My favourite row of houses in the whole of Melbourne are the ones pictures below. They’re on Nicholson St. in Fitzroy, opposite the Exhibition Building.
Although I’d love to live in one at some stage, I doubt I’ll ever have the money to buy one. It’s doubtful that I’d even be able to rent one at the moment. Joints like this rent for around $400 to $600 a week in Fitzroy.
What the hell is a lenticular cloud?
I didn’t know until I saw this.
As a society, Australia is good at being afraid. Like many other societies we have a need for worry and a need to speculate on what might happen should we not be vigilant. In 2005 the fear is that one day fudamentalist Islamic suicide bombers will wreak havoc in an Australian capital city, on a train, on a bus or at one of our sporting stadia. Global warming is going to change the rainfall patterns of the entire nation rendering many regions of Australia uninhabitable. The supply of potable water is running out in Sydney and Brisbane. The sea level is going to rise, inundating all coastal areas. Teenagers are driving faster and faster in their high-powered cars, killing themselves and innocents. Paedophiles are being paroled by the authorities and living nextdoor. Tsunami. Earthquake. Meteor. Radiation. Terrorist. Ahhh!
Get me out of here. The nation is going to the dogs.
Glancing at the front page of a newspaper and viewing current affairs programmes on television would justify an individual worrying about the issues listed above. “Bad news sells papers and bad news increases television ratings,” is often claimed as the reason for so much coverage of all these pending disasters. Maybe that’s too simple an explanation, but it seems that people love learning about perceived threats. Just last week the 114th space shuttle mission landed safely after nearly two weeks orbiting this planet, and after nearly two weeks of media speculation about it exploding upon re-entry into the Earth’s atmosphere. Headlines babbled on about the public “praying for a safe return to earth” for the intrepid astronauts. What everyone was probably hoping for subconciously was a disaster, in the same way that many motor racing fans watch a motor race with the hope of seeing a huge smash. It’s just so bad that it’s…it’s good.
Using that logic would imply that as a society we are hoping for a terrorist attack. Well, that’s just absurd. Nobody wants that to happen in their home town. So why would we continue to prattle on about it? Every single one of us knows that worrying about a problem doesn’t solve that problem, nor does it make the problem go away. That’s especially the case with natural disasters. If a 35 kilometre wide meteor was headed for the planet right now, we’d all find something very constructive to do for our remaining time. I doubt we’d want to read about it in the paper.
After the last federal election I swore I’d become a member of the Labor Party and help get rid of the current federal Liberal government. I’ve just had enough of the lies, deceit and propaganda being peddled by Howard, Abbott, Nelson, Downer et. al. They’re very smart politicians, but shithouse as human beings.
So I went to a few Labor Party branch meetings at two different branches. It didn’t surprise me when I found the same lying, bullshitting, backstabbing arseholes. I’m not entering into any details – it’s just not worth it. All I can add is that both major parties in Australia are failing miserably in representing the average person.
The best course of action for me is to get myself off the electoral roll and if that fails, just pay the fine. Fuck ‘em. I doubt you’ll see many more posts about political happenings here because I am beyond caring. If 3 elections worth of lies and deceit isn’t enough to wake Australians up to the fact that their government is buggering them from behind, then Australians deserve what they voted for – Third world wages and employment conditions, police harrassing minorities, diluted rights and increasing regulation of personal affairs. It’s too late for getup now. Forget about it. The damage has been done and Australians slept through the whole thing from mid-1996 until late-2004. Keep paying off your plasma screen TVs and huge mortgages on double storey homes you won’t even be able to sell in 15 years (an ageing Australia won’t be able to walk up a lusciously carpeted staircase). That gives me an idea. I might start a business selling and installing these.
This cartoon comes from my local paper – The Melbourne Times (10th August 2005, p13).
I have excised my backyard from all Australian laws. Don’t laugh.
I’m not declaring a republic, nor creating my own micro-nation or intending to harbour “illegal aliens”, the crimally insane or Steve Vizard. I’ve just decided to excise it from Australian legal regulations. I don’t own my backyard, I just lease it off an Australian-Macedonian family. They’re nice and have given my good wife and I a good rental deal on our land. Nevertheless, as lessee of my backyard, I hereby declare that Australian law no longer applies.
If the Australian Government can excise islands and military training areas from Australian law, I don’t see why I can’t. If it’s good for the goose ‘eh!
So come on over. Bring your esky. You can do anything you like!
Graham has pulled the pin.
There’s quite a few blogs that have been around for a while now that are ‘going fallow’ for one reason or another. Blog depression was bound to strike sooner rather than later. I’ve got it right now too, but being the trooper that I am I will ignore the depression until it takes me over. That’s when I smash the absolute shite out of my PC screen. That’s also when I buy a crate of black spraypaint and go crazy on brickwalls all over Melbourne (no wait…someone’s beaten me to that one).
Blogging is no different to any other hobby really. Like stamp collecting, building model aeroplanes or flying kites. What’s the fucking point of making a 1:200 model of a F-16 fighter jet or the Death Star? Why fly kites? Just throw a plastic bag in the air on a windy day. You get the same result and it’s cheaper.
So why write down what you ate for breakfast? Why talk politics? Why post pictures of random events/scenes that you saw on your daily grind? Why talk about football, baseball, sewing or ice skating?
Because you want to I suppose. Life’s too short to waste time indulging in pointless exercises isn’t it.
This must be the best bumpersticker I’ve ever come across. It certainly beats the good old “Horn Broken…Watch for Finger.”
