Sunday, July 31, 2005

Torn between two authors...

I prefer to model my writing style on that of the late great Douglas Adams of whom I shall be in eternal awe. But for sheer audacity, RB is it. Think of a cross between Ali G and Einstein and you're getting the idea. Now throw in a bit of de Bono, Ford (Henry, not Gerald) and a dash of Jim Henson and you'll either hit the nail on the head or lose the plot entirely. For those who don't understand, my only advice is to drop your pants so the air can make it to your brains.

Anyway, before I was distracted from what I was doing by the sudden appearance of a Gripe, I was myself cruising blogs and the punters haven't let me down. If I often appear to be unjustifiably distemperate, it's because I have been deprived of the life-sustaining enthusiasm of people who think. It doesn't really matter to me over what people cogitate, it only matters to me they don't behave like sheep.

The following bits for which I cruised blogland earlier today are amusing to me for various reasons but above all because of their raw simplicity - like a fat bratwurst baguette and some piquant sauce or other.

So, for those times when risotto and bruschetta just doesn't do it for you, here's the full-fat version of life:

i am in a strange mood. if i try to demean your personal beliefs or opinons dont be angry i just feel like making people doubt themselves. nothing personal
(Neither is murder, it's just a family thing usually.)

Partying and reading.
Lately I've been feeling much more than indifferent towards life, which is always a good thing. Thursday night was the OAR concert. The opening acts were both awesome. Even though they only played one song I knew, I really enjoyed OAR's set. It was just great to dance and observe the drunk people.
(Only when they fall down and can't get up again.)

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
Okay, I was gonna edit my last post to add this, but it's so awesome it deserves its own entry:

WE DON'T HAVE TO TUCK IN OUR SHIRTS THIS YEAR!
(It is, after all, the little things that matter in this life.)

I hate it here. I have nothing to do and no one to talk to. Josh didn't even want to talk to me tonight. I think that the relationship is over. Im sick of the pretending. Everything is not going to be ok. It sucks and its going to continue to suck. Sure I met a guy that seems nice, his name is Kevin, but I'm sure in three weeks or so the fact that he is a guy will prevail and show that he is just another asshole. Im sick of all the people who keep telling me that I made the "right" choice. Fuck off, I'm miserable and nothings going to change that. I guess the only thing good about being here is that my dad used to be a bartender and has a copious amount of alcohol. I've gotten trashed every night since I moved here. I have a feeling that by the time I move again there won't be any alcohol left in the house. HAHA, I will prolly be going to AA meetings by then too. I hate this place.
(But she'd be determined to hate Paradise too, it would seem. Motto for the day: If it feels good, fuck it up.)

Shit I think I'm out of milk
(Now the whole world knows.)

got this shit called neutrogena oil free acne wash...i think its actually killing my face instead of helping it.
(I would have told you that if you'd taken the time to ask. Go on, ask me what I think of Herbal Essences.)

HAHAHA
(14:34:41) Larkaen: I met the lead singer of creed last night at denny's
(14:34:50) ibhamp: really?
(14:34:53) Larkaen: Yep
(14:35:04) ibhamp: did you tip him well
(This was just too good not to pinch.)

Here is the update, I went camping with Nick, Andy, Alie, Finch, Kurt, Mer, Liz, Brandi, Laraesha and Trevor and it was awesome! First day we went to Michigan Adventures where we all had a pretty good time except for Andy and Laraesha during the rides because they have a slight fear of rollercoaster but i expect you may too if you fell off of a house.
(Fell off a house... good point. Have to remind myself not to do that in future.)

*****************************************

A quarter for the therapy jar -
I finally figured out why mom and I didn't get along while me growing up. Aside from the fact that you can't have two alpha females in the house and not butt heads all the time. It's because she doesn't talk to me.

Oh, there's the appearance of talking, but it's not really there. It's like going to the dentist where they babble at you and ask you lots of questions, but they don't really want you answer because they've got their fingers in your mouth along with something sharp and pointy.
(This gets the prize for stating the obvious and using the words sharp and pointy in the same sentence.)

****************************************

(haha, I am a posting fiend tonight!! You will suffer through a months worth of backlogged babble! Be afraid!!)
so i went downtown with my annoying aunt who doesnt let her daughter live, and my cousin who asks so many unnecessary questions...it was bland.
(Bland? Bland is rice pudding not annoying aunts.)

did i ever say how much i love my wonderful boyfriend?
(Probably. Did I ever tell you you'll change your tune one day?)

Dear Saritonin Receptors:

Please hold on a little tighter.

Yours, as ever,
Am
(I wonder if they got the message considering the address was incorrect.)

Nothing's like it used to be
I'm back. I'm tired. My throat hurts from talking too much. Had a grand old time at Venita's BBQ. She nearly got killed, but that was the entertainment.
(I'm sure she's killing herself even now.)

I would love to party with some of these people. I'll even bring my own milk.

We have leftovers from last night's reception filling the fridge here. Lots of slices of roast beef. I'm thinking of heating it up, splashing it liberally with gravy and adorning the empty parts of the plate with lovely roast vegetables. It's as close as I'm going to come to bratwurst in a bread roll, although we have quite a few of those here as well.

David Bowie is presently robbing me of my power to think very clearly. There's a starman waiting in the sky and he's making it less than easy to think about German sausages or anything else for that matter.

I'm thinking more of the Discovery team and hoping for all I'm worth they make it back alive and healthy. I don't much care for tragedies. No doubt I'll have something else I'll wish to blog later tonight. I still can't update the Batcave sight, although at least now it's visible. I'd pay for hosting but that just seems silly when I get what I want and someone else is happy to pay for it. When I want more than my present service provides, then I'll start paying for hosting. Simple.
So then, done for now. More later.
Phew. Got all that html stuff out the way for the chap in Florida. Finished it at about 6 in the morning, then I slept until lunchtime. So what. It's Saturday.

Bit annoyed about the wedding reception my dad put on at his place. I was given to understand it was last weekend but it turned out to be today. James was asked to help out with the spit roast, nobody was else from this household was even told about it. Last time dad's friends put on a reception, I was invited to help out with serving the drinks and meals and they offered me $50 for the night. (This was 20 years ago and $50 was huge back then.) Anyway, they were so impressed with me, they gave me $100.

This time, I don't even get an invitatation to help out, not a word one way or the other. I think I know why though. James sat opposite dad's new g/f when he intro'd her to the family and he had no choice but be nice to her. I didn't and it must have been pretty clear from the outset that the new g/f and me were of like mind, but at opposite ends of the reality spectrum. Unless I'm listening to her talking about her native country as she was growing up, there just isn't going to be common ground for conversation. Dad seems to be avoiding us now anyway. Haven't heard boo from him for 2 weeks since I rang him asking if he was coming up.

Anyway, now that I've finished what I set out to do with that html stuff, I have time to turn my own attention to the stuff I wanted to do before I got sidetracked. Those lovely people at Batcave finally got my bit of e-space back up and running, even though as of two days ago I still couldn't log in to update it. So much for a weekend worth of upgrading everything, I've been out of the smoke for a whole week. Probably a good thing, but the trouble is when you get an idea you want to put somewhere specific and circumstances prevent that, it's a bitch trying to resurrect the idea when it's all fixed again. The idea goes cold in the interim. The other thing I've got cooking is another project which looks like it might have to be one of those efforts best tackled a bit at a time but on a very regular basis rather than getting around to it when I feel like it.

I told you about it all the other day and the good thing about bloggery is it's all on sort of permanent record - unless I decide to cheat, which sort of defeats the purpose of blogging.

It's just a shame an idea occurred to me earlier tonight but I wasn't near enough to the machine to add it to the draft currently in existence and I had another of those "Oh God, where's my pen?" moments. I have more than thirty notepads lying around all over my house because if I can't get to the puter to capture the moment, I write it down. A notepad costs about 40 cents and mine are just littered with some of the most fantastic little snippets capturing whatever thought I had when I wrote them, and today I spent 20 minutes slapping my pockets looking for a damn pad or a pen and I was bereft. I felt so naked and vulnerable, like a thief had just made off with my pants. People who don't have a writing bug have no idea what those who do are apt to experience - and at the worst possible times.

Why do I have all these notepads lying around the house? Because I always forget to put at least one in the car or one in my pocket or backpack and that means buying another one. I'd feel sorry for the trees but I don't do that sort of thing. Well, not often anyway.

Don't buy yourself a cocker spaniel. My cocker spaniel is obsessed with food, even by cocker spaniel standards. He sits there and stares expecting food every waking moment of his life. He's not fat but if he had his way, he'd be a hairy balloon. He sits and shakes when he believes it's time for him to have a feed. Then he starts barking until he gets what he wants. He's a furry telemarketer without the telephone, always getting exhuberant at dinner time and not giving up until everyone's gone to bed. Then he spends 20 minutes sniffing the floor and jumping up wherever there may be a single molecule of something edible. He has been staring me out non-stop for the last 3 hours and I'm ready to shove the little bastard in the oven.

Jump on the machine and blurt because I happen to be in the mood to do so and spend the next however long in pitched psychological battle with the bloody dog. If you're really really lucky, all those thoughts I was having before this series of eerily predictable events robbed me of the urge to write will deposit themselves back into my cerebrum somewhere and I'll get to enjoy them all tomorrow. You just get to read them.

(Time to compose this entry: 84mins.)

Friday, July 29, 2005

I've had a marvellous day today.

I have this bit of hair at the front of my head that hangs down to my chin whilst the rest of my hair is typically male, ie short. I've been reading Rageboy's blog and getting ideas of my own. Now I know he cruises blogs so I have to say this right up front, mine's typical of me, not researched at all and therefore not remotely informative, probably not terribly consistent, and is not supposed to be an observation of any of the latest pop-cultural icons. Mine's an ego piece rooted in nothing but absurdity. It's not even supposed to be a parody but for the moment, it's just some wordage without all the lovely bits and pieces which combine to make any sort of saleable effort.

Knowing me, it'll probably remain unfinished for three more years before I decide to get dedicated to it and then self publish as I did with The Swamp.

But what, I hear you ask, has this got to do with a bit of hair that hangs down from the front of my head?

Well aren't you glad I asked myself that very question on your behalf.

Whilst I've been writing that, downloading the last of the pics from the Summer Trip and turning them into html files, I've had the headphones on and I've been listening to my favourite music all day and now it's half past one in the morning and I have the same three tracks on repeat and that, gentle readers, is why I'm such a wonderfully good mood. That bit of hair that hangs down over my face has just about been shaken out of my head because I'm just so getting into the music. It's like being a hippy without being dirty.

The three tracks being repeated, courtesy of Windows Media Player are "Going Home" by Mark Knopfler, "Amazing" by Alex Lloyd (He's an Aussie, btw) and "Run" by Collective Soul.

I also read a couple blogs of the kids and I count myself as luckier than you no matter what trifiling good fortune you think you may have had since the weekend. And to top all that off, there was a truly eye-opening episode of Catalyst on the ABC tonight:

Teen Brain - July 28
With a spate of teen bashings, teen road death, and plain incomprehensible teen behaviour, many people are wondering about teenagers today. Why are they so impulsive…so thoughtless…so stupid? Scientists used to blame the hormones – while society blamed the parents. But stunning new research is overturning everything we understood about how teenagers think. Surprising discoveries are not only unravelling the mysteries of teen behaviour, they are posing a challenging question for society – if the brain doesn’t mature until the age of 25, at what age should we consider someone a morally culpable adult? This week on Catalyst we pit teen son against Dad in the brain scan machine, visit a juvenile jail, and meet a few teenagers who’ve done some really stupid things – as we go inside the adolescent brain.

Click the title for a full transcript of the story. You'll be surprised - and I shall be ever so much more vindicated all over again. If there were any doubt before about why I'm so fiery about teenagers, experience what I saw tonight and maybe if you disliked teens before, you might think of changing your tune. Looking back over the years, some of my best rants have been about the lack of consideration for this inspirational age group. Anyway, I could go on and on, but I'll refrain for now. Go away and do something considerate for a change.

(Time to compose this entry: 18 mins)

Thursday, July 28, 2005

I missed yesterday, sorry about that.

I'll let you in on a little secret. Somebody out there, somebody I've never met before, never spoken with, exchanged fewer than a dozen emails with entrusted me with the keys to his server.

Fancy that. There is practically no limit to the amount of damage I could cause were I so inclined, but far from that, all I've done so far is look for the best place to deposit the files it is expected of me to place and done just that. Thank the powers my machine doesn't have any viral type crud that shouldn't be there, no spyware, adware, malware - none of it. I would jump off something unnaturally high if it turned out I'd accidentally buggered this guy's machine.

I'm telling you this because on one hand it's nice to be trusted, but on the other hand, IT'S BETTER TO BE WORTHY OF IT.

Someone handed me a $400 fee for some writing I did for them last week. Then I find their boss issued me a request for another invoice for the same bit of writing. Hmm... $800 for what turned out to be about 10 minutes worth of carefully constructed article. That's a pretty attractive hourly rate for an amateur - $4,800 per hour. Could you imagine the tax on that?

However, I adhere to the practice of being a bastard, not a lying toerag. They'd have worked it out eventually and although I would be happy to treat it as a joke, unfortunately business doesn't operate that way. I presented in person and advised the manager this invoice has already been paid and as much as I would like to have the extra $400, it might be a tad unseemly to take it. I was thanked for personally bringing this to his attention and I watched, albeit somewhat ruefully, as the duplicated thing was binned. I could have rung them up, kept the request then sent them another invoice in a few weeks and I doubt anyone would have noticed until June next year, but it's me that stares back from the mirror and I'd rather know I'm as pure as the driven snow than constantly be wondering when the knock at the door won't be neighbours or salespeople.

Which reminds me, I handed in my model handguns about 15 years ago because I just didn't want them anymore. I handed them in at a police station because they were authentic replicas and would fool anyone. 10 years ago, they outlawed them anyway and the cops came around to ask me to hand them over. Duh. I cheerfully showed them from one end of the house to the other inviting them look wherever they would, in the garage and my car. These chaps were from the large station at Moorabbin, I'd handed my guns in at Cheltenham - a minor station by comparison and apparently the paper work got lost. Makes one wonder what else goes astray from time to time.

I get along well with cops, don't know why. If they knew about The Swamp, they'd probably shoot me on sight. lol.

(Time to compose this edition: 21 mins)

Monday, July 25, 2005

And I feel more vindicated than I have in such a long time right now.

See that entry I made a couple of blurts ago? The one telling you what I think of the younger generation (though not so of the generation younger than that, I might add. - Not as much anyway) and why?

Well I'm just here to tell you the exchanges I've had this weekend subsequent to my telling everyone over the age 35, who is dead from the neck up, that once again I am right and I have more than ample proof.

Moreover this isn't a pecking contest and I take no joy from this vindication except that which vindication naturally brings. Believe me, I don't enjoy the fact 95% of you have your heads in unsavoury places. I may not be the greatest, but you people aren't even in the fight.

I'd copy and paste what has proved the highlight of my day today, but out of the immense amount of respect I have gained for the author, I'm going to ask permission first.

Oh if only all of you knew the things that I know...

Sunday, July 24, 2005

I just realised what an intellectual snob I can be.

It all came to me in a rush as I hit my head on the bathroom floor about 20 minutes ago.

Don't look so surprised. After drying my hair off, I straightened up so I could look in the mirror to brush it (my hair, not the mirror) and the sudden loss of blood pressure made me fall down and I hit my head on the floor. It happens sometimes and yes, I've stopped taking those stinking things the doctors keep encouraging me to take in order to prevent this sort of thing from happening. Doctors just have no sense of fun and adventure.

Anyway, it occurred to me how irritating it is when I see morons using words the meanings of which they are either more than likely completely oblivious or it's a nice word they've found in some lexicon somewhere and they've adopted it as their intellectual trump card.

Those in the know, those with half a brain don't give a toss about that sort of thing. True intellectual giants don't rely on keywords or phrases to win a put-down scrap, we have methodologies for dealing with upstarts and they are way more effective.

I saw a wonderful line in a blog this afternoon, "You don't have to remind me how inferior my people are, I already feel bad enough being one." Now that is the mark of a superior person. Made me laugh too.

Then I saw another one which amused me mightily because the author was using that class of word normally reserved for the extraordinarily enverbiaged articulator - but mis-spelling them. It was done so often it had to be deliberate because they were perfectly placed otherwise. And that highlights the difference between those who are actually smart and those irritating prolls who merely drop a fancy word here and there and do so inconsistently and generally at odds with the rest of what they're saying.

Dolts.

Amazing, isn't it, the things you can think as you pass out momentarily after a shower.

Christ, my head hurts now.

(Time to compose this entry: 16mins)

Saturday, July 23, 2005

I'm on the biggest feel upbeat binge at the moment.

The one woman on this planet I respect more than any other was really cool when I ran an idea past her via email. It's not a big thing but to me it's pretty important.

Why are there so many suicidal teenagers out there? I really believe it's all down to piss-poor schooling strategies. You don't drum info into people and get them to parrot it back, it's absurd. And what's more, the info being pumped in is useless to them, pointless to them, meaningless to them and it's shoved into them under duress. Do this or else.

Piss off.

What I want to learn, I'll learn for myself. It'll be faster, easier and a billion times more effective.

Anyway, the point is how to reach out to these kids and turn on a light somewhere? Not make wholesale changes, not throw money at anything, not make false promises or bullshit programs, no counselling - I hate counselling with dire passion anyway - but talk. Scanning blogs, the biggest complaint is "Nobody understands me."

What in God's name is up with that??? I was a teenager once, I know what the issues are, what's on their minds because I remember none too fondly what I went through when I was a teenager. It's not a fun time, it's fucking horrible.

You're expected to be the best at everything you do - or at least up there, you're expected to go chasing after sex as soon as the first person in your age group gets urges at 13 or so, you're supposed to get stuck into alcohol - even though it all tastes like total shit until you get used to it and then you have to like the right KIND of booze. I hate beer and always have. Anything else is supposed to be a chick's drink. Piss off. I like having a once a year binge, maybe twice depending on circumstances, and I love a quiet Cointreau on ice every now and then. That doesn't make me an alcy but it also means I don't 'fit in'. Tough.

I have to like the right kind of music. Pig's arse to that, I like 80s and a certain kind of music and nothing anyone says is going to change the sort of music I like. I'm not supposed to like ANY boyband music. Well the Beatles were the first boyband but that little fact gets ignored. I don't like much boyband music, but when a song comes along that I like, I don't care what anyone says, I'm going to listen to it whether it's Aerosmith, Van Halen or Savage Garden. Tough shit if anyone objects.

And these are the sorts of pressures our teenagers face day after day after day. On top of the requirement to wear cool clothes. I knew a kid who never wore anything the other kids were wearing and Nick was one helluva switched on cool kid. Nothing phased him, he was a smart, polite, neat, clean and brilliant kid. He had his own style and everyone around him just accepted that he was the same but liked the same stuff they all liked but in his own way. That's how he was the first time I met him and that's how he was the last time I ever saw him.

How tough is it to fight down that sort of peer pressure? It's damn tough. If you don't fit in, you get bashed and mocked - not teased, I mean humiliated. That's what our teenagers are facing day after day. They're arming themselves against other teenagers because one crew skates and the others don't, or wears the wrong brand of shoes... You name it, this is what our teenagers face day after day after day. Would any of you adults care to function in a warzone without complaining, without training for it, without any help from anyone you thought you could trust?

I didn't think so.

And you know what? It's all down to the way kids are schooled. School is set up to be competitive. They're hell bent on putting a quantifiable, identifiable and permanent label on how much a kid knows and they do it over and over again to reinforce a kid's place in the hierarchy. How much did you get for your English test? I got 85%, I got 63%. "You're an idiot!"

No, I'm not a laboratory rat that goes down the tunnel and gets the cheese to prove a point. I do things my way and the teachers don't like it, they are confounded by it and so I don't get the magical cheese.

If it weren't for the fact the rest of society looks for those champion cheese getters because that's the only proof they have a person is worth hiring, this world would be shaped by those who don't follow the prescription. I don't need to rattle off examples here, you can do your own research into the histories of some of the 20th century's most influential and amazing individuals to see who the lab rats were and who were the mavericks and the avant gardists.

Teenagers know what they want. What they don't know is how to get it. My point is that if decent people ESPECIALLY their parents don't help them to achieve what they want to achieve, the possibilities are not good. The teenager could place their trust in the least possible trustworthy person who bobs up and says "I'll get it for you", they could tear away altogether and damage that all important foundational relationship with the family or they could land in blogland telling the entire planet they cut themselves to ribbons because it bleeds a lot and feels nice and they want to die anyway.

Enough is fucking enough!

Teenagers are so vital to everything. It's well time those people who call themselves responsible adults looked around to see what sort of a difference they can make in maybe just one teenager's life. One each! What's so bloody hard about that? Relive your own teenage years listening to what todays teenagers have to say, listen to what they're feeling, their thoughts on politics, relationships, the environment, war, healthcare, education, technology and everything else. These kids are the ones who are going to be in charge of the planet when we're old and past it. They're going to be making the music, the movies, the ads in the papers... they're going to be designing the clothes we'll be wearing and the buildings we'll be living in, the cars we'll be driving and they'll be producing the food we're going to eat.

And you want to ignore these kids??? Are you fucking INSANE? It's our future we're shitting all over if we ignore teenagers now people. If you abuse teenagers now, then you've got your head up your arse and the consequences for you later should be as catastrophic as the foundation you build when you do. In case you hadn't noticed, every last one of them is so very vital, so impossibly important. They're so wise when you give them the space to express themselves you have no idea. And if you do and you still do nothing when you know you could, then for shame on you. If you think teenagers are like runaway trains, then get the train back on track - DUH. They won't bite you, they just swear a lot. So what, so do I. Click around.

And one more thing, don't be condescending if you ever get the chance to talk to a teenager. They are more than likely superior to you in every way except in years. They are worthy of your respect, treat teenagers as you would a friend. Listen to them as you would a friend. It's not a big ask is it?

Or is it?

(Time to compose this entry: 50 mins)
Have you ever stopped to look at the scenery in a multi-level underground carpark?

These man-made caves have always fascinated me; the ramps, the simplicity and perfect functionality of them, the order and practicality of them which were they not so would make them useless to everyone. There are no directions telling you how to use a multi-level underground carpark, just signs pointing to the way out and what you should do in case of an emergency. Nevertheless, processions of traffic move in perfect order most of the time.

Call me heartless but I also like looking at the corners and the walls to see how many might be wearing a part of the carpark on the side of their slightly redesigned rear fender or nearside door. Price you pay for being careless I'm afraid.

I like the massive air conditioning ducts pumping in fresh air from the surface lest those on the 6th level down suffocate from carbon monoxide poisoning, I like the pure simplicity of the exposed fluorescent tube lighting and how Hollywood makes them all spew sparks when they're smashed from their sockets. I like the cold stark grey cement walls and floors and how the roof always appears to be much darker.

There is just such an indelible stamp of terra firma and homo sapien purpose in an underground carpark. I think I most enjoy the fact the things are so practical and well built but there is absolutely zero ornation in them. Descending 6 levels of concrete cavern into the depths of the city having to look at pretty painted murals or masses of advertising banners would be more than I could tolerate - I'd park at the station and take the train in.

Multi-storey carparks are only enjoyable when the weather is warm. It's not nice getting out of the car on the 4th floor of one of those things, all open to the wind and the elements, birdshit everywhere, and being assaulted by the freezing blasts of polar air apt to whip through multi-storey carparks because there isn't anything taller than 4 foot 6 to stop it. The views are alright, but unless it's warm, you're not going to stand there staring out at the passing traffic too long. Hypothermia tends to set in after about 45 seconds.

No wind chill factor in the underground models, just the audible breath of the ducts and squeal of tyres on the smooth cement surface from the floors above and below. Marvellous things.

(Time to compose this entry: 13 mins)
They've taken the cricket off the telly.

Pricks.

The last thing on earth I can think of that I'd rather be watching is a camera jammed up the arse of a cyclist doing the Tour de France. Put the bloody cricket back on. I mean this first test at Lords has been an absolute cracker.

The world's best cricket team playing the Old Enemy in one of sports longest rivalries in the history of sport, easily the longest by decades in the world of cricket - the world's most civilised sport.

We're the best. The Australian team I mean. No other team comes close to us but we're on a weeny bit of a form slump at the moment and the wicket at Lords is dodgy as hell.

Sorry for all you non-cricket types but if you get confused by the lingo here, it's because you're not civilised enough to have taken the time to become acquainted with this beautiful and elegant sport.

Indeed the batsmen have had the worst of this test in the first two days. As I type this 23 wickets have fallen, Glenn McGrath got his 500th test wicket yesterday, Ricky Ponting passed the 7000 test run mark today and Australia looks set to ensure the English team doesn't win a test at Lords for another 2 years, making this a losing streak seven and a half decades long at this ground. Sux to be a pom, huh.

The ball has been swinging like hangman's noose in a hurricane, deviating both ways after pitching and worst of all, grubbing and jumping. How the hell is a batsman supposed to think about playing shots on a wicket like that? Of course the bowlers think it's Christmas. This is where they get to improve their averages, strike rates and hero status.

The next test is at Headingley, not as happy a hunting ground for the world's best cricketing nation, but the poms don't have much in the tank. They just don't believe they can beat us in a series. A game maybe, but not a series. And I have this feeling we here in the Antipodes place a tad more value on The Ashes than do the English. We won them first way back in the 19th Century and we've had them since the 1980s. They're OUR fucking Ashes.

Truth is, the original urn has only been off Blighty once for a visit out here during the Centenary Series, what gets shipped abroad is just a replica of the original urn, but it's the thought that counts - plus knowing we're the best.

It would seem I'm over my bunge-ness from last week. Truth be known, I only poked my nose in there for about 3 days and it was just the surrealness of it that got me tetchy. Yes tetchy.
I'm happier now I bullied my former boss and won. Haven't heard yet whether or not he got shafted, the Hobbit hasn't emailed me and I haven't called him back. Good kid, the hobbit. Just short and well, hobbit-like.

Tour le Frog is still on as we travel downhill staring up 14 lycra covered arses wondering what's going through the minds of the camera operators. Pervy gits. If they were giving us wholesale panoramic views I'd be right in there glued to the screen because where they are on day 19 is Chatrat territory.

Yes!

Did you not know?

There's a tiny little spec on the map in the Puy-de-Dome area, near where the Tour is now and in the Puy-de-Dome area is the wonderfully picturesque little hamlet of Chatrat. Google it, it's fucking gorgeous. These mutants on wheels are travelling through this area and instead of giving us a look at the scenery, all we're getting is mass freckle. Nice if you're gay (or not, who knows) but terminally dull for me I'm afraid.

Speaking of Google, my bloggity blog got approved to carry their Ad-Sense jiggy boo. I'll bung under all the useful stuff over there ----> so it's out of the way and if you feel like making me spectacularly wealthy, click the links. Go on you hosers, I've given you a laugh or made you think, just pay me back by clicking a link. It's not like I'm asking for money.

I must admit to being rather surprised this sort of thing would be permitted by the hosts of this 'ere bit of melodrama but hey, if they're going to advertise it on their homepage, who the hell am I to knock back an offer of easy earnings? If they kill the blog, I'll be rather sad, because now that I've started putting a bit of time back into it, it'd be a shame to lose it - even if I'm not saying anything remotely useful or informative, but there's gotta be something in it if you're still reading it.

Must be hero worship. Don't worry, it's not a bad thing. I have my heroes too. But my heroes don't appear to be as good as your hero so for that I am most humbly grateful. lol

Have a howlong.

(Time to compose this entry: 30 mins)

Thursday, July 21, 2005

When I go surfing the net for information, it's usually because I'm in a mood for wiping out some filth. Don't know what magnitudinous sort of bitching you'd call that but it gets me annoyed and serious minded and my output gets thoughtful or even maudlin.

When I go surfing the net for fun, just to see what's out there, I come across stuff the likes of which I've posted here a couple of times this week.

When Rageboy goes surfing the net, he comes up with this:

Perhaps this is old news and I just haven't kept up with the latest medical developments (Shivambu Shastra otherwise known as Self-Urine Therapy). If so, and you're up to your third eye in piss already, you might want to pick up some of this stuff.

Now do you understand why he's my idol?
O Re-bully a bully today.

Don't you just hate bullies? There are two types of bullies: There are bullies who bully because they can and you can't do anything about it. They not only have power, they have authority and they use it to make you fear them and their uberness. They think they are superior to you in every way and enjoy letting you know everything you like, everything you do and everything you say is worthless crud. You're there because the bully hasn't bothered to remove you yet and believe me, that day is coming.

Then there are the more compassionate bullies who like to tease but also stop to help you out if you're in a jam - but they'll still tease you about it later.

The latter is an irritant, the former a God damned nightmare.

It so happens I've worked for a couple of bullies and indeed, that was the case in my most recent job. Anyway, I wanted a certificate of separation for my own selfish reasons and was told on my last day that it would be posted to me. Two weeks went past and still nothing, so I ring him and ask what's happened to it. I get a curt response, "I'll check with payroll where it's at."

Excusing the poor grammar, I thank him for his time and hang up. Friday, nothing. Monday, nothing, so I ring again. Same answer. Tuesday, nothing, so I ring again and this time I give him my fax number. Wednesday, nothing so I ring again to be told the fax number I gave him doesn't match the one on file. (I doubt there IS one on file.) It can't be faxed because we can't guarantee the security of the fax. I pick myself up from the floor and tell him the fax is in my kitchen. He also tells me he's not the postman therefore there is nothing he can do about it.

Today I ring him and get this same rubbishy sort of response so I tell him, it's now 1pm, and if I don't receive a fax within the hour, I'll take the matter further. He says "fine, take it further."

So I emailed his boss - the CEO of the company and sent a copy BCC no less to one of his underlings in the department saying if I don't get that fax by 4pm, I'll take the matter further again. It took me 45 minutes to craft, the fax arrived 90 minutes later, 45 minutes inside my deadline.

I came this ---> <--- close to texting his mobile phone to say "See what you can do if you really try." But I didn't.

So, what, you might ask, did I put in that email?

Well I'm glad I asked myself that very question on behalf of all of you.

About 2 months ago, the fat bastard turned on me. We were matey for 2 months prior to that. When he turned, I bought a diary - one of those big jobbies of things you get at newsagents when they're cheap in April and they're trying to flog them off at a 75% discount. They make a loss, but they want the space and what in God's name am I going to do with a damn diary of all things? I've got a blog. I don't want a diary.

But under the circumstances, I just thought it'd come in handy. I kept in the backpack I took to work every day - disdaining the impractical briefcase because such things are pure wank anyway - and every time I felt slighted or caught the boss doing something he ought not to have been doing, it all went in the diary.

Today, the diary disgorged its secrets into an email 2 A4 sized pages long.

Naughty naughty boss.

One of the other chaps who departed the department a few weeks earlier was terribly thrilled to get the news and hear this bit of gossip and promised to contact the other kids still there and get the lowdown on the fallout for me. Out of compassion, I emailed a copy to him. (He rang me up and we laughed hard. Compassion be buggered, we revelled in my bit of revenge.) I told him he could make use of the information in any way he saw fit, and far is it for me to dissuade him from making full use of his right to freedom of expression.

H - I - N - T H - I - N - T.

Didn't say any more than that, but what better vector for revenge than youthful exhuberance.
Liam the Hobbit - as he was affectionately known only to me - because he reminded me of the other Liam of internet fame, the Yoblit of Canuckstan - with whom everyone falls instantly in love without having the slightest idea why. Yoblit, old son, perhaps you might think of changing your nick to Liam the Likeable after that particularly amusing episode of Get Smart.

I forgot what else I was going to say so I'll say something else I wasn't thinking of before I had something else I wanted to say. (Don't look at your screen like that, you'll get a bad case of the blippies.)

The other something else I just thought of - the latter else, not the former else - was to do with blogs. If I come back before midnight and blog something else - which if I go surfing the blogs again is very likely to happen - it'll appear above this entry. On other days in the last week when I've done just that, I look at the earlier entry and the opening sentences just look totally out of place. It bugs me for two reasons: firstly, because it makes the first sentences look totally out of place and secondly because I know it's just too much of a hassle to try to edit it so it doesn't look out of place. Changing stuff makes it look forced and I like wordage to flow like warm honey.

And a last bit of info for this entry, the blippies are those looks you give something you don't quite understand and probably won't take the time to examine carefully enough. Blippies have one thing their favour. They are not gawpies. Gawpies happens when you DO take the time to try to get your head around what it was that gave you the blippies in the first place.

Wednesday, July 20, 2005

Current mood = pissed off - and not in a good way.

Got the music playing, downloaded a memory tonight - We Belong by Pat Benatar (that weird chick with the fucked up hair.) Played it twice in a row, bunged it on the playlist of WMP - for some reason I seem to be able to get better sound quality out of wmp than Winamp even though Winamp is a better program - and now I'm going through the playlist with all those songs I love so much and the reason for the bruises from my knees half way up the front of my legs and on the sides of both my hands. Damn I might have made a rockin' drummer for someone.

And I'm pissed off because that's my reaction to the memories that came flooding back because of a stupid television show.

*Sigh*

Anyway, I've had a bit of a time in the last 24 hours. Left lots of messages on ppl's blogs and my golly goodness, don't people get angry!

Here's the drum: It's a publick dockyooment unless you make it privayte. Capishe? There's no point turning the internet into your own little diary if you don't want people looking at your dirty laundry. You have nobody to blame but yourselves if oddbods like me happen to wander past, see what you've written and comment on it. You don't have to display your stuff if you don't want to, it's as simple as that.

The good news is, I culled a few more bits and pieces that amused me:

My comments (as usual) are in blue.

The public library system of northern South Carolina is fucked.I suggested to the two librarians that the library use firefox(a simple request -- nothing too technical) and explained to them what it was. I was met with a blank stare.Conclusion? Dillon South Carolina is, so far, painfully retarded. I think I'm going to eat at this strange diner I saw up the street.
(Good move, they're cooking crumbed fried brains. Save some for the librarians.)


Being of the male persuasion myself, my advice is to become a lesbian. Males are all worthless hosers who don't grow up, never become responsible, and when women say we only want one thing and get confused because they're giving their man that one very thing, what they should remember is MEN ONLY WANT ONE THING AT A TIME. That's why we cheat.Sorry babe.
(Some woman was complaining about the men she knew.)


6. What's under your bed: the floor.
Can't argue with that.

I may attempt to enjoy this evening a little more than I usually do, as i've not got to work tomorrow. Given my new "healthier" lifestyle and desire to save money I can't extend my drinking tally by much, but I can at least stretch slightly on my one night without a following day of work. I'm now going to get the hell out of here to stare at some heating soup or something of that ilk. Piss off.
Never signed off with "yours sincerely" in his entire life...

I also got a response from Scotland Yard. They shut down a website less than 24 hours after I reported it and gave me a link to a mob called Inhope. Maverick eat your heart out! Maverick was one of the very first identities I discovered on the internet back in 1998. I want to have this guy's babies. For those who don't know, Maverick was and perhaps still is, responsible for the closure of more child porn websites than anyone else in the history of the internet. And this guy had style. He was a hacker who left his tag on sites he shut down. I haven't heard from him in years. I tried finding him several times but every dumb arsehole, it seems, has adopted Maverick as a nick. Fuck you, Tom Cruise.

Here's another cute little thing I found via links I got from Scotland Yard...


ID the creep. It's a flash game put up through the CyberTipline in the U.S.

This image is a link. You can click it and it'll take you straight to the game.

Play the game it'll be good for you. Here's the cheat:
In the chatroom section, everyone is your enemy.

Things were never this complicated when I was a kid. We only had to watch out for strangers in the park. Now you can't even get privacy in your own damn bedroom. Then again, we didn't invite 6 billion people into our homes on a daily basis 30 years ago either. So I've been having an up and down day today. I got another site shut - yay - but every site I find hurts. I found a massive big beautiful resource - yay - but it brings home the magnitude of just how fucked up people can be and to what lengths they will go to fuck up others.

And there's more to it than just that. We throw billions of dollars of aid at these people and this is what they do with it. Those individuals lucky enough to get a hand out use it to victimise those who still have nothing.

It's no wonder some people find it easy to just give up. They don't all get immediate response from one of the oldest constabularies on the planet.

I won't be surfing blogland tonight, sorry to say. If you want to get some good quotes for yourself, you can wade through the dross yourselves and pick out whatever takes your fancy. I'm just too emotionally exhausted to bother. Maybe tomorrow I'll me in a mood more inducive to energetic bloggery. Gripe if you like. It's good for you.

(Time to compose this blog entry: 41 mins.)

Tuesday, July 19, 2005


Found some more funny shit to put in The Pad. Just thought I'd mention that while I'm listening to the first 4 songs on my playlist for the 4th time in a row. Lot of 4s today - as you will soon see.

And today is the 19th - wow, that's really spooky.


And this pic isn't what I just put up in The Pad either. This is just something that's been on floppy disk around here for yonks.
I remembered the password to my Topica account tonight. Edition number 103 was dispersed into the internet tonight but what looked all nice and dandy on the screen before I clicked that mesmerising post it now button arrived in all those in boxes totally furgled. How disappointing.

It was my first one in 5 months. Five MONTHS. It wasn't that long ago I left this blog alone. I have no idea who half the people are who are subscribers to The Swamp and I wouldn't be at all surprised if most of them have forgotten who the hell I am and delete my latest effort thinking it's spam.

And if that's not all, I changed the password to bring it into line with most of my other passwords so I don't forget it again and got absolutely bombarded with offers to receive spam on a regular basis. Page after page after page of it. I have this nasty sinking feeling there were ticks in some of those boxes (that's check marks for strangers up north) and I missed some of them and I have inadvertently signed up for crap I don't want. Of course it's not spam if you ask for it, it's self flaggelation. (That's a fancy way of saying you get your own jollies without taking your pants off.)(Nicht floggen sie monster.)

I have to stop doing these things. Getting back on an old horse is bad news. It evokes memories and too many of mine are memories I would prefer remained buried. I love The Swamp. It's my pride and joy and I'm going to have to make a commitment to either keep it going regularly now or if I let it go like this again then I must just consign it to the dustbin of two times two good years worth of something I enjoyed doing while I did it before I moved on. Amazing isn't it. It's four years since I started The Swamp and four years since I first blogged.

Google sent the webcrawlers out again on Friday last week. I know this because the content of the returns has updated The Pad and there's a datestamp on it. How satisfying to know that my nick has been the first return in Google for nearly 3 years. Weeeeeeeeeeee.

I feel like taking the Saab for another run tonight, just because it's a Saab and I know I shall have to part with her pretty soon. I don't particularly want two cars and the Mit is, after all a more sensible, more invisible, easier on the juice, and generally more civilised car. What a shame. I really do like my beautiful ugly beast Saab. Passion over pride I think. I would love to keep her but I need to be sensible. It's pointless being sentimental about cars. They are a convenience and they're expensive to run and own. You either get value out of them or you get rid of them and that's all there is to it.

Memories again. Sometimes I just wish I didn't have them. People should be born 20 years old. It'd save a shitload of headaches.
So here we are again, late at night and grumbling mildly away that Monday seems to have been missed when in fact as far as I'm concerned there's still one more sleep to be endured before it becomes Tuesday for real here. Endured? That's what I said. I dislike the need for sleep. I would rather stay awake and do stuff.

Fun stuff, dull stuff, bad stuff - who cares as long as it's just doing something.

Does that sound like attention deficit disorder to you?

Would answer a few questions wouldn't it.

If you'd care to take a glance to the right of the screen (--->) you may notice I have added two more links to the Gropes. Both are to blogs hosted here at the Big B, one whose newsletter I subbed up to about 3 years ago, the other at the behest of its owner who was concerned his blog may not be up to the standard of mine.

Tomcat old son, I checked it out, it's marvellous. Be loud and proud of it. All the rest of you, do that thing you do with your clicky thing when you've finished gawping at my stuff and see what else turns me on.

I uploaded a small video file to The Pad this afternoon, gave it its own new page - funny stuff - then naturally enough, passed the link around to a few people, well boards actually, but you know how it goes. I should go and get rid of them because being a free account I have at the Batcave, it's going suck up my rather limited bandwidth I have there. C'est la vie. No updates til next month I suppose. It's only two weeks away. I'll live.

Email's gone quiet again, except for Don who sent me some cool vids - one of those is the one that's now up in The Pad - and a maggot who spammed me for a home loan. I replied, calling him a cunt and told him to fuck off - as you do - but naturally it bounced. Bastard.

I've also gone and updated other stuff I have round the net, but if the same people go looking at all my stuff wherever I put it, I'll eventually run out of stuff to make these people smile. Get over it guys, I don't need adoration. I do this because I enjoy it, not because it's expected of me. And speaking of expectation, I can't remember my password to The Swamp. I wanted to put one of those out tonight, first one in ages, and I can't get in. I told them to send me a new password, which they said they did, but it hasn't hit my inbox yet. Ergo, no Swamp update today.

Still no separation certificate from IPA either. So tomorrow morning we bully the bully. He faxes it through to me by the hour I specify or I send a damning email to his boss threatening to take the fat bastard to the Court of Arbitration for unfair dismissal. It's hardly a big deal, I mean I could filch graphics from the website and forge one for myself. The only reason I don't is because it would almost certainly be spotted. To be mean and ogrish or sly and get busted. No choice really.

In an IM convo, a name from yore reared its ugly head again and she's apparently still being the most lying slut bitch she was when I ran her out of PnA. I dunno. I just don't understand how anyone can be like that and still live with themselves let alone have the front to carry on in a chatroom where people know it's the purest form of bullshit they've ever seen. I don't know why someone in that room's management doesn't just bite the bullet and ban the bitch.

To my way of thinking, she's as bad as that filth whose name and blog I refuse to mention here who murdered the family and raped the children. That's a big statement, but let's collate a fact or two here. She knows what she is doing causes problems for people and she's especially hurting men who take this bullshit known as internet chat too seriously - you know, the lonely types - yet she keeps doing it, luring them in then pouring cold water on them when they get too close. She thinks it's all a big game, just harmless fun. Maybe that would be so if people weren't getting hurt, but they are - and she knows it - and THAT is what pisses me off so much.

I'm offended by the sound of her very name. If it appears in any gripes in this blog, I will delete them without exception even if posted by a close associate as a joke. She just offends me that much. Anyone who wilfully and repeatedly hurts people for no good reason offends me. I just don't understand why they do it.

And that brings me to the marvel of Cheri. She has every right to say that this is exactly the sort of behaviour I exhibited towards her. Well, there's a difference between what I do and what the former troll of PnA does. And Cheri can bleat all she likes, but the fact is, she's an insane neurotic liar as well and my beloved Tart and I busted her when she accused someone from PnA of stalking her. She refused to name who it was or what had taken place so Tart or myself could have informed the appropriate authorities. (We take this sort of thing seriously you see.) The only conclusion we could draw from that was she was grandstanding and lying. Then, O holier than thou Cheri has a history of foul mindedness as archived in The Promethean's Clubhouse.

To put it bluntly, she's a self righteous, pompous halfwit who fancies herself as an intellectual with class and an education. We laughed hard at her tirades. She busted us making fun of her in our own little room away from her space and decided we were all deceivers and evildoers and banned us. Me, she banned twice. lol. I'm so proud of that. According to her, I stench. According to the dictionary, stench isn't a verb, it's a noun. Silly strumpet. Mad as a balloon.

So much for the finer points of what's acceptable bullshit and what most definitely isn't. One thing is for sure, nobody can honestly say I've set out to play with their heartstrings. Anyone who says I've given them the come on is lying. It's part of my credo that I'm single and staying that way and it's not about to change any time soon. Those who know me well enough even understand why and keep their p's and q's to themselves about it. (Touchy subject. Don't ask.)

According to the timestamp jiggy boo a scant inch and a half beneath these words as I type them, I am sort of reliably informed this blog entry has so far taken 38 minutes to write. I do, in fact, type considerably faster than that would imply, but being as pedantic as I am, I like to make sure each word fits in just right so there are no catches. Each word needs to be the right word for the occasion, not to mention spelt correctly. And since I'm not heavily into the obfuscation some folks like to inflict upon their readers, to me, if a word doesn't look and feel right when I'm doing this, it gets rejected for a suitable alternative.

This is why I read Rageboy's contributions to the world wide timetrap. He describes himself as having an almost unwieldingly large vocabulary - or words to that effect. Reading his stuff, one is apt to encounter some real arcane beauts, transported out of 1821 to the 21st century without affectation or . I'm not going to bother with dictionary.com's thesaurus feature at 2.30 in the morning. I'm going to finish this and get to bed at least 4 hours before the sun comes up. Another 9 minutes to type this lot since the last time check.

I didn't scan anyone else's blogs tonight. Shame really. I would have liked to purloin a few more lines of style quite distinct from my own and assimilate them. Instead, I messed around with The Pad, messed around in a few comms and perused Tomcat's (Eff to you) blog before putting a link in.

On a final note for tonight, laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa... (in B sharp)

Sunday, July 17, 2005

Just an afterthought and it's sad to say, really, but when I get replies to emails from people I don't know, I have this habit of archiving the corespondence in case there's ever any question I've been up to no good. I also archive emails I get from my idol because simply because they're from my idol. I mean, fancy getting emails from a person who's world famous. I love that.
Alrighty, I've been lurking in blogland again and my faith in humanity has been restored. I've culled the following little gems from other peoples' blogs and put them here for your enjoyment:
Any comments by me are in blue - as usual for those who know...

*stabs Kagome repeatedly with a sharpened candy cane*

I have come to hate 4 AM with a fiery burning passion.

Your power color is Teal. (What??? Since when was teal ever a power colour??)

WELCOME TO MY METHOD OF INSANITY

i hate writing diaries so i'm sorry if this reads rather dull. i'm feeling rather ill. i think it may be typhoid with a touch of malaria and a plague chaser. in any case this may be my last entry as i may die soon. and in any case i arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.................."

maybe he was dictating?"


my friends and i were sitting in her car in front of the toad, it was pouring rain, we got soaked just crossing the street. once in the car we saw lightning hitting down behind the building in front of us, and saw sparks fly after it lit up the sky. almost simultaneously we felt the whole car do this buzz thing, it actually made a buzzing noise that we could feel beneath us. fucking scary.
(It was the evaluation that got me...)

She doesn't call, and I get a call from Shintaro at four-thirty in the morning.
We proceed to talk.
For an hour and a FUCKING half.
WHY AM I EVERYBODY'S FUCKING RELATIONSHIP COUNSELOR??
(I know how you feel brutha.)


Your Slanguage Profile
Aussie Slang: 75%
Victorian Slang: 75%
British Slang: 50%
Prison Slang: 50%
Canadian Slang: 0%
New England Slang: 0%
Southern Slang: 0%
(Well I am Australian after all.)

--Hippie--
Is your hair long?:yes
Are you a vegetarian?:no
Do you own a tye dye shirt?:sadly yes
Do you want peace?:yes
Do you want to save the animals:yes
What do you think about war?:blowing stuff up is fun but war is wrong
(lol)


Hey kids! The world is your phallic symbol! Let's get creative!
Dear GOD!!! NOT THAT CREATIVE!!!!!!!!

black coffee and painkillers aren't just cutting it
Want my head removed now please.


Today we went to my nephews 1st birthday party (which I had forgotten about until my sister rang me yesterday to ask where she could buy the gob stoppers for nose/bowtie).
I was amused that my sister seems to have made him a dead clown cake...
There were a lot of babies around :)

*While watching Big Brother*
Mum - "Which Logan is Christie in bed with?"
Me - "Greg"
Mum - "What are they doing?"
Me - "Having sex"
Mum - "What?! In front of David?!"
Me - "No. They have having a threesome. A Logan at each end"
Mum - "...that is one of the most disgusting things you have ever said!"
Me - *starts laughing hysterically*
(Onya kid.)

And you wonder why I enjoy this sort of thing? Well, do you?

On another more pertinent note, I found my real glasses and stopped using the spare pair I've been using all weekend while I do all this updatage which means I can sit a sane distance from the screen and still see what I'm doing. I've been coresponding with bloggers kind enough to reply to the replies I've left on their blogs, God only knows if any of them have poked their noses into The Pad yet. I might get more quotes from blogs and bung them up in The Pad in a kind of archive thing.

Speaking of archives, unless I have pages stored on my hard drive, if there was anything about the previous Pad you liked, you're well out of luck. If it's not on HD, it's gorn. It probably is on my HD but if you think I could be bothered pulling it up and posting it somewhere, you're deluding yourself.

I must put some music on. The tv is driving me nuts. It's a screenwriters' mutual appreciation society gathering wrapped in some comically indequate guise of a doco. Hollywood Machine it's called. Dull as desert sand if you ask me.

Ah, time to get along and do something more constructive methinks.
It's now well and truly into Sunday morning and I've been up all night fixing the blog, fixing The Pad, setting up all those delicious and scrumptious Bravenet services so they almost look and feel the way I want them to (I may tinker with them now that all the codes are set...) and I'd really like to head for bed now. Yeah that's right - it's after 5 in the morning. But at least I'm feeling amused, satisfied and generally at ease with most things right now. Maybe I'll just pay a visit to the gift to see just how long it takes to download on dial up now that I stretched it out a bit more and added 300kb to it in the process. What the hell I just love the background music and the pics make me feel really benevolent and mushy.
Finally got The Pad looking sort of pretty much close enough to the way I want it to look. Bitch of a thing working with tables because we can't disable the banners in frames but I persisted with the bastard of a thing for 6 hours and now it's done til I update it again, which hopefully won't be too far away.

All the Bravenet services buggered off when Batcave moved their product away from 0catch and lo and behold, my account there was shut down. So much the better because some other bushpig had got chatrat as their account name and I'm buggered if I can remember what my account name was. We're talking 18 months plus since I logged in there y'know. Hadn't updated The Pad for nigh on 12 months. Sheesh.

Come to think of it, I haven't put out a Swamp for ages either. My poor neglected subscribers. How will they ever know what's going on in my life if I don't keep them all up to date?

At least they can be sure of one thing: My life is bound to be more interesting than their lives.
Heee.

Scrabbling around the people who have blogs on Livejournal.com, some of the things I've seen have been highly amusing. Apart from bumping into people I know and letting them know I've been there, some of the names of their blogs and their usernames are really very entertaining. I'm having a bit of difficulty making up my mind whether or not these people are interesting, idiotic, terminally dull or perhaps just like me. Some of them seem thoughtful, but looking at the subject matter of their blogs - oh my golly gee-whiz. Dull. One thing made me a bit depressed was seeing how many blogs had "boi" in the title.

Just says to me they've all done something they're going to disown in a fat hurry. I didn't look at any of them so I could be totally wrong about that, but on the other hand, I bet I'm not. Silly people.

In case you're wondering, if you just click on the search facility for any interest out of 89 zillion interests, it seems the same blogs come up in the returns. The better blogs, I've found are the ones which have been updated in the last hour. They're the ones I've been leaving my mark on.

It's a shame this blog didn't allow me to put a jiggy boo on it so anyone reading it can leave their own comments. It does now though. I would have kinda liked to respond to people's comments instead of pretending to be the editor of my own newspaper where nobody has the right of reply. For some reason, email tends to frighten people. Probably because the recipient can see who sent the email and they'd rather not be seen.

Pssst... it's the internet, nobody can see you. Clicking delete solves all your problems.

And because I've been diligent and made wholesale changes to this thing - you might have noticed - there's now a little jiggery pokery down the bottom of each entry where you can pour your little hearts out and I then stomp all over your downtroddenness and insignificance for being a pest. Not really. But the thought had (and does) occur to me. :)

I didn't miss Saturday, by the way. To me, this is still Saturday night. So that means you can come back tomorrow and there'll be something new to read. Won't that be fun for you!

Friday, July 15, 2005

I started another blog at LiveJournal.com because I dislike leaving messages on others' blogs without there being any way for them to find out who the hell I am - and LJ is where I've been leaving footprints.

It's not really a blog as such, just a membership there which says a bit more about me and what I'm about. I'm still intending for this to be "the blog", the one I'm going to update more regularly than before for reasons already stated. The other reason is in LJ, I'm Mr ChatRat not just me.

Some silly troll got ChatRat in January, made one pathetic entry then turned her back on her blog. Yes, I said her blog. What a waste of MY nick. What a disgrace. If she'd done something spectacular with it, I wouldn't mind so much. But she's just left it there doing bloody nothing.

I'm more than just mildly irritated by that. I have half a mind to email her and tell her cancel her account so someone with a bit of enthusiasm and personal pride can take over the name.

Grumble mumble...

People have been going through Mr Festy's blog and they're still leaving comments - like he's ever going to be able to read them or respond to them. Found a great link through the comments though - dokich.blogspot.com - what a bunch of champions. I loved it. But then I would, they're doing offline what I've been doing online for years. Good on 'em. Take it from me, it's personally very taxing and heartbreaking stuff. I mean, you want to stab these f*ckers in the face with a pitchfork but you can't. You want to rescue every face you see but you can't. It gets you down and it's exhausting trying to get hosts to shut down sites or log ip addies for the authorities. They just don't want to acknowledge they have this sort of activity on their servers. Ignorant toads.

Oh well. I'll always have chocolate.

Thursday, July 14, 2005

Two in one day, wow.

Why?

Obviously because I have something on my mind and I want to get it on paper - as it were.
Moreover, I want to hear from like minded individuals who have an opinion on what I'm about to say, one way or another.

I'm thinking about the untapped power of the mind.

I could have put this elsewhere where I know it will be seen, but if people read my blog, it's because they've come to me to see what it is I have to say. If I put this up where people hang out, this becomes nothing more than a grandstanding advertisement. If you're reading this here, you have taken some sort of initiative to see what's here. You have an open mind - whether you believe that right now or not.

The power of the mind, you see.

What else can be achieved with this power? What improbable events can be brought to life with the power of the mind?

I don't accept I'm alone with the things I can do with my mind. It is beyond my ability to accept that others can't do the things I can do. I'm talking about reading other people and being able to predict with a degree of accuracy what those people will do in any given circumstance. We've all seen it, we've all done it. "Build it and they will come" say the pundits. Why? Because they know themselves and they know we are not that different from each other. They would go so they know others will as well.

What if we could refine that, what if we know who is on the other end of the telephone before we pick it up? What if we know certain keywords will produce an automatic response in others - even if they themselves are not aware of it. This is the power I'm talking about. It's wielded with the choice of words, the tone of voice, a movement, a gesture, a look. Subliminal suggestion. We are manipulated by masters every time we set foot outside our homes or turn on the television.

Who knows the secrets and has these skills? What do they do with this power they have over us - or think they have over us? More importantly still, that we think they have over us. For the most part, they sell their products or persuade us to buy their services. It's a power and power translates to money and money translates back to power.

What money can't buy is time. What those with power never have enough of is time. What those with no power have is one long wait. A wait until the next pay day, a wait until they can afford to buy the next luxury item, a wait to die. What those with no power have is what those with the most power want so much. Time.

Time is money to people with power.

I'm going to pause here for a moment to let all this sink in. At this point, my words are either being accepted or rejected. If they're being accepted, it's time to wait for the reinforcement. If my words are being rejected, it's time to compare my words with the words of that filth who brought me back to blogging, whose blog was supposed to be his honest reflections, but which was in fact, nothing but a tissue of half truths and wishful thinking.

Why? What was the purpose of his writing? His writing was to project an image of himself as someone with justification. He lied by omission. What he didn't tell his audience was that he had raped 2 more children (at least) since January. What he said was that he had got even twice more and hadn't been caught. Got even with whom? Those who are employed to protect the community from people like him? If he had to get even with them, there was only one way to do that and that was to prove they were wrong. What he did was prove they were right. He gave them more justification than they could possibly have wished for. More justification than anyone could possibly want. What mentally stable individual would want the rape of children as a weapon against authority or society?

The one purpose of his writing was warped from a useful and insightful diary of thoughts and events into a tool of manipulation and dissimulation. It was a weapon against truth.

Mr Freakazoid was a pedophile. Not quite human. A pedophile is what a pedophile does - they either have or want to have sex with children and they use those very same tools of manipulation against children to get sex out of them as marketing gurus use to get money out of us. It's exactly the same power. The right words in the right tone of voice, the right movement, the right gesture, the right look. When the mood setting fails and the facade of nice intentions is broken down, the villain resorts to violence. It all comes down to power.

Why am I here writing these words now?

Is it my intention to deceive? Is it my intention to manipulate, to draw from anyone reading this something I have no right to draw? What do I have to gain?

What did the freakazoid have to gain? He needed justification. He got it in measure from those he deceived with his words in his blog. What do I need? Justification? For what? I sure as hell know I haven't raped or murdered anyone and if I had, what would prompt me to suddenly change from my usual style of writing to what I have been writing for three days running now? If I had done something for which I should have reason to fear capture, I already had the perfect cover - in fact so perfect because I hadn't been here for 4 months prior to reading that bastard's blog, why draw attention to myself now? So let's rule out deception as a reason for my writing. As for justification, I don't need any. I lost my job two weeks ago and that's about the only thing of any note that has happened to me in this second half of the year.

What other motive could I have for writing? To make it easy on you, I have something to say. I have something I need to say and it's to do with the power of the mind.

I need to empower people. I need to share what knowledge I have because by sharing it my growth is assured. I'm like a messenger whose message is useless until it has been passed on so I'm passing it on.

But why here?

Again, because what I have to say needs to be delivered properly or the message is lost. My message needs to be taken by readers voluntarily for it to have been successful. To impose it on others is completely contradictory to the nature of the message itself.

I need to empower people.

I have explained why. By sharing what I know, that power increases. But I also know that power must be gained from within. Like expecting a hamster to drag a tractor up a hill, I know and understand that to impose this message on anyone and expect it to have the same effect is the same as expecting that hamster to drag that tractor up that hill. The power I need to impart is the power within the people who are reading this message. It must be released from within, not imposed from without to have effect.

And what power is that?

The power of the mind.

And what power is that?

To answer that question, correction, to help you find your own answer to that question, examine the nature of the mind. What does it do? What is its function?

It knows what's around us. It sees what you see, it hears what you hear, feels what you feel, smells and tastes what you smell and taste - and it does all that without you even making an effort to direct it to do so. What happens if you make an effort?

You begin to think. You begin to unlock the power of your mind. To think is to take the first step towards understanding and finally knowing. I know how to add and subtract and that gives me the power to buy and sell. What do those with extraordinary power and money do? They buy more and sell more.

Are you getting the picture? Or am I just full of shit.

That, my friends, is for you to decide.

I've spelled out my message. I've done what I came here to do tonight. If you've read this far then I'm guessing it's because I've put into words what you perhaps had neglected to put into words for yourself but this was a message you needed or wanted to hear. More questions?

Why do I need for you to have the power that I have?

Because power brings with it certain advantages. It brings security and security brings safety. If everyone knew what I know, we wouldn't have need of armies or weapons - that's the sort of security I'm talking about which is why I need to pass this message on. While people seek power from external sources, we will always have need of protection - ie weapons. What those who seek power from external sources fail to realise is the power they thus gain is merely relative and therefore illusory and very very fleeting. It only lasts as long their physical power is stronger than that of their perceived enemy's and while they have that power, others will work to build a stronger force.

Humbug. Real power comes from within and that means it comes from the mind. Because this power comes from within, no amount of external input can increase it. In fact, any good buddhist will tell you the more material wealth you have, the less happy you are likely to be. Whilst that's a nice thought, being realistic, it doesn't necessarily equate with human nature. I'm not in favour of ditching material wealth if it turns out doing so deprives a person of the means of achieving predetermined goals they've set for themself. I could not share this message without my pc.

I digress.

I need people to find the same power I have found because of the nature of the power of the mind. More can be achieved by like minded people acting in concert with one another than can be achieved by individuals acting alone and against one another. Want one potent example?

Live 8.

The purpose of Live 8 is to empower people in Africa, to give them freedom from hunger and disease and oppression. To help those people to help themselves. That's what Live 8 is all about. My motivation is not to help the people of Africa help themselves, but to have some middle class nobody in western society become a somebody in their own minds. If a nobody becomes a somebody because they've begun to unlock the power of their own minds, then my message will have done its job.

Press Ctrl+D to bookmark this page. You may want to return to it later. You Apple type people, you do whatever it is you do to bookmark pages.

As ever, feel free to email me. Sod the link, it's chatrat@graffiti.net . Your browsers can take care of their own html.

More to follow elsewhere.
More fun with blogs, though not specifically mine.

I've been cruising blogland for the last hour and a half or so and poking my nose into a few beauts and new ones and odd ones and doing my level best to avert my eyes from those with cutesy pie names since I don't want my keyboard covered with vomit.

Anyway, I've been leaving comments on some of them including one I found by the purest stroke of chance in the entire universe, the blog belonging to a beautiful woman who lives in Melbourne whom I've actually met outside of cyberspace.

Chocolate for Laura next time we're in the same room. She's one of the warmest, nicest and well, just really easy people to be around and I don't wrap many people that highly.

I feel sorry for the poor others on whose blogs I've left comments. Who the hell is ChatRat?

But I do these things. There are umpteen billion people in cyberspace and wherever you go, you are going to bump into someone you haven't met before - it's inevitable. If you're afraid of that, if you're only online to keep in touch with people you know, you're wasting your money. Get out there and meet as many people as you can.

I've had phone conversations with some ferkin fantastic people and met heaps of local netdwellers, none of which would have happened if I had kept myself to myself. My dad used the online dating services before he met his current squeeze. The possibilities are out there.

Not too much more gush, I know it's repellent.

I'm just doing my netizen duty getting out there and meeting fellow netizens and letting them know I've left my footprint.

Maybe others will pop in here, leave their footprints and efface the memory of the Coeur d'Alene blog bastard which got me re-blogging in the first place. Which reminds me, I really must get on and do something constructive with the Pad. I just have this feeling it could be a catalyst of sorts for something really fulcruminous.

In the meantime, if you're looking for some where to park your mouseclick, try The Promethean's Clubhouse.

I think it's possible to leave comments here if, in the course of trying to find out who the hell has been leaving these comments all over other people's blogs - if it's not, you can always email me. I love getting email from people I've amused or annoyed.

Chances are you found this place after googling my nick, keep looking and you should get my email addies or just click the email me links - that's why they're links.

In the meantime, have a look at my gift to the planet. I did it thinking of a friend of mine in Queensland, but the rest of the planet may as well share it. It's a Flash file that takes about 10 minutes to load if you're using dial up. Broadband apparently takes about 60 seconds.

It might not be that great, but it comes from the heart.

Then piss off and do something constructive.

Wednesday, July 13, 2005

It still bugs me that a freak like the one I mentioned yesterday could get so many people answering his blog and that its name is all over the search engines more than my nick. Oh vanity, you insatiable beast.

It still bugs me that someone like commands as much attention as he does when all he deserves is the death penalty. Society needs to rid itself of units like this one.

It made me wonder how a blog might go - or a website - that put up faces of children from child porn sites, so that anyone spotting the child might call the police, the police interview the child who could then lead police to maggots like that one. I am reminded of the pure hell one kid went through whose schoolmates - and I use the term 'mates' extremely lightly here - found his pictures on the internet and gave him so much grief he had to move interstate and change his name, only to get more taunts from more kids at his new school.

What the hell is up with that? This kid is a victim of a pedophile and his peers attack him. Only in America? I suppose we'll just have to wait and see what happens to Shasta Groene and whether or not she gets the same sort of mistreatment at the hands of her school friends.

I cling tenuously to the hope that little girls might behave more compassionately, but I know from my own school days that girls can be and often are worse than boys. Boys concentrate on the physicality of this sort of thing, girls attack personality and character and stigmas are a whole new prospect in the world of the female from what they are in the male world.

Oh how we loathe a victim.

I'm getting a tad angry here. From the first Flash file I put up on my ISP provided homepage which brings a lump to my throat, I'm torn between loving the innocent and stabbing ignorant cowards in their eyes with cornforks because their eyes are useless to them if they can't see how the hurt they cause with their ignorance demeans everyone around them, turns beauty into fear and undermines the very foundations we all need not only to overcome adversity, but perhaps even to prevent violations from occuring in the first place.

It's way overdue that we - and I mean every last man, woman and child - make a conscious effort to protect and heal instead of attack and further hurt those who are victims or who may become victims.

The contagion a victim carries is imaginary. It can't jump from one person to another just by close proximity. The stigma, however, is the same stigma given life by prejudices based on race, religion or whatever else. Eww, you're a victim. Yuck. Get away from me.

Say "No!" and say it loudly.

"Oh my, you've been a victim. I can make you feel better if you'll trust me enough. I'm not a counsellor, not a doctor, not a police officer, not a priest/imam/rabbi/minister - or maybe I am - but whatever else I may be, in this time I will be your friend if you let me."

How magnificent would that be.

If we all - and I mean every one of us - adopted that sort of attitude, a website such as the one I described, would empower decent people to become like the heroic staff at Denny's who called the police and saved the life of Shasta Groene. It would prevent the sort of victimisation I described of the teenage boy whose peers discovered his victimhood at the hands of a pedophile. And while the one evil freak is now likely to get the chair, another is probably destroying the lives of dozens of other children and will keep doing so until he or she is also caught.

Hey, why not?

Tuesday, July 12, 2005

Crap!

I haven't been here for 4 months. How slack is that!

So what brings me here now? The truth is I'd rather not say, but part of the reason I'd rather not say is the very reason I'm going to impart this bit of information.

I'm here because a series of links from a writer's workshop website I visited last night as an alternative to the one I usually visit had a link to an MSNBC news item concerning the blog of a convicted sex offender who shall remain nameless, whose blog I am not going to name because neither deserve even that much consideration in my opinion. This blogger is the same prick who murdered two children, two adults and held Shasta Groene captive for 7 weeks before staff at Denny's in Coeur d'Alene recognised her in his company and called police.

I'm not usually in favour of the death penalty unless there is absolutely no doubt at all about the guilt of the offender and there are no extenuating circumstances. Frankly, I hope they burn this mofo alive. There isn't a death unpleasant enough for this scum except that to inflict such a death demeans those who would impose it. Lethal injection will suffice - and I can't think of it ever being more richly deserved.

I'm here because the blog in question specifically FAILS to tell the truth either about the man who wrote it or what he had done. The sick f**k boasts about how he "got even" twice and hadn't been caught and that he couldn't be more frank about the contents of his blog except for the encrypted version.

I can just see it now. He's described in detail what he did on those two times he "got even" and he's selling subscriptions to pedophiles. When this bloody liar says he "got even twice", that's his abjectly dishonest euphemism for admitting he raped two more children. That is the extent of this filth's dishonesty.

I'm here because that disgusting freak of nature had the temerity to blog his daily life on a semi-regular basis as if there were any justification at all for his continued existence and deliberately omitted those events which he knew were ample reason to put him to the damn chair.

This scum of the earth was raping children yet coming across in his blog as some sort of victim of society - and says he is exactly that. Blaming the rest of us for his evil. It staggers me that anyone would go to the bother of blogging so aciduously in order to make people believe nothing out of the ordinary was happening when nobody suspected anything was happening - except the police who were at that point after him - and he was both hinting that something was about to unfold, but that he was merely an innocent victim of society once more and the police activity around him was neither fair, reasonable or justified.

Was there anyone ever so adept at manipulation in my lifetime as this filthy swine? I really struggle to believe so.

I am here because this filth wrote a blog. I am here because his blog was given credence by enough air heads to make it frightening. I am here now, blogging in my blog because sinister pus monkeys like him can have a blog and a famous one at that and my neglected blog is unknown.

That's why I'm here, that's why I really don't want to admit why I'm here and now you know the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth as to why I am here now blogging these thoughts. My blog is unknown for the simple reason I have been too damn lazy to update it regularly and that's the full, frank and true admission of it.

I am offended that filth like him can have a blog that's read by thousands, that his absolute dishonesty is accepted on face value by dozens if not hundreds of people, that he even has supporters and others think and feel as he does and are even prepared to stand up and be counted and the efforts of innocent people are ignored - and by that, continuing the theme of full and frank admission, I don't just mean me and my blog, but the humdrum blogs of thousands of others just like me and not in the least like me - but all of us innocent of the evil perpetrated by this maggot - all of our blogs go unacknowledged.

I am offended and I am envious. I am offended that I am envious of this freak. How much more honest about this could I get? Am I vain in that respect? Guilty as charged, your honour. My writing is one of the very few things in this world I actually do take seriously. It's one of the few areas where criticisms of my efforts are keenly felt. It's my public achilles heal and whilst I have no problem at all acknowledging the superior efforts of people whose work I admire, like Terry Mertens' newsletter - All You Need to Know - and my perennial favourite, Rageboy, what I can't handle very well at all is people picking on my writing and the fact a grossly dishonest, hugely less talented and basically evil person, unknown except for the horror he wrought against children, gets a much greater readership than do I.

And I curse the fact I have no one to blame but myself, that the only reason his blog got the attention my own hasn't is because of my own damn laziness.

No excuses, no re-assigning blame, none of that. My honest confession is I am malevolently envious of possibly one of this young century's most evil people and I am so because he blogged far more often than I have and generated a following I have lost because of idleness.

So, let that be a lesson to you all. If you have these quasi aspirations that I have, you must be diligent and make what you want to happen happen. Don't just sit idly by and let daily opportunities slip through your fingers.

More to follow.

Of that you can now be certain.