much relaxation went down though. I won’t even begin to explain. Hopefully, for those few who keep up with me using this blog, I will resume normal programming. Don’t hold your breath though. It might take a few more days.
Published on
18th of November 2001 in
General.
Sorry for the break in transmission, I have been busy playing cricket and going out in the evenings with the intent of entertaining my English friend who is in Melbourne for the next week or so. I am going to have a week off work as well in which I plan to do absolutely bugger all. I just need to relax at the moment.
Today is a mission into the Melbourne CBD to get some photos for this stupid frigging website. It’s a good oppportunity to show my friend around the city and to get something done myself.
Published on
14th of November 2001 in
General.
Yep! It’s re-design #74956 and it still hurts your eyes in a dark room. Sorry.
So. It all sounds good. But if it is true then we will only have enough nuclear weapons to obliterate the world 20 times over (as opposed to 60). Good work fellas. I will sleep soooo much better tonight.
Our wonderful government is at it again. A few months after telling Tuvaluan’s to sink or swim, now WE are asking them to take our asylum seekers. The cheek of the Howard regime doesn’t surprise me at all.
Here’s a great quiz for you all to take. It the Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson and Osama bin Laden quiz (via alternet.org). For those who don’t know who the first two people are, I have provided links to their VERY educational and spiritually uplifting websites. (argh!)
On the home front – I can’t wait for the time when I no longer have to share a house with people I am not, and never want to be related to. Share housing can be fun, but when you live with a person who doesn’t give a crap about the house, it’s security, your belongings and your sanity, share housing moves into a realm of it’s own. Holy shit. I think I have just reached the point of no return. After years of sharing homes with misfits (and the occasional nice person) I feel I am almost ready to make the plunge. That’s right, enter a long term live-in relationship or become a crazy old bachelor. The choice is mine.
Choice #1
Right that’s it…a bar fridge…a black and white tele…a stable table…a dog…and a one bedroom flat in Collingwood.
OR
Choice #2
Right that’s it…a life partner…an ironing board…two dogs a cat and 3 kids…and a three bedroom house in Camberwell.
Published on
13th of November 2001 in
General.
3 years after leaving Europe and it’s comforable sofabeds behind, it is time for favours to be called in. I thought that my 5 days off work next week were going to be sedate, but alas. I have to host a mad Frenchman and an even madder Englishman. Next week is going to be very interesting indeed. They both like loud live music (Melbourne has that), they both love beer (I can assist with that) and they both want to see kangaroos, koalas, and to borrow the words of my French friend, "I vant to zee all doze verry dungerous animals sat you Australian’s have". Healsville Sanctuary will do I think. I knew that some day all my bumming around on European sofas would end up coming back at me. I can’t wait actually. I love hosting a good party and knowing these guys, the whole week will be one to remember.
Meat trivia and facts. My favourite…
The record for the most pies ever consumed in a single sitting was made by an American,Frank Giblet,on a holiday in Germany. He ate 631 meat pies,each with a diameter of approx 2′.After this he was admitted to a local hospital where he had a minor cardiac arrest.
Yep! The hard facts, straight from the horse’s mouth.
Published on
12th of November 2001 in
General.
Last Friday the entire CBD of Melbourne was plunged into darkness. As usual a faulty transformer was to blame. On Saturday morning I read a front page article in The Age about this incident and was amazed to learn how helpless the public at large have become. The quote below is taken from page one of last Saturday’s paper
A spokesman for Myer said it was the first time the store had been evacuated "in living memory". Although backup generators were used, the company could not risk having shoppers caught in lifts or stuck half-way up escalators, he said.
Imagine being stuck half-way up an escalator. It would be a truly hideous experience I am sure. God, I don’t know what I’d do. A moving stairway that no longer moves. Sorry, I can no longer bear to think about it. (N.B. Newspaper staff obviously noticed the error and the online version of the article has now been changed to elevators instead of escalators, which doesn’t make sense in the context of the paragraph at all. Shit, bring back media watch!)
I’m not talking about the election result, but these overseas media outlets are.
"Victorious Howard faces senate row on migrants" – Guardian,UK. "Analysis : Howard’s election victory" – BBC, UK.
While searching for the above BBC link I found an article about REM’s guitarist, Peter Buck. He is about to stand trial for a bout of ‘air rage’ . One of the five charges aginst him is ‘damaging British Airways crockery’. Is that a charge? Oh well, the beeb says so. It must be true! Old rock starts never die, they just get drunker.
Published on
11th of November 2001 in
General.
Something I overheard between a father and a teenage daughter outside my local polling pooth at ten past eight yesterday morning.
Daughter : "Who do you think will win this election Dad?"
Dad (with a thick Kiwi accent): "New Zealand".
It’s all over. The House of Reps. belongs to Howard (only for 18 months or so before PISTOL pete takes over). I’m sad…but feel sadder for this whole country as workers rights are turned into the ground and as we become a more divided nation from within. There will be one good result from the next term of coalition routing. They won’t be seen for several terms after the next election.
What does the world think of our election? (before the result)
Guardian, UK. "Australia votes on how tightly to close the door"
New York Times, US. "Which Australian Candidate has the harder heart"
The scariest quote from the above linked New York Times article is the following, commenting about both Kim Beazley and John Howard –
Using the hyperbole that makes democracy fun, a columnist named Catherine Lumby talked of detergents: "The difference between them is the difference between Omo and Rinso. Both are running on the promise that they’ll keep Australia whiter."
I hope the world doesn’t see this as fact over the coming years. However, I am scared that it will.
HG and Roy provided me with my lightest moment this evening. At around 6.40pm Rampaging Roy declared a Labor victory with a 27 seat majority. He dedicated the reason for the predicted landslide to the vote winning comment from an ALP MHR Mark Latham, that children needed to be re-introduced to corporal punishment. Roy added that,"Lots of kids want to be hit and lots of people want to hit them". A little sick but then that’s HG and Roy isn’t it!
Finally, check this pic out. The fence needs some razor wire though.
Published on
10th of November 2001 in
General.
I exercised my democratic right at 8am this morning and then hung out for a while, giving out leaflets for the ALP. This election, more than any other, I noticed how polarised people were. Instead of collecting all the ‘how to vote’ cards on offer, electors walked up to one person/party and grabbed the one they wanted. Green and ALP cards were by far the most popular at the booth I was working at. The poor Liberal Party guy accross from me, Travis, was getting a little pissed off at being called an anti-humanitarian and having old people mumble what could only be assumed as obscenities in Mediterranean tounges. Poor Travis, I gave him my thermos of coffee and some sugar to help drown his sorrows.
Anyhow, another day of cricket today. The mighty Richmond Union Cricket Club is defending a score of 202 runs. It’ll be nice and cool, so I can bowl with minimal discomfort. Hopefully today my butterfingers will manage to catch cricket balls. Two weeks ago I dropped 3 catches and felt like a complete tit.
Said…