Archive for August, 2004

General erection

So Howard has decided that we have to vote on October the 9th. That’s nice.

Antony Green, the Bruce McAveney of Australian political journalism, swung into action early today. Actually, I don’t think he ever swung out of action. He’s a very interesting man. I’d like the ABC to make a documentary on his life. Maybe an episode of Australian Story. That way we’ll find out if he has a paper copy of ‘The Pendulum‘ on the back of his toilet door in place of the obligitory rainforest poster or calendar.

Dangerous laneways

A note to anyone intending on moving themselves to Melbourne. If you have a Queensland registered hire-truck, watch where you leave it when you park it in Melbourne overnight. Avoid laneways at all costs.

Not happy John

Well, 24 hours after I put out the bottlecap request, I’ve received one. Thanks Rob. C’mon. Send a few more people. Give me an excuse to stay up really late on Friday night and make a Bottlecap Trivia page.

Anyway, the title of this entry comes from a piece on the ABC’s 730 Report. John Valder (an ex-Lib) has launched a campaign called Not Happy John. Opposition to Howard and his methods of operation are coming from unusual places and that doesn’t bode well for the lying sack of shit.

We’ve all worked with, or been friends with a person that is habitual liar. I know that I can put up with it for a little while, accepting all the embelishments merely as ‘attention seeking’. But after a while I get sick of it, like most people would. This is John Howard’s position at the moment. I can sense that average Joe/Joan on the street doesn’t believe him or his government’s bullshit anymore. Habitual liars can only fool people for so long. Then they get told to piss off and tell their tall stories on the way out the door. His days must be numbered, surely!

Knowledge

One of the strangest things about Australia is that our beer manufacturers think we are unable to strike up conversation. I mean, that’s why they insist on putting trivia questions underneath beer bottle caps isn’t it? Or is it that trivia is a great way to chat up the opposite sex in a bar late at night? “Hey, I bet you didn’t know Perth was Australia’s windiest city! How about a root?”

Maybe the health department will start making them put warnings underneath them…

Download the blank bottlecap here and email some good bottlecap trivia to me (toekneeATtamesapienDAHTcomm). When I get enough (say 10 or 15) I’ll whack up a bottlecap trivia page.

Fishtanker

This morning I saw the strangest thing. A huge tanker pulled up outside a seafood wholesaler in Richmond. A bloke got out of the cab, climbed the small ladder on the side of the tanker and unscrewed a large plastic lid on the top of the tank. He then picked up a large net and started scooping very frigging big live fish (barramundi I think) out of the tank. He handed the net down to another bloke who put them in a plastic ice-filled container, where they flip-flopped around for a while. I’ve never seen anything like it. It was fish farm produce no doubt. Bugger my job, I want to be a fish farmer and deliver live fish all day. I’d love that. The best thing about the job would be that you could throw live fish at mototists who shit you off. Get cut off by a Range Rover, chuck a flathead in their window. Get stuck behind someone who hasn’t noticed the light has turned green, lodge a barramundi on their roof.

Inverted knackers

Today I had all intentions of going to the MCG with my better half and her friends to see Hawthorn take on Brisbane. That was until I realised it was going to rain all day. Being a Richmond supporter, I would be prepared to endure a wet and uncomfortable afternoon for my team, but I would never do the same for Hawthorn and Brisbane. It’s bloody cold today. So cold that I believe my testicles are inverted.

Instead I tuned in to the replay of the opening ceremony of the Athens games. It was the same old same old really. Watching the teams walking into the stadium every four years is my favourite part of the games. Seeing Bjork sing a song was pretty doovy too. She’s pretty good. I also noticed that Bjork had gone to the effort of shaving her armpits, so she gets extra points for her olympic effort. Bruce McAveney, the new master of Greek ancient history, shat me off by constantly saying that the teams were coming into the stadium in a strange order. Well Bruce, the Roman alphabet is a little bit different from the Greek alphabet. Get over it.Pinyin will probably send poor old Bruce into an asylum in 2008.

The olympics really is just another reason to make people spend money. Reading this article about how punters will be turned away from olympic venues for consuming the wrong company’s products makes me shiver. This quote says it all - Kostas Giannis, a Greek sports fan, said: “I don’t see why, after all the money that Greek taxpayers will end up paying to host the games, McDonald’s should dictate what I can eat in my own city.”

I don’t now why, but it reminds me of the time I was refused entry into the MCG at an Australia vs England one day international because a 750ml bottle of Pepe Lopez tequila was spotted, having been shoved down the front of my jeans. The gatekeepers ended up letting me in to meet with my friends after 12 overs of the game (with the bottle) because I kept asking if I could go inside and buy something to mix the tequila with. 10 points for persistance ‘eh.

Alternalympics - Day 1

The opening ceremony of the first Alternalympics of the even-more-modern era was a complete success in Finley, New South Wales, today. All up, 15000 alternalympians from all 193 of Earth’s nations are in attendance. The Finley showgrounds exploded in colour with 4 tonnes of homemade explosives (made from agricultural chemicals) at around 5.32pmAEST this evening. The opening ceremony then stepped up a gear with Finley’s finest drinking hole, The Albion, supplying it’s local fishing club to parade around the showground in utes with overly large aerials and spotlights, all the while performing spectacular circlework. After the utes left the ground the local Country Womens Association performed some simply delightful calisthenics to various tunes including Achy Breaky Heart and River Deep, Mountain High. The Mayor of the Finley area, Mr. J. Bruce, then proclaimed the 1st Games of the even-more-modern era open, and pulled a rip cord which opened a massive cage. From the cage flew 1300 disorientated sulphur crested cockatoos and galahs. As they flew off into the night, the Alternalympic bonfire was piled high with several tonnes of dry redgum and set alight. The bonfire will burn strongly for the next two weeks to keep the alternalympians warm whilst they consume alcoholic beverages, in the process assisting to promote world peace through universal drunkeness.

Tomorrow the real competition begins with the Inner-Tube time trials along the Mulwala Canal and the Doggy-Paddle competition on the world renowned Finley Lake. The 110km Trail Bike Bash preliminaries will commence, as well as first round of the Double Barrel Shotgun prelims. Later tomorrow evening the Bomb Dive heats will be completed along with the first 5 (of 10) heats of the Synchronised Donut competition.

We hope you come back tomorrow for a wrap up of the day’s events.

exit stage left

Well friends, well-wishers and Tony-fans who wish I’d just pipe down, it’s time for me to move on. I have a new site and weblog, www.sunnybreaks.org. Different name, same ridiculosity.
It’s been real good fun sticking my head in the Horse’s Mouth here for the last month. There’s a whole bunch of blogs on my link-list and the way they map out in my mind places them at varying distances within the virtual neighbourhood — but horse’s mouth has always felt close by. That sounds pretty sucky huh. It’s true though, that’s why I don’t overlap link-lists, I just use Tone’s!
Collaborative blogging can be heaps of fun and I suggest everyone both ask someone if you can have a go on someone else’s and invite someone to write on yours.
Now turn to the person to your right, shake hands and introduce yourself. ;^)
Alright, Peace out.

Our Cakes and Pies are Delicious

A while back a buddy told me he was considering buying an abstractish $15,000 painting done in the 60s (i.e. his era) - and asked me what I thought of the idea. I said if the primary motivation wasn’t investment - and if the painting really moved him, then I could see a point to it. Maybe it’s that I’m not that visual, or grew up in the age of mass reproductions of everything but I haven’t seen anything that moved me that much.
A year 12 visit to the National Gallery and seeing Jackson Pollack’s Blue Poles was very moving, but mostly due to a magic mushroom flashback.

Chris Woods’ work is really impressive, particularly when compared to all the controversial for controversy’s sake trash - like that Serrano guy. T’is also refreshing to read about the stations of the cross series, commissioned by a church over there in Canada, and on permanent display inside the joint.

nobody likes a shill / I love that little shill

Guh. Stupid internet. I look at kids like benny and I’m sure as hell glad there wasn’t any internet when I was a teenybopper. I wouldn’t've got into a quarter of the trouble I did — and trouble is fun. On top of that I’d be even more maladjusted than I am. Last night I was considering selling the computer and putting internet down on my grudge list. Go back to listening records and just hanging out.
This isn’t the first time I’ve lived in this dwelling. The first time I was here was just before I came across the hollow soul-eating illusory fucken internet. I read, wrote stories, listened to the radio. The little tv I had came with a remote control and I’d often find it in my hand and I’d click it ‘OFF’ - right in the middle of a show, because I could.

The protracted spouting.net situation may be nearing closure. I’ve been waiting 3 weeks for an envelope I sent to reach a company in the US. I don’t know what’s happened to it. Fortress America, that’s what’s happened to it. What a country — leading the charge back to feudalism.
I’m not really angry. I just set my expectations too high. I expected certain businesses to do what I paid them for. US post is just the last in a long line of fuck-ups.

There’s a rather cute little indie-pop song on the radio lately called Coin-operated boy, by the Dresden Dolls — a nifty website to have a click around and then that song is there to download. It’s a live version and perhaps a tad more adult than the studio original.

Bite dust

Another one of my favourite bloggy reads is biting the dust. Realkosh is calling it quits. Bugger! With Lukelog not updating very often now, my list of daily reading is starting to look decidedly small. I need to explore a little more. I’m sure there’s tonnes of blogs out there that don’t talk about girl/boyfriends or the year 11 school dance. Any suggestions from leftfield people?

The older the better

With YS talking about bicycles, I am reminded of my own stubborness when it comes to bikes. I have had the same old Repco mountan bike since 1992. It’s getting rusty, the spokes are loosening and it makes more noise than me when it goes up a steep hill.

If my bike could speak, it would tell some interesting stories. Especially stories of drink driving riding. In my mid-twenties I rode everywhere - well, from pub to pub anyway. Once I can recall falling off it about 10 times while trying to ride 200 metres from the All Nations Hotel (64 Lennox St. Richmond) to the front door of my old shared house (140 Lennox St. Richmond). Why I didn’t just walk it home I will never know. I reckon it’s clocked up thousands of kilometres and besides my 15 year old Panasonic mini-system, it’s probably the best purchase I have ever made. If I remember correctly it was $229.

Most bikes that I see now have all sorts of wank attached to them. While it may not be wank to anyone else, I just fail to see the need for complexity when it comes to designing something that should last a decade at the least. I just don’t get fancy gear levers, excessive cabling, non-weatherproof nuts and bolts and seats made from anything but steel and vinyl. Give me a sore arse after a leisurely 20km ride anyday. Just don’t expect me to buy anything that looks like it was put together by the Williams F1 team.