This morning in the wee hours I woke to a tirade of abuse eminating from the living room. I tried to ignore it. Then came my mobile phone, bleeting out a single beep to let me know that I had a text message. The message said ‘FUCKTARD.’ I then heard more swearing coming from the living room and decided to investigate. It was my wife declaring war on Italy and describing in brutal detail what she would do to the shins of any Italian football player she came across.
Ahh, the emotion. Football (soccer) must have made it in Australia when women swear at televisions, friends send text messages abusing players/umpires and Melburnians smash bottles, police cars and each other.
Now is my chance. I have contemplating how I can possibly remove myself from the electoral roll for the last year or so. Last night the Australian government passed new legislation that will make it harder to get onto the electoral roll and change electoral roll details once an election is announced.
Some will consider me a fool for not wanting to be a willing participant in a democratic system of government. I know I know, ‘if I’m not part of the solution, I’m a part of the problem‘. I might be labelled cynical beyond my years, but no party or independant politician is any good whatsoever. In the past I have always voted Labor in state and federal elections and green in local elections. But not anymore. I lived in the City of Yarra local government area of Melbourne for the best part of a decade and helped vote in a Green dominated council. They were hopeless. They stuffed up everything. Liberals, well, I will never vote for that bunch of self-interested fucks. And Labor, as much as I love them, all they stand for is mediocrity and fence sitting these days. That leaves the extreme left and right. I’d lean extreme left but they don’t know their arses from their elbows most of the time.
So that leaves me with non-participation. You see, to change electoral details from now on you have to supply them with valid identification. Apparently a drivers licence number must be supplied with any change of detail in your enrolment. If you don’t have a licence then you have to prove your identity by other means in person at a post office or an electoral commision office. So, my question is, if I fail to prove my identity sufficiently while making a slight change to my electoral details, will I be knocked off the roll for being non-compliant? If so, yay!
If you hate sport, particularly AFL, then don’t read the following rant.
Dear Richmond,
I know you are supposedly in the third year of a supposed five year ‘team development’ plan, but surely you can do better than you did today. Did the whole team go on a tour of the James Boaggs brewery yesterday afternoon and drink themselves stupid or what?
And what about the Richmond’s team medicos? Are they rejects from the Queensland public health system or something? Why the fuck did they allow Mark Coughlan to go back onto the field after he hurt his knee in a tackle?
I’ve never seen such a pissweak effort against such an untalented, girly and overrated team like Hawthorn.
Richmond. Have you ever tried kicking endlessly at the Punt Road goals? If not, do it for the next 14 days straight and learn how to do it properly instead of spending most of your week playing with your new iPods and Playstations.
My frustration with a consistently failing football team has now broken though the bull-shit barrier and I am now considering becoming a follower of the world game. Yeah. I might as well be a member of a football team (Melbourne Victory) who might draw a game every now and again rather than win 4 then lose by an absolute torrent of uncontested goals every few weeks.
Terry Wallace, you’re a high-pitched-whiney-voiced dickhead!
Kevin Bartlett, you’ve been caught in possession of an over-inflated ego. Get back to where you belong!
Myspace. Myspace. Myspace.
Myspace is the latest web fad you just HAVE to be a part of. Everyone’s just gotta have one apparently. A colleague at work has signed his hardcore metal band, State of Integrity, up to Myspace in the hope that it provides some much needed publicity. On Brisbane’s only decent radio station, 4ZZZ, all the visiting bands have Myspace addresses and spruke them incessantly. I’d never heard of Myspace before, which doesn’t surprise me as stuff like this pops out of nowhere (and generally lasts a year or so before fading). And Myspace won’t be around long if they continue making claims like ‘See who knows who, or how you are connected. Find out if you really are six people away from Kevin Bacon.’ Kevin fucking Bacon! Please. Everybody cut footloose.
So now there’s Blogger, Typepad, Myspace, Flickr, Livejournal and god knows how mnay other web based personal publishing platforms to use. But only one of them can possibly help you become close to Kevin Bacon. Wow.
Along with many regional governments worldwide, the Queensland Government loves making rules for its subjects. Their latest effort to encourage mass civil compliance is ‘Wear your hair normal in Queensland week’.
Today I was meant to be playing cricket. Winter cricket. I love it. The funny thing is that winter cricket in Brisbane is generally played in warmer conditions than summer cricket in Melbourne, where I played last season. Unfortunately it has pissed rain for the last 24 hours and the game was called off due to the pitch being unplayable.
At 730am, having learnt my day of very amateur cricket was cancelled, I then sat on the front steps of my house and had a cigarette while watching the cat dig a hole in the front garden in which to crap in. Hmm. Nice. I sat there wondering what to do with my long-weekend Sunday until 2 shrill voices disturbed the crisp, early morning air. Two mid-50′s, bottle blonde ladies wearing brand new Nike sportswear were talking so loud I heard part of a conversation about their property portfolios as they passed by.
“Oh, well we bought 2 houses in Paddington with his redundancy payout.”
“Yes! That’s wonderful. We purchased 4 units on the same floor of a new apartment complex on the Gold Coast. And now we’re considering purchasing in Red Hill or Paddington. I mean, $400K for a house is soooo cheap.”
“Oh it is! Imagine what you could sell it for in 50 years time…”
That’s where I lost the conversation. Their general pomposity struck me. But nothing struck me harder than the fact that one of these ladies was expecting to benefit from the sale of a house in 50 years time – when she’ll be well over 100 years of age. If filthy rich baby boomers who expect the world to be shaped to their requirements aren’t annoying enough, baby boomers who plan on living into their 100s is just scary.
I finshed my cigarette, watched the cat bury his poo and decided to do absolutely nothing important today.
Enjoy your long-weekend (unless you’re overseas or in WA).
WordPress 2.0.3 is out, well last week anyway but excuse me please because I live in Brisbane now. Things happen at their own pace in these here parts.
It’s bueno bueno! It’s the first upgrade I’ve made since WordPress 1 point 5 point something in the middle of last year and I have to say that it kicks bot bot. I have toyed with the idea of going back to MoveableType, but for the fees they want (currently $US70 – about $A95 at current exchange rates) and the tool’s ultimate use managing an amateur (very amateur) blog, well, I couldn’t justify punishing my credit card any more. I’d value MoveableType at about $20, which is what I donated to WordPress and its developers.
While I’m on the subject of communication technologies, Optus rang me today on my mobile phone. They offered me an $11 rebate on the cost of calls made on each bill as ‘recognition’ of my longevity as a customer. Heh! Of course I asked what the catch was and the reply was that there were no catches at all. For 12 months I’ll get an $11 rebate on each monthly bill no matter how little or how much I spend. $11 is fuck all really (20% of my normal monthly spending) but who am I to say no to it. $132 extra in my pocket per annum is better than $132 in the accounts of Singtel Optus. When I got home I looked at the contract I signed in February of 2005 I noticed that it runs out in 8 months. Smooth work from Optus there and bad news for Telstra who I was considering going back to after 5 years. Mobile telephony is going down in price by the month. Nice.
Yep. It’s been light on blogwise for a fair while now. Not that there’s many people checking this site though! Most traffic seems to come from spambots and the like – fuckers. As many old time readers will be aware, I’ve been busy settling into a new life far,far away from my beloved Melbourne. Adjusting to life in Brisbane has been frigging hard work (especially adjusting to sweaty bumcrack weather in Brissie’s long, long summer). So has going back to a casual job with the same nursery (plant nursery) I left sometime in the mid 90s when I left Brisbane for more exciting destinations.
I never like repeating history as far as jobs and relationships go. So far I’ve never married anyone twice (quite happy in my first and only marriage), but I am now a casual truck driver at a firm I left over 10 years ago. Nothing’s changed there. Same people. Same paperwork. Same processes, same old same old. I don’t like that but hey, it’s a job and it pays wellish and gives me free time to embark on my own entrepreneurial activities.
Also I now start work at 6am. For me this has been unheard of for over a decade. This is probably the most major reason for not posting to this blog – the fact that by 10pm I just HAVE to be in bed. Noramally I’m up with a beer or a stiff drink until midnight or 1am. Not mentioning that driving a truck requires a blood alcohol concentration of 0.00. So big nights followed by going to work consisting of 3 parts vodka are now over. Poo!
