Orange Juice Snobbery

The Brand New Hobo-Doll!

2010-04-12T21:49:00.005+10:00

As many people know I'm most unfortunately out of employment and trying to find something new to do with my life. The applications are going out, and I'm baying at the moon, howling for a job.

It's a harsh world when employers don't appreciate you and I hate interviews. I hate 'em. Really I do.

And I've come to the conclusion that perhaps I should just become an entrepreneur. You know. Just invent some things and sell them.

The real problem is I don't know what to invent yet.

But once I've overcome that minor hiccup in my plan, I'm sure Orange Juice Snobbery Products Pty & Ltd will be a roaring success. You just wait and see.

One idea just popped into my mind and I've got a rough sketch going for it.

Welcome to the first OJS Products product ... The New .. in fact the first Hobo-Doll!

We all know how homeless people can earn a fortune. In fact it's shocking that some of them can earn more than what I've earned employed, and they probably can collect a pension as well and it's all tax-free.

Some clear $400 a day, and they're just sitting on their bot-bots in Martin Place with a sign around their necks.

Now, that's all dandy except not all of us want to sit in Martin Place, and what if you could have someone else sitting in Martin Place for you while you went out and got another job or just partied?

Welcome the Hobo-Doll!

The Hobo-Doll is a lovely plump doll that looks EXACTLY like a hobo and dresses like one and will do all your sitting for you and collect the cash. It will even wear a sign around its neck. No matter that it doesn't breathe or eat - no one checks homeless people too carefully for signs of breathing and when was the last time you saw a homeless person eating? Most of the time they don't look up when you throw a coin in.

The Hobo-Doll won't either.

I'm selling the basic doll for $15,000 a pop and if you find a lovely place in the right area, you'll easily earn back that money in a couple of months and more besides. For the better models, there are changes of clothes and a variety of signs, and a special automator that will say "Bless you Jesus Child" "Lord bless you" or "How 'bout a few dollars more for a pint?" whenever you throw in some money, for a touch of realism.

Prices will also differ depending on size, especially plumpness and the most sympathetic slouches cost a bit more. But they're definitely worth the investment.

Note that OJS Products cannot be responsible if you pick to place your doll in a place with low revenue, or if your doll is bashed up and ruined by vicious bikie gangs or jealous buskers. You must be entirely responsible for the safety and intelligent placing of Hobo-Doll!

Hobo-Doll will be your friend and colleague and amazing revenue-raiser - order him or her today!

On a Not-Quite-Meeting of the Minds

2010-03-22T19:38:00.004+11:00

Recently I've been trying to get a job.

One job I tried for required me to be a good speller. A lady rang me up and said, "I'd like you to do a quick spelling test on the phone. Are you ready?"

"Sure."

"OK, first word. You can write them down if you want. Parallel."

"P-A-R-A-L-L-E-L" I spelled.

"Fabulous!" she said enthusiastically.

Oh good, I thought. I passed word number one. But maybe word number two would be really tricky.

I waited.

And waited.

And waited.

Then finally it clicked.

"Umm, was I supposed to spell 'Fabulous'? I mean, was that the next word?" I asked tentatively.

"Actually I said 'nebulous'," she said.

"Whoops, I mean, I thought you were saying fabulous, I mean that was a comment, I mean saying I was fabulous ..."

My voice trailed off. Maybe I wasn't Fabulous. Heck, perhaps I was Nebulous. And how DID you spell "Parallel", anyhow?

Well I'm glad the next word hadn't been "Loser" or "Unimpressive" because I think I might have dented my ego irreparably. As it was I fortunately got through the test, and fortunately there were not too many other words on it to take personally.

The Forgotten Mums

2010-03-18T22:16:00.003+11:00

Just recently someone mentioned to me that the Today Show (Channel 9) did a story on mothers. They referred to 3 categories of "Mummies":

Yummy Mummies
Sportish but stylish Mummies and what they referred to as
Slummy Mummies

and continuously referred to "Slummy Mummy" in their show. Apparently yummy mummy is meant to be favourable and slummy mummy is not meant to be so.

Now I think this has overlooked many diffferent types of mummies. The television show has neglected to mention many different types of mummies, so I list the following:

crummy mummy (hopeless mummy)
dummy mummy (stupid mummy)
chummy mummy (mummy who's also your best friend)
tummy mummy (mum who has a paunch, probably hasn't lost fat from having three kids)
glummy mummy (mummy who's always totally depressed and thinks the world is about to end)
bummy mummy (mummy with a big rear end)
hummy mummy (mummy who hums classic rock while she does the dishes)
summy mummy (mum who's a whiz at arithmetic, usually good at household budgets, corrects the checkout chicks a lot and helps you with your maths homework)
gummy mummy (mummy whose teeth fell out due to eating too many lollies in her youth)
scummy mummy (mummy who doesn't bathe too often)
mummy mummy (embalmed mother)

Fireworks and Christmas Lights - two big light ups that really get me down

2009-12-05T22:34:00.002+11:00

If there is one thing that Christmas and New Year have in common, it's big lights, both of which I generally find really annoyingly expensive and a waste of money and energy. Yeah, I'm the New Year and Christmas Grinch, rolled into one.

I saw an article on the news recently about this Australian house thta has about a million household lights and decorations outside it. The darn thing looks garish and it makes me sick. What I find repulsive about this is a) the expense and b) the wasted energy.

I'm not a rampant greenie by any stretch of the imagination, but heck, why do you want to blow out your bill like that? What's even more stupid is the way I bet you that Today Tonight will run one of those feel good stories abotu how much Christmas Cheer this guy has - it would be un-PC to suggest anything else - and then pretty soon afterwards run a story abouthow we can all energy save around the house. Tip No. 1 - turn off all those bloody lights!

Then the guy admitted that he spent $100,000 on Christmas decorations. What? He could have bought another house for that much and instead he opted for some tacky light-me-up talking reindeer?

But $100,000 on decorations is a drop in the ocean compared to NYE fireworks. Fireworks have to be the biggest waste yet. I can't see the point of them, the best place to watch them is on your TV screen and that being the case they ought to hire some graphic designers to do a cool display using CGI or something and save a whole heap of money.

No, instead we have to spend millions each year stringing stuff up on the bridge that gets blown up in a few seconds and goes up in pretty colours and then disappears. Its only use is to attract people in droves outdoors so they can piss and get pissed and leave broken glass and urine all over the place. Not to mention that fireworks are rather dangerous too.

Later on someone will complain about how we don't have enough money for this or that and you can go back to those pics you have of fireworks on NYE and watch how those millions of dollars got blown up. Wouldn't it be nice if the govt could say instead they were going to do something actually useful with the money, like we decided to buy books for schools or donate it to research or looking after a museum or something instead of blowing it up over a bridge?

And if they did announce that, it's very likely people would whinge about the Mayor not having the right New Year spirit.

The Karate Kid Remake

2009-12-02T10:55:00.008+11:00

I'm really sorry I can't share the pics of this remake with you, you'll have to go to the website to see them, but I have just found out they are remaking the movie The Karate Kid.

The classic cheesy original featured Ralph Macchio as Daniel-san, who even though he was in his twenties, played a teenager (he's a bit like Michael J. Fox, he just never grows up), who moves into a new neighbourhood in America. He gets bullied by these local guys and is surprised one day when a local maintenance guy, Okinawan-born wise old Mr Miyagi (Pat Morita) jumps the bullies. Mr Miyagi becomes his karate mentor and teaches him techniques unconventionally, as well as about honour and self control etc. And so he ends up one-upping the bullies by the end of the movie.

Most of us watched the movie and remember classic lines like "Wax on, wax off" and Daniel trying to do the crane stance, or catch a fly with chopsticks, or Mr Miyagi being able to mend his leg by rubbing his hands together, or giving the silent smile through the crowd and the nod.

Anyhow, I read about this remake, and I naturally read plenty about people being angry as hell that their original was to be 'tarnished' with this idea of a remake.

Here's the set up. Will Smith has pitched the idea for a remake, to star his nine year old son, Jaden as The Karate Kid. There's been talk of calling it The Kung Fu Kid, possibly partly to update it and partly to not offend people who are extremely precious about The Karate Kid.

A mother, for work reasons, goes to live in China, her son Dre (Jaden) is attacked by bullies and needs to learn Kung Fu. A master of kung fu teaches him both kung fu and how to speak Chinese. The kung fu master is played by Jackie Chan.

A lot of blood is being spilled on the message boards. Some claim that people who are against the movie are only against it because they are racist, and don't want to see a black kid learning kung fu. Others say they aren't racist, others say yes, they just don't think a black kid is right for the role - it just does not fit well in the story. It doesn't portray the ethnic issues realistically and they can't relate to it, and anyway, everyone thinks of the Karate Kid as white nowadays.

Other objections brought up are that:

1. Jackie Chan is the wrong actor to step into Pat Morita's role. He's too young and too flippant and funny. In fact you didn't even need a really good martial arts actor to step into Morita's role - what was more important was that the person had the right warmth and chemistry, because Mr Miyagi teaches more lessons about self restraint and less kicking ass in the movies, that's what he's really about.

2. It doesn't matter that Jaden is black, but it does matter that he's nine years old. No one can relate to a nine year old getting beaten up; you don't believe he really needs martial arts lessons, not serious ones. You feel that more at his age he is just likely to get into a few scraps and be teased. The film is a coming of age story and Jaden is not the right age to give that any real meaning.

3. A lot of posters just hate the idea that Jaden got the movie through his Dad - the nepotism, stating that he's untalented and wouldn't have got it if it hadn't been for Will.

This objection ... well I can understand the resentment, but it's basically born out of jealousy, hell we'd all do it if we could, we just didn't get the chance. If we had a rich and famous father who could give us opportunities or 'legs up' we'd take them (not necessarily in showbiz but in some other way) and not think twice about it. Most of us have this already and don't think twice about ti, taking it for granted. Many of us live in houses, get pocket money, went to certain schools, got Christmas presents, had parents of certain intelligence who may have given us advice, some might have parents who helped us with a loan or said they'd babysit our kids for free ... WHATEVER.

All that is help, but if you mention it to many of these same people and say it's getting help from fortunate parents with resources, they cite it as "different" from getting your big rich Daddy helping you put you in a Hollywood film because all the help they receive is 'normal, regular help', but getting a film is "unusual".

Actually, it just means that you're used to it. There are some people who would look with envy at your level and say "I hate those rich lucky bastards who get pocket money and can go whingeing to their parents every time something goes wrong and can dump their kids/dogs/parcels at their parents when they need a break ... spoiled brats!"

It's just a matter of degree. And some people are sure they can pick what degree is "acceptable", trying to convince others it's generally acceptable, when what they really mean is "acceptable ... to me". And that level is usually "Up to as many opportunities as I get, is acceptable for others to have too! But don't go too much further than thaaaat!"

4. Another poster suggested that a better remake, if one had to be done at all, would have been to put an aging Ralph Macchio into the Pat Morita role and have him teach a small Japanese kid the way of Karate ... that is, if it's possible for Ralph Macchio to age.

I'm not particularly looking forward to this Karate Kid myself, but then I never saw the Next Karate Kid. I only saw the ones with Daniel-san. The original and the best!

An Even Darker Side of Mary Poppins

2009-11-29T10:17:00.003+11:00

Earlier this year, I suggested that Tim Burton direct a Mary Poppins film, which would show the darker side of Mary Poppins.

This was suggested to me in a dream and I'm still convinced it could work.

It seems that I'm not the only person who has a Poppins fantasy, or the wish to see Poppins' dark side. I was reading a movie message board today, and in a thread on suggestions for remakes of movies, a poster suggested a remake of Mary Poppins by Quentin Tarantino ... a really dark side to Mary Poppins.

Now, let me see, how exactly would it work?

I'm picturing Jane and Michael and the twins a little older now, and both are pot-smoking, cocaine-doing hired guns.

The scene should probably open at a cafe ... no, let's make that an upside down tea party on the ceiling, where Jane and Michael indulge in some badass gangster chat that is lightly disguised as philosophy about something totally pop culture irrelevant to the story, and use dirty language as much as possible.

Something like:

Jane: You see, Michael, I got this theory.
Michael: What's the f*ing theory?
Jane: You know that f*ing carousel we was riding on with the f*ing ponies?
Michael: Yeah?
Jane: Well, that is actually symbolic for child molestation.
Waiter: What'll it be today?
Michael: Can't you see we're f*ing floating on the ceiling having a private conversation? Come levitating later when I look like I'm ready to have my upside down jams and scones replenished.
Waiter: (sarcastically) Yes sir.
Michael: That's what's wrong with this country. You can't get no good customer service. he must've been molested by a f*ing carousel pony as a child and it messed with his sh*tworthy brain.
Jane: I was telling you about my theory. It's like, the carousel's spinning round, and the ponies are bobbing up and down, and the kids are being put on them by their parents, up down up down up down and this is just like being sexually molested, you know what I'm saying?
Michael: I hear you. Oh, shouldn't we be robbing that upside down cashier right now?

In the new Tarantino version of Mary Poppins, that spoonful of sugar Mary Poppins advocates probably costs thousands and has to be smuggled in over the border, but it really gives you a high!

The Making of A Legend: Gone With the Wind

2009-11-19T20:12:00.004+11:00

One of the great things about being unemployed is that you can sit back and watch TV shows you wouldn't be able to watch if you were at work. (I can't watch TV much at night as my Dad dominates the telly with his endless reruns of Law and Order.)

Today I saw a show I'd taped, The Making of a Legend: Gone With the Wind. I'm an official Gone With the Wind junkie (see the link on this site to the GWTW Forever site).

I have the DVD of the feature film, I just hadn't realised how much had gone into making it.

I knew, of course, that GWTW was the only book Margaret Mitchell wrote. Scarlett was initially called Pansy, and the book was not initially written for publication. Then a publisher read it and was interested, but didn't like the name Pansy, so Margaret Mitchell agreed to change it to Scarlett.

And then David O. Selznick secured the rights for $50,000 to produce GWTW.

I watched the show as they showed the search for Scarlett. It seemed they had an easier time deciding on Rhett Butler - the public demanded they choose Clark Gable. The only problem was that Gable was with MGM and Selznick wanted to do the project alone. It wasn't for ages and after lots of money and negotiations that he made a deal with MGM - they would let him 'use' Gable, and they'd also lend some money to fund the project, so long as they got half the profits of GWTW for the next 7 years.

Then it turned out that Gable didn't particularly like the deal, as he didn't want to play Rhett, so they 'sweetened' the deal for him by giving him ... $50,000 so he could pay off his wife and get rid of her and a weekend off so he could marry his new girlfriend (an interest payoff!)

Anyhow, I watched a lot of the auditions with the different Scarletts and Ashleys. After seeing what Vivien Leigh and Leslie Howard can do - especially Vivien Leigh - watching the different screen tests is like watching a series of Australian Idol auditions, you just feel how wrong they are and you want a nasty judge to pop up and give them a gong and tell them they're absolute crap.

It was amazing to see how much work went into creating - or destroying - some of those sets. They decided one way to make a set was to burn down an old set and then rebuild. An idea they had was to burn down the old set and then film it as the burning of Atlanta. At the time they hadn't got Leigh and Gable working yet so a stunt double is what you see when you see the horse and carriage driving through burning Atlanta at the time. And they really did just burn down a whole set, film it, and then rebuild a set.

Then some sets were only partially built - for instance some of the big houses were built without roofs - it was less expensive - then an art director comes in later and "draws in" different style roofs later to make the different places.

And the scene in Atlanta with the soldiers all lying wounded ... well while they called in many extras to lie there as wounded men, but they didn't have enough so they put in some dummies as well and instructed extras how they could pull a string on the dummy so the dummy could move a little so it looked alive. (Apparently Margaret Mitchell's husband said when he saw that scene that if they'd had that many soldiers, they would have won the war!) I know, I know, I guess they cheated too because those extras, they only pretended to be wounded. Many of them weren't really shot or anything at all. They only pretended to be shot. And int he scene where Dr Meade is supposed to amputate the leg - I think he doesn't amputate it at all. It's all faked!

So much work went into the recreation, it was amazing, especially when you consider there was not the advantage of the special effects that we have today.

I watched in amazement as every detail of dress was attended to ... the only thing I think I could compare it to was watching This is It when I watched the perfectionism that went in to making the Michael Jackson tour show. How many people actually put the time and effort and research into their shows any more. It's immense and it's amazing.

By the way I still love Scarlett's green barbecue dress - it must be her most famous - but now I've really taken a fancy to that little light blue jacket and white dress she wears to the store when she's caught with Ashley.

You can rely on me

2009-11-13T19:15:00.005+11:00

I may have mentioned before that I'm really utterly failing on this Get a Job thing. And in our society, success is so often tied up in being employed and having lots of money. If there was an award for the most Successful at Being a Failure, I would apply.

What has irked me so often is this thing about being overqualified to do work thing. Employers don't really try to find out anything about you, they make assumptions like if you are overqualified for a job you won't be very dedicated as you'll be very ambitious.

Well, let's just see. I have three tertiary qualifications and I haven't got much experience except in junior administration, do I look like the ambitious type? Please, these idiots really don't think very hard do they?

What I would like to say right now is that I would be a very reliable worker in almost any job, even low level, so long as people weren't totally beating me up every day, just because I HATE INTERVIEWS AND RECRUITERS. I can't stand them. I resent this whole process I am going through every damn day I do it.

I wouldn't try leaping to another job very fast because it would mean having to do ANOTHER STUPID INTERVIEW.

You'd have to be paying me a darn lot to make me take that jump quickly. A small pay rise or a new desk would not cut it. I would probably still sit there screwing tin lids on Cheesybite containers unless I got 300% payrise or something because I hate interviewing so much. It really is annoying the crap outta me!

There! You can rely on me, more than those not-so-bitter trainees who would jump for an extra $100 and a larger cookie jar in the shared kitchen.

Good luck to my tote bag!

2009-11-12T18:05:00.005+11:00

Just the other day I was on my way to an interview with a recruiter.

I was standing at Gordon station when a very non-obliging bird decided to swoop down UNDER THE SHELTER mind you and drop faeces on me.

On my tote bag, that is.

I checked carefully and it didn't get my clothes, and the only bit of me it got was my hand (the hand that was placed on my tote bag).

Yelping, I made my way to the station toilets, swearing "shit shit shit". I felt that at least I should use appropriate language for the moment. Then I tried using the only available accessories (toilet paper, water and soap) to rid my bag of birdy-poo. Oh, and my hand, too.

I missed that train but caught the next and I decided not to regale the recruiter with this amusing story of birdy-droppings at the interview.

However, I have heard the old adage that if a bird chooses to drop its droppings on you, it's good luck! Is this meant to be an omen? Will I get a job with this recruiter? Or does it simply mean I will get no more bird plops?

Or does it mean that my TOTE BAG is to receive the good luck? Will it be a very lucky and fortunate tote bag, that has lots of happiness and longevity in its toting life?

I'm a little confused, but very optimistic!

'Tweaking' (aka lying) on your resume

2009-11-02T08:35:00.003+11:00

It's a tough world out there, but someone's got to live in it. Like alive people. And lots of us have to work in it, or try to. But sometimes it's not that easy to find a job, or get into an industry we like, or some people just hate the job we're doing but can't think of a way out. Or some people are just plain lazy. Whatever it is, we have a system where for the most part a resume is a big slice of how to get a job, or even just to get an interview, but is it ever ok to lie on your resume?

Here's a discussion of that very topic.

Some people would say you have to be totally upfront on your resume, some would say it's ok to lie on your resume, and others would point to a middle ground - it's ok to tell white lies, to exaggerate, to 'tweak' a resume, but telling outright lies is just wrong. The problem with this is that where exactly do you draw the line on tweaking? And won't you be mad if you draw the line differently from someone else and that other person gets the job!

In the link above, many of the objections come from someone who wants to outright lie on their resume, and also because the motivation seems to be because he's bludged around a bit, and has decided he wants to lie because he knows a bit about some things, but doesn't have the certificates, and he wants to get a job that "doesn't totally suck" without doing the hard menial yards that most people have to do to get there. His idea is that he will try to walk straight in to a more comfortable position.

Whereas most people either have to do the hard yards either in a university/TAFE, or spend a few years doing low-level crappy work to get their foot in the door. I remember some producer at Channel Nine telling me she got there by taking on a crummy job filing tapes in the library for less than $18 000 a year in order to become a TV producer. And she had to badger them like crazy to get that job.

But is it EVER ok to lie on your resume? The arguments on the forum are that if you lie on your resume, it helps you not because you wouldn't have the skills if you didn't have the qualifications/experience. Others say that if you weren't prepared to work hard to get the qualifications and experience, then you cannot be the kind of person who would work hard to learn on the job, so the "I would work hard to learn on the job" argument is invalid.

But there are certain arguments for tweaking your resume.

Employers are notorious for skimming resumes and jumping to conclusions based on them, and key words leap out at them. What if the job you did recently, if you were to honestly describe it, would not really contain any of those key words, yet you know you gained the requisite skills. It might be easier to use the vague and industry accepted terms just to get your foot in the door, rather than be very honest.

What if an unusual situation occurred on your job that did not majorly affect your career progression, that could either be glossed over or covered up by a white lie, or look awkward on a resume that could put you slightly behind someone who had a more 'conventional' career path, or would take a 500 word exposition to explain that no one would bother to read? Many would choose the 'white lie'.

The trouble is, at what point do you distinguish between the white lie and the dirty big fat black lie? Everyone has their own standard.

If you say you have "lots of customer experience" and you really worked for two weeks in a boring old quirky shop where you might have been lucky to serve one person every two days, and simply took their money and gave them a receipt, is that just "slight embellishment" or a lie?

If you are misleading - for instance - write that you "attended" a course but don't point out that you mean that you turned up for the first half of the first class, but never studied the subject and certainly never passed any of the tests or assignments ... is that a lie?

And what about lies by omission? What if you omit that you have certain qualifications because you don't wish to look overqualified for a position, or interested in other areas of study which may make them think you are a less stable employee?

My resume is edited, embellished and tweaked, I must admit. It is not a bland setting out of my educational and work history to date. But I regard that as a necessity - I just don't know whether my own version is anyone else's "too far".

Reclaim the Roads!

2009-10-29T23:14:00.004+11:00

I read this article by Miranda Devine just recently and was a bit sceptical that she could be serious as it was so outrageously weird, but then, this is Miranda Devine we're talking about.

The article is about cyclists don't belong on the road and the whole idea that "the road is there to share" is wrong - the roads are there for cars (and by extension of that, vehicles in general - buses, vans, trucks seem to come under that generous definition). But not for pedestrians and cyclists who are let on the roads by the "good graces" of cars and shouldn't feel entitled to touch a road.

According to Miranda, the "road is there to share" idea actually does non-car-types a disservice because it creates in them a false sense of entitlement that they can use a road, which is naturally in Miranda's world, wrong, and this causes their deaths. Whoops!

Now, I've no doubt that Miranda is correct in that some cyclists, and also pedestrians behave badly and this can cause accidents. There is also cyclist rage just as there is road rage and there are pedestrians who get mad as hell too. But picking a clip of a mad cyclist or a bad cyclist and using this as evidence to support that your whole argument is correct is just not really presenting a good argument. It's not bad "journalism", though :), as far as journalism has taken us through the ages.

It seems to me that the sense of entitlement that car-drivers may be endowed with by Miranda's and the like's huffing and puffing may equally be responsible for deaths on the roads. "Shove out of my way, I'm allowed here, you aren't!"

When it comes down to it, all sorts of people use the roads - that's a fact. Vehicle users of all kinds. Bicycle users. And pedestrians. We use them in all ways. Not only is it a fact, but it is something that in the community we should face up to and allow for, because we value it. I'm sorry Miranda, but much as certain people may love their little cars, it's also a fact that many valued people cannot drive cars - and some of these people are very valuable people - and that it is valuable to a community that at least sometimes even people who could possibly drive cars, walk or cycle to their destination.

Let me give some examples:

Certain politicians such as Premier Bob Carr can't drive.
A whole lot of people who hold voting power such as the elderly and disabled are not able to drive.
A whole lot of people who are considered valuable to the community can't drive - such as schoolchildren.
The lamentations about obesity make it popular that people are encouraged to actually walk to places, or cycle.
If you're only going for a short distance, it would be considered a good idea that you not drive there - after all, it would cut down on the traffic and the parking spaces that a community had to supply. Imagine if everyone who usually popped out to go 100m down the street for a cup of coffee or the newspaper DROVE THERE.

And yet often these people use the roads. They walk or cycle beside them. They cross the roads.

They need to be given some rights on the roads - to be encouraged to use them and for their own safety. To say "Shit, yes, you toddle off to get your newspaper each morning but you are allowed on the road with my good graces only!" is equivalent to saying "If I feel like it I can and will knock you over and I have no responsibility for that. None!" and therefore, what right minded person would walk across a street?

The key here is that everyone is given rules and everyone has responsibilities. The whole thing about entitlement, and believing that your entitlement is greater than another groups, whether you be a car driver or a bike rifer or a dog-walker, engenders the feeling that you don't have to obey the rules or be responsible. You are above the others. And that's where the real problems start.

All of us should feel that we are allowed on the roads AT THE GOOD GRACES of everyone else in the community, and only so long as we obey the rules. Those rules may be slightly different depending on whether we drive a bus or walk a dog, but that has to do with level of appropriateness, not with level of superiority (You worry about the number of maximum passengers on a bus and designated stops, but you don't need to scoop up its poop or keep it on a leash). Being a allowed to use the roads should be dependent on whether you respect other people's safety and the general rules regarding your own use of the road, not whether you drive a lorry or use a skateboard.

This whole "my group is so much better than yours thing" ... sheesh, it's so vehicle-ism. It really is.

Stating the frikkin' obvious

2009-10-26T15:27:00.003+11:00

"Breast cancer is an issue close to the heart."

I saw this today as a motivational message to do something about breast cancer. Are we supposed to be motivated to do more fot those with cancer of the left breast than those of the right?

Credit Card Whingers!

2009-10-20T20:25:00.004+11:00

I saw this whinge about credit cards in the paper recently, and while I'm usually not a huge fan of credit card companies, frankly, why can't some people accept they are the idiots?

From the reporting, it seems that while the perfect day might have been ruined it might have been because certain people weren't that smart. Maybe it is a good reason to take a credit card away from them.

Jeremy Bath went off to buy an engagement ring for his girlfriend and wanted it to be a surprise. The article states that he bought half the ring on one card (CBA) and the other half with a Citibank card. The surprise was ruined because Citibank rang his girlfriend and asked if she had made any purchases at a jewellery store recently on her Citibank card, and she figured out what was going on. The credit card company maintains they do this for security reasons - check on unusual spending habits. And some other commenters say they've been caught out too.

The blog-writer says that this is surprise ruining, over the top and cites it as a reason not to go with Citibank - at least, if you're thinking of buying engagement jewellery - because the jewellery was bought near the place of residence, and had not reached their credit limit or anywhere near it.

Now, in my opinion it's just good practise. Hell, if someone had nicked off with Jeremy Bath's credit card, had only got as far as a nearby jewellery store and had purchased a piece of jewellery and Citibank hadn't said a peep I bet some people would say that they were slack, saying "Jeremy doesn't buy expensive jewellery as part of his weekly routine, how could they not notice that's a bit unusual?!"

As many people pointed out, if you want to make it a surprise ... why the heck would you use a credit card that the recipient of the surprise jointly owned ... d'oh! It seems from the article his girlfriend was a joint owner of the card. If, of course, that is not true, then it may well be an invasion of privacy to let a non-owner know about your expenditure.

There may be some whingers who say that they would have no choice - they don't have their own card, and can't afford one, they can't afford to pay in cash so can't make a secret cash withdrawal ... what does that add up to?

You can't afford a surprise expensive piece of jewellery, then, or you take your chances! Maybe someone will blow your surprise or not. I don't think there is a rule that says that a surprise expensive ring on a holiday, along with a proposal, is an entitlement. Some people make do.

I remember Mr Coffee telling me he bought a few items in succession that was a little unusual for him, and his credit card company calling him immediately saying they had noticed and just wanted to make sure he really made them. He assured them he did and he was impressed with such good service. I'd want my credit card company to be that diligent, should I get a card.

I wouldn't want them to wait until the card was chock-a-block full of expenditures in another city over my credit limit till they clued in it might have been stolen or misused.

When I lost my wallet my bank debit card apparently had been attempted use within minutes (unsuccessfully, it got chewed up by the machine according to the bank) within a hundred metres or so of where I'd been having lunch that day; if I'd had a credit card I'm pretty sure they would have tried the same trick on in the same vicinity within minutes, and it's very possible they would have brought random goods from the department stores nearby. It would be good to know that a credit card store would have seen that it was unusual before it hit anywhere near the credit limit and alerted me.

Just because things didn't work out for these people ... and believe me, I'm sorry they didn't ... they look for someone to call an idiot, but for one time I don't think it's the bank necessarily that's the bastard here. Just, like many of us, it seems it's just doing its job.

Blackface comedy. I hope I am not offending anyone here. If so, apologies in advance.

2009-10-09T21:15:00.003+11:00

Recently, on a Hey Hey it's Saturday sketch, a group calling themselves the Jackson Jive got verbally stoned by Harry Connick Jr for being racist because they used blackface comedy. The host Daryl Somers, apologised for any offence caused, and I too, would like to apologise for any offence I may cause in discussing this obviously sensitive issue.

This meant in the sketch, five of them turned up using black face paint (representing themselves as "Afro-Americans", also known by some people as "blacks", I hope that's not too racist. Another appeared wearing white makeup, satirising Michael Jackson who was an Afro-American who bleached his skin so it looked more of the pallour of those who are "Anglo-Saxon" or "Caucasian" or otherwise known as "white", hopefully that isn't offensive. Michael Jackson also recently "passed away", that is also otherwise known as "died". I hope that isn't too offensive either.

Now, I'm not "black" nor "white", not that it would matter if I was either. So I guess I don't really understand the fuss about blackface comedy, and whether it is the blackfacedness or the comedy bit that is really tasteless, or is it the combination?

Is it just plain offensive to make fun of blacks, or Afro-Americans, because it's racist? Because there goes the comedy material for about a third of those big budget Hollywood movies that are in production right this second.

Or is it smearing black face paint on that's just disgusting? Personally I don't like the look myself, I've usually thought the shoe grease should stay on the shoe though I haven't always been that successful. But what about all those disgusting, non-really-black actors who were trying to play Othello? Hung, drawn and quartered, ought they be?

A clue might lie in this where a guy says that blacks do not have pitch black skin, and that is why they are offended by that sketch. It is an interesting objection - one of the devices used by comedy is exaggeration - which is why clowns and mimes trying to hide behind a blank face use white makeup and exaggerated red lipstick which doesn't look anything like a real white human being. Hold the golliwogs!

To be perfectly accurate, most blacks aren't black, they're more browny, most whites aren't white either, they're kinda pinky-creamy-light-brown and I'll be damned if yellow skinned people look that yellow to me.

And anyway, why stop at racism? What I want to know is if black people can get on their high horses about blackface comedy, why should women stand for this crap either? Some idiots dress up INACCURATELY and EXAGGERATEDLY trying to imitate a DOWNTRODDEN group in the name of humour ...

I really don't know why we put up with Barry Humphries, Dustin Hoffman, Robin Williams, or John Travolta at all, who've all exploited women and dressed up in drag and put on caked up makeup in stupid looking outfits that look nothing like what I'd wear - I don't know anyone who acts or looks like Dame Edna Everage - just for satire. It's insulting, it's sexist, and I think I give them a zero. What's more, they degrade women's plight further by going on to earn a fortune out of their huge man-in-women's boobs act than many women who have real or at least only slightly modified by a very discreet surgeon's boobs, make because their own boobs have hit the glass ceiling!

I think all women should stand on their high heels, jump on top of their 'Tootsie' and 'Mrs Doubtfire' DVDs and make it clear that if Mr Harry Connick Jr can get the weight of America behind him, we should at least get a portion of it too!

Unfortunately, I feel that no matter how much I jump up and down, the race issue will always propel American s far more than the gender one. After all, they voted in Obama, and not Hillary Clinton.

It's all in the victim ...

2009-10-06T23:04:00.001+11:00

2DAY FM Vile Files ... they have "been accused of routinely exploiting children and the disadvantaged for ratings" ... blurts the Daily Tele ...

which is where I ponder, if you 'exploit' a middle aged, able-bodied, white, rich guy, is he even exploited? Or is he unexploitable ...?

Terrible Movie Marketing Strategies

2009-10-06T20:48:00.003+11:00

I recently watched the movie Miss Congeniality (Sandra Bullock, Michael Caine, Candace Bergen) and I then did as usually do - checked out what a whole lot of other people thought about it on IMDB.

I came across an interesting discussion on one of the discussion threads, where some guy complained that the movie title was the worst marketing decision ever because "Miss Congeniality" was such an obscure word and no one he knew used the word "congeniality" in fact he didn't know what it meant, it was the stupidest marketing decision ever.

Naturally this thread had been started before Kraft had started the iSnack 2.0 campaign.

Well, of course some people leapt on him and told him to go spread a little dictionary on his toast, stupid, "congeniality" wasn't exactly that obscure a word. Exactly which bit of it didn't he get? It wasn't helped by the fact that his short posting was peppered with spelling mistakes.

What was odd was the fact that he likened the title to "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" - an ill-thought out title, a bad marketing decision because it used an obscure title that no one understood.

Umm, well I don't think it really hurt Harry that much, and I'm a little confused about the comparison. Which bit of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone doesn't he get? Does he not understand the word "Stone" or "Potter" or never heard of a "Harry" before? I'm totally confused. It wouldn't matter if you didn't understand what a "philosopher's stone" is but understood the word's separately - any dolt understanding the English language would be able to tell you if you've come across the word philosopher and you've come across the word stone, a philosopher's stone simply implies "stone of or belonging to a philosopher" and then of course the movie explains the significance of that to you.

Of course, there are some movies like "Snakes on a Plane" which use nice simple words and is ... well ... self-explanatory. But many of the movies that have been extremely popular are a little on the obscure side and have used words that are longer than one syllable. Like Superman, for instance, or Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (What the heck is an Indiana? Anyone? Anyone? And help me if I know what the Temple of Doom is!).

It could have been after reading this discussion board that it was decided to switch from two syllable words to one syllable words to increase popularity, and Batman was remarketed as The Dark Knight. 'Batman' was possibly considered just a bit too difficult for the attention span of some of the movie regulars nowadays.

One of the movie titles that has always baffled me is Die Hard. The fact that I have never quite understood the title hasn't stopped me enjoying the film though. Die Hard? Where in the movie is it about dying hard, as opposed, I suppose, to dying easy or dying soft? Or is that supposed to be a reference to when Hans Gruber dies, and he falls out and lands on the ground, which I suppose is quite hard? Then the next movie is called Die Harder, but I don't think anything could be much harder than splattering your brains out on concrete like that, and I don't think it even shows it to be ...

It's totally confusing. That is obscure.

Message clipped before the message

2009-10-06T17:20:00.002+11:00

I just got a very long short message from The College of Law.

That is, it was an auto-forward from my College account, and instead of creating a group to email to, they decided to put our names in separately. The email message was so long, my Gmail account clipped it before it got to the end of the 'N's. I had to press "View Entire Message" just to read the rest of the recipients ... let alone the message itself!

Was the message worth the wait?

No pardner, not really. The suspense was really just building up to a letdown, sorry to say.

Ageism Moans

2009-10-06T16:45:00.003+11:00

Let's see, I've ranted about racism, I think I've tried sexism, now let's talk about ageism.

I have my head too stuffed with ageist remarks to rant about them all (I read the Daily Tele Letters page, you see).

However one bit that always irks me as that bit where "oldies" go on about how young people of today are so selfish and lazy, they can't stand on their own two feet, they can't do this, they can't do simple tasks to keep house or whatever it is. You will hear these people moan and chuckle simultaneously like how it's a disgrace you don't keep your room in order or only cook simple meals out of a packet or can.

Then you hang around the house a bit and the same oldies whine "Hey, can you fix my computer for me? Show me how to clear the messages on my phone! How do I change the picture-thing on my Foxtel? Why isn't the printer working? How do I book tickets online?"

And when you do these things for them patiently - and even go through the steps patiently with them, knowing full well that the next time they'll whine to you, please do it for me, they can't remember what they did last time ...

... they aren't that grateful and they still go in for the young 'un bashing later on. They don't really think of it as a skill they ought to learn just to get on in life, but if it isn't done they whine.

Oh yes ... I do know there are some very technologically capable older people out there. There are also some extremely capable younger people who clean their rooms, can look after their car, hem a skirt and cook meals. But it doesn't seem to stop the generation bashing!

Lots of output and no input

2009-10-06T16:31:00.001+11:00

And no, this has nothing to do with computer programs.

Recently I tried to make employment a priority. That is, specifically, me trying to become an employed persona, and recently meaning ever since I became an unemployed persona, that is, since mid-June of this year. I will admit that immediately after I lost my last job, I was a bit lax about finding employment, enjoying a week or so off, and a few weeks here and there have been a bit too crammed with other things to do concentrated job hunting. What's more, jobs have been terribly scarce so if you're like me and you try to get your jobs online, even if you try searching the web fairly often sometimes nothing turns up.

NOW maybe someone much smarter, someone more EXPERIENCED, someone more SUCCESSFUL, someone more EFFECTIVE, or someone just who's just got a NUTTIER or WACKIER idea that doesn't involve lifelong damage to the human body (mine or others) or great expense may give me some practical tips on what I could do to possibly land a job, because so far it hasn't been that good. In fact it has been disheartening that I put more time into writing an application than some companies do into reviewing it - the rejection comes back so fast it makes me really annoyed and I feel like sending it back along with their formulaic rejection notice about 'carefully considering' all applications with a sneer and saying 'REVIEW AGAIN YOU COWS!'. Others take so long and never get back to you that you feel like going after them with a cattle prod.

And I'm not sure why all the cow and cattle terminology is coming into play here.

1. Yes I have a resume
2. I have been going for a fair number of different types of jobs. Office jobs, which I am most used to doing, except for that time when I was in High School, where I have some experience in selling hot chips.

I tried calling a recruitment agency, but the lady on the other end of the phone told me politely that recruitment agencies only handled people with quite a deal of experience who also matched the job requirements and I wasn't suitable. I looked miserably at my scatty resume which is a patchwork of a couple of months or weeks or days here and there and it didn't look like any recruitment agent would be jumping for joy to see me. The agent said nicely it would be a very good idea to approach the employer directly.

It seems a lot of emphasis is point on experience in terms of time instead of quality. Really! I mean, I might have only had two days of work at this particular firm, but they were a VERY GOOD two days, I thought, as I tucked in my resume. How shallow can a person be? It's like buying a painting because of its dimensions instead of its artistry or a book because of its length!

Then I remembered how I thought I was getting ripped off in a store recently because a very interesting-looking but slim book was a buck more expensive than a book-I-knew-nothing-about, but the latter had 150 more pages, so maybe hold that thought.

Anyhow, I keep sending enthusiastic-sounding letters to people, telling them that I will type, juggle coffee for them, write reports, file, whatever.

I also assure them that I am excellent at communicating in writing and in speech, that I love working teams and I love working alone too, that I am a workaholic who also will fit into their culture of work-life balance, and I'm a person with great leadership qualities who can take orders and I follow strict processes with lots of flexibility and I have great attention to finer details while obviously focussing on the big picture. All the usual stuff you have to say.

What the heck else do they WANT?

A Man's Head on a Woman's Shoulders

2009-09-18T13:27:00.004+10:00

Recently I had a rant a bit about racial discrimination, so now I'll switch to the old one, gender discrimination.

I was reading an article in a print newspaper which I unfortunately can't put a link to because they don't seem to have published it online. That's why they make you get the print copy, for gems of 300 words like that.

Anyhow, the writer was telling of how insurance premiums were higher on his car than they were for his wife, even though they both have a clean driving record and are both the same age, and the reason was because he's male. He asked the insurance company and they said this was because men made more claims than women. He asked if they discriminated based on race too, and they said no, because they didn't collect any data on that.

He said this was annoying as gender was one of the things you can't change. Age relates to experience. But you could get older, in fact you usually did. Or you could move to a different geographic region. But you didn't change gender.

Obviously he hasn't investigated certain operations you can do, but never mind.

Anyway, the poor bloke seemed put upon, and this was one of the terrible things about being a bloke. That and I just don't know how men live with a bobbing Adam's Apple. Doesn't it ever feel weird having a round thing bobbing at your neck? It looks weird on some of you. If I had one I would be thinking it was very strange. Especially since I'm a girl.

But I don't think it is all one way. For instance, in some cases, women pay more for just being a woman. For instance, I passed the hairdresser's and a Lady's Basic Cut, the cheapest was, more expensive than the most expensive Men's Basic Cut (they have a slight range based, I think, on length of hair).

Now that is outrageous. I have seen men with tangly long mullets and women with little bob cuts and still the women are probably paying more. Grrr!

In fact it annoys me more than the car premium thing, because I've got hair. I don't have a car. Your hair grows on you, man. You need to CUT IT to get rid of it, ok some people's just falls out. Whereas if you don't want to pay for insurance on a car you can choose to not buy one in the first place. Easy peasy. So in that way I think it is even WORSE.

I have thought sometimes that I should go into a hairdresser dressed in a suit and tie with a m moustache drawn on my face and talk in a deep voice and despite having past-the-shoulder length hair and wanting a side part with it nicely layered etc, I would demand bravely to have a men's cut! See if they would dare question my ... errrh ... balls!

They've changed it now - And now it is happily gender-unbiased - but they used to have two different specials at the Belgian Beer Cafe - one was half-price mussels for males on Wednesdays, and for ladies it was a free beer if you wore red. (They've changed it now so the mussels deal applies to everyone and the beer special has disappeared.)

But at the time it annoyed me because I don't drink beer and I like mussels! And dammit ... What do I have in my wardrobe that's red? Too much planning!

On the other time of course one uses the feminine advantage to every extent they can when the guys who are selling fruit at Paddy's Markets make their comments about throwing in an extra few apples into your basket "for the lady".

I'm not sure if we should jump up and scream about all this disgusting, awful, gender discrimination, or accept it will balance out in the end, and/or accept which gender we are and what tricks and advantages it gives us and use them to gain the best advantages where! It sounds pathetic and very cliche but I do think some people might help me more because I'm a pint-sized female, if something falls, if a stupid ticket machine won't work and I start growling at it I think there is someone who is male/taller/wider/more authoritarian looking who delights in coming up and trying to help out, more so than if I were a big tall, large male with tattoos all over me.

Of course there are some areas in which gender discrimination/abuse/unfairness is quite serious; on the other hand when it comes to a little freebie given or not given here or there, a small slant in prices, a slightly different treatment, should it be something we worry about overly?

Or is not worrying about them being lazy, and silently condoning or making way for the bigger abuses, or contributing to them? Is that person whom you let get away with dividing man's chores and girl's chores and you don't mind her emphasising it because you'd really rather not clean the car or put the mulch on the garden or re-tile the roof ... is she the next one who'll be giving disgustingly different pay to males from females or refusing to employ certain people based on gender and part of that is your fault?

And you could be one of those victims!

Hmmmm.

My First Holiday in a Long Time

2009-09-16T00:12:00.005+10:00

It may sound strange to some people, but I haven't had a holiday in a long time. I mean a holiday out of Sydney, not a holiday from work. As a member of the unemployed ranks at the moment, you might say I'm constantly on holiday, although I'm studying. Kinda. And even then I had a mid-semester break just last week.

I also had my first holiday out of Sydney for what seems like a long time. I was just sitting around when my sister invited me to go to Canberra for two days because she was driving out there to meet someone for a chat, and would I come along? We could go in the morning, she'd go meet the lady while I spent time wandering about, we'd share a hotel room for a night, spend the next day looking around, then leave that evening. She'd do the driving. I can't drive. No way.

It seemed a good idea to me, and it was fun, but different from what I expected.

First, Sunday morning we headed out and we decided to use the Tomtom to navigate. We were out on the highway and we were gone about an hour and a half when we decided to take a rest break. We stopped, ate a piece of fruit and my sister had a little snooze, and then when we started up again ... yes, the darn TomTom wouldn't work again!

It's amazing how you rely on that silly lady's voice telling you to "turn right here". We panicked!

Eventually we decided we should keep going, after all we still could remember which direction to go on the highway and apart from that there wasn't too much else that could go wrong. But we kept squealing about "Oh darn, does this mean we'll have to find a MAP? Not one of those things!" like we were contemplating taking on a bucket of dead rats.

Finally - oh joy, I fiddled around with the TomTom enough that an hour later it jumped back to life and we both sighed with relief and swore that we would never do anything to cause it harm or want to leave us, ever, ever again. Precious baby.

I wasn't really sure what I wanted to do when we got to Canberra. Mel had to go meet her church-friend, and I was dropped off in Canberra, not daring to do anything too ... well, daring. I didn't dare catch a bus. I'm bad enough at navigation as it is, I was finding myself lost as I walked around, and I had this horrible vision of myself catching a bus and being stranded out in the outer suburbs and not knowing how the hell I'd got out there and how the hell to get back and my sister calling me and wanting to know why I wasn't back at the designated meeting place when we agreed.

So I crept carefully. I followed a sign saying National Film and Sound Archive.

Now, I don't know where they hide that place but I couldn't find it despite the signs or the strange directions people gave me. "Past the white building there's a place with a big dome on it" ... heck, I couldn't see a dome, or if that's your idea of a dome, you and I need to have talks. Big talks.

I ended up wandering around the ANU and admiring the grounds for a short while.

Then I checked out a few shops and bookstores. I can't help myself checking out bookstores.

After a good browse through the books, I managed to get myself to the Canberra Museum and Gallery where I saw a few really cool collections. The funniest was a great collection of record covers. It's hard to say what's so cool about quirky record covers, except you've just got to see it. Sometimes the names just speak for themselves - like "I fell in love with a prostitute" Sermon by Rev. Jasper Williams. Others, well the artwork was so "interesting" I just had to laugh.

But best of all, for me, was the children's activity table. There was a table with a bird chart and some coloured pencils and a bird picture book nearby, and a sign that said "Read the picture book and write your own bird story" with some little blank booklets provided.

Naturally I did as instructed. I don't think I draw as well as Julie Vivas (illustrator of the supplied picture book) but I rather liked my story. If I can improve my pictures I may be onto a hit picture book. And all that in just a few minutes of inspiration!

Later, I saw another smaller Art Gallery and some more bookshops before I was picked up and went off to church and dinner with my sister.

The next day went like this ....

I lay in bed thinking, gee, it's all dark, I think I must have awoken early, I won't get out of bed yet, specially as my sister isn't awake yet. I don't know how long I was thinking this.

Then I heard a maid knock on the door and say "HOUSEKEEPING!"

My sister drowsily called from her bed "Umm, later!"

I asked what the time was. My sister said quarter past seven. I replied, "Gee, that's early for housekeeping."

"Sorry, I mean it's almost ten," said my sister.

"Hmmm."

With checkout having to be eleven, this rather changed things.

We managed to get out and go to the National Gallery and it was fantastic, except that I think I may have walked in on a few tours. It's one of those disconcerting things about tours in galleries, you have all these groups being shown around by tour guides and if you're there by yourself and you want to just inspect a piece of art by yourself, you feel like you're getting in the way when you have a group of fifteen standing around in a semicircle with a guide marching in front of the painting pointing out features and explaining history and symbolism and stuff and you just want to have a good peer.

Still, peer I did!

I don't know, I don't mind some of the "modern" art there but I usually really prefer wandering in the sections where there are portraits of ladies or landscapes rather than huge canvases of solid colour with a few simple geometric shapes on them. I guess it's all a matter of taste.

After that we planned to go to Cockington Green, the miniature Village ... but my sister wanted to have a nap for twenty minutes before she drove ... and that twenty minutes became two hours ...!

So instead we drove straight back home ...

and right in time for dinner!

It mightn't seem like we did a whole lot but in fact it was just nice to get away for a couple of days, look at some beautiful art, have a wander, and not feel pressured to dash from place to place under time constraints. I enjoyed it!

How to Mark a Birthday

2009-09-15T23:52:00.003+10:00

Today marks a very special day and not just because I turned one year older today. In fact it's a funny way of putting it, because I feel like I just did turn one year older today, you know, for a year I wasn't turning any days older and today - 365 days hit me like that! It was a growing experience.

Quality people are born on and around this day, I would just like to mention I share this birthday with the illustrious poet and blogger TimT and also that I also almost share it with Roald Dahl and my cousin's little daughter, who was born just two days ago. That is, my cousin's little daughter was, Roald Dahl was born a little earlier than that years-wise but on the same day as the little one, in case anyone was a little confused about that.

I'm in good company!

Anyhow, today started out well. For one thing, I slept in. That's a nice way to start a day. Good bout of sleep!

Nextly, I went to visit Mr Coffee, who had got most of the day off work.

I had recently made a bet with Mr Coffee that I could learn basic vi (an editor for programming) methods in the last week or so. I have not won a bet with Mr Coffee yet. The last one he won and I had to buy him a slice of cake at the Citrus cafe in Newtown! And he has been shying away from bets ever since so I couldn't win it back.

But today I proved my basic vi skills and won my cake! That is a VERY good way to have a birthday! CAKE and to get the betting score back in balance ... what more could a girl want?

I had chocolate meringue. It's a good start to the year.

I have read some very nice SMSes and blog comments and emails saying happy birthday ... thank you very much for remembering and saying hello ... and keep reading!

Unfortunately there are some little downers to birthdays. For instance I had to go to my computer classes and it's my annoying lecturer teaching Tuesday class, and he was not being any more competent this class than any other. He told us all that in our last class test the grades were so low in general that they would have to be all scaled up. I don't think he has considered that it could be because he is an incomprehensible teacher and writes rather confusing tests. After all I doubt it is all because we are incompetent dolts - it is a class where you have to be a graduate to make it into the class, and apparently a good proportion of the class has a computing background (though not me).

Still, stuffed full of meringue and with a nice doze-in I feel a very satisfied birthday girl!

HSC Debate

2009-09-12T11:56:00.003+10:00

Right here, the vice-chancellor of the University of Sydney criticised the HSC ranking system (UAI) as being a too-narrow system that favoured elite (think "private" and "selective" school) students and didn't always get the best students into Universities.

Now not all agree with him. Certainly not the head of James Ruse Agricultural, but then they always do the best in the HSC in NSW so what do you expect?

I'm just wondering though, if the head of the Uni of Sydney isn't in favour of the UAI as a way of selecting people who can get into his Uni, then why not make a different entrance criteria for the University of Sydney? Something more in line with what he considers allows the brightest students to have a chance in his Uni? Auditions, applications, resumes, interviews, whatever? And let other Universities use the UAI if that's what they want?

Then if the Uni of Sydney starts producing all these absolute wonders in comparison with the mediocrity of everywhere else everyone will start following in their footsteps and maybe the UAI will become redundant or unimportant ...

Sounds like a great idea to me!

My Aspiration to Work at Google

2009-09-07T15:12:00.003+10:00

Recently someone started in on me about how cool it was to work at Google and what a great work culture they have there.

I have no doubt that this could be true, but I'm not sure what use they'd have for a once-paralegal whose ambition is to write a really cool book about witches.

I did think about working for Google, and what possible skills I would have to offer such an organisation, and there is about only one thing I could think of.

I think would like, and would be good at, coming up with different ways to write "Google". You know, the way the Google logo changes. Sometimes the two "o"s look like eyes or something. But I reckon I could come up with some really creative ones. One could be a blue eye and one could be a green eye!

That's called INNOVATIVE.

I'm sure someone is in charge of that, it doesn't just change by itself. In fact there is a bit of a fuss over the second "o" now so it's not like this logo changing means nothing.

I, in fact, envisage a whole team of about 6 people whose job it is to come up with different ways to write "Google". One in charge of each letter.

One who walks around saying "I'm the "first "o" man" and another saying "I'm the "l" lady!". That would be their title. Their day would be filled with nothing but "o"s or "G"s or whatever letter they would be assigned.

Wow. It's just a great idea. I think I could do that. I don't know, I think an "o" would suit me fine, but really, I'm just happy to be part of the team. I'll take any letter. Really.

Please give generously

2009-09-05T13:29:00.003+10:00

The other day I was at home rather late, still in my tracksuit that serves as good nightwear. Not exactly in a see-other-people mood, I'm trying to work on one of my computing assignments and get it in by Father's Day, the deadline. My terminal is labelled "Cygwin Bash Shell" on the shortcut on my laptop, and I sure as hell feel like bashing its shell sometimes when I see those errors pop up.

Anyhow, I hear a knock at the door and I decided to answer it despite my non-people-ish mood. After all, if it's a competition that I wasn't aware I'd entered and I'd just won a year's supply of Nudie Juice or something, it might brighten up my day. And if it were a member of my fa,ily who'd forgotten their keys and I refused to answer, I'd never hear the end of it. Not worth not answering!

So I went to the door, answered, and it was a lady from World Vision who started off on her obviously rehearsed spiel,

"Hi, I'm from World Vision, I don't wish to put a dampener on your day, but a child dies in this world every 3 seconds ..."

She got about as far as "I don't wish to put a dampener on your day" when the first thing I thought was "Is she apologising for coming to the door, because yes, that did put a dampener on my day. I'm in my trakkies turn pjs! And if she didn't want to put a dampener on my day, why did she knock?"

While there may be some people who absolutely jump with joy at the sight of a charity collector aproaching them, I'm not one of them, and I don't know anyone who's confessed it's one of their little happinesses. On the other hand I realise that charity collectors really believe in their causes and want to collect money for them, and they choose something which they know - or a pretty sure - will get a strong emotional reaction. For instance, dying children.

We all feel strongly about dying children. Or people with terminal cancer. Or ... well there are plenty of other things that get us sad, emotional, or angry at the state of the world.

I'm envisioning a new kind of sales approach,

"Hi, I'm Dorothy, I don't wish to put a dampener on your day, but a charity collector harasses someone for money at least every three seconds on average around the world, and I'm sure you'll agree that's totally unacceptable. We've had a wonderful response in relation to that from your neighbours, and if you'll just sign here it's totally tax deductible ..."

Is Humiliation the Answer?

2009-08-28T14:53:00.003+10:00

A guy is wearing a humiliating sign because he got caught cheating. That's his punishment. He's walking around wearing a huge sign saying "I CHEATED THIS IS MY PUNISHMENT".

Now, there's some speculation this could be a stunt, for TV or something, but then some blog commenters went on to say things like "humiliation isn't the answer, she just wants revenge, but it won't fix their marriage, it's stupid, he'll hate her for it and do it again" blah blah. While others said "Good on her."

Anyhow, the whole sign thing isn't new. I've seen this kind of punishment before and I remember a spoof of it done in a tv show called Curb Your Enthusiasm where Larry David is accused of stealing a fork from a restaurant, and is sentenced to walk around wearing a big sign saying "I steal forks from restaurants" or something similar.

But if the whole humiliation thing wouldn't work for a relationship, does it mean it doesn't work at all or is a relationship just a special case?

I mean, if the reasoning given by some is the case, would it be fair to say that revenge is never the answer, and Larry would become an embittered fork-stealer, after he wore the sign he would not learn his lesson but hate society for making him wear the sign and go out and steal forks for the hell of it, just to get his revenge? He would haunt restaurants and take a fork, slip it into his bag and say, "SCORE ONE FOR ME, that's for making me wear that sign, SUCK ON THAT you AMERICANS! Swallow that for every one of you who supports that stupid law that made me where that sign! I've got my FORK now! And next time ... I might up it to a spoooooon! Or a splade! I'll be the cutlery king and my palace shall rock with my silverware in my vengeance!"

Or perhaps he would see a fork and go crazy. He would see it, remember the sign and how the fork symbolised the sign and how it made him feel and he would go dizzy, and you'd have to call the paramedics.

Same could be said of this man and his cheating, except it wouldn't be forks. Well, maybe it was forks. I won't presume to know too much about his sex life.

I don't know whether vengeance and humiliation is an effective tool in rehabilitating a person, or fixing behaviour. But as some pointed out .. it probably makes us feel good for a while, and for some people that's all that matters.

Effective Ticketing

2009-08-25T12:35:00.003+10:00

(Warning All! I am gong to write about public transport. I was told once in a TAFE class by a fellow student that this was a boring crappy subject to write about. If you are of the same opinion of that lass, please stop reading now!)

I read this article in the Sydney Morning Herald about ticketing on public transport in Australia. According to the report when it comes to short trips in particular we commuters are paying some of the highest fares in the world - and I think a lot of people would say we aren't exactly getting the best value, what with complaints about safety, cleanliness, accessibility, on-time running blah blah.

For some of the longer trips, we are getting a better deal though.

Anyhow, what to do about it, if anything? Is this cool? I know a lot of people get all het up when they hear tickets are going up - again! Especially when you find services seem to be just the same or worse.

I always think it's an absolute rort that the way to make train stats better is just to change the definition of what "on time" is - like "within ten minutes".

Hey, why don't we passengers change the definition of "paying full price for a ticket" while we're at it so our stats for travelling legally look better? You IDIOTS. It seems all they have to do is fiddle with definitions but not serve up more, but the customers are meant to serve up more, and that's when people get very crappy about their fares going up.

Well, people get cranky about fares going up whenever, but especially when the service is not going up.

Anyhow, how to make fares fairer?

I remember a friend of mine said she believed in fully subsidised public transport. Naturally, this would probably mean a tax hike because money to run transport comes from somewhere, realistically. Either a tax hike or a decline in facilities elsewhere. But instead of a user pays system, a tax-funded system. Wold this deliver a better service to customers? In some ways it would do without the need for ticketing and it could be more efficient. It could also coax people into using public transport more. On the other hand, would it be economically viable, and could it also lead to a run-down system where only the minimum to sustain it would be delivered ... on the other hand, is that much different from what we're getting now?

I also remember some talk about different kinds of fares - at the moment we have different classes of fares. Adults pay full fare, there are concession tickets, pensioner tickets, school children get free school passes, and there are also special other passes for people who are veterans (I think)or who have certain disabilities. I'm not sure about other types of tickets.

Anyhow, sometimes when prices are hiked they are hiked in certain areas, others across the board, and I know some people have talked about inequities in these areas.

For instance, at a time when the pensioner daily travel pass was more than doubled, school children continued to ride free. It was suggested by some that it would be more fair if the pensioner travel pass was reduced by less and school children had to pay a fee (paid by parents), a once-off fee each school year for the privilege of holding a school pass. Or they could choose to not have one and pay a child's fare each time they travelled.

On the article I posted, a commenter mentioned that she thought a ticket based on time woudld be more appropriate than one based on distance. In that way it's really user pays. On the other hand this leads to several problems, and objections, including difficulties in estimating time - would you be fined if you bought a half hour ticket and got stuck on a slow bus? Surely you should be allowed to simply pay up extra at the other end, not be fined for carrying an invalid ticket.

And it hopefully wouldn't encourage your service to be excruciatingly slow in order to squeeze money from you. Would a breakdown in the middle of peak hour, forcing thousands of commuters to hang around for four hours and top up as they left, be a godsend to CityRail? many would argue no, as it would be a bad marketing strategy for them, but considering many of us have no viable choice but to catch public transport to the places we wish to go, and there aren't major competitors in the area, they don't worry too much about sweet-talking us.

Evidently, as the past over ten years has shown us.

The Dancin' Kid

2009-08-24T12:56:00.003+10:00

Here's a story about a new kiddy craze, and for the life of me I can't follow the logic of the objections in the story - just the sentiment. Maybe someone can help me out.

Well it's about this new fad, where in Oxford Street, people can bring along their kids and have them hit the dance floor. Kids can dance around and groove to flashing disco lights and wear feather boas and drink organic apple juice at the 'ultimate dance party' where they will be heavily supervised by babysitters, while their mothers can go upstairs and relax with some champagne.

It sounds like a cool business concept except some people, like the head of the Australian Childhood Foundation Dr Joe Tucci, said that kids were growing up too fast and it seemed to be phrased as an objection in the article:

"As a community we are pushing children into an adult world at a faster and faster rate," he said.
"We need to realise that childhood development is a phase in itself and it shouldn't be shaped by adults and what they see as important."

Now let's assume it was in response to the Baby Loves dancing place, and I'm assuming it because of the context of the article, which also said the event was expected to be divisive.

Now, I'm just wondering what 'growing up too fast' means (leaving out any comments about I thought everyone grew up at the same rate). Basically first of all the doctor says that we shouldn't shape childhood development by what adults see as important.

On the other hand it seems to me he sees childhood development as important, and not pushing children into an adult world too fast as important (inferred by his first sentence) which kinda contradicts his first statement logically if taken perfectly literally as "adults should impose no values about childhood development whatsoever".

The other thing is, what counts as an adult world anyhow, is it adult simply because adults think of it as one, and that's because adults see flashing strobe lights and think of that as "ooooh, that's what I look at and think of as adult-ish!" After all, I can't think what makes dance lights inherently adult-ish, it's what we project upon them. And again, this is another thing about adults imposing values on their kids' development.

It starts off as a weird argument:

1. Children should have their childhood, free from what adults think is important.
2. However, since adults think something like running around nude or bopping to rock music or wearing a feather boa looks like it is adult-like-play (a symbol that is important to adults but truly, probably doesn't usually mean jack to a toddler)
3. Then we should remove it from our child's development and in this case, remember what we think is important. Like what our symbolism means to us or what our neighbours think or whether we think our child is going to grow up to be dysfunctional because later they'll be an adult and it will become important to them THEN we assume because it's important to us NOW.

I'm not saying I think kiddies should necessarily indulge in 'adult' pursuits; and indeed some pursuits could be classed as inherently adult, that is, children are legally prohibited from doing them or their bodies cannot cope with them or are not able to perform certain functions. Others are possibly more projections of society - say wearing makeup. Nothing prevents a toddler boy from putting lipstick on, physically, it's just that our expectation is that it's mainly for people of a certain age and gender.

I'm just trying to work out how these arguments run. Possibly it could have been done better. Maybe people should come right out and say "I am sick of seeing kids dressed in little boob tubes and g-strings, it gives me the heebie jeebies! Get them back in the dungarees and jumpsuits where they belong!"

Begging, the Dole, or an Honest Day's Work?

2009-08-24T09:38:00.002+10:00

In the Daily Tele just the other day, there was this story about a guy who can earn $400 a day begging. Apparently he's not the only one. Slow days are when he clears about $75 or $150, but he's "disappointed" when he clears only $250. That's his standard.

He says he puts it in a bank account and he's saving for a friend who needs a liver transplant.

Now this story provoked outrage, plenty of people answered with declarations that they weren't going to pay the guy another cent, he was a leech and an idiot and he should get a job and why couldn't he pay rent and get off the streets.

My guess is many people were so mad because they felt they have been conned by him or others like him before, and they're mad because they don't clear money like that by what they think is 'easy money'. Though if you think sitting in shabby clothes on your bum in the street is fun, I'd think again.

And if you think it's easy money sitting around for 16 hours doing nothing ... well I can assure you it's not. My last job at the Industrial Relations Commission involved me sitting around doing nothing for long periods. I found it physically taxing and I wasn't earning $400 a day. I resigned and have less income than even there but it's a relief to be out of the sitting-on-butt business. Truly - sitting around all day isn't that great! I couldn't do it myself.

Others expressed the view that the guy should be paying tax, or that 'at least it was better than going on the dole'.

Anyhow, I don't know about tax, because if you're just giving him a bit of a donation, I don't know about that. Either way I wouldn't be paying tax if I could avoid it. I wonder if he has evaded birth and death too?

As for the guy being a leech on society, it seems that many people have forgotten that begging means that you choose to give someone something - albeit for nothing, or some might say, because they have inspired you or injected you with a feeling. It's a vague contract you make with them except they use guilt as a lever and don't give anything back that's solid except relief of that guilt. Or maybe self-image, or whatever.

Cake-sellers give you a cake in exchange for your bucks, but beggars just make you feel like you've done the right thing. Neither forces you to give anything. If you want them to die on the streets (or go bankrupt, whatever) just let them alone!

The last comparisons were the comparison of begging to the dole and to an 'honest job'. Not surprisingly, most people thought it was better for a person to 'get a job' than beg, not for his own sake but as if it were obligatory for him to do so. Many said it was 'good he wasn't on the dole' but some also talked about 'poor pensioners' who were taken in by his crap ... so there seemed to be a discrimination between pensioners and those on the dole (or different people feeling very differently about those on welfare, with the dole having bad connotations, but pensioners not having such a bad connotation. It's a lesson as to how to describe yourself if you're on welfare.)

It's also a lesson as to how to describe yourself if you've got a job. Remember, it's an honest job.

I'm not exactly sure what the heck a DIS honest job is. Professional liar? Working in advertising and political speech writing?

Anyhow, while we can parade our honest jobs, or some people can, I'm not exactly so sure why it's so great to have an honest job rather than to beg. Apart from the fact that you are obliged to pay taxes.

In both cases, someone agrees to pay you money. And when you think about it, some so-called honest jobs are pretty useless in function. Probably as useless as if you sat on your bum in the street. It's one of the reasons I've been disillusioned about many of the jobs I've read about, I feel like I am going to file files in a drawer that noone is ever going to look at again, shuffle paper off in a drawer that won't be seen again, pass paper to Mr B from Ms A which could have been passed directly from A to B if they had taken two seconds longer to do it, blah blah. It's boring boring crap!!!!!!!!

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz!

And yet that is what a lot of clerk like jobs are like, in my head I reason the main difference between them and not doing the job and letting the office run itself is someone actually pays you if you agree to do it. I didn't exactly feel like I was contributing to society at all. I just felt like someone thought I was.* And that was the reason to do the job.

Oh and someone will say you have an honest job and you are not a bludger.

So is the distasteful thing about people on the dole and begging is that they are collecting money and not only are they not doing anything but they also have been found out that they aren't doing anything?

As for begging and not being a dole bludger, basically, what's so great about saying at least you are not one but you are the other?

When you beg you play on someone's conscience or their image or their feeling of obligation or whatever. Many would call it a con. However, it depends on the day as to how much you are likely to get, and no one is obliged to give you a cent. There is however no cap on your limit, and you make a direct 'contract' with your contributors.

With a dole your claim is made to the State, not individuals in the street, and it's based on principles that assumedly Society agrees to/regulations that we agree to be governed under. And everyone's entitled to claim, but you have to make a disclosure under them and your receivable amount is capped.

Is it so much more principled to try one and not the other, and which one? I guess it depends on your principles.

*By the way I write this believing that many people who go on about their honest jobs do boring jobs that have very little impact on the world, like mine. On the other hand there are people whose jobs do have an impact on other people and if they don't turn up to work everyone gets frantic, or if they hadn't done their job ever, we'd be living in a world made of Stilton Cheese Towers and sipping funny green mucous speaking in beeps. Those people we have to thank for making the world we live in today possible. Not that a cheese tower wouldn't be interesting, for a holiday anyhow.

Quitisms

2009-08-22T12:57:00.000+10:00

This was my word verification a few days ago and I thought it was such a cool word I'd try to figure out what it meant.

A quick Google search gives the meaning for QUIETISM

1. A form of Christian mysticism enjoining passive contemplation and the beatific annihilation of the will.
2. A state of quietness and passivity.

While there seem to be some references to quitism on the web, I can't find a definition of one so ...

The first thing that popped into my mind was:

QUITISM - a pithy phrase or set of phrases used by someone who claims they are trying to quit a habit. Usually lame and reassuring.

"It's ok to have one of these chocolate biscuits because they're small. After I've had three I'll stop. Actually they were very small, weren't they, make that four."
"If I walk the long way to the kitchen from this dining table I can have extra ice-cream."
"It's bad for me to give up cigarettes all at once. I could die. Anyone got another pack?"
"I know shopping this much is bad for you. I have to buy some equipment to help me stop the cravings."
"I will stop tomorrow ... tomorrow is another day."
"I will give this up when all the people on this Earth have the right to free health care and transport ... umm because that's being principled as well as quitting."
"I have tried quitting many times but I quit quitting."

Been wrestling with fiddly equations in my computing course and ...

2009-08-21T23:13:00.002+10:00

If there's one thing I don't need to not see, it's another double negative.

Weight Loss Schemes that Really Work

2009-08-20T20:34:00.003+10:00

Whenever people moan about weight loss and how really hard it is and how people should sympathise with certain large people because their body shape is just not the type suited to weight loss, so it's cruel to go on about how they're overweight, I think WHAT ROT!

The trouble with people who moan about this and try these silly diets like the fish one day and chocolate the next diet is they want weight loss to be easy. They like fish and chocolate. Then they feel like they have achieved something cool by telling everyone that they have fish one day and chocolate the next instead of having both every day and this makes them real martyrs.

Of course if you really want to lose weight it is very easy and you don't need experts in nutrition or whatever to explain how:

You can chop off a limb.
You can cut yourself and leak a lot of blood.
You can go without food at all for a very long time. Like years on end. There are all these experts who will go on about how this will actually work against you because it will slow down your metabolism and switch you to food storage mode and you'll stack up more weight. ONLY IF YOU GO BACK TO EATING AGAIN. DO NOT BE FOOLED.

However for all people go on about desperate dedication to losing body weight, it seems many are not ready to really take the plunge. They would rather be alive and have all four limbs than be light.

It seems these moaners are lacking commitment to the cause. Let them whine!

Kyle and Jackie O, the continuing story

2009-08-17T19:32:00.004+10:00

Apparently Kyle and Jackie O have become embroiled in another scandal! Last time it was one where Kyle insensitively questioned a teen girl on air about her sexual experience when she was doing a lie detector and it was revealed she'd been raped.

Now here's the next scandal and in my opinion, it's pretty mild and seems to be an attempt to capitalise on people's fury at Kyle and Jackie O.

The story this time is that Kyle reneged on a personal pledge of $35 000 made to a family. And that's not all. A woman named Wendy Koman appeared on air and was encouraged to discuss the plight of her four year old boy Josh, who's paralysed. Kyle personally promised $35 000, and people called in to pledge money. She was encouraged to sound emotional to get more money.

But when the family came to collect the cash, instead of handing over the money, the station handed over the names of the people who pledged the money. Kyle also reneged on his personal pledge after several callers made pledges of of $20 000. Wendy Koman complained that she felt like a debt collector, having to go after the people and collect the money pledged.

Basically, I think this is a pretty pathetic whinge.

Except for the part about Sandilands going back on his word, which is probably something you can get him for, even if he did help you raise the rest of the dough, but gets lost in the rest of the whinge.

It seems rather silly to whinge that you were prepared to go on radio, tell your story, want to get a whole lot of people to donate money to you, but then didn't want to feel bad about taking that money from them. Sorry, I just wanted it handed to me, I didn't want to actually either do the hard work or feel that I was taking it off them. I am happy to take the money from them, I just don't want the psychological stain, which is what calling people up gives you.

For $150K, I think there are plenty of people who would be happy to call around and collect the money. I would.

It seems to me that no matter how upset Koman is, she hasn't come out so morally outraged at Sandilands and principled that she would not touch the disgusting money that the terrible antics of these people has brought her. When she hands the money back to all those people who donated, or gives it to the station or to a charity or something then perhaps she will be more convincing.

Yes, probably the station could have been very much nicer about it. They could have been greeted at the door with a red carpet and a cake and a little funny clown could have been sent over to Josh and someone could have sent flowers over every day and the money could have been done up in little bundles tied in pink ribbon and a photo could have been taken of them receiving it and it could have been framed and sent over to them and Kyle and Jackie O could have become their best buddies forever too and then personally added an extra several ten thousands on top of that as a "bonus just because you're so darn cool".

Everything could have been very much nicer. However, should you reasonably expect it? It seems some people think they are almost entitled to extreme niceness - and often because they feel sorry for themselves. Then when they get less they get outraged. This can be something like what Ms Koman received, or it can be something very simple like someone not publishing your outraged letter to the Editor in the newspaper or not commenting on your blog article. How could they possibly think my original heartfelt wonderful story about this topic and my opinion on it is not worth publishing/reading/comment!

Anyway, I would be happy to go on 2DAYFM and get $150K myself but I have learnt from this lesson.

Hi 2DAYFM.

I have a very sad story and I would like you to raise a whole lot of money for it, say over $100K would be nice. However I have some conditions on this, I will sound impassioned on radio however I don't want anyone to say I am milking it. I want a heap of money but I don't want anyone to say I am cheap or selling myself. I want other people's cash but I want to feel that they are giving it freely and I am entitled to it not that I have to take it from them. I want to be able to collect it easily, so please get some of your staff to collect it from those people should they prove difficult to collect from, or better still, please give me the money straight from your coffers, and then you can refill your coffers at some later time with any pledges that you will naturally do all the work to collect and if anyone doesn't pay up, not my problem."

Yours Sincerely,

Maria

P.S. By the way this blog article is so darn relevant and my opinion is so darn right I feel entitled to at least one comment and I will feel outraged if I don't get one. If someone else doesn't do it I'll do it myself!

Laughter in a Can

2009-08-17T09:47:00.002+10:00

I am ok with canned condensed milk, canned peaches, canned tomatoes, canned soup. What is really getting to me is canned laughter. I avoided it at the supermarket last week even though it was on a three for two special. Just didn't want those giggles grinning up at me on my shelf.

I read on a noticeboard some guy saying that he didn't really like the canned laughter on a show, but then he didn't find shows without a laugh track funny. Now, I'm not sure whether that meant that the laugh track made them funny or whether he had looked around at the shows on offer without laugh tracks and none of them had been funny so far to him.

Anyhow, I'm generally not a laugh track person, and I'm really going off them. There have been some cool comedies with laugh tracks, and they were in vogue at certain periods so some of those older funny comedies really worked. It seems that actors really actually knew how to work with the laugh track then and didn't look like they were hanging around waiting for the joke. I watched a lot of The Golden Girls last year, and Fawlty Towers, which always make me life, and the laughter didn't intrude but seemed to be scripted and acted in beat with the track. Seinfeld also works well with the laughter from the audience.

On the other hand, I really prefer most comedies now that let you laugh when you want to and don't cue when to laugh. Like The Simpsons and Futurama, Scrubs and The Office and Curb Your Enthusiasm.

I was introduced to an American sitcom recently called The Big Bang Theory, and it must be voted having the worst laugh track ever. I don't particularly like this show but it might be more palatable if it didn't have such an intrusive track and it's made me hate canned laughter even more. Some say it's studio audience and they are just laughing themselves and it's just because the show is hilarious, if so, I say the audience is being tickled or has the worst taste ever.

That, or there is something going on behind the scenes that we don't know about. Maybe they are getting to watch Seinfeld.

Some people will say I just don't get the geeky humour of The Big Bang Theory. Fair enough. Everyone has their taste.

But really, the show will open and there are two guys sitting in a cafe and one will say something like, "Have you seen my microscope?" or "Now, there's this idea about time travel ..." or something similar and right after that one line which is delivered in a very ordinary way, the whole audience will go hysterical and crack up and the laughter will go for ages. Am I missing something? What was so darned witty about that?

Someone told me that the canned humour makes you want to laugh, but if someone keeps laughing hysterically at boring and unfunny bits in a piece, it makes you irritated and less likely to laugh at the actually funny bits. Well, that's what it does for me.

As for the rest of The Big Bang Theory, it has quite a following, but I'm not that into it. The premise is a couple of very stereotypical nerds who live across the hall from a non-nerdy girl and the nerds don't do very well socially. There's a lot of geek humour, and people go on about how the geek humour is so great, but it's not very clever, in that it's geek humour aimed at making fun of geeks to people who aren't geeks - which isn't very innovative. There are a few jokes that involve a bit of science but the main ones revolve around many things that the average non-geek knows about, and also enjoys making fun of geeks for - basic science, jokes about time travel, Dungeons and Dragons and Star Trek and stuff. I dropped all science studies in 11th grade and I get it.

They also need to lose the little segue which involoves seeing the Earth from outerspace with a funny whizzing sound - it interrupts continuity and makes it look like a skit show and just looks like they are trying to push more and more "Hey, this is a scence-y geek show!" WE KNOW!

It also uses all the basic geek stereotypes - geeks dress badly, talk in funny voices, are socially awkward and have trouble getting laid. But they desperately would love to. It's a little bit like the movie Weird Science - the geek sees the gorgeous girl, his hormones go crazy but he just can't figure out how a normal guy manages to get the girl. Oh to be the normal guy!

It's a pity from my point of view that no one ever paints a geek as either quite able to use his own geeky skills to get what he wants - even socially, or not getting a girl but not giving a shit. Damn you all, why do I care about women? I have my hobby telescope.

Of course that wouldn't be that funny to anyone to actually have a well-adjusted geek now would it - especially a well-adjusted geek and some socially inept jocks?

Now, there's this theory about canned laughter ...

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA !

If junk food companies really cared about our health ...

2009-08-16T17:48:00.002+10:00

I read an article in the paper today which was about how doctors had urged junk food companies to downsize the size of their portions, because larger portions contributed to obesity. If they didn't do so voluntarily, perhaps the govt should be forced to make them do so.

Some companies would do so, but then they would chop off ten percent of their chocolate bar and sell it to you for the same price as the original bar. Then customers felt ripped off. The manufacturers explained that ten percent reduction in price didn't really mean a reduction in cost to the manufacturer, which is why they don't change the price (The thing is, if it does mean the customers get pissed off and turn away, then it might be worth it to reduce the price just to keep the customers. Or you can have lots of choccie bars or no or smaller customer base).

Anyhow this is all very nice, junk food manufacturers caring for our health, but what would happen if they really cared for our health? I mean, like, what would they really do?

1. Warning labels on packaging

This huge Chocolate Bar will turn you into a giant socially unacceptable fatty boomsticks. If you are at all concerned about your health or your social status, drop this and go to the fruit and vege section. Have a nice day!

or more to the point;

I am made by a giant corporation that is headed by a big fat cat pocketing millions of dollars because of your ill-made decisions each time you buy these products. And the fat cat is laughing his ass off. Think again.

2. Exercise Regimes which burn off fat BEFORE you get to the chocolate bar!

Have the chocolate bar positioned on a shelf in the supermarket beneath treadmill. You aren't allowed to grab a chocolate bar unless you've done an hour of jogging. Is that clear?

3. Power-Testing Packaging

Plastic packaging on junk food so tight that you need to do muscle-building exercises at the gym just to get it off.

Actually, I think some companies have installed that idea already.

4. Specially repellent flavours

At one time every hated brussels sprouts, so perhaps brussels sprouts choccie is an idea. But really, what's so horrible about brussels sprouts? They're not too bad. I wouldn't mind a Brussels Sprouts Bar if there was one around. No, it's not repellent enough. You need to go a step or too further.

Chocolate bars that smell of farts
Dung flavoured chocolate bar (should be easy to make, they're both brown)
Boogie flavoured Bar
Cardboard flavoured Bar
Styrofoam flavoured Bar

After these have flooded the markets, it's a good chance people will go back to nice healthy Brussels Sprouts. The real thing, not the Bar.

5. I guess they could all just pack up shop, leave, or start selling fruit or seafood or jogging shoes or something but would that be too simple?

Could someone please explain Quidditch to me?

2009-08-16T01:24:00.005+10:00

I was reading the paper about a week ago and some guy was writing in to complain about a poor game of football or something somewhere which really annoyed him. He was really annoyed because one team had won, they had scored only one try but they had got a conversion, I think some other points from things that were like whatevers, field goals or special kicks or whatever the terminology in this particular game was. I'm afraid I don't know too much about the game to explain.

The thing is, the other team had got more tries and LOST. I don't think the margin was great but they lost.

And it really annoyed the man and he thought it was a stupid game and really, it took all the fun out it and just was boring and not worth watching.

This brings me to the well-known Rowling-invented, Harry Potter game of Quidditch which I'm afraid I just don't understand and maybe someone can explain it to me.

Apparently it's a riveting game and everyone loves it, everyone magical that is, so there must be something to it, or could wizards and witches just have terrible taste?

But basically it involves two teams and and they beat balls into goals and get ten points per goal, with a defence goalies on each side too, that makes sense.

The bit that doesn't make sense is The Golden Snitch, which is worth 150 points of caught, and ends the game. Apparently it is the only thing that ends the game.

Now, given that the catching of The Golden Snitch is worth 15 goals, it makes sense that you have to get 16 goals to make it worth your team not catching the Snitch. That seems to me quite a few.

Here's some questions:

a) If you were a Beater, or in fact anyone other than a Seeker (the guy/gal who goes after the Golden Snitch), wouldn't you feel a bit useless on the team?
b) If you were the team Captain, wouldn't it make a lot of sense to spend more time just working out strategy that involved sabotaging the other team's Seeker's efforts so your team's Seeker could get to the Snitch fastest, rather than bothering with trying to score goals?
c) Since the Snitch is worth 150 points AND ends the game, not only does it make sense to make the Snitch a priority, but wouldn't it also make sense to work out some kind of signal system so that if your team is trailing by more than 150 points, your Seeker doesn't actually catch the Snitch, but instead puts his/her efforts into stopping the other Seeker from catching it? And that you only actually catch it when you are winning or are less than 150 points behind?

How come there are games when someone has caught the Snitch but they've lost anyway, you'd think professionals would do better than that!

I think I am really missing something. I would be very grateful if someone could explain what all the fuss about Quidditch was. Since the Seeker was so powerful in relation to everything else, disproportionately so, I felt it actually took away from the game. It lacked real suspense and drama.

At any rate I'm sorry but I could never get that excited about Quidditch, I guess I am too nerdy to even be really into sports :)

Accidentally turning your Child into a Question Time Monster

2009-08-16T00:41:00.007+10:00

Sue Dunlevy wrote this article in the Daily Tele about the difficult issue facing parents on the issue of teen drinking. And I'm not talking about my precious orange juice either, which seems not to be nearly as controversial as I thought it was.

Parents didn't always want to let their kids drink alcohol, preferring them to stay on the wholesome sugar-not-alcohol infused options as long as possible. At least it just kept you up all night watching cartoons and dancing rather than spewing in the toilet. You got fat rather than dizzy on overdoses of juice, Coca Cola, and really big home made chocolate milk shakes.

Anyhow, keeping them off the juice - I mean the alcohol, which for some reason is often nicknamed juice - for as long as possible, was desirable to many, but it also meant possibly getting put down by your kids.

Ms Dunlevy said that none wanted to experience the withering put down Frances Abbott gave her father, Tony Abbott:

“What would you know, you’re a lame, gay, churchie loser,” Frances Abbott told her Dad when he offered her some advice.

"Clearly she is a young woman who has learnt her parental handling skills from watching Question Time." - wrote Ms Dunlevy

There, I think, Ms Dunlevy has a good point. What the heck are pollies thinking at Question Time - except maybe a bit of nostalgia from school years when they got to call others name and brawl a lot. "Mr Speaker" is just another name for "teacher"?

Politicians often have families and children. They're often mouthing off about family values and lamenting the lack of courtesy and respect in the community and in certain generations. Then they go and put on a great display in Question Time when they blast all that away.

OK, yes, sometimes it's funny, in the same way reality TV is funny, but basically it's also hypocritical, so if you really think about it, it's a matter of 'do as I say, not as I do' or mainly 'Yes, I lament the loss of certain things in our community and I believe that those values should be there in the community, but not for me, not at this time, because I'm privileged.'

That probably isn't an easy one to explain to some younger children and I would treat my Dad or Mum with quite a bit of contempt if I caught them at that contradiction. Maybe that's why Question Time is not on till quite late/early and isn't shown with kids' cartoons. Pollies' children cant' risk that their children might see it and ask 'awkward' questions.

Anyhow, honestly I wouldn't mind seeing Question Time being more civilised. I wonder what it would be like if people tried to conduct it in a more civilised manner. Would they have anything to say? I don't know that heckling adds that much to Question Time but is there much else to it and do they have much else? Maybe they would be stumped for words and end up walking out?

Most of the heckling seems to be name-calling, booing and yelling which seems quite inane to me, and childish, if there was some subtle mind and wordplay, clever humour and wit and interesting psychological manoeuvrings used, it would probably show some class. The fact that it seems to be "whose voice is louder" is a bit stupid. If they called it "REALITY TV: WHOSE VOICE IS LOUDER: WHO WILL LAST THE DISTANCE?" and played it with some judges' commentary over the top and a number to call for each politician, everyone would go on about how it was tacky and what a bunch of common no-talents they are. People probably still think that now, it's just the lack of a good phone no. and a catchy name and a "nasty judge" that keeps their mouths shut.

I wonder if they weren't heckling whether it's possible they would concentrate less on booing and trying to stave off booing, and more on trying to make intelligent, conscientious decisions about issues affecting the populace.

Or is that too much to ask?

6 tiny cups of full cream milk in every 3rd of a cup ...

2009-08-15T16:19:00.002+10:00

Mum has this problem at work - there aren't many employees, and that makes it difficult to have milk at work without it all going to waste. Specially as Mum only likes a small amount of milk in her tea, once a day, and the creamier the milk the less the amount. If it's the skim or Shape milk she can take a tiny more but if it's cream just the slightest, and it's the cream that you can generally buy a bit more flexibly in terms of amounts.

Anyhow, Mum hit on this idea to buy a crateful of 200 individual serves of milk. You know, those tiny little serves of milk which are sealed at the top and are in plastic containers. You have to buy minimum 200 at a time. Mum agreed to share them with the one other employee at the work - the boss just wasn't interested. by Mum's calculation, if they each had one tea/coffee per day, that would mean they'd all be gone by the expiry date, except 40 serves, which could account for the few days they might have two cups. Or they could risk wasting 40 tiny little serves.

Mum has three weeks to go and she has brought home a HUGE number of little containers. Apparently the other colleague hasn't been keeping his end of the deal too well, the little containers were too fiddly so he just went off and bought himself a coffee with milk all the time and stopped using the containers. Mum's carted home a big supply of milk and ordered us to try to use it up before the use by date. if we have a coffee or a tea, please use a container. Please.

But there's so much there it's a tough ask and dad got in trouble the other night for sticking milk from the bottle into his tea instead of that from the container.

Mum made some little cakes today and topped it up with milk from containers.

I had a third glass of milk today at lunch just for the heck of it and stuck in 6 tiny little sachets. What the heck.

Maybe we'll get through it. It just takes determination.

See, everyone, I don't have a life

2009-08-15T15:38:00.005+10:00

I read an article in this weekend's Sydney Morning Herald called See everyone, I do have a life by Hilda Qiroga.

It was about the clutter and little trinkets and photos and things that people put on their desks at work - you know, plants, toys, photos. probably you have an assortment of stuff, whatever you choose.

Ms Qiroga went at length to discuss obvious favourites, such as pictures of loved ones and people posing with celebs or on holiday, and said looking at desk adornments said a lot about a person. "You will discover who they love, what they love, hobbies, political leanings, hopes and aspirations". Then she started to theorise why people do this - do they want to show off that they actually have a life to other colleagues? Or does it make them feel warm and fuzzy just to be near the things you love? And as she pointed out, whichever it is, it's standard practice to have stuff on your desk and you are meant to comment.

On the other hand there are people who choose not to decorate, and Ms Qiroga's tone seemed not to be nearly as 'nice' towards these! While they could be those who just are there to work, and she does theorise that perhaps these people work harder because they aren't distracted and only work - well, it didn't seem like this was something you should admire in them, from the way the article was written, but more like, who is this freak? But then, they aren't the norm, so I guess they would be a freak. She suggested that perhaps they live to work, perhaps they have no time to put up anything, or they have no life outside work. or maybe they are so smug they have no need to display 'annoying snaps' to people in the office. "So smug and self-confident are they, so private and mysterious, they have no need to reassure you that, yes I have a life".

(This leaves out those who might have a work policy against happy snaps. I don't know about any office that has a work policy which says you HAVE to have a goofy pic of yourself on the wall but that could be interesting.)

Anyhow, what type are you?

Personally, I'm one of the no-mess types, one of the freaks, but Ms Qiroga hasn't quite nailed my motivations. Yes, I prefer the lack of mess on the desk because it does get a bit in the way. Also I don't feel the need to show everyone pics of myself. I look terrible in photos anyhow, I don't travel and I don't have celebrities I've met. In fact I can't think of one interesting picture I have of me. I don't even like my graduation pictures. And I just think it's plain stupid to put your passport photo on the wall, it's like having a mug shot there.

One of the things that I don't like about pics and trinkets is a) people do start commenting on them and b) they start touching them. I have trinkets on my desk at home. I'm not too fond of the idea of bringing in something made of glass and somebody says "Hey this looks interesting" and picks it up and then whoops, they've dropped it and now you have shards all over your desk to clean up, and I'll bet you they don't pay for it either. And the fact that they start commenting on them isn't a huge plus to me because hey - see the post on jobs below - I took the personality test and I am a SIT IN THE HOLE AND DON'T DISTURB ME type.

My motivation is I'm an antisocial freak moreso than a smug and self-confident freak.

Other reasons I have never been eager to bring in stuff to work is:

a) paranoia that the cleaner would steal anything valuable
b) If you put all this stuff on your desk at work what it really means is you have to remove it all when you get sacked or resign which with me, is a good chance it will be within a few weeks. I keep it at home, I have had my own bedroom for years and it's less hassle. When I resigned from the last job it was a relief that I had very little to organise to move.
When my brother was made redundant from his last job they wouldn't even let him return to his job for security reasons so they cleaned his desk for him and returned by mail all what they considered to be 'personal belongings' - that is, stuffed them in an old cardboard box and got an Aussie Post Courier to dump them outside our house when noone was home. This included valuables like an iPhone. I find this pretty irresponsible and wouldn't want complete strangers doing that for me - just say they missed something nice or crapped it up?

antisocial, paranoid, and not very good at staying employed freak.

Anyhow, what that really says to me is "don't take anything to work and leave it there that you actually like". And then I think if I don't like it, why do I want it on my desk at all?

Then I end up with nothing, except a novel to read during lunch which I take home with me each day so I can keep reading it on the train and bus home.

Life Outside Work

By the way I guess I don't really try to convince anyone that I have a life outside work but I would say this is a lack of imagination rather than smugness. I tend to say "errrrh nothing really" when anyone says what have I been doing on the weekend. What do others do that's exceiting on weekends that's worth saying, does "Yes I had a most exciting weekend, I woke up on Saturday, read the paper, moved my bowels, searched the fridge for leftovers, searched every channel for something to eat, picked at the fridge again, had a shower, tried the fridge yet again, tried the papers again, played Solitaire for several hours ...." well you get the picture. that tends to be what some of my most exciting bummy weekends might end up sounding like.

Perhaps I should have some made up stories - you know those 'lies for the general good of everyone' tucked up my sleeve.

"Oh everyone, I had a smashing weekend! I had my first ride in a rocket ship, I discovered a new species on Venus, I'm naming it after my mother who inspired me to become an astronaut, on the way back we almost ran out of fuel but I was rescued by a very handsome creature from another galaxy who time-hopped into our Solar System and is actually several million years ahead of us time, and when I got back to Earth I decided to splurge on a facial, get a tattoo and start a new cult!"

I'd better have a few of those. The next one can be something about how I took over a small country and learned how to communicate with hamsters using nose-wiggles. Or something.

Alien and Ripley

2009-08-14T08:26:00.006+10:00

I watched Alien the other day with Mr Coffee. Ellen Ripley was voted 9th on the 100 Greatest Movie Characters of All Time List (compiled by Empire Magazine), the highest placing female on the list among only a handful of females, beating out Mary Poppins who trailed her in 20th position.

Basically, I thought Ellen was an ok character, but nothing to write home about. I wasn't that amazed by her and the guys who beat her out - Tyler Durden, Darth Vader, The Dark Knight, Han Solo, Hannibal Lecter, Indiana Jones, Captain Jack Sparrow etc deserved their position. I even think characters who didn't beat her such as Vito Corleone, James Bond, John McClane and yes, Mary Poppins, were more deserving.

Ellen's character was the typical gung ho person who starts off looking a little baby-faced and soft but then turns out to be a survivor. Kind of like Sarah Connor in the terminator Series except give me Sarah Connor any day. I thought she was better portrayed and the transformation was done better, and she had more of a sense of purpose, sometimes menace, and a bit of humour.

Female characters don't feature strongly on the list, not, I think, because, as some people mused, that women are incapable of portraying memorable characters or don't get meaty roles written for them. Or that Empire is basically sexist.

Some of those things might be true but I'd say the main thing is a trend that is evident in the voting: that voting on this list went in favour of action/adventure/sci-fi, and also you were more likely to get your face on the board if you were in a series or a set of sequels. People thought more of your character then. It seemed a lot of voters went "I liked that movie, what was the best character in it?" and voted, or "that character was really memorable as I've seen them in a series of movies" (which sticks in your mind more than one movie). Actions, adventures and sci-fi generally lend them more to a format of sequels, and tend to have stronger male characters in them, with a tendency to cater for more of a male audience.

Another way of thinking whether a character is good is to try to concentrate on the character regardless of whether the film was not that good - or not our favourite - and try to use criteria like whether the character was well-portrayed and evoked, and whether it was a great concept and did he/she stick in our mind, even if it was a one off film. For me many characters in comedies, romances, histories etc are characters like that. I personally would have voted in both Harry and Sally from When Harry Met Sally as fantastic characters.

Note that the listing is different for the Premiere magazine list, done in 2004 though.

Anyway, back to Alien.

At times I felt this movie was, errh, kind of boring. Maybe it's the passage of time but there was a lot of waiting around for things to happen and also a measure of predictability. I sat there thinking "Kane's going to spew a monster!" He didn't, it burst out of him but it was close enough for it to not be that exciting.

The scene here the black guy does was annoying me because he sacrificed himself for the woman who was too petrified to take the sacrifice as a good opportunity to save herself. his sacrifice was for nothing! That annoys me. At least one of them could have made it out of there and neither did. Oh damn!

Oh and that stooooopid cat! Please, I would have LIKED that alien to get the cat!

This is not meant to be a review but a vent.

To be fair, the movie is dated, like Ellen Ripley's hair. Sigourney Weaver does a fairly good job of transforming what seems to be an in-the-background Ripley to begin with to a force to be reckoned with, and does not miss out on the human touches. Unfortunately, that did mean going overboard with a cat. It's a cliche, now, having a silly pet that leads you to danger. I'm never quite sure why they have people on ships who would not breach quarantine to save their crewmate who's been attacked by an alien, who would watch their crew die, but would risk death to follow a ... cat and rescue it! And that always annoys me.

There is enough clang and action to make this still exciting towards the end, however I still feel it takes time to warm up and there are too many quite dull moments. It's amusing to watch the movie now and say "Ooooh, how young John Hurt and Sigourney Weaver look now!" but as the start is quite slow that's about all the fun you get for the first quite a few minutes.

The alien still looked pretty grotesque even now, to me - but heck, I am scared of everything. I felt it was a suitable amount of 'horror' - not gratuitous, but sent the message clearly and put more emphasis on the action, sci-fi and interaction (and breakdown) of the crewmates which is really how I prefer these movies to be constructed, rather than indulging in long shots of explicit damage to corpses and aliens eating up bodies and lots of blood and exposed organs, flesh, etc etc

What's a Mouse's Unlucky Number?

2009-08-12T13:56:00.004+10:00

Recently, we've been having a bit of a Mousy problem at our house. It started with my sister spotting a mouse in the kitchen. My Mum is deathly afraid of anything she classes as pests (cockroaches, snakes, lizards, mice, me) and has been petrified ever since.

Dad invested in a small mousetrap which did bugger all until we decided to haul in the big guns, and invest in the bigger, the more expensive trap.

Then we caught Mouse #1. We've naturally been sealing everything in the pantry and we always wash every piece of crockery and cutlery thoroughly before we eat from it, in case micey paws have been scampering across it.

Soon later, though, someone said they saw Mouse #2, and my Dad set a trap, and again we caught the second mouse.

It wasn't till a while later someone thought they saw Mouse #3, and just the other night, we caught him. Fat bastard, too, I think we've been feeding him too well.

Mum has been growing more and more upset, but we assured her that should be the end of it, till we were eating dinner last night and my brother said, "Hey, I saw a mouse!"

No my brother is known for his practical jokes, but I turned to look anyhow and I saw a mouse too, making a dash for the pantry, cheeky thing! And just when we'd caught his mousy mate the day before!

So we're after Mouse #4 now, and my mother got all mad and wanted to buy some new pest control gadget but Dad wouldn't let her. It's called Pestrol but it claims to drive pests out from their hiding places. It doesn't say anything about killing them.

"What happens if we drive them out and they get driven into tyour bedroom, will you like that?" he asked. "At least we know they fall for the mousetrap!" ... even if it is slow!

Unfortuantely, the mousetrap is a slow way of killing them, and we can't figure out how they get inor whether they're breding or they are sitting around in a mousy colony somewhere laughing their heads off. I hope their heads are rolling off, it might work for us.

I asked my Dad what Number Mouse he thought would be the last, what his lucky number was. "Lucky Number 5" he said. I'm glad his lucky number wasn't 7, 198 289 or something.

Anyone got some better ideas of how to get rid of mice. I don't have anything against mice per se - just against mice in the kitchen (or indeed anywhere in the house).

Dad doesn't want to use poison in case it poisons the humans as well - they're in our pantry among food and food equipment.

Any other ideas, folk?

(By the way we are using mousetraps with cheese. It's a boring cliche but it seems mice fall for boring cliches just as much as we humans do.)

Growl!

2009-08-12T08:05:00.002+10:00

My throat feels funny. My voice is strange. It sometimes sounds like Maria but then sometimes it goes growly and deep. I can't quite control it. It's all 'throaty'.

Either I'm getting a bit of a cold or I'm turning into a man.

Gulp!

2009-08-12T07:58:00.003+10:00

I applied for a job yesterday, online.

I pressed the button the website and it led me to a form where I filled in a couple of basic details and then it said to submit my resume.

That's it. No personality test, no references, no academic transcript, no background check and no need for a drivelly cover letter where I go on predictably about my excellent communication skills, my love for working in a team, my ability to prioritise and multitask and handle high pressure environments and my ability to work BOTH independently and in a group and my great computer and office skills.

Now I should have been glad not to have to go through all that predictable crap per usual but for some reason without it I felt lost! I sat there for a few moments and thought "HEEEEEEEEEELP!"

Then I had to remind myself, "Hey, this is a good thing!" and remember to attach my resume and submit!

Ode to a Blank Keyboard!

2009-08-11T15:16:00.003+10:00

TimT of WillTypeForFood fame was so moved by my blank keyboard dream that he penned a poem in honour of it, and I'm honoured to blog it, right here ... oh you've outdone yourself this time, TimT!

Did I dream? Did I work? Was I dreaming of work?

I sat down to type but the keyboard was bare.

The subconscious is really a bit of a jerk:

I searched for the letters: I searched everywhere.

I searched high and low; I searched here and there:

Was this a design fault? Some curious quirk?

The letters weren’t there. They weren’t anywhere –

Did I dream? Did I work? Was I dreaming of work?

Just what did it mean, this niggle, this irk?

I tried to start working, but I could just stare

Down into my mind, the dim, dark and mirk –

I sat down to type but the keyboard was bare.

I picked up the phone. I needed to share

My problem with IT. I spoke to a clerk

Who knew of my problem – was already aware.

The subconscious is really a bit of a jerk.

Just who was this clerk, and why did they lurk

In the gloomy dim depths of my cortex – somewhere?

Just to think of these questions could drive you berserk.

I searched for the letters. They weren’t anywhere.

And why dream of work, instead of some perk

Like chocolate or champagne? It just isn’t fair.

When I sit down to work, my mind often shirks

And daydreams of buttercups. Does it even care?

Did I dream? Did I work?

Who's to blame?

2009-08-11T14:11:00.004+10:00

Every so often you hear the government telling people to get out there and get more enthusiastic about finding a job, and maybe don't be so picky, we all have to do our bit, we can't be so picky in these times blah blah. Of course they want us to do any old job, unemployment is bad for stats which reflect upon them.

And (certain) employed people often tell unemployed people to get off their butts and get cracking and find a job, any job, you can't wait around to find a dream job. (It's more rare for an unemployed person to go on like this to other unemployed people.)

But while the onus mainly falls on unemployed people to change the state of unemployment in Australia (that is, make unemployment lower, not greater), let's have a look at who else could be helping out here. I think we can point our finger at many who are just not helping and they aren't us unemployed people:

1. The employed, in fact the OVER-employed

Working hard? Earning good money? You disgust us. While you pontificate about how unemployed people should be getting jobs, every time you work overtime or multitask, think about how you are taking a job away from an innocent unemployed bum who could be earning a slice of your salary. Are you writing an email while talking on the phone and does it cut into your designated lunch break? Do you think about how to manage that project while you are pressing the buttons on the photocopier?

Shame on you.

2. Animals

There's always a whinge about how immigrants take the jobs of hardworking Australians, but what about animals who take the jobs of potentially hardworking humans?
Every time you train a horse, or get a guide dog, or run a rat through a maze, that's something a human could do. Probably pretty well, though maybe a little slower at first, and not look as cute. But we have to make allowances.

3. Employers and their silly, self-indulgent ads

Really, how about writing ads that actually sound attractive for once and say something about the job? So we can apply? I am very sick of reading an ad that's a page long and goes on about this globally recognised company and then when you get to the bottom of the ad you realise it said nothing about the job position. Damn, am I going for CEO or sandwich trolley lady? I wouldn't have a clue. Do I write about how darn cool I look in a suit and what fantastic leadership skills I have and how great I am at wooing Japanese businessmen, or how great I am with slapping turkey and lettuce between slices of rye?

It's a mystery.

Every time someone puts out one of these ads it's seriously a waste of time for the whole economy because unemployed people waste their time reading it and trying to figure it out, possibly waste their time writing a misguided application for it which gets nowhere, when they could have been applying for ones in line with their skills and getting a job.

4. Recruitment Agencies who put out Sham Ads

Frustrating and again a waste of people's time and money. You know who I'm talking about, Gemteq Executive.

5. Recruitment Websites/Agencies who File Ads Improperly (or their filters don't work)

It seems some people have worked the filters so their ad appears everywhere, and filters don't filter it out. So their luscious ad for being a Manager for Whoop Whoop company needing a degree in Engineering and five years experience, based in Perth appears even if you put on the filter NSW - Sydney - West and want only Media - Performance jobs or something.

Yeah, sure, you want your job out there, but the reason people put these filters on is because when they say Sydney, they are not interested in Perth. At ALL. So you're wasting your time, annoying people and making everyone's search slower and more difficult. Pains in the Asses.

6. People who don't yank the ad and the position has been filled 3 months ago.

I can forgive a delay of a couple of days, things are busy and your newbie has been occupying your time. But it is very annoying and another waste of time to have an ad sitting on a website (or anywhere) saying you want someone, and then you go to all the trouble of applying and find out that the position was filled - over a month ago. Thanks a lot.

These Ageist OLDIES are Really Getting Up My Nose!

2009-08-10T14:00:00.003+10:00

Recently Kyle and Jackie O, 2Day FM Presenters, were hauled over the coals and then suspended from their show following a controversial incident involving questioning a 14-year-old girl on air about her sex life.

I'm not going to analyse that one. Plenty of others have already. It's enough to say that Kyle Sandilands especially has a pretty bad rep already so this incident didn't exactly do him any favours.

I read a whole lot of letters to the Editor in newspapers, mainly from people older than the teen and young twenties audience that 2Day FM targets, and the letters mainly condemned Kyle and Jackie O, calling them names like Vile and Tacky O (interestingly, the same handles that were used in the article several weeks ago by The Tele itself - who's impressionable?) and saying that they were disgusting, the world was better without them, but also saying things like Kyle got what he deserved and he only appealed to the "impressionable teen" audience, which really needed better guidance.

It's derogatory comments like this, written from the superior platform of older people to younger people, increasingly, that really annoy me. Sure, Kyle, appealed to younger people in general, but why because you don't like him suddenly lump all teens as "impressionable"?

There have been tacky, sensationalist and questionable presenters who have appealed to older markets. Mike Munro is well known for his style of trying to coerce tears from his interviewees (I met him and he thinks it's funny that some people think it's tacky, for him it's part of the job to get people going) to boost ratings. Alan Jones and John Laws were hauled over the coals for their dubious Cash for Comment involvement where the whole idea was to comment on products and impress their comments on their audience's mind (and the premise that this would work).

Yet no person from these generations, when these scandals came out and said, as I recall, "The presenters did it because they know as an age group that we are an impressionable lot" or something to that effect.

They are quite happy to tar teens with that brush, however.

Then I went to look up jobs and I found a job ad ... it said at the bottom:

No Agencies
No Gen Y Losers

Despite the fact that some might see this as a joke, and hopefully it comes out that way ... it again goes back to the age thing. Gen Y losers. What's the assumption here? That if you are from Gen Y you are a loser? That we would take an older person who is a loser, but if you are from Gen Y and a loser, sorry, goodbye?

Basically, there seems to be a perception that if you are of a certain age group you are more likely to generate certain loser-ish traits that you have to work harder to overcome, whereas the foibles of Gen X or Baby Boomers are acceptable. And let's face it, we've all got foibles.

And since Gen Y is directly linked to age, then this means that you could argue that if you are of a certain age and someone has these prejudices, you go into a job ion the back foot already. Someone is already thinking you are loser potential, and it colours what you say and do and how you learn and how you are treated, in a way they wouldn't think or treat you if you were 10 years older. Ba boom.

Anyhow, here's an article that I read today in Heckler. I don't quite get the author's argument. Firstly the author says we shouldn't give 16 year olds the vote. But then he goes on to say "Age isn't the best criterion by which to measure merit, maturity or voter eligibility."

OK, but certainly if you don't want to give 16 year olds the vote, you are endorsing age as some criterion, aren't you?

The author says that teenagers lack perspective, perspicacity and proficiency. That's an absolute statement he makes, rather than looking to the individual. Then he puts out a dubious test which filters who should vote (one which I assume would allow him to vote!) and also says that the state of his friend's 16 year old's bedroom leads him to believe that 16 year old's lack the organisational skills to choose a leader.

That's a great sample selection, by the way, mate.

The point here is not whether 16 year olds should vote or not or even whether voting rights should be conferred by something like age or a test like whether you know enough about the government.

The point here is the derogatory and stereotypical way in which teenagers are treated i the article. Assumptions are made - yes, the author does say he doesn't want to see idiots or non-knowledgeable vote, but then also jumps straight into saying that all teenagers as a necessity fall into that basket.

If one teenager's room is messy, then he casts all teenagers as being disorganised. I've seen junkyards of houses kept by thirty, forty, fifty year olds, and I'm sure many people in this age group would dislike the idea of saying "I've seen a my friend's forty-year-old daughter's place and it's a junkyard, I don't think forty year olds should get the vote." Not only would they think it's an insult but they'd say it didn't make any sense. People are different.

However when it comes to teenagers, many adults seem to have some idea that "you've seen one, you've seen them all".

It's like they don't have individuality or a soul.

But of course they do.

Are you ... no actually, I'm not?

2009-08-10T13:07:00.002+10:00

One of my big problems with job ads is I take them very literally and I am too damn honest.

Honesty is supposed to be considered a good point with employers, that is, like don't steal from petty cash.

But you're not supposed to be too honest, like honest about what you really think about yourself, otherwise only the egomaniacs would have jobs out there, considering the way jobs are written.

Unfortuantely, I go through these weird dialogues in my head when I read job ads. Or maybe they should be called monologues because I am playing the job ad as well. (By the way my general lack of enthusiasm for writing job applications comes into play a lot here, I won't pretend that's not the case.)

Case #1

Do you have a PASSION FOR TAX and LAW ???

Ummm no. Who in their right mind does? Scratch that. Move on.

Case # 2

Good with numbers? Then ...

I think I found a number that didn't like me once. It was a thirty one. I said nice things to it and but it just didn't do anything I wanted. I don't know ...

Case # 3

Talented All-Rounder Wanted!

All around what?

Case #4

You must be a team player!

That reminds me of Mark who hated me on that fourth grade team, and the time I busted that group up at school, and how I didn't make the netball team, and fingerpainting in kindy when no one wanted me on their group because I wanted to do a red background, and how I prefer playing solitaire ...

I don't make the cut.

Case #5

Do you want to be part of our huge internationally respected firm?

(gulp) Actually I'd just like to know which firm it is, whether it's near a cheap sushi bar and a bus stop, whether the manager is a control freak or a nice persoon and whether there is a "free cookies" jar in the kitchen. Why are you hiding the important stuff? What is wrong with you. this is suspect. I don't care whether someone I don't know in Texas respects me. Why should I? Are you blabbering on about this irrelevant crap because you are hiding the fact that you supply those cheap black biros that never work to all your colleagues? I KNEW IT!!!!

Case #6

Must enjoy interacting with our large client base and working with colleagues!

Only if they aren't idiots, slackers, assholes, or arrogant bastards.

Case #7

Are you the FUN LOVING TYPE ???

I resent being called any type actually. Stop stereotyping me. It's demeaning. If I am fun-loving it's just because that's me not because I am a type. Don't insult me. Move on.

Case #8

If you're looking to build a career in law ...

I'm not looking to build a career in anything. I just want a job. Honestly, the thought of a career hasn't crossed my mind! One step at a time!

Case #9

Calling all PARRALEGALS!!!!!!!!!! Attention to Detail

Hahaha spelling mistake. Do they mean paralegals, or paralegals to work in Parramatta, or ... ho ho ho, I wouldn't work for such incompetents in a million years. maybe i should show them my attention to detail by sending them a copy of their ad with a big red circle around their "parralegals". Scratch them, move on.

Case #10

Are you flexible?

Let me see if I can still touch my toes. Damn!

Case #11

Cheerful, friendly graduates, we want you!

I haven't found a job yet. Not feeling too cheerful. Oh dear.

(Of course all this is just a really great procrastination technique, but it's never too early to begin procrastinating.)

Hell is a Blank Keyboard

2009-08-10T10:21:00.002+10:00

This was last night's nightmare, folks.

I had a terrible dream last night that I started a new job (that wasn't the terrible bit but it could have been) and I had a blank keyboard. I mean, people, there were no letters or things on the keys. I decided to wing it and tried to type anyhow but I wasn't very good. I got madder at the keyboard and started pressing every bloody key combination harder and harder to no avail, faster and faster. No result!

Anyhow after very coolly making lots of mistakes and not knowing what the hell I was doing for about four hours I decided to cave in and ring tech and they said "MARIA! We've been waiting for you! Why haven't you called us earlier?"

I said, "How did you know I was going to call? By the way I've got this silly blank keyboard and it doesn't work and I don't know what keys do what ..."

They said, "Didn't you know that whenever you press one of the keys on those keyboards it automatically sends an email to tech saying "My keyboard is one of those blank ones that doesn't work, I will call you soon requesting a proper keyboard, please wait for my call?" We've been waiting all day for you to call!"

This is probably how tech at many workplaces works. Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Flexible on the Job

2009-08-09T20:07:00.003+10:00

Now I'm all for multiskilled lawyers. And being a paralegal comes with more than just legal research and court work and legal admin, sure.

I've been there and done that sort of thing. Made plenty of coffees, ordered food, written ads for wineries, even babysat for grandchildren. Flexibility on the job. All for it.

But now, out of work as I am, I searched MyCareer for a law job and limited my search to Legal - Law Clerks/Paralegals NSW, and here's one job ad that came up:

Junior
JUNIOR Lawnmowing. Must be fit, reliable & willing to work. 0417 249 309

Hmmm.

That's a new one. I didn't take up Lawnmowing Law as my elective, but it's a possibility.

Review: The Infinite Wisdom of Harriet Rose

2009-08-04T16:13:00.003+10:00

Harriet Rose is no ordinary teenager. In fact, she doesn't even go to an ordinary school. I don't know of many high schools that have taught philosophy for three years, but then, I'm from Australia and this was set in England. The culture is different. I guess we do something like economic studies or drama or something instead.

This book has been compared to The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13 3/4 and Bridget Jones' Diary. I'd say that's a bit of a stretch, except that the lead character is English and annoying. As the book opens, Harriet is a somewhat arrogant 14 year old whose father has died, and she has a claim on philosophical thought. She wants to give money to charity for her birthday, and she bounces around words like "metaphysical" and "epistemological".

Her Nana and mother decide to give her a special present - they publish for her a book of her philosophical thoughts in memory of her father, and suddenly she's a superstar author. There's also a subplot involving a romance with a cute French student, first year philosophy.

Now, the book wouldn't be so bad if Harriet wasn't so annoying. There are moments of humour but too many seem forced and Harriet can make you feel like you're being forced through them.

Why, then, do characters like Adrian Mole and Bridget Jones work so well, and they're equally if not more annoying? Adrian is more blinded, more arrogant and less personable than Harriet. Yet I laughed out loud with him and wanted more.

During the whole of Harriet's experience, I felt that the author, though pointing out Harriet's foibles, desperately wanted us to take Harriet's side. Despite the fact that Harriet was an idiot, she deserved the best, and we were urged to love her and feel sorry for her when things went wrong. One obvious device used here was Harriet's father's death. Others were her 'horrible' friend, and her 'mean' headmistress, and the unfailingly supportive family, but of course Harriet really deserves to get the guy, to win in the end. Doesn't she? Yet I felt like bashing her head in, often. And I didn't really think her philosophical ravings were that interesting.

The ending of the book is not bad, and I think is much better than what I expected. It lifts it up a few points. If you get a fair way in, even if it dulls off, i would suggest hanging in for the ending.

As many pointed out, this book is not well-placed as to what it wants to be. It is not like a Harry Potter or the Simpsons where people say it can be enjoyed on many levels. Instead, I think adults interested in philosophy will be sadly disappointed, adults who will understand the broad jokes will find the school references and adolescent humour difficult to relate to, and children may find the philosophical meditations a bit boring, and not quite get all those references. Perhaps for some older teenagers or some adults indulging in a bit of nostalgic teen reading. very much a book for the females.

If you aren't particularly sure and want a very good laugh, and characters blinded to their own foibles appeal to you, I would suggest reading any and all of Sue Townsend's Adrian Mole series rather than Harriet Rose. They are far superior in style and content, and commentary.

This all sounds pretty harsh on the author, Diana Janney, and in fairness, there are some nice bits of dialogue and some cute bits of humour, but altogether they didn't come together as smoothly as I like. There were some lively character depictions, especially that of Nana whom I felt I knew better than Harriet by the time the book was done. I felt that it was a good attempt but could have been put together better; I wouldn't dismiss this author at all. But i would not be rereading this book.

Harriet may be a philosopher, but she doesn't really open a window on the soul nor does she find much time for contemplation, and her book doesn't really make you care to contemplate either. She walks about with a T-shirt saying "Why?" but when I finished the book, I was not asking about the life, the Universe and everything.

I was wondering "why?" this book did I really pick up, and what will I pick up next.

I chose "The Harp in the South" by Ruth Park. I'm preferring it.

P.S. Before reading The Infinite Wisdom of Harriet Rose by Diana Janney, I read a debut children's book called Time Stops for No Mouse by Michael Hoeye. A very different book. it was an adventure fantasy involving talking mice. However all up I preferred Ms Janney's book.

A Resistible Post.

2009-08-04T12:52:00.002+10:00

I was at the train station the other day and I found out I missed my train to the city and I would have to wait another 15 minutes for the next one.

Then a train arrived to travel in the opposite direction.

I had this resistible urge to catch it and travel in the wrong direction, just for the heck of it, just 'cos, hell, at least it turned up. Unlike the trains to the city.

I say resistible urge because, yeah, I resisted it. I stayed on the platform and hummed and hahed for 15 minutes or so till my city train turned up.

I think resistible urges are very much underrated. We hear about irresistible urges all the time, irresistible cravings, blah blah. Also the 'almost irresistible urges' which is actually just a category of resistible urge just they don't like to admit it. It's an image problem.

On the other hand, there are plenty of resistible urges out there, from the strong resistible urges which sometimes get called 'almost irresistible' because they can't bear to be called 'resistible, it's like someone saying they are 'almost achieving an acceptably smaller body size for me' or 'almost employed' instead of saying they're a plump bum,

... to the easily resistible urges, where you might have a small urge to do something but easily dismiss it which happens all the time especially when you realise that your urge was going to kill you like that urge to cross the road and then you see that a bus is about to turn the corner in front of you. Whoops. Or those mild tweaks as you walk down the street that say "hmm, it'd be nice to buy x" except you don't end up indulging in every single thing down the road, otherwise you might end up sampling about fifty kebabs, 100 cupcakes, 60 stale sandwiches and 40 types of sushi each morning.

Anyhow I think we should celebrate the resistible urge more. There is no reason to think that it holds less staus than the irresistible urge. They are urges of equal class, and one shoudldnot be given more rights than the other, or made to feel superior than the other. Recognise your resistible urges and be proud of them!

The silence is frustrating me

2009-08-03T14:16:00.001+10:00

I don’t mind sitting in a car, or in a room, when the other person doesn’t talk or doesn’t make conversation. Some people find this unnerving or awkward but often, especially with someone you know well, it can be quite comfortable and pleasant. My mother feels the need to fill every silence with words. I don’t.

But what is really frustrating the heck out of me is the lack of output from the computer. Computers should have to give output. Even if that output is “Sorry, I have nothing to say on this topic.” It should be a rule. Otherwise, how do you know whether they’re sitting in quiet philosophical contemplation or whether you should return them for a warranty, or use the Maria-method (a good swift kick)?

I’m starting a computer course now, part-time, which is two subjects, Principles of Programming and Database Systems. The second is far better, maybe because we haven’t got any assignments to do from it yet. The first one is very annoying. I try to write commands in the system. Some are really easy and that is fun, like when you type in a command to see the date and it prints out today’s date. On the other hand I already know what today’s date is. But it would be very helpful if I had sudden amnesia and my computer date in the corner of my screen went haywire but I did remember the command prompt for the date. And of course it makes me feel smart, like I can do something right. So I tested that about seventy times before doing anything else, just for my ego.

Then we got our assignment, had to be done in less than two weeks, gosh almighty I spent several days trying to decipher the assignment.

I have four programs to write for an entirety of ten marks. That seems a bit stupid to me, it’s my first time writing a program and I can hardly do anything besides write “date” in a command prompt. And I am going to have to get my head around writing programs, and if I do only one it will be for a lousy 2.5 marks!

They are all mathematical puzzles where you have to find solutions, that is you have to get the computer to find solutions. So I start to write one of the programs and I am barely writing the first bit when I decide to check it to see if it is ok (like running a spell check only on a program) and it spits out at me 34 errors!

I didn’t know I had written 34 things.

It’s a real shame because I thought it had looked very cute.

After a while I thought I was getting the hang of things so I decided to see if any results could be found for the first part of the first puzzle. Only the first part, thank you.

Nothing. Blank. Caput.

Now, I think this is unfair. I don’t know if the computer is saying “there are no answers” or “you wrote this all wrong” or “I am having a deep thinking session about this interesting, nay, amazing dilemma you put before me” or “Gimme some time while I make myself a cocoa” or “Sod off, I hate this puzzle, I’m going to sulk”.

Computers should have to explain what their silence means. It should be a rule.

Because I sat there glaring at the blank screen, but then I found out, that nobody can out-stare like a computer can. They really win in the out-staring match. I gave up. I ended up sulking and making myself a big glass of Ribena.

This is so uncool.

Something they didn't teach at law school ...

2009-07-31T12:15:00.003+10:00

Languages.

I'm looking for a new job, in this job market and also while I'm studying part-time a paralegal or admin or research assistant role would be quite nice, something with set hours.

I look up so many start-up jobs and it is all about being able to speak a second language, often specified as Korean or Malaysian or Chinese or Italian, but sometimes just being able to speak another language.

I wish they'd offered some of these as electives at Law School, it seems they would have served me better in my career than my course on Post-Communist Law and Legal Theory, fun though that subject was.

Us and Them

2009-07-31T11:41:00.004+10:00

Back to racism ... dammit.

I just read a blog that got me all hot and bothered and what better way to vent than to blog. It's easier than running into the kitchen and breaking a whole lot of crockery which would just have to be replaced anyhow.

Anyhow, the trouble with this blog is that the people on it think they are very liberal and very clever and compassionate but unfortunately they aren't very good at thinking of some of the obvious difficulties in societies, which is the problem with many social reformers. Everything is a straight line to them because naturally everything would be so easy - if everyone was like them. Oh darn, yeah I was reading John Fowles' The Collector recently.

Here, some bloggers mentioned that these darn people, certain people in society, caused trouble, one gave this example:

Two Australian born men she knows, whenever they are asked where they are from, they say "Italy" when, as the blogger argued, the answer should be "Australia" [they can always clarify that they have an Italian heritage, she argues]. She says such attitudes foster mistrust and a divide between cultures.

SHE always says she's Australian, she never explains she's part Norwegian and Scottish and she doesn't see why it's necessary to explain your origin at all (I can see a little superior smirk here).

Now, that is certainly one way to see it. These men are fostering a divide in Australia, she is being peaceable.

On the other hand, let's look at some other ways of seeing this:

a) Why is anyone concerned about where they come from at all - by asking you are implying that you want to categorise someone, and by being huffy about a wrong answer even more so that there are right and wrong answers, not that you are going to just make conversation about kangaroos or pizza, and therefore is the asking of the question and the reaction fostering the divide, not the answer?

b) It seems to me that it may be easy enough for Ms Norwegian-Scottish to say I'm Aussie-nothing-further-thanks. But one way to consider this is that people who come from backgrounds where they are in the minority and what's more their heritage gives them physical differences that are easily recognisable, have probably encountered this phenomenon. the lose-lose situation.

You say you are from "Italy" or "China" or "India" and people say look-at-that-idiot-doesn't-want-to-be-Aussie-his-kind-never-does-one-more-reason-why-we-should-not-allow-fucking-immigrants-into-this-country-they-never-fit-in. I bet you've seen this sentiment sprayed all over blogs or letters to the editor or opinion columns.

On the other hand, you say "I'm Australian" and you don't bother to explain your ethnic origin. That may be ok if you are Anglo or you look Anglo. But if you aren't in that privileged group, there are plenty of times many will have got barraged with:

"No really ... where were you BORN ... oh, born here, so what about your parents ... born here too?! ... oh wow, that's something, you mean both parents? ... so do they speak English? ... you speak English at home ... you speak any other languages ... so which country are you from ... which region ... I mean originally ... you go back there often ... got family out there ...."

A person may be forgiven for thinking it's easier to just say from the start "I'm from Japan" or "Taiwan". After all that barrage, it implies that that's what the questioner wanted to hear in the first place. And by pushing you with all these questions, it also implies that the questioner doesn't want to see you as an Australian same as an Anglo who rarely goes through the same treatment.

And if they won't accept you as one of them, then who is pushing the 'us and them' culture, really?

The answer "you can just say "I'm an Australian-born Chinese or Japanese or Italian"" or whatever may see comfortable to many Anglos but in reality why should we have to say it when if you're Australian-born Norwegian-Scottish you just poshly say you don't feel the need and never even incur the hassling.

Social conditioning occurs at both ends; they might give answers which cause us to despise and isolate and mistrust them, but they may give such answers because they feel our hate and the isolation and expectations and mistrust caused by it. So how does the cycle end?

It is unrealistic to put all the burden on just one group or one end, but so easy to do it. 'Specially when it's not you who has to take that burden or blame.

Picking and Choosing

2009-07-30T14:41:00.002+10:00

Here's a story about a 22 year old man who was an alcoholic, and was refused a liver transplant because the doctors thought he would ruin it.

Now the story highlights some issues, obviously the shortage of organs and therefore, who should get them and then, how do we pick and who to choose to refuse? On what grounds?

I read some people discussing this on a blog, and some saying this was pretty unfair because what about, say, fat people with heart problems, do they get refused heart transplants. In fact, lots of medical problems are self-induced so do we all get refused help if it's self-induced?

One person said that she thought the refusal was disgusting because she hated it when doctors 'played God'.

(Actually, I thought doctors played God all the time by treating patients, or that's one way of seeing it. Leaving them to whatever nature and God intends happen to them instead of giving them medicine, hooking them up to machines and cutting them up and and replacing organs would be more in line with not playing God, once you've taken a person off where they've fallen off a cliff and started to patch up their bones and pump them full of chemicals and fought against Death, that sounds very much like playing God to me. Not that I think there is anything wrong with that. If I fell over and broke my leg I'd want a doctor to play God with my leg and patch it up, pronto!)

Anyhow, it does raise a difficulty of ethics, how to make such a decision, after all the decision has to be made somehow, whether it is a first in first served, or by the highest bidder, or assessed most critically, or whatever. You can't blame doctors for having to refuse someone, what are they meant to be, magicians who can yell a multiplying spell for livers?

Anyhow, I leave the thought with you and perhaps you can munch on a liver sandwich and think about it.

Keeping the Potter Franchise Alive

2009-07-27T14:47:00.004+10:00

It seemed Harry Potter ended with The Deathly Hallows, but then out came Tales of Beedle the Bard.

Now, I'm sure many Potterheads would like to see Harry live on and what better way than to besiege Rowling with ideas for spin-offs, sequels and prequels and beg her to continue to keep Harry alive?

A fellow blogger has compiled a set of "totally original" Potter story continuations. I'm sure you'll agree that any of these would make viable books, and would be extremely filmable.

Perhaps an intense Potter martial arts version could be released.

Something like ...

Harry, Ginny, Ron and Hermione are travelling in the mountains when they are beset upon by some Oriental Muggles. Despite their magical powers, all four are captured. It seems a Jackie Chan backflip can overpower someone on a broomstick any day.

Taken back to the little village, the Muggles kindly bathe the wounds of the four and lend them robes to wear as their wizarding robes were torn in battle. The four are forced to live in the little village and gradually come to respect the strange rites of the Muggles. Ron annoys Hermione by falling for a good looking slim Asian chick, but after a while she gets so involved in learning fourteen different Asian dialects all at once that she forgets Ron's being an idiot.

It comes to light that the Muggles hadn't meant any harm to the four. Furthermore they begin to initiate each into how to use a different Oriental weapon, and appoint Harry as the leader and give him a blue bandanna. Ron gets a yellow one and Hermione is given a purple one and Ginny a red one. These will help distinguish them, and they ask that they help them in times of war as their last true Ninja warrior is dying and ...

Damn, I'm not sure if I should call this "Harry Potter and The Last Ninja" or "Teenage Mutant Ninja Wizards".

I'll come up with an ending later. Surely.

Why the Half-Blood Prince?

2009-07-22T15:34:00.003+10:00

Yesterday I went to see Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.

I liked the movie, I definitely thought it was much better done then The Order of the Phoenix which was the last Harry Potter Book and my least favourite adaptation. This had a good mix of humour, action, and special effects and I thought was well acted.

Now, as is my habit, I went to IMDB and had a look at others' comments. Some, like me, loved it, others, mainly Potter junkies, hated it, and made catalogues of what had been cut or changed in the film. Mainly what had been cut (usually prefacing by saying they knew a movie had to cut a little but did it have to cut this much?)

In my opinion, well, the Potter books are long so if you want to cut it to a reasonable length, and still have detail in effects in some scenes, you're going to have to sometimes cut whole plot sequences or themes out. And characters. Other possibilities are to make a longer film or series or to have superficial treatment of every part of the film.

Whether you agree with how it's cut up is subjective.

To me, it wasn't badly done, I didn't mind the hacking, but then I'm not a Potter junkie even though I enjoyed the books and movies.

Just one thing I did find a bit annoying.

The Half-Blood Prince is revealed in the movie (not surprisingly, towards the end ... whoops did I spoil that for anyone?) ... but the moment is brief and it's never explained WHY that person is called the Half-Blood Prince. In the book it's explained better. I mean, the title of the freaking movie is Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, as well as figuring out who that person is, you'd figure they'd explain why 'Half-Blood' or what or power or meaning or whatever 'Half-Blood' has. Nope, nada. They might as well have called the person the Blodgybooga Prince.

I think that is one point the movie people should have fixed up, more important than the other stuff that people go on about missing because they thought it was cool or they would have loved to see it or they were personally attached to it, or they thought it was important for the next part of the movie. Even though it is not very exciting and is probably considered minor by many HP lovers. It would have only taken a couple of minutes. Heck, I left thinking if I didn't read the book, I'd be completely confused about the title of the movie!

Bah!

Does pregnancy stir your loins?

2009-07-19T23:31:00.004+10:00

Is pregnancy sexy?

Today, I was wandering around at Wynyard station, minding my own business and I happened to wander into the newsagent. As one does, I checked out the stand of Mills and Boon toitles that were available, maybe 18-20 titles or so. It wasn't in most titles, but in enough to stand out ... there were quite a few titles with the word 'pregnant' or 'pregnancy' in it.

The titles were mainly weird, and long-winded, like they'd used up all the snappy and cool titles and now had to move onto the long-winded ones to make sure they weren't repeating old titles.

For instance, one was called The Tuscan Tycoon's Pregant Housekeeper.

Others included phrases such as Purchased for Pregnancy in the title and I don't think they were talking about one of those over the counter pharmaceutical tests.

Now, I kind of understood why the proliferation of words like "tycoon" and "billionaire" and passion" in the titles. These are words that traditionally are supposed to get a girl's heart pounding, especially if it's "Billionaire with a bad heart condition, and with no whiney ass kids fighting for their rights to the will when he pops it", which is probably an even better way to title a Mills and Boon, and probably would have been done if it had fit on the spine of one of those miniatures.

But pregnancy? I wasn't aware that tummy cramps, walking around like the side of the house, cravings to eat twice your share at meal times and antenatal classes were so erotic.

I must be so out of it.

I'm just going to write my new erotic thriller, The Mysterious Woman in the Lacy Maternity Gown. In all not so good bookshops as soon as I think of something more than the title to write down.

My kind of job filter

2009-07-17T11:45:00.006+10:00

I'm searching for jobs, and I just wish there were a different kind of job website.

Right now I'm not too picky about exactly what kind of job I do because I don't have an exact career path. In fact, it would be fair to say I don't have any career path. I'm not like one of those people who can say "I'm an unemployed electrician looking for another electrician's job" because basically I don't know the first thing about electrician's stuff or anything much else definitely for that matter. In fact I have years and years of education stuffed into this brain of mine (and thanks to that, a huge HECS debt) but no real career path. I guess you wouldn't sell me as a career development planner or advisor then.

I can do very skilfully what a heap of other people can do, which is basic office work and research in non-specific areas, which means I could probably be a clerk in some kind of role but that pretty much means looking in every single area posted in the job ads, because there are clerks and people who want people who can type and write and turn on a computer and shuffle paper around and think a bit but not too much everywhere. Dammit.

When you shuffle through these ads it's boring as hell. And rather overwhelming. So you try to use the internet filters which aren't much help. You can search by industry. No thanks. Search by location - how picky should I be? Search by salary - hell, why should I limit myself?

What I really want to filter out of my searches are the following ads but there don't seem to be search buttons allowing me to filter them out, which is annoying:

*ads asking for your academic transcript. I hate them asking what grades you got in first year uni.
*old ads. The ones that look ok but when you write to them they tell you they found someone for that job five weeks ago. Why the heck don't they take the ad down then?
*ads which spend three quarters of the ad in self-interested wank going on about their exciting new firm and project and their great feel-good team and breakthroughs and achievements and say pretty much nothing about the job. Please, please, please don't do that to me ... oh and by the way they usually have stupid sounding names too.
*ads which sound ok but tell you the only way to apply is through the online process, which you need to register for, which is a long involved process including filling in a questionnaire and having to write your resume into little boxes already pre-packaged by them, and doesn't allow you to add in any extra info to sell yourself. Also, your computer times out on you about 7 times in the first two steps.

Did I say something about not too picky about a job?

I'm just picky about the ad.

A Woman by Any Other Name ...

2009-07-16T21:23:00.004+10:00

I just watched an old movie the other day called "Tootsie". Probably a lot of people have seen it or at least heard about it. It's one where Dustin Hoffman plays an unemployed actor who's so desperate for work he dresses up as a woman to land a part in a TV serial. This of all leads to some comic moments, clashes with his personal life which of course includes his love life, and then he makes some feminist statements.

One of these is when he tells off the director at the TV station for calling him "tootsie" (as well as a variety of other names). The director there calls the men by their first names, but he tends to call the women names like "cutey" or "tootsie" as well as doing stuff like grabbing their butt and having sexual relations with a few of the good looking younger ones.

This is one of Hoffman's feminist statements and inspires some of the women to stand up for themselves.

I read on some of the IMDB comments some of the reviews for "Tootsie". In general it got good reviews. However one commenter said he didn't really understand whether being called "tootsie" was such a big deal. Was being called "tootsie" or "cutey" or "sweetie" or whatever such a big deal and was it any different from being called "pal" or "buddy" as men call each other at work and there is no real big deal made about that?

Well, I'd say that there is something different about it, but first of all, I'd like to say: What are people generally called at workplaces, do you know about, and do you think it's appropriate? First names, last names, nicknames, etc?

At my workplace it was first names except when you addressed the Judge in which case you said "Judge" or "Your honour" which was considered protocol. Naturally some people who were closer to the judges addressed the judge by his or her first name but when in doubt, title was best. Some people used to address me by my position instead of my name (but usually people from outside the building, clients etc).

Basically I think there is a certain difference, that is something like "pal" or "buddy" implies friendship and equality. You say "pal" or "mate" to someone, they can also address you the same way.

However, when a male says "tootsie" or "sweetie" or "cutey-pie" or whatever to a woman, especially to someone who is below him in rank, it sounds like a term that you would use to "pet" someone, and it makes reference to them in a way that could be easily seen as their sexuality or their looks or both.

What is most important about the situation in the movie is that the men were known by their names, but the women were given little cutesy nicknames, which separated the way they were treated, and they didn't find it favourable. (Not to mention the added fact that the man also grabbed butts and talked over women.)

All in all I think that as an isolated case, a nickname does not necessarily mean that you are demeaning someone or being out of line, but the context can determine it, and the way the nickname is chosen and used and what it could imply.

Maybe it's just easier to stick with names unless invited, boring as it may sound!

And then you've got the problem of, is it their full name or their last name plus title or do they like their name slightly abbreviated or ...

HEY YOU!

Frogs in pond

2009-07-14T11:18:00.003+10:00

TimT just mentioned on his blog a whole lot of foodie things, one of which I got excited about was mousse. Which ended up with me getting excited about jelly.

I'm a big jelly fan but just recently haven't indulged in quite as much as a big jelly fan ought to. That's really naughty of me and I ought to correct that immediately, which is why I made two kind of jelly desserts on the weekend, just one, a straight jelly dessert in a mould and another experimenting with mixing jelly with some milky thing and seeing what would happen. It was very sweet and rather fun, and an amazing electronic pink.

That reminded me of another favourite jelly dish of mine of yore, which I hadn't mentioned among all the layered jellies and pannacottas.

Frogs in Ponds.

They are simple but funny. I like them because they're funny. Simple is good too.

You take some lime (green) jelly, follow the instructions on the pack, make up the jelly and fill several small bowls with jelly, only two thirds of the way though.

Allow it to set.

Then you get some chocolate frogs. Like Haigh's choc frogs. Place at least one chocolate frog on each jelly bowl, and then cover it with more green jelly. Make sure the jelly mixture you pour over is cooled otherwise you'll melt the frog(s).

Set.

Then you can decorate the top of the green jelly if you like with sprinkles or little leaf or flower lollies or whatever. It'll look like there's a frog swimming below the surface.

One bowl per person.

Other methods include filling the bowl with jelly and adding the frog just before the jelly is set, so it's being floated in half-thickened fluid and hopefully floats but can be pushed under the surface, or pushing the frog into the jelly after it sets which of course cracks the surface but you might like the "frog sticking cheerfully out" look. Or putting the frog in when it's still all runny but the frog will most likely sink further down and will be a deeper-diver frog.

The two-layer method works to have the frogs serenely gliding at the surface but takes longer.

Either way I think it looks cool.

I've only ever seen it done with lime jelly though why you couldn't do it with blueberry jelly ... well why not? Blue water is cool ....

De Ja Vu

2009-07-14T10:53:00.003+10:00

I was just watching the DVD of Anne of Green Gables The Sequel the other day which is a hefty almost 4 hours long and is based on three of the follow up books to Anne of Green Gables by L. M. Montgomery.

It isn't bad, certainly it's only based on the books and deviates from them marvellously. In some ways I enjoyed it more than the first DVD, probably because I'm not so attached to the sequel books as to the first book. So the fact that the plot deviates a lot didn't bother me so much.

I know that TV series such as this are supposed to evoke a sense of de ja vu, but must they do it so self-consciously? I suppose I watched 4 hours in one stretch (hey, I've just lost my job, I have nothing to do round the house all day but watch nostalgic videoes) and if it were shown episodically on TV it may have felt differently.

But I felt that in the Anne of Green Gables DVDs, they overdid the bit about repeating key "Anne" phrases till they became laborious. "Luckily I have an imagination" "she really is a kindred spirit" "I see that [whatever] hasn't damaged your tongue, Anne" seemed to pepper everyone's speech, with a knowing look and twinkle in the eye. Bah. Or maybe it just seemed that way to me. As far as I know, Ms Montgomery cooled off using that so much in the later books anyhow.

But what really got me was the play scene with Mary Queen of Scots. There's that fainting scene. Am I dreaming but were those complaints made by the girl who had to do the fainting snitched straight from Amy in Louisa May Alcott's Little Women?

Amy is told she's "stiff as a poker" at the fainting scene, and she complains that she doesn't choose to get all dirty tumbling down getting bruises, and if she can down easily, she will go. Jo then demonstrates how to faint for her, and does so with drama.

In Anne of Green Gables, "Hattie" in Mary Queen of Scots is told she is stiff at fainting, and she complains she doesn't choose to get all dirty fainting, and if she can go down easily, she will. Anne jumps in and does a demonstration, but Hattie can't imitate her well.

I know this is meant to evoke childhood memories, but nicking something out of another childhood girly book? Or am I forgetful, and did L.M. Montgomery and Louisa May Alcott happen to write something very similar, and the screenplay writer just faithfully adapted that very scene from Ms Montgomery's work?

Anyhow, felt weird.

False Advertising #2

2009-07-14T10:00:00.003+10:00

I went to the sales on Sunday and I saw signs saying "Giveaway Sale - $6.95!"

Are they giving the products away or are they $6.95? Please explain. I might have got some of their stuff for free, but clothes at that store for $6.95 is way too expensive.

Employment Theory

2009-07-06T23:02:00.004+10:00

I'm on the job prowl yet again, and I sent off a job application to a law firm. It actually seemed like a pretty interesting jobs and one that I would really have liked to have, not just one of those filler jobs or "better than nothing" kind of jobs.

After a while I received an email telling me that they were "inundated with applications "and sorry, I didn't get the job.

Who DOES get these jobs? You know, the jobs that people actually think are interesting and wouldn't mind actually doing that are posted on the web?

I think it's a bit like winning the Lotto. These people are phantoms. I can't imagine they really exist. to be certain, I'm not one of 'em.

I have this feeling they don't really exist, it's just one of those ploys that's meant to keep us going and working in silly jobs and using these websites, the lure that there are actually cool jobs out there and they are searchable on the web. You know, they'll stick up a crock job on the web and people will "inundate" them with applications and then they will reject everyone saying "sorry the standard of applications was very high and unfortunately yours was not chosen" and then there is someone high up rolling about the floor laughing, ready to make up another amusing ad and go through the process again.

In fact, their job sounds pretty cool!

False Advertising

2009-07-02T21:27:00.003+10:00

What really annoys me is shortened versions tryign to pass themselves off as taller.

I'm not talking about high heels, although I'm not a high heel wearer and that's another thing I don't see a need to do. I mean, why try to convince anyone that little old me is actually 2 metres tall. I'm not fooling anyone, especially when I fall over.

And that's just it, you're not fooling anyone. The shortened versions get noticed!

My gripe is about books!

Recently I had a discussion about whether cut-down/shortened/abridged versions of classics should be "allowed". Some people are very precioius about them and don't think they should exist. I believe they should be allowed - I'm all in favour of options - so long as the original is still in print for those who want to access it.

However my belief is that any abridged version should be clearly marked as abridged. The consumer, I believe, should be able to assume that a verison is in its complete form unless it's marked abridged/cut down/shortened whatever. And the marking shoudl be fairly obvious. Say on the cover or spine or on a sticker on the front if applicable.

Unfortunately, it seems many versions like to tuck their notification away. In rather obscure places. Say it's written in the copyright page, or discussed in the foreword/intro.

I think this is more than a little annoying and the buyer shouldnt' be expected to rummage through these places before they discover it's not the full version. Frankly, I'd be pissed off. i've had that experience before, fortunately just with library books. And I've heard some people discuss it on the web.

Sometimes it's not even said straight out, for instance I read of some people complaining that they had read Murakami's Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. A comparison was made with other translations and it was found chapters were missing. A reviewer noted that the copyright page said it was 'adapted' not 'translated' from the Japanese, but this didn't explicitly say it was a shortened version.

That would be very annoying if you had wanted the full-length version!

I am all in favour of shortened versions being available for people; some people do not want to read the whole of a long book but would like to share in the experience of popular stories. However please mark them so, so that consumers know what they are getting! And so they can make an informed decision as to which version they would prefer.

Thank you.

Where's Germaine Greer?

2009-06-27T23:49:00.003+10:00

Michael Jackson has died.

I am waiting for Germaine Greer's commentary on this one. Has anyone heard from her yet? I'm a little disappointed she hasn't lashed out earlier, or has she and I haven't heard about it yet?

Odd Spot #123

2009-06-25T21:29:00.002+10:00

Sigmund Freud had a morbid fear of ferns.

So ... errh ... what are ferns a symbol of?

I don't know exactly what the Freudian theory is of ferns but ...

A Nomination for Dumbass of the Year

2009-06-23T20:27:00.004+10:00

I was walking in the city recently and I saw a blind woman, complete with Guide dog, asking a man for directions.

He pointed to his right and said, "It's over that way, see?"

"But I can't see!" she replied.

Mr Right: Have you got the Top Ten?

2009-06-22T23:18:00.004+10:00

Women are often accused of having checklists when it comes to dating, well apparently this guy has made a checklist for us. In his book "How to Love", Gordon Livingston lists a top ten attributes a perfect partner must have most of in order for the relationship to succeed. They are kindness, optimism, courage, loyalty, tolerance, flexibility, beauty, humour, honesty and intelligence.

Well I fail the test and Mr Coffee has me so I guess that's Doom City for us.

According to the article, Livingston makes several key points:

a) He doesn't believe in love at first sight, in fact he believes that leads to bad relationships as we're automatically drawn to beautiful people but we need to get to know them better
b) He doesn't believe in traditional marriage therapy e.g. negotiating differences or working out what's wrong, he believes in choosing the right person in the first place rather than dealing with differences.
c) He pinpoints those ten "essential virtues" which I listed above as what your perfect partner will have most of

I don't have a whole lot of experience in relationships but from my very limited experience, here's a few thoughts ...

Basically I won't argue with a) too much. I have never felt love at first sight for a person. I do think gettign to know people is how I work; although attraction at first sight is often used as a filter to decide whether or not you're going to bother to get to know someone else better. It can also adjust your prejudices and make you feel good about yourself. Looks aren't everything, but I think they do count for something. This doesn't mean looking gorgeous, it can just mean looking approachable or friendly or fun or non-threatening or whatever suits at the time.

As for b), well I don't have too much experience as I said, but I would say ... let's not throw working on your relationship out the window. Every relationship needs work, as anyone whose been in a relationship knows. If you just float around trying to find someone who fits a checklist and when you hit a bump, think "instead of trying to negotiate this one, move on to the next person" you probably won't stay with anyone forever.

The trick is mainly to be able to recognise whether your differences are ones that are fundamental or superficial, whether they are worth the marriage or not, and not to have the stubbornness of saying "must stay together whether I die in the attempt" nor "one cross word and I'm outta here" attitude, but somewhere in between.

At any rate, when I saw Mr Livingston's checklist, I thought to myself, this guy would not be one to consult for marriage therapy. His 10 essential virtues may work for some people, heck, they may work for many people.

The thing is, he's narrowed down the list to 10 and disregarded the fact that there are some things that certain people just don't care about, in fact some people mightn't care about quite a few of those things. The phrasing is quite cague in the article - probably to cover his butt "a partner who possesses most of these" and then the virtues could be reinterpreted by someone to fit into a hypothetical situation, so that in any situation, an ideal partner might be desired to hold at least 7 of these virtues.

But that's more a sleight of hand than anything else.

In actual fact, if done like that it's not pinpointing a damn thing.

What really matters, as most people would say is either or both:

a) the person is someone who has qualities/traits that you value/admire/desire in another
b) the person has qualities you generally admire/value/desire and are compatible with your own values and traits

I don't know how many people actually believe all these so-called new theories for love; how many new ones can they come up with? I guess even if they don't believe them they have to come up with something new.

Really, I would prefer it if they stuck to the old ideas but had a neat story around it; instead they seem to forego the stories and try to rehash an advice book format under the guise that they have something new to say about love. It's shameful.

Breastfeeding in the Boardroom

2009-06-22T22:50:00.004+10:00

On another blog, I read some people having a brief and petty discussion about breastfeeding in public.

It seemed to be that the favourite opinion was along the lines of - "I believe women should be allowed to breastfeed in public, but there are some places that they just shouldn't do it, they should know it's inappropriate, for instance in work meetings, like I was in a meeting recently and this woman whipped out her boob and breastfed and I just couldn't concentrate, so that is wrong. But otherwise I support breastfeeding in public."

Now this stance comes with a few problems, as I see it, but I think it's a popular one, mainly because many people like to think of themselves as very tolerant and liberal folk, but at the same time they don't want to see themselves as too liberal and they certainly don't want to be seen as too revolutionary and don't want to see boobies all over the place. This is a nice crowd-pleasing response.

I discussed this at length with Mr Coffee, including whether women ought to have rights or restrictions re: breastfeeding.

However, a conundrum comes to me from the so-called crowd-pleasing stance.

It is all very well to say "Breastfeed in public, dears, but in your place, and not in my sight" but then - it raises certain issues and questions:

Where is appropriate?
In whose sight, then? And if in no one's sight, then it's not exactly public, is it?
The "in the boardroom is inappropriate" argument is interesting because women have often be critiqued for:
a) women don't breastfeed enough, they give too much bottled milk
b) women work too much and don't take on a mothering role, they aren't truly feminine (which has a stigma in itself)
c) if a woman has lesser earning capacity than a man it's her own fault, because she took time off having children, and you can't expect a company to pay a person who has given less time and value to the workplace.

So you have several positions:

a) if the woman sits in the boardroom childless, there's a stigma: she's childless, what happened to her?
b) if the woman sits in the boardroom having shafted her kids to a nanny: what kind of mother does that? Not really mothering, is it?
c) if she brings them in and bottlefeeds them: there's the group that will sigh that bottle milk is not nearly as good as natural breast milk, is that a good way to raise children?
d) if she brings them in and breastfeeds them: that's inappropriate
e) if she stays at home and looks after the kids: she loses in the boardroom game and that's her own fault

It seems to be a rather silly game, and of course there are the sneers everywhere, and risks and stigmas attached to whatever choice you make, so what about someone just saying, what the heck, do what I want to do? And maybe some people recognising, especially other women, that their queasiness about breastfeeding could be stopping women from doing well in business.

Bomb the Moon!

2009-06-20T13:17:00.004+10:00

Yesterday I read this article about how NASA as found, in the so called global economic recession, half a billion dollars to bomb the moon.

I'm sure lots of Americans are really glad to know how their tax money is being spent. While they don't have welfare nearly so good as many other countries to prop them up should they lose their job, which is happening is droves at the moment, they can sleep well knowing that their is a nice dent in the moon's surface.

The reasons, according to this article, for bombing the moon, are a) to find water which may or may not be on the moon and b) if there is water, the water vapour which will be sent up in the air by the bomb will form a cloud which will allow us to draw a very detailed map of the moon. Of course this could disturb the water supply and the map of the moon will be different from the moon as we currently know it because it will have a huge dent in the side of it from a bomb, but to hell with that.

So basically, we are spending half a billion dollars to find water in outer space that mightn't even exist but if it does exist, it will be a long way from us so I'm thinking, what exactly will a water supply out there do for us, wouldn't it be smarter to build a really cool dam or water catchment on Earth? What's next, a big pipeline from Earth to the moon or little modules that go out to the moon every so often with astronauts whose sole job is to fill up little plastic bottles, load them on to the ship and then bring 'em back and sell them to restaurants at exorbitant prices?

What's more, if we interfere with the moon to much, by bombing the hell out of it with target practice or draining it of large amounts of water, who knows what it may do to affect our own environment, as the moon has a direct effect on Earth - including its own water movements (oh, and some say our mental health).

The next thing is, we're trying to get a map of the moon.

I'm not sure why, I don't know how many people holiday there, we are slack enough about getting maps on Earth. My bus route map is inaccurate. Start at home.

Wat are they hoping to do with a map of the moon, start a Google Moon project?

I can just see it, Google will announce a Google Moon service, and everyone will want to see their favourite part of the moon.

Whoopee!

Then you'll download the service and it will tell you "Please type in an EXACT STREET ADDRESS" or it won't show you the pic of the moon bit you want which will be absolutely fantastic. I want my Google Moon money back.

There is probably a reason why intelligent life from outer space doesn't contact us and that's possibly because we don't rate as intelligent to them. They're ringing all their more intelligent buddies and writing human beings off in the "dumbass" sector, not worth bothering with or contacting.

Review: Doubt

2009-06-20T13:00:00.002+10:00

I just last night watched the movie, Doubt. It was excellent.

I'm surprised it didn't win any Oscars. In my opinion Meryl Streep did a whole lot more with this role (and it was far meatier) than Kate Winslet's character in The Reader, who spent most of her time stripping and rolling about in bed. Of course, I'm not that interested in seeing Meryl Streep strip and role about in bed, so I'm very glad that in this role she played a nun who kept her clothes tightly on.

Phillip Seymour Hoffman was excellent as Father Flynn, but I can't compare him to Sean Penn who won the Oscar that year as I haven't seen Milk, and the supporting cast was great too.

For those who haven't seen Doubt, this is a movie which leaves you to think for yourself, which is rare in movies these days. It isn't about flashy effects either, but I remained engrossed the whole movie. It's about the goings on in a Catholic Church where a strict old-timer nun comes into conflict with a more liberal priest (Father Flynn), whom she suspects of misconduct, and the sweet and younger nun (Sister James) who is at her beck and call. Doesn't sound like a lot but it's absolutely mesmerising.

A lot of bloggers have asked what is the moral of this story, and some have talked about how it may be about how things can happen when you act and you are not certain, you have doubts. On the other hand, it also can make you think about what might happen if you were uncertain, and if you didn't act, but waited until you had that certainty before acting. Would you never act and what would the consequences be?

In the end it does show the consequences of 'certainty' or moral superiority and the importance of doubt, but should we not act simply because we have doubts?

I really thought this was one of the best-acted movies I've seen in a long time, and had a powerful theme to it.

Mr Monk and the Cringeworthy Australian

2009-06-17T23:22:00.003+10:00

I've been watching the first season of Monk. I know I'm years late. Yes, Yes.

Still, it's a fun show, I like the OCD Monk and the pushy Sharona and it's an amusing watch, some shows are better than others and some of the set-ups better than others. by far.

Anyhow, if you are an Australian, maybe you will either want to skip or laugh your way through or cry your way through the episode "Mr Monk and the Earthquake".

This is a lovely show where Monk investigates a woman who has used an Earthquake as the perfect opportunity to do her rich husband in. Sharona has fallen for an Aussie journalist, and she and Benji are staying with her sister Gail. The best scenes have to be when Sharona and Gail are arguing, and when they play charades.

Now I don't know what it is about Aussie characters on TV, but why do they always sound so awful. This Aussie journalist turned up and chatted to Sharona and I thought, I don't know where he comes from, but he has the weirdest accent. Later he is revealed as an Australian, complete with accent. I don't know, but I've lived in Australia my whole life and I don't know anyone who sounds like that. They sound more like Adrian Monk than this guy.

What's more, they don't get up in the morning and describe their lifestyle as "hard yakka". Oh God, oh no.

The perceptive Adrian Monk was on to this guy in an instant, saying there was something wrong about him. No he didn't pick his terrible accent and try-hard idiom as his clues, though they would have been the giveaway for me.

He picked the fact that the guy said he had been nominated for a Pulitzer, when the journalism award is in fact only open to American journalism, and this man's story had apparently been published in Australia.

Monk didn't even pick up on the fact that the Aussie was at the table describing the heat of his environment as "a hundred and ten degrees out there". Now, what true Aussie talks in Fahrenheit except one written into an American show just because the Americans wouldn't understand or relate if he were talking Celsius? You'd think Monk'd pick up on that one!

A real embarrassment to our country, guys - let America have this joke of an Aussie character!

My Name isn't Lam or Ling or Tong, it's Lamb or Linde or Tony

2009-06-17T22:41:00.003+10:00

Sorry to go back to racism again, but I just HAD to get this one out. Another article on the topic, this one about Anglicising names. Apparently an experiment was done using fake job applications, and it was found that if you had an Anglo name, you were most likely to get called back for a job interview.

People with Italian name didn't fare so badly, they were ahead of those with middle Eastern names. But the ones who did the worst was those with Chinese names.

A Professor Leigh said that certain minority groups would do better in getting job interviews if they Anglicised their names, and said this attitude was ''consistent with the notion ... that a sudden influx of migration increases prejudice''.

Sydney was the city in which minorities were most likely to be discriminated against, compared with Brisbane and Melbourne.

This is the clincher though:

"But Professor Leigh said discrimination against certain groups may be more subconscious than racist."

I don't quite get that - it seems to differentiate between subconscious and racist behaviour - does that mean if you racially discriminate against people but you do it subconsciously, not consciously, you aren't really racist? As Mr Coffee put it, you've got to officially, consciously sign up to the racist union, or you aren't a real racist?

If you were one of those whites in America who just grew up thinking there was something naturally inferior about black people, but didn't put a name to it, just didn't really think about it, just thought it was ok that they had fewer rights than you because that's "the way I was brought up, that's just the way I think the world is, it's normal? That's right, isn't it?" - did this mean your behaviour was not racist? It may not be malicious but it sounds pretty racist to me. Whether subconscious or conscious, the basis of the discrimination is still racially based.

A person who does look over a job application and chooses some over others because of the ethnic background of their name - that sounds pretty racist to me. It may not be malicious, but it is racist behaviour, and sometimes it can be all the more harmful when it's subconscious because it's so ingrained. The person just accepts it as normal, "I can't say why I prefer the Smiths and the Joneses, they just feel righter". This may be because they've read lots of articles about migration or they've been brought up to think certain things about a particular group or seen certain things on the TV or had a certain experience or whatever - but this attitude seems to say "It's a racially based attitude/prejudice. It manifests itself later in behaviour that is subconscious, but how does that make it not racist ..."

Basically, if there is a difference between subconscious and racist behaviour it would mean a) racist behaviour has to be conscious, intentional behaviour. b) Subconscious behaviour ... well it means it wasn't meant consciously, but what's the motivation for it? "Subconsciously I am more likely to pick Anglos over any other name" - still doesn't explain why. Because subconsciously ... what? Subconsciously I am making a racist decision.

(Or maybe I am making a decision to choose names I can pronounce most easily so I don't sound like a goof on the phone when I call these people back, is that it?)

Named for the Job

2009-06-13T23:53:00.002+10:00

In my job, I have to write down the names of the lawyers who come to appear in court each day. Last name and first initial is lal that's necessary.

Recently, a lawyer came in and gave his name as D. Seet.

I guess it was either law or marketing for this guy, he was pretty much marked from the time of naming.

An Argument for White Australia

2009-06-09T22:51:00.003+10:00

And here we are ... baaaack to another racial commentary, brought to you by Maria.

I just had to get this in, I read it on a blog which was Muslim bashing. I can't quite figure out why it is that when we get to Muslims, the headlines always start going on about racial intolerance, because Islam's a religion, not a race. but they do. It's like this: Americans, Aussies, Japs, Greeks, and Muslims. Or something like that, go figure.

Anyhow, this was the one about the Muslim school in Camden which is now not going to be built.

Some guy made some weird comment in favour of a White Australia, and this was their not-so-comprehensible argument, let's see if you can figure it out, because I can't and maybe someone else can help me. The guy was called Jim T and obviously doesn't have the wit of TimT, fellow blogger of Will Type For Food, but did befuddle me, which TimT does, often. Just not in the good way.

Jim T started off by saying that he thought multiculturalism was a failure in Australia. It didn't work. He particularly was against Muslims. Why was it, he pondered, that every migrant group except Muslims could adapt to the country they migrated to? Except Muslims! And that's why we really shouldn't accommodate Muslims - worst of the lot!

Then Jim T started a new train of thought. Multiculturalism had gone really bad, and if you thought about it, lots of these migrants didn't adapt that well anyhow. Didn't fit in. So we should stop immigration for "other groups" anyhow, even if they weren't Muslims. Stop the Asians and the Lebanese and the Mediterraneans and ... oh, if you were caucasian, especially if you were British, then an exception was made, you would be allowed to migrate to Australia. Let's stop horsing around though and make sure that migrant groups other than whites did not come to this beautiful country.

Now, pardon me, but I have trouble figuring out Jim T's argument here.

He seems to have two points:

1. We value people who can adapt to whatever land/culture they migrate to, they are the type we should welcome.
2. We should stop welcoming anyone other than the whites, with special emphasis on British whites. Anglo-Saxons that is.

Now, if we're going to put "ability to adapt to land/culture they migrate to" as a group, down to past behaviour, the British Anglo-Saxons have shown themselves to be pone of the worst groups, and certainly one of the worst groups to land on the shores of Australia.

Other groups who have landed on these shores have done much better jobs of fitting in with the existing culture; the British way was to colonise and change the life to what they were used to back home. It's a bit funny when they then object to people being small mementoes and rituals of their life to comfort them when they brought a whole legal system and government structure with them because they couldn't hack it with the natives' way of life.

In fact, the Australian Aborigines who were here before the Britons have had to do much more trying to fit in with the British way of life than the Britons have had to with fitting in with the Aborigines, if you were really honest about it.

And then Jim T's argument is that the British are the ones we want to import more of, and leave the rest out.

Now I can understand he may be very pro-White-Australia - and sure, more English-speaking-Caucasians-used-to-a-Western-Way-of-life he may feel blend in better with the existing status quo once it's laid out for them. But let's get the reasons right - it's not because they're good at adapting to whatever society they go to. It's because they probably won't have to adapt much.

Other people who come out here from countries that are way different from ours often have to learn laws and social protocol and a new language, many have to cope with the stresses and strains of everyday life that we have to combined with things like homesickness, and many also manage to do things like have a successful career, make new friends, start families, maintain homes and manage businesses. I think that's pretty remarkable when you consider juggling all that; often some of us are bummed out trying to manage one job and a relationship and can't get it together to get dinner right at the same time! I think a lot of credit has to be given to such people, they are doing it against the odds, and many make a very good fist of it. So they might screw up every so often and they have funny accents? Who the heck is perfect?

By the way, I read a great story recently this weekend in a collection called The Seeds of Time by John Wyndham. It's called Dumb Martian, and it's about a man who buys a Martian and considers her dumb because she doesn't know the language or certain basic skills and speaks strangely at first - can't pronounce certain consonants. And he abuses her. It's obvious as the story goes on that she is extremely bright and given the right stimulus she can learn heaps - it's just that he thinks of her as stupid because she started on the backfoot and she's not one of his kind - he keeps calling her "Dumb Mart". In the end of course, she outdoes him.

A lesson to us all.

Mr Eggplant

2009-06-07T13:46:00.005+10:00

On her blog recently, Lexicon posted this pic of an Amazing Aubergine. I just have to say, this country is often overwhelmed by the Big Veges. The Big Pineapple, the Big Apple, etc. But I was very impressed by another Amazing Eggplant which I found at the markets recently, and dubbed Mr Eggplant. Perhaps not the biggest eggplant but it's not the size that mattered here. It's what he ... errh ... special extras he had to show for himself.

Mr Eggplant either has a long snout or a rather Proud Protuberance of another sort. He's certainly not hiding it, and it's this sort of Aussie pride which we thought extremely amusing and just had to pay for. Mr Coffee and I kept Mr Eggplant alive for several days till he began to look a little withery, and then he had to be consumed. He stood in the kitchen, look at that stance, man, that posture, he knows his place and it's not at the bottom of the vege pile, that's for sure! I was the one who chopped the Protuberance off, eventually, when it finally gave in and looked a little too wilted to wait - it seemed Mr Coffee didn't want the responsibility. It seems to be a man thing.

But I let him eat the appendage.

He was a very tasty Mr Eggplant and I'll be talent scouting at the next market trip. I encourage all others to do so, we should encourage Attidude Aubergines in Australia, and this Mr Eggplant was one sassy Aubergine who held himself with Righteousness in our Kitchen. What a guy!

Piggy Masks

2009-06-07T13:36:00.002+10:00

I was at the pharmacist recently and I see that they are selling "swine flu approved" blue masks. For hygiene reasons, they are non-refundable, non exchangeable.

Mr Coffee has suggested that they make special swine flu masks in the shape of a little piggy snout.

I'd like to see that!

Swine Flu Alert!

2009-05-28T22:50:00.002+10:00

My mother has a new hobby horse - each evening she reminds me about how bad the swine flu is and reminds me to wash my hands.

Now, I'm not looking to die of swine flu, but this is my view on it. Take normal precautions, be alert to symptoms and report any, there are obviously situations where people and more likely, larger groups, organisations etc may have to take stricter than normal precautions, but if it gets you and you die, well too bad. Everyone has to die sometime.

There isn't any point running around getting hysterical about it and sitting at your desk thinking that every time someone coughs it's swine flu, that you can't touch anything because swine flu is majorly infectious so what if that something had been in contact with another something which had touched something which had touched something which had touched something which had touched something which had touched ....

Life still has to go on. And if you were that hysterical about it you would have no life.

Anyhow, I was looking at what normal precautions were, and mainly people are walking around saying things like "There's this terrible thing called swine flu! Wash your hands! Cover your mouth when you sneeze and cough!"

You mean people have to have the threat of a jazzily named deadly flu before they remember that washing their hands and covering their mouth when they do a big public ATCHOO is the right thing to do?

People who don't remember this stuff are the kinds of people who ought to be wiped out, so I guess it's just another natural selection thing. The survival of the pockets of society of the more hygienic and polite.

Different Shades of Racism

2009-05-27T23:33:00.004+10:00

OK, now my last post on Sol Trujillo went on for a bit so now I just want to move on and not move on at the same time.

Mainly (sorry amigo - hehehe) I'm not exactly that interested in Mr Trujillo right at the moment. I don't think I ever was or ever will be. I don't even have a Sol Trujillo label.

However, the real reason I brought up Sol's comment was to discuss racism, not to discuss whether Sol was being a whiney ass or not.

One interesting thing did come up when my Dad mentioned it over the table, and that was that there was no racism, yes he got called names but you just had to laugh at it.

Now, I have to say that my Dad does have certain beliefs about racial differences - that is, he comes right out and says things like he doesn't think Aborigines aren't as good as other people. But then he believes it's based in fact, so that isn't racist.

What I want to throw out here is - what really counts as racist? Is racism distinguishing between race? Is it believing in racial superiority/inferiority? Is it making assumptions based on race? Are there some assumptions that are acceptable to make based on race? Is it ok to be racist if it's a joke - and does it count as a joke if the other person doesn't get it?

For instance, if a person is Chinese, certain people might say it is more acceptable to assume that they will have dark coloured hair and skin. And that's not racist. But is it racist to also assume that they don't speak English and that they eat only with chopsticks?

I was at a TAFE class once and we went to a photo gallery. I liked a photo that was predominantly red in colour so I stopped to look at it, and my teacher came up to me and said "Do you like that photo because you're Chinese?" I said, "No, I like it because I like it. It's got a very vibrant, striking colour." She started going on about how she was sure it was because I was Chinese, and red was a very Chinese colour, and it was the colour of the Chinese flag and it was very symbolic. (I would like to point out that red is only one of the colours on the Chinese flag and red is also the colour most common on all of the flags of all the countries in the world. It's not very particular to the Chinese.)

I'm not sure if someone else would consider this singling out 'racism'. I didn't think it was a major attack, but I did feel she had made me feel awkward, and yes, she'd made a racist assumption and treated me according to my racial group rather than either treating me like everyone else or listening to me individually.

Are racist remarks and opinions based on so-called 'facts' still racist - and then who decides what 'facts' are valid? That is, many tests, surveys, and stats have been done testing racial groups and they have come up with certain results. Physical, social, intelligence, health etc related stats could lead someone to use a taunt and then claim that they backed it up with a stat.

"This guy's a black - more likely to have AIDS and do drugs," or something similar.

I remember a poster that was considered racist that was put up on campus that said "Don't have sex with blacks - Avoid AIDS". It was also backed up with stats that said more black men had AIDS than white men.

Do racial jokes count, and what's funny? And what's not? I don't want to live in a country where you can't tell a joke, but on the other hand, basically other people determine the funniness of any joke.

In my opinion, when you tell a joke you take a risk, but people take the risk because it's well worth the laugh! And you build up enough of a connection with the people you tell jokes to that it is not a big enough deal that you will end up being killed because you told a crummy one. Most likely if it's terrible you will just get some glares or blank looks.

Anyhow, I don't believe I've even touched the tip of the iceberg as to how racial tension, harassment, bullying and discrimination can be expressed, but I'm sure it can express itself in many ways. By omission as well as action. By making assumptions, by delegating work and roles of certain types to certain people.

The trouble is it's almost impossible to be colour blind, and in many ways we wouldn't want people to be because many of us are very proud of the racial backgrounds we embrace; what we don't want is for people to make us suffer because of them, and often it is difficult to know when what we may think is a friendly gesture could be interpreted as a racist or demeaning one that is singling them out, not as one celebrating race, or being curious about individuality or making a friendly joke. It isn't always easy to figure out how the other person takes it, and saying "they shouldn't be so sensitive" or "They should have a better sense of humour" or whatever ... well it doesn't really change the fact that they could be hurt or bemused at the time now, does it?

Sol Trujillo's parting shot

2009-05-26T20:58:00.003+10:00

I thought I'd write about something else today, like about how I'm insanely thinking of having even less sleep in the mornings and catching the EARLY bus just to get to work early to impress my boss who was late to court this morning (even though he criticises ME for being late!) and also when I'm having trouble staying awake in court as it is.

But then I saw this piece on Sol Trujillo's comments on Australia. Now, let's leave apart the fact that everyone can get a bit bitter when they've been done out of a job. Especially nowadays.

Sol called Australia 'racist' and then people came back and made the usual comments about how we aren't racist and we're the most multicultural country ever with the biggest and best anti-discrimination laws ever and that makes Sol's comments 'ridiculous'.

I've heard these kinds of comments many times before, so basically, neither side is being very original though both may be extremely sincere. Or not. Having not been outside Australia much, from experience I can't give my considered opinion of how other countries rate on the 'racist' scale.

However, here's some comments I 'd like to make:

1. According to this article, India is is the most culturally, linguistically and genetically diverse geographical entity after the Asian continent. Doesn't say anything about Australia holding any record.
2. Simply because a country has lots of people from different ethnicities and nationalities residing within it doesn't mean those people can't feel and exhibit racial tension and develop racial hierarchies. They can even be legally endorsed. So 'multiculturalism' in itself isn't proof of non-racism, per se.
3. It seemed to me that some people ... and this goes for lots of other things, like health and environmental policy too ... want to say something doesn't exist as a problem just because it's not that bad in Australia. "We're not racist in Australia ... because our anti-discrimntaion laws are better than anywhere else" "We don't need to improve our carbon emissions because we don't emit as much as anyone else" blah blah.

This is a very Aussie way of thinking - I can be slack and I don't need to improve or strive higher because everyone else is worse than me. It's a very mediocre way of thinking and it reeks of people who never want to get to the head of the class. like a B-grade student who doesn't try to get an A because all his friends are getting Ds.

Maybe some child genius had the cure for cancer in Australia but figured there was no point in revealing it because their friends were just turning in book reports for Morris Bleitzman books so they threw out their analysis. I wouldn't be the least surprised.

In Australia there are racist people and there are racist social pockets and racist public figures and racist policy etc. Some people don't feel it or realise it because they aren't the ones getting the hard stick. It mightn't be as bad as other places but not acknowledging it belittles the difficulties some people have with it.

Which leads me to ...

4. Racism has a lot to do with the individual experiences.

Anyone can experience racism, but usually it's people in minority groups who get put at a disadvantage or feel a burden because of racism. Just like any other discrimination or sneering. People have always behaved differently towards groups that are different from them - that is, there have always been groups in some societies who have gotten some schtick because they've been different - looks, race, gender, disability, sexual pref, religion, political beliefs whatever.

Some people haven't felt it as badly or haven't been as negatively affected by it, or felt they've affected others badly that way. They're fortunate, and often they believe that discrimination and those 'isms don't exist and those who cokmplain about them are paranoid harpies making a mountain out of a molehill to get attention.

They could well be people who fall into a 'minority' category of one or two - "I'm a Lebanese female and I've never been harassed and no one talks to me strangely and everyone's really nice to me, I don't know what anyone's complaining about, eeveryone who believes racism or sexism exists is a whinger!"

But you've really got to find out what the other person's experience is to find out whether they've got a valid gripe ...

Maybe they do.

That doesn't necessarily mean the whole country is a nation of racists ...

However it can point to why their point of view has been coloured, and also, that their really is at least an element of racism in a country, whether you count that as a problem of the country yet or not.

Racism and any form of discrimation, harassment, bullying etc can be so personal and so hurtful I think it's somewhat insensitive to say someone is ridiculous for feeling that they've been cut down and that they've received racist slurs. How objective can this be? Though I understand why the defenders are quick to jump up and make those comments in an effort to ensure the image of the nation is protected.

P.S. If we have strong anti-discrimination laws it may be because we don't value racism ... but it also probably is pointing to the fact that there is a problem. I'm betting we didn't put the laws in there as a pre-emptive strike just in case someone happened to be racist or discriminative, but they never are.

Court Snoozing

2009-05-22T06:42:00.004+10:00

OK, I've got a problem, and a bit of an embarrassing secret, which is of course why i'm publishing it on the Net.

I'm working in court, see, and my job partially requires me to sit for periods in court, some longer than others. On a chair. Sometimes I hand up court documents and do things but for a long while sometimes I'm just observing/listening. Depends on the day.

And sometimes I get tiiiiiiiiiired. Not sure why. Not enough sleep, muscles feeling lethargic, diet, boring lawyers, not sure.

But my job requires me to stay awake.

Sometimes I feel myself nodding, I jerk my head up and then I end up hitting the back of my head against the wall. Not only does this make a soundbut it's not good for my head.

I've tried doing a few things like surreptitious neck stretches, I can't start dancing or doing star jumps in court. I feel better when I have to be on my feet running errands, so I know that moving around definitely helps (and boring lawyers and long sessions definitley don't help!).

Anyone got any tips for staying awake or less sleepiness on a court morning that don't involve karaoke or cartwheels?

Techno-nannying doesn't go far enough

2009-05-22T06:22:00.003+10:00

According to this article there's a new device being tested to speed-limit cars.

This is a special device which would recognise what the speed limit was, and then sound a warning if you tried to abuse it, and also stop you from speeding. It'd stubbornly refuse to let you speed!

Now some people think this is a great idea. I for one have never really understood why cars can go up to 180km/hr anyhow, I have never seen a 180km/hr zone.

But of course there were people who complained about nannying and how what speed you were at should be your personal responsibility.

Of course this does assume that all car drivers know what 'responsibility' means which many don't seem to from the looks of the roads out there.

Then I read a whole bunch of letters groaning about how we are the most over-governed country in the world, which I think is just an excuse for people who don't want to be rioters.

I think there are plenty of places in which we are not governed enough and I would like to see certain sorts of idiots reined in immediately with new technologies. These people don't exhibit proper responsibility and therefore it's useless saying it's up to their personal responsibility. They NEED nannying!

1. People who pack bags in supermarkets. They who are about to put a heavy item on top of a soft item should have a device attached to them which immediately gives them an electric shock and jerks their arm away from the bag!
2. People who smoke and are tempted to throw their cigarette butt out without stubbing it. These people need to have a device attached which makes them stub out it out properly first. Oh, before they stub it, huge neon lights should go off over them saying JERK JERK JERK for a bit of public humiliation.
3. People who go into the 12 items or less lane with more than 12 items should have a little robot who comes out and screams "YOU CAN'T COUNT" and shoves them into the right lane.
In fact, "12 items or less" lanes should have little robots which flash "We know this should say '12 items or fewer' we're just made a mistake and we're too cheap to change all the signs!"
4. People who try to comment on a blog and use all CAPS or have lots and lots of common spelling errors, especially mixing up "your" and "you're", "they're", "there" and "their", etc, should have a "beep" that stops their comment from being posted and after three attempts, bans them from posting until they've done some basic literacy courses.

High heels, my foot!

2009-05-10T09:03:00.004+10:00

Here's an article which urges women to wear stilettos instead of sandals and flats because it will boost their health and possibly also their sex-life.

One minute high heels are bad for you, straining your ankles, next minute they're a godsend. It sounds like one of those crock messages dieticians give you that has you running in both directions. Stupido.

I say, wear what you like, eat what you like, it's too hard to keep up with this load.

What I don't quite get is if these podiatrists are really so concerned about health, and that's their main concern, why is the article only urging WOMEN to pull out those stilettos? Why isn't it asking men to go to the ladies' section to find a high heel that suits them?

Is it because men's bodies are so differently constructed that they don't need the benefit of a heel to stop knee pain or arthiritis or help with posture, or more likely, that podiatrists are thinking, "No it's ok to urge all women to pull out high heels (even though the women I'm urging are presumably those who've been opting to wear the opposite kind of shoewear) but I wouldn't try to impose these ideas on men because, well, that's just a bit ridiculous, eh, I mean *snigger* a guy in high heels hehehe women can do it but I wouldn't expect a man to have to!"

It sounds like a weird discrimination both ways - putting people in boxes, expecting certain ladies to wear something that they have avoided because of certain health gains *supposedly*, and also avoiding marketing the same health benefits to men just because of a presumption that they mightn't want to wear same costume.

Unless it's true that men just don't gain the same benefits from wearing heels - and I'd like to see a test study, thanks, then how can you take this seriously?

As for the sex-life boost, the only possible sex-life boost I can imagine is that when you wear heels you are most likely to trip over, possibly into someone's arms, or perhaps in some weird way, flat on your back into a bed.

I don't have a drinking problem ...

2009-05-09T16:02:00.003+10:00

It surprised me to read a newspaper article about how Aussies accept we have a binge drinking problem. For I've read so much about how any time someone wants to do something about drinking (alcohol that is) and drinking problems, a huge number of people start screaming about how this is a nanny state, drinking is part of the Australian culture, stop spoiling their fun party pooper and they are perfectly responsible people and why don't police go out and punish real criminals like jaywalkers and illegal billboard posters?

By the way, DRINKING somehow always means 'drinking alcohol'. If you drink too much water, you haven't drunk anything at all, even if you have urinated a whole tankful. It's a tricky thing, the English language. I don't know what it is about Orange Juice, but I ain't drinking it, technically. Apparently. Newspaperly.

Anyhow, I do think we have a drinking problem, we don't drink enough of the good stuff, and also the yummy drinks often cost a packet (It's $9 for a milkshake at Guylian's, what the?)

Also, someone warned me not to drink tap water in Adelaide. Fortunately I'm not from Adelaide and don't plan to go there soon. But what are your options then, someone gets the grand idea to bottle STILL water and sell it back to you at some exorbitant price. Makes you sick.

As for alcohol drinking, I'm no connoisseur, but I do get rather sick of the constant excuses for alcohol-induced behaviour not curbed or controlled, and any ideas put forth to control it all screamed down by some groups, because certain people enjoy drinking and consider it an integral part of their lifestyle.

Sure, everyone likes certain thing, but this shouldn't mean that we turn a blind eye to dangerous behaviour or social problems if they occur and think up solutions, and sometimes this does mean that some individuals have to submit to controls on their lifestyle to make things 'nicer' for everyone else.

For instance, other people enjoy the ownership of guns or a smoke, but they are considered not to be great for everyone else, so these people no matter how responsible they are individually submit to basic controls over their hobbies.

But then when someone suggests perhaps about limiting drinks sold at certain times or the power to remove extremely drunken-acting people off the street at night time, you get complaints of 'nanny state'.

Seems silly - I wouldn't want to run into someone waving a gun at me at night - but i've met drunken yobbos at night and they're quite menacing too. All power to those who can remove them. If people think they are the more responsible, drinking types then they don't have anything to worry about. We're not talking about zapping these people from existence, just getting them out of harm's way so they don't hurt themselves or intimidate or hurt others (or property).

I think a sensible talk about drinking without all the passion connected to it via the 'I've got a right to drink, I'm an Aussie it's what I DO!' parade would be very helpful.

In Case of Fire

2009-05-08T22:06:00.002+10:00

Recently I got a memo at work saying on Thursday 7 May there would be evacuation drill at 8.45am, probably take until at least 9.15am or 9.30am. It was designed so that it would clash least with people's work and court commitments.

I thought, "Hey cool! I can come into work late!"

I bet others were thinking similarly.

Then I got told that I happened to be a Floor Warden.

"huh?"

I'm new at this job, and while I was cleaning up the mess left by the last guy I found a large yellow hard hat on my desk. I thought it some weird fetishist object, until now. Apparently I've been 'handed the hat' which means I'm our level's Floor Warden.

And that meant turning up extra early on Thursday for Warden Training in Case of Fire.

And wearing my Bright Yellow Hat.

(By the way if you're Stair Warden your Hat is Red. I'm not sure whether I can swap.)

So I ended up waking up bright and early, tumbling out of bed to learn all about being a warden and how to wear my hat with pride and how to check for people in case of fire.

Then we did a Drill.

I checked for people, truly I did, but I couldn't find anyone. I wasn't sure if that would mean I'd get a Fail. I even checked the men's bathrooms in desperation, seeing if I could catch a stray.

Later the wardens went to a debriefing and discussed the situation. Most of us hadn't found anyone to evacuate in the drill. Someone had managed to rouse up a cleaner to boss around, but that was about it.

We figured out that the main reason was we set the drill early in the morning BEFORE WORK and we told everyone before hand there would be a drill. Most people don't like being evacuated especially when there isn't a real fire (because then there isn't any thrill of danger) so they stayed at home or went to a brekkie (I noted that I didn't find any people but I did find notes on desks saying 'gone out for coffee, back by 9.30' on desks.

Some buildings use a sound system that says "Evacuate immediately, this is not a drill" to get people out of the building; I say if you want people out of there fast, tell them it IS a drill. A really boring one. They disappear like magic.

Trains don't respect the veterans!

2009-04-24T23:09:00.003+10:00

I bring to you this shocking story.

The Daily Telegraph recently polled several ordinary Australians and asked them whether people should be allowed to trade on ANZAC Day.

"Of course not," was the response of one codger. "People died to save shops on that day! They died so that people would be able to work for our country on that day. We should show our respect for their deaths, show we understand why they made those sacrifices and learnt from history, and sit on our bums on that day!"

"We're celebrating Australian-ness on ANZAC Day, and it's plain un-Australian to go to work and make an honest buck," added another. "We shouldn't forget where we came from."

However, in alarming news, the train and bus services decided to rebel against the butt-sitting rules and will not only be out there pre-dawn ferrying people around, but will revel in - gasp - collecting money for tickets.

Show some respect, will ya, public transport? Taking money tomorrow is just plain wrong. All trains should be sitting around drinking beer and playing two-up in RSLs while people wander around in lots of one-minute sessions of silence, wondering what the heck they're going to do now that everyone shares their attitude. Which they're always whingeing they want, but now that it's happened, somehow it's all wrong.

What footy mascot would you be?

2009-04-22T23:48:00.002+10:00

Recently Mr Coffee and I indulged in one Cronulla Sharks NRL tote bag from Coles, because they were selling them off at 20c a pop. Thing is, we didn't know it was a Cronulla bag until we bought it, we just picked it over the raiders one because we liked the Shark pick, and because the pricing scheme was mega-cool.

However the experience sparked off a conversation - how do Football teams pick their names anyhow, and how do they figure out what animal or whatever they are? Why is it Sydney Roosters and Balmain Tigers and Illawarra Dragons and Adelaide Crows. I haven't quite figured it out.

Given their reputation, I figured out Melbourne Storm fairly easily and I have to say - well-chosen, guys.

Why aren't their any Pigs or Ants or Axolotls or Cockroaches or Hamsters? or maybe there are , I don't know that much about football.

I don't know enough much about Football but I started tossing around names for teams that I thought would be appropriate. Something more interesting than the Brisbane Broncos and the South Sydney Rabbitohs.

How about a bit of alliteration - Wollongong Wombats?

Or some nice word association games:

Darwin Crocodiles?
Darwin's Theories?
Darwin's Beards?

Tasmanian Tigers
Tasmanian Devils
Tasmanian Oysters?

The Sunshine Coast Schoolies?

The Melbourne Trams?

What would you call the footy team in your area?

Psycho cards

2009-04-17T09:27:00.003+10:00

I usually hate psychological testing. I've hated it for job interviews. But just as I was reading this article about how our credit card debt has grown to over $45bn, I was thinking ...

Maybe we should have psychological testing for holding credit cards?

There are too many psychos out there with a walletful of cards mainly because they got duped by the pretty plastic.

(personally I am pissed off that Westpac's Ignite Card is not receiving applications at the moment because the bright red is so darn catchy!)

And then there are those great rewards schemes that you get suckered in to, where you have to save up about ten thousand points to get the tacky plastic cuckoo clock that they've got on their website.

I was standing inline to find out about a card recently and I heard a lady applying for her card. She wasn't earning a whole lot of money - OK, more than me but that is well below the average wage. (Darn I hate to admit that). She was also spending most of that on mortgage repayments each week.

Then she was also paying off a car.

She also had two other cards.

She was also paying off an appliance.

She admitted she didn't have much saved up.

She had middleish expenditures each week (I did some maths and figured that those expenditures would probably have to be on credit if she really did pay off the car and the house properly.)

How the heck does someone like this actually ever pay off a credit card?

What's more, there are certainly other people who are a lot worse - people who have lots more to pay off and then buy smokes and gamble on credit and then think it's kinda amusing that they go into the red. Hahaha.

Maybe that should be a psychological test - here's a mock bank account. It's yours. You have just gone below 0 balance. Are you laughing?

Anyhow, it all frustrates me how we've got so many whackos out there. Makes you ashamed to be a

person thinking about someday holding a credit card.

Little Sayings

2009-04-17T08:43:00.002+10:00

The Daily Telegraph has been running a campaign for "Women's Justice" and has proudly written about some of its accomplishments. I for one am happy to hear of some of them. their campaign has mainly been focused on getting justice for rape victims and how they are treated in court.

This article talks about how they have managed to get a law passed so that rape victims are advised of certain documents before they are subpoenaed so they are able to stop them being subpoenaed if they may contain certain information such as medical orpsychiatric information.

Now, I have nothing against the campaign.

What interests me is how the campaign is run and the article is written - the term "rape victim" is pretty much interchangeable with "female rape victim" - in fact, the whole air of the campaign is outrage at how women are treated, women have a terible time in court, women are raped and brutalised by men and are demeaned by them and they must fight for justice.

I am wondering whetehr the people who fought for this law even paused to consider that men exist out there who have been raped - of course, far fewer male rape victims than female rape victims - and that these people suffer trauma also and also deserve to be treated respectfully, have the same rights, and that people ought to be oputraged by any humiliation suffered by them also?

Instead they are sidelined and treated by the article as if they don't exist.

For someone to say "Oh yes ... they exist but since there are so few of them we decided to write the article only mentioning females but the men will able to access the legal rights too" is pretty insulting - it's demeaning because it says we might give you the legal rights but we really just don't care enough about you to even use inclusive language in our article to recognise you or even imply we recognise you.

I've received extremely over-the-top politically correct pamphlets about discriminatory language before - "don't say 'handicapped', say 'person diagnosed with a disability'! Don't say 'disabled toilet', toilets are not disabled!" (this was a govt pamphlet. I work in a govt building and the toilets are labelled "disabled toilet, female toilet, male toilet" I don't think the toilets have eiither disability or gender, but I think the govt is too tightass to spend money on changing the labels to follow its own strict PC requirements. I'm going to say 'disabled toilet' until they roll out the cash and follow their own rules, not "toilets accommodating people diagnosed with a disability")

however I think that the whole rape victim = female rape victim is much more demeaning and sidelining than saying "disabled toilet". That's a personal assessment, though I really do not know 'objectively'.

"He Grinned" - or, a Review of Blaze of Glory: Laws of Magic series

2009-04-16T16:11:00.003+10:00

I've just read a book called Blaze of Glory, first in a series called "Laws of Magic". It wasn't hyped by anyone to me except ther publishers but I'm afraid I had higher hopes for it than those met - perhaps because it was shortlisted for an award and also because the cover looked halfway cool. OK I'm a sucker for that sort of thing.

It's a fantasy book and apparently it involves political intrigue but I'm sorry if the 'intrigue' thing I have to report is not that intriguing, at least not to me. It's written for teens but hey, I constantly read books for much younger age groups and enjoy them wholeheartedly, this one failed to grab me the way those others did. It wasn't terrible but it wasn't fantastic and I wouldn't exactly go round tooting its horn for fantasy awards.

What I really like in a fantasy book is that the situation, the place, the plot, the characters, preferably the whole lot, are captivating. They don't have to be likable - I read the Engineer Trilogy by K. J. Parker recently and the characters are really dislikable but at least you keep reading, even if only to find out how some of them will meet nasty ends.

In this one, I thought that Aubrey Fitzwilliam, the main character was someone I plain just didn't care for. His sidekick, George, is much more likable and I thought it'd be great if george gave Aubrey the boot for once and all, but apparently that wouldn't be a great idea since it's Aubrey who is the powerful magical one.

Aubrey seemed to me fairly bland, a know-it-all and pretty humourless.

But what really got to me was the fact that Aubrey grins.

What, you say?

I kept reading this book and it seemed that in answer to everything or everytime he was looked at or wanted to express something, the author wrote "Aubrey grinned" or "He grinned". For one thing, Aubrey didn't seem like a character whom you'd be particularly happy to be grinning the whole time - he's self-satisfied and ego-filled as it is. Two, the mood of the book didn't exactly lend itself to grinning all the time. And three, constantly writing this phrase started to grate on me as just an annoying stylistic feature - didn't the writer have anything else to write, did the character have no depth or did the writer just get lazy?

I was waiting for the writer to have a jab at Aubrey and write something about a magical spell that had gone wrong where Aubrey had cast a spell which had left him with a constant fatuous smirk on his face that he couldn't wipe off, a pity since he had such an interest in politics, it would really let him down to be the guy with the smirk, maybe he'd only be Treasurer for ten years and never be Prime Minister.

But, never.

A joke like that might've made me at least smile a bit.

I wish ...

2009-04-16T09:10:00.002+10:00

Apparently the average Australian's wealth slumped by 12% in the last year. That's $25,000 according to this article.

Yikes! I didn't know I had $25,000 to lose. I don't think I do.

I get cross if I drop 10c actually.

Life before Birth

2009-04-16T08:49:00.003+10:00

I need to take the original copy of my birth certificate to work next week when I start my new job (hooray guys! I, in this economic climate of all times, have found a NEW JOB!).

I got my mother to dig it up and she told me she usually didn't allow it out of her filing cabinet.

"Guard it with your life!" she said.

This struck me as somewhat strange. No, I thought, my life is going to come before my birth certificate!

In fact, doesn't most people's?

Review: The Ellie Chronicles

2009-04-13T23:07:00.004+10:00

Just wanted to note: Some time ago I finished all 7 of the "Tomorrow, When the War Began" series.

I recently completed the three of "The Ellie Chronicles", a follow up series.

These three books chronicle how Ellie Linton copes with the aftermath of the war.

She's looking after deaf kid Gavin, trying to look after her farm, there's still bits of war stuff going on and trying to get on with whatever semblance of normal life she can gather.

I read it to find out if it was possible for Marsden to keep up the pace after the 7 of the "Tomorrow" series - and I have to say, he delivers for all 3 books. They are excellent, whether you like them better or not will depend on what you prefer, hard, fast-paced war action or a bit more gritty individual character reflection with action interspersed, which is more of what the Chronicles delivers. More than delivers. I wish I could write like that!

I won't reveal the plot except to say I noted ONE blooper. There's a scene where Ellie says she's watching Grease and she first listens to "Hopelessly Devoted to You" (which reminds her of something) and then "Look at Me I'm Sandra Dee" comes along and she and her friend start dancing around the room like crazy.

For the record, "Look at Me I'm Sandra Dee" is sung before "Hopelessly Devoted to You" in the movie. Rizzo makes fun of Sandy in the first book, then runs off and leaves the gang, then Sandy goes off into the garden and sings "Hopelessly Devoted to You".

It's embarrassing to say I've watched Grease so many times I picked this up without really thinking about it too hard.

I think it's too late to contact Marsden and to get him to correct it ... but just thought I'd point it out ... I guess I'm just an annoying pedant!

How To Cure Your Xenophobia

2009-04-13T22:35:00.003+10:00

I read this article on a blog on the Sydney Morning Herald recently called How To Cure Your Xenophobia.

Apparently the cure for xenophobia is to travel. It doesn't say how far or how wide but the blog implies a bit more than catching the bus to work.

It relieves me to know that the miracle cure for treating a racist is to pop them on an aeroplane or a boat and whiz them around a bit, and perhaps we could instead of sentencing racist rioters and name-callers to community service or gaol time, we could give them luxury cruises or Contiki tour tickets instead. I'm sure that'd be heavily endorsed by the public.

I cannot say statistically whether people who travel more are less racist than those who travel less, and if so whether there there is a causal link between the two. And if one does travel there is a chance to educate oneself through travelling, in a different way from educating oneself through not travelling, though of course one can travel and not be enlightened by travel experiences and one can stay at home and be enlightened by experiences at home that those who travelled didn't get to experience.

However I find it a little 'offensive' - or perhaps the more accurate word would be 'presumptuous' - that some travel-happy types regularly come up to me and seem to think that they are more open-minded, cultured, educated, nicer, compassionate, understanding, open-minded, less-racist people simply because they have travelled and then find out that I haven't travelled much so urge me to do so because then I'll be 'fixed'. Many try to pressure you to go on about taking trips in public, it'll be so good for you, you should go on this one, pressure pressure, pressure, if you haven't done it you aren't complete and embarrass you. Of course I've yet to find one of these people offering to cough up the cash for one. But of course they're getting you to do it so you're a better member of society.

Often without knowing anything much else about me.

To me this displays a great ignorance and arrogance on their own part - it does not even display that

a) they have shown a causal link between travelling and their sublime benefits and if so, whether or not such effects would flow onto myself should I take the same course of action

b) they have investigated whether I show lacking in a particular area

c) and whether I care about that lacking

d) they have investigated why I haven't travelled previously and shown any understanding for my preferences in that regard or my own personal values.

It's all about "I like travelling, it works for me, I think it makes me better - whatever the hell better is, I don't care whether you think it's better, it's better by MY TERMS - and I want you to be like me because I think I'm so bloody marvellous so do what I do - get going - not that I've figured out if this process actually works or not and by the way it's on your money!!!"

Does anyone else find this attitude just a bit obnoxious ... ?

Crash!

2009-04-12T12:09:00.003+10:00

Some time ago someone told me I had a weird sense of humour because I watched the movie 'Crash' just before my Learner's Driver Licence Test. 'Crash' is a movie about people who purposely crash cars and get themselves injured for erotic thrills. Whoohoo!

Well, I've just crashed a car, on Good Friday, and I can say it's no erotic thrill. Not for me. I didn't jump the person next to me and want to make passionate love to her. A possible off-putting factor was that she was my sister. But I don't think I would have been that way inclined if she'd been a gorgeous heterosexual male in no way related to myself either.

Going full tilt towards a brick wall is not that much fun. For some reason What I can remember thinking is:

"Hey there's a brick wall"

"Someone's yelling stop"

"How do you stop again?"

"You press something don't you?"

"What do you press?"

"Something!"

"Help!"

"Umm there's a brick wall!"

Kinda all jumbled up in my head at once. I kinda remembered where the brake was after the brick wall stopped me.

I would like to note that neither my sister nor myself nor any other people were damaged in the process. The brick wall wasn't that damaged but a plant in front of the brick wall noted some definite leaf squashings.

I've been told never to drive again by certain people, and to 'think long and hard about it before I give it a go' by others.

In the meantime ....

I have been nervous, hysterical and shaken and upset and everything else in turns. I experienced a terrible dream on Friday night where I got out of bed and left my bedroom and entered a world where everyone was doing driving tests and exams, theoretical ones. I was told to be quiet for the test. I tried to leave this world but every door I went through, I went into a room where people were doing driving tests. I couldn't escape it. It was downright scary.

Aaaaaaaaaaaargh!

Smack!

2009-04-08T19:57:00.005+10:00

This article on corporal punishment caught my attention today. A man belted his 5 year old daughter several times with a ... well ... belt because she wouldn't tell him where she got a suspicious $2.10 from.

He was fined $1000 and had his daughter taken away from him.

What interests me is the range of opinions on this one.

Some side with the judge, saying that what the father did was barbaric or at least absolutely unacceptable. Some do say that an open-handed smack might have been ok but using a belt was unacceptable. And some reason that if you can't smack an adult then you can't smack a kid.

And people have been hopping mad that Muslim clerics have been recommending that husbands smack wives.

Others have said this is a stupid argument as this is adult-adult, where as an adult smacking a kid is different.

But wherein lies the difference and does it make it more right - or is it just more acceptable because certain societies, like upper class English Boarding schools have been whacking kids for ages, and we want to justify it?

Some people would say the difference is because adults have the responsibility of bringing up the child and therefore should be able to whack the kid and teach them "respect", whereas a husband and wife are equals. On the other hand, an adult and child are also unequals in that an adult is generally stronger and that a child is more vulnerable and more likely to be susceptible to emotional and physical damage and the adult is not only given the responsibility of instilling respect but other moral values and behaviour patterns, and also to protect the child, and this could be an argument to not use violence of any sort against a child.

Of course, the most obvious debate was well perhaps the man did wrong and overreacted or maybe it wasn't that bad ... but on the other hand was the punishment meted out the right one, or more importantly, was it right for the daughter? The guy didn't, from the sounds of the story, seem like he was just bashing the daughter generally, and was separating her from her father the best course of action? It could be more psychologically damaging.

Perhaps it might be better if he were fined more or had to attend some counselling/training classes for effective parenting and put on probation ..... maybe a combination.

But it didn't seem to be the biggest debate.

Some of the most amusing arguments and attitudes to me are these:

THIS GENERATION IS A RUDER/MORE DYSFUNCTIONAL GENERATION THAN MINE THEREFORE THE WAY I WAS BROUGHT UP WAS BEST AND YOU BETTER BELIEVE IT

This attitude is generally but not always purported by people who purport to be 'older' talking of 'younger people today'. Someone usually talking about how they got the strap or lots of homework or had to walk ten miles just to go to the toilet but now you've got all these young nancy-pantsies kids who've got en suites and patterned toilet paper and mobile phones and parents who put them in the naughty corner as their final resort and then they all grow up to be dope pushers and terrorist bombers or worse still, vote Greens. that would never have happened in MY DAY, they grumble. Heck, we didn't HAVE GREENS. Show some RESPECT.

The funny thing about this is I wonder how they have all this stuff worked out, that they are all so great. Did their oldies ever tell them they were dysfunctional or were they always shining stars? And did they ever figure that their grumpiness and all just makes them rude and generally antisocial people who ain't that great? I'm guessing that the crime stats and unemployment records were just as dysfunctional in their generation as in ours. They're just dyspunctional because they can't own up to it. And they didn't notice it so much because they didn't have the Net. They invented port-a-loos instead.

I GOT THE STRAP AND I'M SO WELL ADJUSTED LAW-ABIDING AND A WONDERFUL PERSON WITH NO EMOTIONAL SCARS, NEVER DONE A THING WRONG IN MY LIFE AND I'D BASH MY KIDS TOO TO MAKE THEM LIKE ME SO NATURALLY HITTING YOUR KIDS IS THE RIGHT WAY TO GO

I always wonder at the natural arrogance of some people who write such things, maybe they don't realise how it comes across. I wonder who told them how wonderful they were, anyhow, and whether, while they are writing "There are so many idiots running around who have been spoilt by lazy discipline ... but my mum and dad belted me and I have grown up as a well-adjusted citizen with a good job and respectful ..." that it ever occurs to them whether some people or many people who meet them might think of them as a person whose personality, attitude, manners and behaviour could be greatly improved upon 'had they been brought up differently'.

It's also amusing that these people will go on about how they are so law-abiding and have great respect for the law and authorities while they go on about how they would bash their kids - in flagrant disrespect, it seems, for the authority on law in THIS case - the Judge!

A conundrum.

I suppose one could say they respect its existence or argument but then go out and disobey it or advocate disobeying it anyhow - but then what makes them any different from the other lawbreakers out there - what, because they believe they've given some reasoned thought to it and other people are commoners who don't even think the existence of law is something to respect? That's sorta ... weird.

I think it's more a case of people who say this sort of thing who believe there are certain laws and regulations that matter and those are the ones that they don't break; if you did point out some laws or regulations they did break or believed in breaking they might get all huffy and say those laws weren't important or you were being petty - whether for them it was the fact that you had accidentally gone 1 or 2 km above the speed limit (I've done that, I haven't quite got the knack of that accelerator yet) or jaywalked, or arranged their front yard against council regulations or travelled further on a train than you ought to even if it was just because you fell asleep and you quickly corrected it by getting off at the next station and going back. But strictly speaking it's WRONG.

Anyone who hasn't done anything wrong like that, and has even made it to adulthood ... they're probably lying or living in a cage. Which is probably much worse than a belt.

Review: House of Wax

2009-04-06T13:48:00.003+10:00

I saw House of Wax just the other night.

It wasn't terrible - as far as very C-grade slasher-horrors go, and me not liking those very much. Which is to say it rates pretty lowly on my list but I can confidently say that probably just being in that genre already sticks it in that category.

Some people say that they have a problem with the fact that Paris Hilton was bad at acting in this film. In her defence - well, there wasn't much good acting from anyone else in this film. So she didn't really stand out. She wasn't even the most annoying character (I thought).

One thing I want to know about such films - you are the "goodie" character. There is a big bad villain after you and has already showed it wants to kill you and will stop at nothing. Then there is a scene where the goodies get to kill the villain by doing something like punching him out or putting a bullet through his tummy or an arrow or sword through his stomach or chest. Big bad guy goes down from single blow.

Goodies hug each other, put aside their weapons, spend a whole lot of time chatting or crying with relief and walking slowly away or whatever. In this time you usually see or find that big bad guy isn't really dead just badly wounded, gets up, and manages to become big bad threat all over again.

The end game occurs when the goodies after a big chase end up bashing the lights out of the baddie and making sure he is dead or throwing him in a vat of chemicals or whatever.

What I want to know is:

WHY instead of spending that time hugging each other in relief don't the goodies give the baddie a couple of good extra thwacks to ensure he's really out? They usually have something handy - a chair, the end of a rifle, whatever.

It'd save a heck of a lot of trouble, usually a few houses and lives and a few limbs.

I can understand that sometimes the goodie is too weak or is in a hurry and can't do it but so often you have this dumb storyline where they are too busy standing around checking that their dress is ok and a big bad guy is getting up ready to stab them from behind. REALLY??!!

Also

I have to note I loved this phrase summarising the plot of "House of Wax", found on imdb.com

"An ethically-diverse group of college-aged kids ..."

I'm not sure that it was a typo, you know. "ethically diverse, deprived, challenged"? I don't know what the politically correct term is nowadays.

ABC Driving School: They can jerk you around, but woe betide if you jerk them around!

2009-04-03T14:47:00.003+11:00

I'm learning to drive so I've got lessons to do and I also have some driving lesson vouchers to use up. I had 3 vouchers from ABC driving school to use up before they expired so I booked a lesson for yesterday.

I was to meet the instructor outside Chatswood RTA, not outside my home, as clearly pointed out to the person whom I booked with this wasn't even my home area. So I travelled out there to have a lesson.

11am was lesson time. I waited out there from 10.50am to 11.15am - I was cutting this guy a LOT of slack considering the lesson timeslot was only an hour. Nobody showed or contacted me. Finally I decided to call the school and pointed out he hadn't turned up - my mobile phone call cost, I might add.

They contacted the instructor who called me and apologised - he made a mistake with his timetable and 'forgot me'.

Whoops, but that didn't really help me and wasn't my fault in the least. Furthermore he couldn't make it up that day so he had to make it up the next day.

So I travelled out to Chatswood today and got my lesson. And paid up with one of them vouchers.

I rang the school today to express my disapproval.

(The reason I didn't do so yesterday was because I figured it would cost me a very long mobile call and I didn't get home to a landline til late, and why should I be footing the bill for a mobile call because of their big mistake?)

Instead of totally apologising and admitting that it was plain unprofessional of them to a) get things so mixed up that they forget a customer and b) not to call that customer but instead leave it to that customer to have to call and say 'hello, noone's turned up' before they realise that their instructor is chilling out doing nothing - you'd think they'd do better checks than that

they just went and tried to explain how they crapped up again - as if that made it ok.

The real point, as I said, was this:

They have a late cancellation fee: If you cancel on them within 24 hours before your lesson, you incur a cancellation fee which is 50% of that lesson.

I would think that a company with such a policy should at least consider compensating me or giving me some assurance for what happened last time. I said I was considering booking another lesson (I have two more vouchers to use up). I said I wanted some assurance that this wouldn't happen again - for instance, would there be some sort of compensation should the same thing happen twice?

The woman got nasty on the phone and snapped, "What are you looking for, a free lesson?"

I said I wanted assurance that this would not happen twice.

After all, I was left stranded and no one contacted me. If this happens to customers at all, let's consider that customers could be left confused, they could have rearranged their day to have come to these lessons, could have paid travelling expenses to have got to them and could have given up activities which could have foreseeably have increased their wealth in order to take driving lessons. And what for - to wait for a driving instructor who doesn't show? And what's more - the customer has to take the initiative of calling the driving school to find that the instructor is not merely caught in traffic but is actually not going to turn up at all?

The woman went off to speak to the manager and came back saying I would get no compensation, and she didn't see why I was making a fuss over it because it was all fixed up so nicely for me and so quickly afterwards.

After I notified them and moved their butts on the matter, that is.

I wouldn't have been quite so upset had I got there and ten minutes to the lesson or even ten minutes after 11am the driving school had called me and said they were terribly sorry but some unforeseeable incident had occurred resulting in my not being able to have the lesson. Athough generally I would expect to get a bit more notice unless it were a really big disaster.

The woman said to me that she assured me that it would not happen again, but no compensation.

"So I have your word on it, right? Just your word?" I said. Note she didn't even reveal her name.

"But what if it happens again, any compensation?" I asked.

"No compensation," she replied.

Great, I have her word on it.

I'm not saying these people want to jerk you around, but when they are able to and they don't even put in something that says they assure you they won't (how hard are they really trying then to keep the appointment? How sure is their assurance if they won't bet the price of a lesson on it?) - well that puts a big RED LIGHT that it's a ONE WAY STREET and you should STOP and LOOK VERY HARD at this one.

I'll use up my vouchers with them but I may go driving school shopping later and see if any offer any better deals in this respect. Or maybe they all have this cover-my-butt but don't-care-about-yours attitude.

Review: The Last temptation of Christ

2009-04-01T18:46:00.004+11:00

This (at the moment) rates 7.5 on IMDB which is pretty high for a film and I can only say I'm very glad someone enjoyed the film because I didn't.

Snorefest is what I would rate this one.

I'm not a very religious or Christian person, but that that wasn't what made it boring. I have no problem watching something like Jesus Christ Superstar or even the nativity stories kids put on at school.

My main problem was, this was 164 mins long, it felt longer. It should have been shorter and felt shorter.

Also, I want to know why so often you see a Jesus story and Judas seems just so much more likable than Jesus? Is this just me or is it the actors or directors or what? This was especially so in The Last Temptation of Christ which I felt was more like the Least Tempting of Christ.

Christ wasn't that tempting at all. We start off with Jesus portrayed as a carpenter who seems indecisive, mixed up, weak, whiny and not that inspired. There isn't that much really convincing given why people would really feel inspired and awestruck by this guy. Judas at least looked like a guy who wanted to lead, who inspired direction in others.

The scene with John the Baptist just wasn't that convincing to me - and for that matter, call me a romantic but I always pictured John the baptist as, well, a bit more appealing. Not like a gorgeous young thing or anything but not having that scratchy voice and all.

I guess I also didn't really like the Sermon on the Mount scene. What happened there?

But if anything really disappointed it was Mary Magdalene.

Yes, Mary was a whore or so many people say, but I think most people are supposed to like her. And history and art are strewn with likable or relatable to prostitutes from Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman to Belle Watling in Gone With the Wind. But there wasn't anything really to like or care about Mary here - she didn't look nice or act nice.

Maybe there will be cries of "but that's just how it was, probably" but I think there is more to art than giving you a CCTV image of what things were like - it's about creating something that tells a story, creates emotion, develops character, brings out themes, blah blah. Couldn't really care for Mary that much and I guess I was wanting to and expected to.

I didn't feel that there was a lot to this story, just a string of events but no sense of real drama, story, revelation - ok, that could be because I did drop to sleep during part of it.

Disappointed.