- If a woman says she's upset about X, it's not about X. It dates back to Q and you don't even know what Q is.
- Obey the laws of mixology. If nobody else drinks Gin & Coke™, there's probably a good reason.
- When drinking, remove your cigarette from your mouth first to avoid ruining both your cigarette and drink.
- You can forget things as often as you like as long as you remember it when you actually need to.
- Ibuprofen + codeine painkillers washed down with tequila are your friends.
- It's tricky to drink while dancing in your chair to 80's pop, but not impossible.
- To avoid hangovers, drink enough to wake up still a little bit drunk.
- If you have long hair, tie it back before using a power drill. Seriously.
- When crossing the road, look not only left and right but down, around, and possibly up.
- Have just the right amount of alcohol that won't make you violent but is enough to block out reality.
- I forget.
- An empty glass is nature's way of telling you it's time to check the stuff frying on the stove.
- Ginger Ale makes a nice change of mixer, from Coke™, sometimes.
- Get pissed before you have your Drivers Licence photo taken so if you ever get pulled over drunk, they think you look normal.
- If you would rather that dirty old men such as myself didn't gawp at you, try tucking your genitalia up inside your "shorts."
- Never bullshit a bullshitter.
- Smiley Faces excuse a multitude of rudnesses.
- That thing you can't find and have been looking for everywhere is actually in the first place you looked. Look harder.
- Do not accidentally snort vinegar.
- When in doubt, cook sausages.
- If you ignore dentistry altogether, any problems that arise eventually fix themselves.
Thursday, October 28, 2010
Life Tips
Monday, April 19, 2010
“I’m gonna frappé fuckin’ egg whites!”
I could tell from the sound of him that he had The Look.
Usually it’s hard to tell what they really say, I’m sure he didn’t really scream “frappé” or “egg whites” but it doesn’t matter. I could just tell from the sound of him that he had it, the stare which was both vacant and intense, focussed on a thought you could see would cause him a lifetime of pain and anger. The look of being somewhere else. A scary look, one you try not to get caught observing too closely.
I went to the window, peered out through the curtains, past the locked front gate, and saw a solitary silhouette staggering away up the road towards the pub. I could hear the word “fuck” and its variants a lot, standing out among other words I couldn’t make out as they faded away.
They always pick me when I’m out. The person who might understand them, the person to whom they should explain, or ask to explain to them, something they have now decided is happening. The person who might give them money for a phone call or cigarettes or alcohol, who offers no threat because I’m passive looking, the person who might not judge them badly because I look like a hippy. The person who might be a soft touch because I guess I must look like one.
There are some regulars with The Look that I see almost every day. Until recently I knew none of their names and so I gave them my own, which I would share with friends, who laughed. The Dwarf and Lurch were the most visible. I needn’t bother describing them, the names already do that.
One evening a friend and I were having a beer, alfresco, among a group of empty tables and chairs on the pavement between a pub and a busy intersection. The Dwarf staggered around the corner, spotted me and headed straight in my direction in his own peculiar swerving way. I was, as usual, smoking while gratuitously looking like a non-threatening hippy, so I saw it coming.
“Fuck off Milo!” came a female voice from behind me before he had time to speak. I looked at my friend Nat and knew at once that it hadn’t been her. She was laughing at something behind her. I looked further around and there, stopped at the side of the road was a police car with a young female officer leaning out of the passenger side window. She yelled, again, “Fuck OFF Milo!” as I stared at her, open mouthed and dropped of jaw. So now I know that The Dwarf is called Milo.
He asked me for a light, I gave him one. The lights went green and the police car drove off. Milo weaved away. Nat went inside for another round of beers. I walked three doors down the road and hid the glasses from the last round on my front lawn, came back and resumed my seated position before Nat returned. The perfect crime.
Usually it’s hard to tell what they really say, I’m sure he didn’t really scream “frappé” or “egg whites” but it doesn’t matter. I could just tell from the sound of him that he had it, the stare which was both vacant and intense, focussed on a thought you could see would cause him a lifetime of pain and anger. The look of being somewhere else. A scary look, one you try not to get caught observing too closely.
I went to the window, peered out through the curtains, past the locked front gate, and saw a solitary silhouette staggering away up the road towards the pub. I could hear the word “fuck” and its variants a lot, standing out among other words I couldn’t make out as they faded away.
They always pick me when I’m out. The person who might understand them, the person to whom they should explain, or ask to explain to them, something they have now decided is happening. The person who might give them money for a phone call or cigarettes or alcohol, who offers no threat because I’m passive looking, the person who might not judge them badly because I look like a hippy. The person who might be a soft touch because I guess I must look like one.
There are some regulars with The Look that I see almost every day. Until recently I knew none of their names and so I gave them my own, which I would share with friends, who laughed. The Dwarf and Lurch were the most visible. I needn’t bother describing them, the names already do that.
One evening a friend and I were having a beer, alfresco, among a group of empty tables and chairs on the pavement between a pub and a busy intersection. The Dwarf staggered around the corner, spotted me and headed straight in my direction in his own peculiar swerving way. I was, as usual, smoking while gratuitously looking like a non-threatening hippy, so I saw it coming.
“Fuck off Milo!” came a female voice from behind me before he had time to speak. I looked at my friend Nat and knew at once that it hadn’t been her. She was laughing at something behind her. I looked further around and there, stopped at the side of the road was a police car with a young female officer leaning out of the passenger side window. She yelled, again, “Fuck OFF Milo!” as I stared at her, open mouthed and dropped of jaw. So now I know that The Dwarf is called Milo.
He asked me for a light, I gave him one. The lights went green and the police car drove off. Milo weaved away. Nat went inside for another round of beers. I walked three doors down the road and hid the glasses from the last round on my front lawn, came back and resumed my seated position before Nat returned. The perfect crime.
Friday, December 18, 2009
Internet Filtering
Dear Senator Conroy,
While there are very few people who would complain about action being taken against the availability of child pornography, it seems the vast majority of informed people agree that the proposed internet filter is simply not the way to go about it. To proceed with this action will have very little effect against the obvious primary target, as such material is apparently spread largely though Peer to Peer (P2P) networks and other methods which would be unaffected by the filter.
It is also reported that targets for the filter are to include other material deemed unfit, or "unclassifiable" by the government. I'm afraid that most people, myself included, do not consider censoring material available to the rest of the world to be part of a democratic government role. In fact it would be a disgusting perversion of the that role to start bocking access to anything that it considered unfit without first gaining absolute agreement from the citizens it is elected to serve on what exactly this material should be. And I mean 100% agreement from all citizens.
Nobody is going to publicly support blatant child pornography, so you'd think the blocking of such material would gain this absolute agreement but, as evidenced earlier this year with the outcry against legitimate, artistic photography of children, even this broad heading contains grey areas. It is extremely important, essential even, that the arbitrary judgements of a few do not become entrenched as an absolute ruling on what is and isn't suitable for the entire population.
Governments are elected to run things. Finance, health care, infrastructure, etc. They are not elected as a moral minority bent on promoting ignorance on matters such as euthanasia, drugs, religion or any other topic you may consider yourselves qualified to decide upon. Nor should it be governments' role to act upon such judgements by restricting access to any side of any debate. No government, or minority group of any kind, is qualified to make such decisions except in the most obvious cases which everyone agrees on. And let's face it, there are very few things that everyone agrees on, if any.
There are also the widely argued points of the slowing down of the internet which this filter would cause, and other technical aspects which I freely admit I am not qualified to argue about. The problem is, however, that neither are you. Testing of the system has been limited and the promised public consultation process has been limited to a few details which do not include the central issue of whether or not to even have a filter at all. This is unacceptable and I remind you that this is a democracy. You are our elected govenrment, not our nanny.
Yours sincerely,
Derek Armsden
While there are very few people who would complain about action being taken against the availability of child pornography, it seems the vast majority of informed people agree that the proposed internet filter is simply not the way to go about it. To proceed with this action will have very little effect against the obvious primary target, as such material is apparently spread largely though Peer to Peer (P2P) networks and other methods which would be unaffected by the filter.
It is also reported that targets for the filter are to include other material deemed unfit, or "unclassifiable" by the government. I'm afraid that most people, myself included, do not consider censoring material available to the rest of the world to be part of a democratic government role. In fact it would be a disgusting perversion of the that role to start bocking access to anything that it considered unfit without first gaining absolute agreement from the citizens it is elected to serve on what exactly this material should be. And I mean 100% agreement from all citizens.
Nobody is going to publicly support blatant child pornography, so you'd think the blocking of such material would gain this absolute agreement but, as evidenced earlier this year with the outcry against legitimate, artistic photography of children, even this broad heading contains grey areas. It is extremely important, essential even, that the arbitrary judgements of a few do not become entrenched as an absolute ruling on what is and isn't suitable for the entire population.
Governments are elected to run things. Finance, health care, infrastructure, etc. They are not elected as a moral minority bent on promoting ignorance on matters such as euthanasia, drugs, religion or any other topic you may consider yourselves qualified to decide upon. Nor should it be governments' role to act upon such judgements by restricting access to any side of any debate. No government, or minority group of any kind, is qualified to make such decisions except in the most obvious cases which everyone agrees on. And let's face it, there are very few things that everyone agrees on, if any.
There are also the widely argued points of the slowing down of the internet which this filter would cause, and other technical aspects which I freely admit I am not qualified to argue about. The problem is, however, that neither are you. Testing of the system has been limited and the promised public consultation process has been limited to a few details which do not include the central issue of whether or not to even have a filter at all. This is unacceptable and I remind you that this is a democracy. You are our elected govenrment, not our nanny.
Yours sincerely,
Derek Armsden
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Mr & Mrs Bogan do a backflip
So far this year, from January to October, we have averaged 33.34mm of rain per month. The long term average for this period is 39.48mm per month. That's 84.4% of average and, given the nature of the word 'average', that isn't such a huge discrepancy. Not enough to continue to warrant the label 'drought'. Last year, over the same period we only had 24.74mm average per month, only 62% of the long term average. So that was a drought. The drought is over and has been since March when we came within a few buckets of the average, and we've been nearly at, or even comfortably above, average rainfall levels almost every month since.
I mention all of this because I'm sick of hearing the word drought bandied about as an excuse for water restrictions, which I'm also sick of. In fact, I'm not only sick of water restrictions, I'm angry about them. It's not that I care about watering my garden, I rarely bothered even before I wasn't allowed. It's not about cleaning my car either, who cares about that? It's simply that I always get angry about stupidity, and deliberate and misleading stupidity by people in authority makes me want to start growing a rain-forest in my garden just to be conspicuous in my displeasure.
We can't use sprinklers, we can only use hoses in certain hours on certain days, we can't wash cars... we can't 'waste' water. It seems fair enough until you bother to look at the statistics and discover that domestic use accounts for only 9% of total water usage. Less than 1 tenth. If every household in the state obeyed every restriction there might be, oh, let's be generous and say a 25% saving, which would mean a whopping 2.25% saving to the total usage for South Australia. In other words, not enough to have any effect. At all.
Read any of the reader's response columns on the news sites and you'll notice what I think is An Interesting Thing. When the restrictions were put in place the overwhelming response was anger at the inconvenience. As the 'drought' went on and more restrictions were placed upon us some people still grumbled, but they were increasingly met with hostility from those who were doing as they'd been told. An almost vigilante mentality crept in against those who were seen to flout the regulations, or even simply complain about them.
This week there was an announcement that some of the restrictions are being lifted and the dominant reaction to this was, again, anger. Anger at the Government for letting us use more water!
This represents a complete 180° turnaround in the attitudes of Mr. & Mrs. Bogan. So brainwashed have they become that, instead of feeling pleased at being thrown a small morsel of fruit from the whole tree they used to own outright, they are now convinced that using water for things like gardens is frivolous and should never be allowed, no matter how much water is available. It's absurd. The reasoning seems to be that they are now being robbed of their right to feel superior to those who ignored the restrictions all along.
They've not been given more water, they've had their moral supremacy kicked out from under them.
I mention all of this because I'm sick of hearing the word drought bandied about as an excuse for water restrictions, which I'm also sick of. In fact, I'm not only sick of water restrictions, I'm angry about them. It's not that I care about watering my garden, I rarely bothered even before I wasn't allowed. It's not about cleaning my car either, who cares about that? It's simply that I always get angry about stupidity, and deliberate and misleading stupidity by people in authority makes me want to start growing a rain-forest in my garden just to be conspicuous in my displeasure.
We can't use sprinklers, we can only use hoses in certain hours on certain days, we can't wash cars... we can't 'waste' water. It seems fair enough until you bother to look at the statistics and discover that domestic use accounts for only 9% of total water usage. Less than 1 tenth. If every household in the state obeyed every restriction there might be, oh, let's be generous and say a 25% saving, which would mean a whopping 2.25% saving to the total usage for South Australia. In other words, not enough to have any effect. At all.
Read any of the reader's response columns on the news sites and you'll notice what I think is An Interesting Thing. When the restrictions were put in place the overwhelming response was anger at the inconvenience. As the 'drought' went on and more restrictions were placed upon us some people still grumbled, but they were increasingly met with hostility from those who were doing as they'd been told. An almost vigilante mentality crept in against those who were seen to flout the regulations, or even simply complain about them.
This week there was an announcement that some of the restrictions are being lifted and the dominant reaction to this was, again, anger. Anger at the Government for letting us use more water!
This represents a complete 180° turnaround in the attitudes of Mr. & Mrs. Bogan. So brainwashed have they become that, instead of feeling pleased at being thrown a small morsel of fruit from the whole tree they used to own outright, they are now convinced that using water for things like gardens is frivolous and should never be allowed, no matter how much water is available. It's absurd. The reasoning seems to be that they are now being robbed of their right to feel superior to those who ignored the restrictions all along.
They've not been given more water, they've had their moral supremacy kicked out from under them.
Friday, October 09, 2009
NASA ready to 'bomb' moon in water search
SCIENTISTS at NASA will tonight discover whether their unorthodox approach to discovering if there is water on the moon will pay off.
The space agency will slam a satellite into the moon and study the resulting debris to see whether there is water near the surface.
The spacecraft will hurtle towards the moon at roughly 9012km/h, with a second satellite following it to record data from the ensuing celestial dust cloud.
Full Story
This is pathetic. America gets its nose put out of joint because someone else claims to have discovered something that, for reasons I don't understand, is considered to be important. To save face, they throw millions of dollars at it to be able to claim ownwership of this discovery. It's pointless. Who cares? Speaking of ownership, who or what gives them, or anyone, the right to go around shooting projectiles into the surface of something that they don't own? It's not their moon, why should they be allowed to go around vandalising things that don't belong to them? Annoying bloody Americans.
Friday, September 11, 2009
Call to end free news
Article from: The Advertiser
Full Article
Grumpy's Comment:
I expect we'll see a lot more of these 'stories' on Rupert's media outlets as they prime us for the concept of paid access to their sites. Sure, today they're only saying other news sites should be paying but they have already expressed a desire to make their news sites paid subscription based to the public as well.
However, if Google etc. are to be accused of breaking into their homes and taking the contents, surely providing RSS feeds amounts to leaving the key in the front door under a sign that says "come in and take our stuff". I know aggregators don't need RSS feeds but if you've already left the front door open, obviously it's no big deal if people come in through the windows as well.
Also, if this site and its sisters are to claim property rights over their contents, they should likewise be paying YouTube, Twitter, etc. for the huge amount of content gleaned freely from those sources. There are plenty of much better sources of news than this groups sites. In fact, almost every other news site has better content than this one.
I only come here for a laugh at the stupid stories anyway so I can do a Grumpy rant about them!
DREW CRATCHLEYSeptember 11, 2009 12:01am
THE "misappropriation" of online newspaper content by rival media companies and internet search engine providers is the major challenge facing print media.
APN News & Media chief executive Brendan Hopkins also yesterday joined global media giant News Corporation – publisher of The Advertiser – in saying publishers should charge for access to online articles generated by newspapers.
Mr Hopkins said charging for online content would not be controversial if publishers offered high-quality unique content...
Mr Hopkins singled out search engines for particular criticism, saying their business models had been key in promoting the notion that journalism content was "free".
"To use an analogy, I see search engines as breaking into our homes, itemising the contents, walking out and listing everything for everyone to see. And they get money out of that process," he said.
"The only problem is, I don't see any revenue being paid directly from Google, Yahoo! or Microsoft in our company profit-and-loss accounts."
Full Article
Grumpy's Comment:
I expect we'll see a lot more of these 'stories' on Rupert's media outlets as they prime us for the concept of paid access to their sites. Sure, today they're only saying other news sites should be paying but they have already expressed a desire to make their news sites paid subscription based to the public as well.
However, if Google etc. are to be accused of breaking into their homes and taking the contents, surely providing RSS feeds amounts to leaving the key in the front door under a sign that says "come in and take our stuff". I know aggregators don't need RSS feeds but if you've already left the front door open, obviously it's no big deal if people come in through the windows as well.
Also, if this site and its sisters are to claim property rights over their contents, they should likewise be paying YouTube, Twitter, etc. for the huge amount of content gleaned freely from those sources. There are plenty of much better sources of news than this groups sites. In fact, almost every other news site has better content than this one.
I only come here for a laugh at the stupid stories anyway so I can do a Grumpy rant about them!
Saturday, August 29, 2009
Kidnapped Californian girl kept as a sex slave for 18 years
A CONVICTED rapist accused of kidnapping a girl and keeping her hidden in his backyard for 18 years has told US media he's turned his life around, and has pleaded for people to hear his "most powerful, heart-warming story"...
In an interview with local TV station KCRA 3, Garrido asked people to wait for his side of the story about what happened in the house.
"You are going to be completely impressed," he said.
"It's a disgusting thing that took place with me at the beginning. But I turned my life completely around and to be able to understand that, you have to start there."
People close to Garrido, who owns a business called God's Desire, said he became increasingly fanatical about religion, bursting into song on random occasions and claiming God spoke to him through a box.
"What's kept me busy the last several years is I've completely turned my life around," Garrido said.
"And you're going to find the most powerful story coming from the witness, the victim - you wait. If you take this a step at a time, you're going to fall over backwards and in the end, you're going to find the most powerful heart-warming story."
Full Story
If someone claims that "God spoke to him through a box", religion is undeniably a part of the story, although this is most likely a case of an insane person latching on to religion as part of his delusion. From what is quoted of his TV interview, "you're going to find the most powerful heart-warming story", he's probably a born-again Christian with a story to tell about Jesus becoming his personal saviour. If this led to the victim being freed, this might just be one of the very few examples of religion leading to a positive outcome. Do not, however, interpret this as me supporting religion, this story actually illustrates the sort of person who gets sucked in by it - unstable nutjobs.
Saturday, August 08, 2009
Secret Gardens 3
Photographed by holding my phone camera at arms length to peek over peoples anoyingly high fences.
Friday, July 31, 2009
Organic food - fad or phenomenon?
"THE organics industry has been dealt a hefty blow by the United Kingdom's Food Standards Agency's declaration that organic food is no healthier than ordinary food.The ruling follows the world's largest study into the subject.It also backs up the view of other bodies, including the British Nutrition Foundation and numerous Australian organisations, that organic products are no better for us than other foods."Full Article
What everyone seems to have failed to mention is the one factor that I, and many others, find to be the most important in our choice of produce. It's not about nutrition or health at all. It's about FLAVOUR! When was the last time you ate a cheap supermarket tomato that actually tasted of anything? I couldn't care less about the nutritional value of the slices of bacon and the egg that I put in a sandwich, I just want the result to taste great - and that's not going to be the case if I choose the vacuum sealed cheap bacon in slime from the racks and the cage eggs. I buy organic or free-range for items that have to stand up and be tasted, because where's the pleasure in eating textureless pale rubbish that tastes of nothing?
Saturday, July 25, 2009
Secret Gardens 2
Yes I do realise that this could constitute a gross invasion of privacy, but it's fun!If, by some random and very unlikely sequence of events, you happen to see your own Secret Garden posted here and would like me to remove it, just say so and I will.
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