Life is a Highway

He carried yellow flowers. Another option would have been actual policies

2011-12-09T19:53:00.000+11:00

Well, well. We will all miss Herman Cain, won't we? Even though he has promised not to actually ever go away? He really was the candidate who kept on giving, and by that I mean kept giving us reasons to panic every time we considered the remote chance that someone might vote for this guy.

As Herman Cain bows out of the race, Before Huntsman, Perry and Santorum, which has got to hurt, it's tempting to follow the crowds of political pundits who are lining up to blame the tragically early end to his campaign on his painful response to questions about Libya, his fear that China may develop nuclear weapons, his frighteningly dumb foreign policy map, his campaign manager, or, just possibly, the sex scandals which have now become too numerous to bother to link to. Okay, maybe just one.

I will not fall for that, for I know that anyone who was paying attention could have seen this coming months ago simply by examining his choice of theme song.

For those who don't know, this catchy tune from former American Idol contestant Krista Branch has been part of the campaign for a while, but it rocketed to prominence after it was featured in the endlessly infamous "smoke 'em if you got 'em" ad.

It is mildly surprising that, as far as I know, no-one commented on the excellent moment at 2:11 of the official video clip where they show a close up of a protester's sign which has the symbols of both major parties and the slogan "Two Parties Same Result".

An odd message from anyone who seriously intends to contest a general election as a Republican, but that's just the beginning.

Where the song really gets fun is at 1:26, where Krista sings:

Your god is power/you have no shame/
Your only interest is political gain.

At first I thought this only sounded slightly off because lyrics that clunky do not belong anywhere outside of an unlikely duet between Area 7 and Melanie Chisholm, probably produced by Ark Music Factory.

After a coupole of listens, I decided it was actually more to do with how much it reminded me of Felicia Day's invitation to "come on and share a potion with me"

What no-one picked up at the time, but immediately became obvious, was that Herman Cain had actually chosen a theme song that summed up his candidacy perfectly.

Either that or, and this is the theory I favour, the whole thing was a Kaufmanesque postmodern prank designed solely to show Casey Affleck and Joaquin Phoenix how it should be done.

And if you're still not convinced, I invite you to click this, or better still, consider that his campaign ended like this.

Wow. Close one

2011-09-25T06:00:00.001+10:00

So, as I sit here still recovering from the exhaustion caused by just watching Friday night's preliminary final, we attempt to explain just how Collingwood managed to get themselves into that mess in the first place.

As few theories:

Daisy Thomas apparently misunderstood the concept of carry over points and thought that he wasn't allowed to play for the first three quarters of this game.
Also recently returned from suspension, Heath Shaw decided to demonstrate his fitness by randomly sprinting around the back line. Well, that worked.
It's hard to do well when your key ruckman and your All-Australian centre half back can't enter a three legged race because they do not have enough working limbs between them
Dayne Beams selflessly declared that he, not Didak, should have been wearing the substitute's vest and went on to play like he was. Mick Malthouse eventually agreed.For his part, Alan Didak took the instruction to replace Dayne Beams literally and spent the last quarter carefully avoiding the ball.
Nick Maxwell's awful smothered kick late in the game was the result of exhaustion, which was, in turn, the result of yelling at Heath Shaw all night. If they ever remake "Half Blood Prince", expect to see Nick Maxwell cast as Cormack McLaggen.

There were some more positive signs. Taz did a superb job on Buddy, Trav took an awesome pack mark and kicked a goal when it really mattered, Leon Davis fulfilled his contractual obligation to pop up out of nowhere and kick a crucial goal on the last Saturday in September, Swann and Ball created goals out of nothing, and, with 38 seconds to go, Daisy finally noticed that there was a football match going on and jumped in with the match saving tackle.

The real good news in all this is that there is surely no way that the Pies could possible play that badly too weeks in a row.

Also, well, it got me to write something on here, even if it was totally inconsequential.

In other news, since changing jobs 9 months ago, I seem to slowly be recovering from that bad case of being total screwed up and there is some chance that I may some day be happy again.

I had kind of hoped that it would not take this long, but I am getting there.

The news you won't get anywhere else

2011-03-08T21:00:00.003+11:00

On 18 April 2006, Gilmore Girls Episode 6.19 first went to air. In that episode, called "I Get a Sidekick Out of You", Lane Kim is infomed by an annoyed cousin that "You cannot dance to Joy Division".

It might be reasonable to assume that it went to air somewhat later in the UK, if they even show it there.

On 8 October 2007, The Wombats release the second single from their second album, "A Guide to Love, Loss & Desperation".

That single is called "Let's Dance to Joy Division".

It is safe to conclude that The Wombats are obsessed with every TV show and movie that Alexis Bledel has ever been in, including "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2".

Oooh Baby Do You Know What That's Worth?

2011-01-02T06:57:00.004+11:00

My boys don't get to see my brother very often. He lives in a remote part of WA and he comes over for Christmas every now and then. I can.t complain too much, as we have never been to visit him, apart from this trip to Perth, which was just me and only because his daughter was spending her first birthday in hospital.

The result of this lack of contact, and the discovery that the man is crazy, is that my boys have a strange fascination with hearing stories about all the stupid stuff my brother and I did when we were much younger.

For some reason, one of their favourites (second only to the story of his wedding where half the guests ended up accidentally locked in a zoo) is the story of our backpacking trip around England and Scotland when I was 16.

The short version of this is that we were spending a couple of months in London, as my Dad was working there and we therefore had free accomodation within walking distance from Buckingham Palace and those opportunities don't come up much. We managed to find a deal where we could buy a bus ticket that allowed us to go anywhere in the UK for 5 days, all for around 40 pounds (which, back then, was $100).

We included the town of Carlisle in our itinerary solely because my brother, then 18 years old, was madly in love with Belinda "Heaven is a Place on Earth" Carlisle and he wanted to buy a postcard with her last name on it and send it to her with a message on the back pointing out that he flew halfway around the world just to buy her this postcard.

He never actually bought the postcard, or sent it, but Carlisle is a beautiful place and we met lots of nice Australians at the youth hostel so it worked out just fine.

The part of the story that amuses my children is that my eternally disorganised brother managed to then miss the bus we were planning to catch from Carlisle to Newcastle. My sister and I caught that bus, spent the day hanging around Newcastle and York, and then headed back to London. We stopped by the flat and asked my parents if they had heard from my brother, and my parents were not impressed.

The part of the story that I am a little proud of is that, well before GPS or mobile phones, and armed with the knowledge that my brother was somewhere in the UK, it took me less than 2 hours to find him.

The part of the story that astonishes me is that my parents let a 16 year old go walking around London at 11pm looking for someone who could have been anywhere.

The part of the story that actually inspired me to sit down and write this post is only vaguely related to any of that. While we were in Carlisle, we spent a few hours at the half ruined castle in the middle of town. Like most castles, it has arrow slits in the walls of the towers.

I've always thought that arrow slits were one of those simple but very intelligent ideas. If you look from the top, the arrow slit and area behind it are basically triangular, meaning that the person standing inside the tower could shoot an arrow in almost any direction, and, at least before cannons were invented, it was basically impossible to shoot back.

My point here is that, whatever else is wrong with living in Australia in 2011, many of us enjoy a standard of living that, a few centuries back, would have been available only to those who could afford to live in a castle, and we have cool stuff like the internet, and something more effective than brandy to numb the pain of having a tooth pulled out.

On top of those benefits, when designing a house, the architect does not need to consider the most effective way to kill people who may one day want to take it.

Even though I grew up wishing I could live in a castle, I have decided that I am much happy in a home without arrow slits.

Oh Freedom (Freedom) Freedom (Freedom) Freedom, oh FREEDOOOOOOM

2010-12-17T06:59:00.004+11:00

After six years of a job that can only be described as hellbad, I wondered if my last day would be as bizarre, stupid and offensive as all the others.

Well, not quite, but they gave it a fair crack.

The day started innocuously enough. As I was not the only one leaving that day (impressive, with a total staff of 15, yes?)* we had a farewell breakfast, which may have been designed solely to make me get up early one last time, but the food was good. After ordering the most expensive breakfast available, and lots of coffee, I chatted to my colleagues about ice skating and lychees and it was generally pleasant.

My soon to be former boss made a nice little speech about how much my colleague and I would be missed, which was so generic that, around a week later, I cannot recall a single word of it.

I made a nice speech in return, which mostly focused on how awesome my former colleagues are, as this is true, and included the very small number of positive things I could possibly say about my former boss.

They gave me a little farewell gift, which was two bottles of red wine and a decanter, showing that at least they know something about me, and also showing that considering the obscene amount of profits they had made off my hard work, they were still willing to be cheap.

In case you think I'm being unnecessarily critical, they also invited me to the Christmas party after I resigned, and they uninvited me a few weeks later, because apparently its a really small restaurant and fitting an extra person at the table would be impossible.

Cheap.

Then it was back to the office, where the computers did not work for the next three hours. Since I had not been allowed near a client for four weeks and I had spent that time writing policy documents that no-one will ever read, I had absolutely nothing to do until they were fixed.

My colleagues took the opportunity to give me their own going away present. Yep, another two bottles of red wine. I need to throw a dinner party or two soon.

As a further act of hilarity, my colleagues also gave me John Howard's autobiography, which made me laugh very loudly, and a very nice bookmark with a fetching picture of Kristen Stewart as Bella Swan on the front.

Yes, I read a Twilight book once, but I spent almost the entire book yelling "WE ALL KNOW HE'S A VAMPIRE, WHY DO I HAVE TO READ THREE HUNDRED PAGES OF CRYPTIC LITTLE HINTS, AND PLEASE COULD SOMETHING HAPPEN SOON" and so forth.

I like the people I worked with, I really do. They are funny, and I miss them.

My former employer, with his usual subtlety and balance, insisted tha I actually read Howard's biography, as it would convince me that I would have voted for him if I "had half a brain".

Usually, I let such idiotic statements go through to the keeper, but as it was my last day, I took the opportunity to wholeheartedly agree that anyone with half a brain would have voted for John Howard, before noting that, since I have a whole brain, I voted for someone else.

This would have been an excellent "Oh snap" moment, except that I'm pretty sure that my former employer did not understand it.

Oh well.

With the computers finally working, I finished off the largely pointless task that I had been performing for the past four weeks straight, and then it was time for the much anticipated 'exit interview'.

I should point out at this stage that my employer had never conducted an exit interview before. This was a lucky break for everyone who had quit in the past.

It also explained why the interview consisted mostly of my former employer arguing with every nearly every suggestion I made and also complaining that I had not raised these suggestions sooner.

Surely the whole point of an exit interview is to find out stuff that hadn;t been raised sooner. Also, making life hell for anyone who disagrees with you about anything is a management technique which is pretty well guaranteed to ensure that no-one ever suggests doing things differently except in an exit interview.

But the best was yet to come.

You see, if the purpose of an exit interview is to look at ways to improve the organisation, then it is difficult to understand why anyone would think that teh organisation can be improved by attacking the character and integrity of the person who is leaving.

Did this stop my former employer from doing that? No.

I really couldn't be bothered firing back. Really, if they can't understand why I would look for other work after they had threatened to fire me roughly once a fortnight for two months, then no amount of explaining it was going to change anything.

I think they actually expected an apology or something.

Seriously.

Rather unfortunately, mine was not the only exit interview of the day. Having failed to make me cry, they obviously felt the need to try harder with the next candidate, our receptionist/admin assistant who had been with the organisation for four years and had known my former employer for many years before that and had been recruited by my former employer personally.

So, of course, they yelled and swore at her until she left the office in tears, never to return.

A few days later, word got back to me that they had announced that they have decided that they will never conduct exit interviews ever again.

We met up at the pub half an hour later. I have only been punk in drublic* a couple of times in my life but I set out to ensure that this would be one of them. I had selected the pub on the basis that:

1. It was really quite close to the office

2. There was karaoke

3. $10 jugs, $5 basic spirits.

Sadly, many of my colleagues came up with thin excuses for failing to turn up, like a partner's Christmas party or a brother's wedding rehearsal, but enough people turned up to fill a table or two so that was fine.

My recently teary colleague, who is a devout Christian and drinks very little, cheered up rapidly after two vodkas, but had to leave relatively early because she had left her 15 year old son in charge at home and she wanted to get back before he set the place on fire. Most other people, including the friend who had picked me up from home that morning and agreed to drive me home, were gone by 7pm. I ended up hanging around for a while with a former colleague who left several years ago, and her husband who I had never met before.

After several more beers and a bourbon & coke for good measure, the karaoke started. It soon became clear that the three of us were the only ones in the whole pub who had not turned up solely for the purpose of singing.

At least, that's the only thing I can think of that could possibly explain why we were the only ones laughing. Highlights included a middle aged guy singing Pink's "There you go", and a dude who sang, to quote the lyrics on the screen precisely, "She ####### hates me".

I'm not sure that there is much point in typing ####### on the screen if the singer is clearly going to sing the actual lyrics, but good on them for giving it a go.

By 9pm, when we were done laughing until it hurt, my friends headed for home and I realised that I probably should have asked them for a lift. I also realised that I was too smashed to give a taxi driver directions and I was hungry.

After staggering to the nearest fast food outlet and eating a fast food burger for the first time in 10 years, I then came up with the lunatic idea that it wouldn't really take all that long to walk home.

Maybe I should have factored the five bottles of wine and stupidly heavy political autobiography in my bag into the equation.

Still, 95 minutes, a fairly seriously bruised shoulder from the bag, and a stop at 7 Eleven for a donut later, I staggered into my house and the start of a good long holiday.

I woke up the next morning with no hangover and a really, really big grin on my face.

A week or so later, it's still there.

* And another person resigned before she was pushed later the same day

** Best album title in history. Thanks to The Descendants for that one.

Shocking to awesome in 3, 2, 1....

2010-10-23T22:16:00.004+11:00

Well, at least I didn't promise to update frequently.

There has been little that has seemed worth blogging about since I last wrote. Really, almost the whole year, apart from Grand Final Days, has been the sort of year that should be forgotten as soon as possible.

Sure, my kids are awesome, and I will hopefully write some more about that on the other blog soon, but I have bene miserable all year, and anyone who has had the misfortune to spend any time with me has found that experience to be pretty miserable too. I have basically been avoiding nearly everyone I know, for their sake as well as for mine.

Thos eunable to avoid me, like my wife, have not been enjoying this at all.

I was going to say that I can't remember the last time I was so little fun to be around, but I can. It was early 1999. Basically, I reached the point where I figured that I owed the entire City of Geelong an apology for every having lived there and I promptly quit my job and left town. Amazingly, some of the people I knew back then are still willing to speak to me. I don't know why.

This year has been a combination of dramatically bad times, like the week we spent at the Childrens Hospital after Cherub's appendix burst, and the more mundane, but still damaging, grind of turning up five days a week to work for an employer who seems to have a bizarre need to make doing my job as difficult and unpleasant as possible.

It is therefore a very happy thing to be able to record that Cherub is fine and, apart from a scar that he will probably think is cool when he's a bit older, there have been no lasting effects from his crisis of health.

It s also very, very pleasing to be able to record that after five years and none months of intense misery, this week was the week when I finally, finally got to QUIT THE WORST JOB I HAVE EVER HAD.

It is going to take a while for the sense of relief to really sink in, but when I found out that I was going to get a job offer from a much better organisation, I sat down and literally sobbed with relief. Even writing about it a few days after the event is making me tear up, just a little bit.

I had to work pretty hard to keep the gigantic grin off my face while I was giving notice, and to resist the temptation to laugh hysterically when my boss said he was disappointed that we hadn't been able to work through our differences (those differences being that I think I'm good at my job and he had recently taken to trying a new motivational technique known as "frequent threats to terminate my employment").

I will miss everyone I work with, except my boss, but I will not miss the daily soul destroying grind. I will not miss spending every minute of every day wondering when I will next be told that I am stupid and incompetent, or just being yelled at for having an idea that my boss could not understand and which he therefore assumed must be stupid. And I really, really really will not miss having my compentence, loyalty and integrity questioned with depressing frequency.

I still have to survive what will surely be an interesting notice period, but I will be out of there before Christmas and I will have at least three weeks to simply enjoy my life before I start the next job. The sense of relief and joy will not truly kick in until I am out of there for good, but I have noticed the start of a change already.

Most of all, I have started to feel the first faint glimmers of a barely remembered emotion. I think it's called joy. And I seem to recall that I like it.

2 legit disorganised 2 quit

2010-04-04T11:36:00.005+10:00

Okay, so, it's been a year or more and that final post is yet to get written. This is not it.

This probably proves that I am far too busy to blog regularly and yet mysteriously unwilling to quit altogether. So, I now plan to just write something whenever and accept that the few people who used to read this may or may not return but either way I'll at least get the occasional bit of writing done.

The same theory has been working out pretty well over at that other occasionally updated blog of mine so lets see how it goes here.

So, let's start with the family trip to Queensland last July, because I've been thinking of writing about that for a while.

The flight up was pretty good, lunch at some randomly selected steakhouse in Brisbane was odd but pleasant enough, and they had coffee, and the drive to Mount Tambourine would probably have gone better if we had either a map or a GPS, but we figured it out. The brief stop at a very pleasant park with a lake in Oxenbridge was just a bonus, really.

The whole reason for this trip was my grandmother's 90th birthday celebration, which saw almost all of the extended family gather at a dodgy but nice enough conference centre on Mount Tambourine.

It was a fun few days. I captained the winning team in the "Queensland v Rest of the World" cricket match, my cousin and I rocked the family concert night with our version of "God Gave Rock and Roll to You" and I generally spent a lot of time catching up with some pretty awesome people who I am related to but hardly ever see. Bundle and Cherub bonded almost instantly with my cousin's son, who is about the same age as them, and the three of them spend the few days merrily causing trouble.

Next, it was down to the Gold Coast to spend a few days in a truly dodgy alleged resort that proved once and for all that there is a reason why places found on wotif.com never seem to be full, but which we forgave because it was walking distance to the beach and backed on to Currumbin Sanctuary. After that it was back to Brisbane to spend a couple more days catching up with relatives and discovering that Brisbane actually gets pretty cold in July. Also, for obvious reasons, hardly anyone in Brisbane seems to have central heating.

On our last day in Brisbane, we probably should have been keeping things low key and letting our exhausted children rest, but my grandparents really wanted to take us out for the day and since these opportunities come along almost never, we cheerfully said yes.

The plan was to take the CityCat to Southbank and do whatever. This would have worked better if my grandfather hadn't had some sort of massive allergic reaction to something he ate the night before, meaning he was far too unwell to go anywhere.

Since we had already told the kids where we were going, we went anyway. It was a sunny July day, and we felt warm for the first time since we arrived.

We found a playground shortly after we arrived at Southbank, which was okay but not nearly so exciting as the bungee trampolines set up nearby. After a small amount of very focussed begging, we agreed that the boys could give this a try. Bundle absolutely rocked its and was upside down in mid air in no time. Cherub, having only just turned three, took a little bit longer to get into it but he was soon somersaulting all over the place.

From there, we wandered around, played on the tiny beach, admired the water features, bought the boys an icecream each, spent quite some time trying to get it off their cheeks and noses, and eventually caught the ferry back to our car.

We finally come to the thing I really wanted to write about.

Since my grandfather had been too unwell to come out with us, we dropped in for afternoon tea. After we had eaten and shown the boys the banana trees and chickens, I found myself standing on the back verandah for a few minutes and I realised something.

The last time I had stood on that spot was about 17 years earlier.

This felt deeply strange, because this was the house where I used to spend three or four weeks every summer until I was 19. When I was a kid, my parents, my brother, my two sisters and I would get into my parents' Valiant stationwagon and drive for two days with no airconditioning, stopping at some tiny motel in Dubbo or Gilgandra, all so we could spend a few weeks in Brisbane. This continued through my teenage years. Even after most of my sibs had lost interest, I kept going because I absolutely loved it there.

Eventually, I got involved in some other stuff over summer and the visits dropped off. I went back once, in my mid 20s, because my grandfather (on the other side of the family) had had a heart attack and I knew it was time to say goodbye, but I didn't spend much time visiting anyone else. A few years later, I was back again, this time with my lovely girlfriend/almost fiancee/now wife, because two of her friends were getting married. This time I saw my grandparents, and even dropped in at their church, which is about two blocks from their house, but still didn't visit the house itself.

Then I got married, then there were kids, and suddenly nine years had passed without a single trip to Brisbane.

So, to be back at my grandparent's house after 17 years was a bit strange. It was nice that absolutely nothing had changed (I found a money box in the shape of a globe that I was fascinated by when I was about six still sitting in the room where I used to sleep during our family holidays) but it was also just plain bizarre.

If someone had asked me 17 years earlier whether it would be that long before I would be back, I would have thought that would have been unlikely. I would probably also have thought that my grandmother, who was then 73 years old, and my grandfather, then 71, might not still be living there in 17 years time. Happily I would have been wrong about that.

There is also no way that I would have imagined that when I was next there, I woudl have a wife, two beautiful sons, a mortgage, a steady job that I'd worked in for 5 years. Any prediction I might have made concerning my future would have been absolutely way off.

It's kind of nice to have these moments where we realise that life can be filled with good things that we never expected.

I'll be in Brisbane again next week, although only for 24 hours. I plan to spend at least one of those hours standing on my grandparents' verandah and just enjoying the moment.

Mightier than the ultimate sword

2009-02-17T22:10:00.001+11:00

That title will make sense shortly, I swear.

With a small amount of sadness, it's time to announce that this blog has run out of steam, and indeed out of moderately warm water. So, very soon, this particular highway of life will close.

My failure to post anything apart from one knock knock joke in the past month is as good an illustration as any of the reasons for this decision.

I am still working on finishing one final post, since it seems wrong to depart without:
1. One last potshot at Richard Dawkins;
2. Some attempt to explain why this blog is named after a moderately successful Canadian rock song from the mid-90s;
3 Whatever else seems important at the time.

That post is still days or possibly weeks from completion. For now, I just want to say that anyone who sets up or joins a facebook group dedicated to hating some guy who may or may not have started a fire needs to get a life.

Also, at this time of national tragedy, it is time for all Australian to join together in telling Germaine Greer to, just once in her life, shut the hell up. Her idiotic comments have been a rare sour note in what has otherwise been a magnificent response to a terrible, terrible disaster. Greer needs to finally figure out that her obsession with using tragedy to push whatever agenda she feels like pushing this week and making ill informed, borderline meaningless statements at the worst possible time just makes her look like an attention seeking dumbass.

Thanks for reading, it's been fun. My final, and significantly less shirty, post will appear some time soon.

This is what happens when I spend lots of time with my immediate family

2009-01-25T19:27:00.001+11:00

"Knock knock"

"Who's there?"

"Interrupting cow"

"Interrupting co-"

"MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO"

Catch ya in the Rye

2009-01-09T06:54:00.000+11:00

Before I tell you about my Peninsula mini-break, let's just take a moment to note how hard I worked on the title to this post.

Okay, we're done with that now.

After an awesome Christmas, we crashed and did nothing, except perhaps bounce on a trampoline, on Boxing Day. The day after that, we packed more food than strictly necessary and a few clothes into our parkability-rich, boot-space-poor car and drove down to Rye for four days in a beachhouse with two good friends and their three endlessly engaging children.

The last time we all spent a long weekend in this beachhouse together was last March. Whilst there were many good things about that trip, the experience was soured by a gastro bug which we all shared with each other and which almost put a couple of us in hospital. We were a little stunned to be invited back after that. It turns out we have lovely friends.

I do enjoy a good beach house. This one had been furnished on the basis that the owners are seriously concerned about the local crime rate so they try to ensure that there is nothing in there that is worth stealing. They have done pretty well, which means that the place is comfortable and daggy and therefore exactly what a beach house should be.

There seems to be some rule that beach houses must be decorated once and once only. That would explain why the room I shareed with Honey Bear has three U2 posters, all from the late 80s (does it freak anyone else out that Rattle & Hum is a 20 year old album?) and nothing else on the walls. The most bizarre one is from the "Unforgettable Fire" era and features a bunch of snow covered trees and a picture of the drummer standing around and wondering how Adam, Bono and Edge managed to avoid turning up for the photoshoot, along with the ridiculous caption "Ice, your only river runs cold". It made no sense as lyrics and it makes even less sense on a poster. I suppose I should just be grateful that they used this instead of the opening lines of "Silver and Gold".

The other feature of beach houses throughout the universe is that there must always be a large collection of books and nothing to read. I always take a book when travelling, which alllows me to avoid the horror of finally having a few minutes to read something and discovering that the most interesting book available is Tim Allen's "Don't Stand Too Close to a Naked Man". Seriously, people, where is Slash's autobiography when we need it?

I think that one of the things our children love about this holiday house is that, while at home TV viewing is rather limited, our friends tend to have the thing on constantly from 6.00am until bed. I saw more cartoons in four days than I had previously seen in two years, but that's fine. What I did object to was that once the children had gone off to play outside the adults somehow ended up watching the Pussycat Dolls performing live on Channel 7's Sunrise. Leaving aside the obvious point that anyone who rhymes "movies" with "boobies" should not be allowed to release a single called "When I grow up", I was simply appalled that Sunrise how somehow managed to assemble a crowd of 100 people who were actually willing to cheer during this terrible crime against lyrics.

If I ever get hold of these people's names, I will go to each of their houses in turn and speak severely to them.

I am not kidding here.

Appalling though the Dolls may have been, their efforts at inappropriateness paled into insignificance compared to the old Warner Bros cartoons that we were silly enough to let the children watch. Our friends' children, and particularly their 3 year old son, are obsessed with the Big Bad Wolf. They have managed to dig up a really, really old version of the story of the three little pigs, which is fine although during the final chase scene one does start to wonder where the third pig, in constructing his brick house, found time to build an elevator.

It's the cartoon that follows that causes the most concern. It features Porky Pig and is set somewhere Arabic and it is the most deeply offensive thing I have ever watched. The basic plot is that Porky gets a tip that a particular fort is going to be attacked by Ali Baba and his mates so he sets out to warn the garrison. On arrival, he discovers that the occupants of the fort have nicked off back to America for a convention but he decides to hang around and defend it anyway.

The politic messages are as unsubtle as they are appalling. In one scene, a huge, evil looking Arabic dude scales the side of the fort. When he reaches the top, Porky belts him with a large mallet and he falls back to the ground. He briefly considers scaling the wall again but thinks better of it an instead walks around the fort holding up a sign saying "This fort unfair to Arabs".

And if that sounds offensive, and it does, there's more. The cartoon also features a character who is also vaguely middle eastern in appearance and has a giant artillery shell strapped to his head. He shows an incredible level of enthusiasm for running into the side of the fort and blowing himself up. His dialogue is limited to "Oh boy on boy oh boy, now's my chance/what a break" etc.

Just in case anyone thinks that I am reading too much into a simple cartoon and this is not really an early depiction of a suicide bomber, let me add that the last time this character appears, he accidentally blows himself up, along with Ali Baba and all his troops, and the cartoon ends with debris still flying everywhere.

The first time this character appears, he is standing next to a sign and yes it actually says "Suicide Squad".

It turns out that America's appalling attitude to our Arabic brothers and sisters was with us long before George W Bush. If you ever suspecteds that W learned most of what he knows from Porky Pig, I think you can mark down that theory as validated.

Bad lyrics and offensive cartoons aside, it was a very good holiday.

It usually takes me a few days to start unwinding before I can relax and really enjoy a holiday. My wife suggested that I kick-start the process by drinking a lot of red wine, which worked pretty well the first day by left me drinking rather cautiously on the second.

We took the children bike riding a couple of times each day, which was fun but which did not lower my stress levels in any way at all. Things improved once Bundle found out where the brakes were and how to use them. Chasing two four year olds down a hill, on foot, with a major road at the foot of that hill, while carrying a two year old, is an experience that I probably do not need to have more than once in my life.

Taking the children to the beach and watching them jump in the very cold, very small waves and giggle was, of course, endlessly delighful, as was simply watching the five of them play together. It was quite remarkable that, in the course of four days, there were a handful of occasions where there was a little bit of angst over whose turn it was with a particular toy but there was not one single actual fight.

We had four of the five children sleeping in one room. Getting them to go to sleep was not always easy, and I am convinced that bunk beds exist solely for the purpose of causing parental nightmares, but after the first night this arrangement worked really well and the adults had our evenings off to watch movies and stuff.

We started with Don Cheadle and Guy Pearce in "Traitor". It was watchable. Don Cheadle is a fine actor but seems to always look a little sulky in any role he plays. On this occasion, he character had good cause to be miffed so it worked out okay. Th enext night, we watched "The Bucket List". It made me wonder, again, why anyone thought Jack Nicholson needed to make another movie, and why Morgan Freeman failed to learn, after being in "Evan Almighty", that it is time to start reading the script before agreeing to star in turkeys like this. Or, preferrably, refusing to star in turkeys like this.

I lost count of the reasons to hate this movie but I will give a special mention to the dumbest conversation about faith ever scripted. Morgan Freeman's attempts to convince Jack Nicholson that there is a god made me want to turn atheist on the spot. If the beach has been within walking distance or if I hadn't knocked off an entire bottle of red that afternoon I suspect I would have actually thrown the TV into the nearest ocean instead of just wanting to.

I attempted to avoid the end of this movie by going to bed at 10.00pm but sadly every decided to do the same and so I had to watch the end of the accursed thing the next night.

Fortunately, on our last night there we watched "Burn After Reading". The Coen brothers do blackly comedic farce as well as anyone and this was nearly as good as that Lebowski film, although with less 'dudes'. So as to avoid spoilers, my reaction to the various twists and turns throughout the first 94 minutes of this film may be summed up as follows:

This is stupid, this is taking for ever, I hate these characters, nothing is happening, still nothing, I really don't care about any of this, okay that line was mildly amusing, still nothing happening, I'm not sure which character is less likeable, but it's a close race between Frances McDormand's and Tilda Swinton's, John Malkovich's a credible third, back to nothing happening, whoa that was unexpected, no, I'm bored again, wow Frances McDormand is getting on my nerves, where exactly could this possibly be going, I may need to go to sleep now, what the hell? etc

Then came the final two minutes, which made me laugh so hard that home brew nearly shot out my nose even though I hadn't drunk any for around five hours. I continued to do this for several minutes and everyone looked at me like I was insane. It is impossible to explain why this movie is so funny but you simply must see it.

The other thing that occupied a large amount of my time was playing big bad wolf to the children's three (or, more often, five) little pigs. There were two equally popular versions of this.

One was played outside. The children would stand in a trailer in the back yard. I would attempt to blow it down and in the course of this the children would push me so that I would fall over and roll down a very small incline for the length of the back yard whilst going "ooh" and "ow" in a comic manner. The children would either remain in the trailer and shoot me with imaginary guns or, more likely, a couple of them would wait for me to stop rolling and then jump on me.

And shoot me with imaginary guns at close range.

The inside version involved all five children sitting on top of the bunk bed. We would do the usually introductory dialogue of the 'little pigs, little pigs' variety. I would then fail to blow down the bunk bed of bricks, find the windows all locked, and hit my head whilst attempting to break down the iron door. For a finale, I would climb down the chimney, stick one foot in the pot of boiling water and run from the room screaming "Ouch".

I liked this version becuase I usually then had a few minutes to drink some coffee before one of the kids came down to the kitchen to ask me to do it again.

I did notice that one of the children had, at the age of three, a bit of an obsession with killing. Happily, this was generally limited to wolves. On one of the many, many occasions on which I climbed down that imaginary chimney, he informed me that I would die because he had filled the water with "killing things", which included:
1. Guns
2. A big fire
3. Poo

I never found out how exactly he planned to put a fire inside a pot of boiling water, and I was not about to suggest a layer of oil on top. I also failed to discover what exactly was so deadly about the poo. I don't want to know.

The absolute highlight of this game came on the morning of our last day when, after going through this routine five or six times, I told the kids that this would be the last one for a little while because the big bad wolf was getting tired.

So they decided to set up a bed for me on one of the couched in the loungeroom. Bundle put a cushion at one end for my head, one of his friends put one at the other end for my feet, Cherub turned out the lights so I could sleep and the boy who had recently wanted to drop my wolf character in boiling poo and fire sat next to the couch and sang me a lullaby.

After several very pleasant days, we packed up on the morning of New Years Eve and, after one last bike ride for the kids, we headed for home. We stopped in Mornington to play on a beach that was almost entirely deserted and to shop at the gluten free supermarket, conveniently located next to the fullest carpark in the world. We arrived home in the afternoon and had just enough time to unpack the car and grab showers before driving across to the other side of town to spend New Years Eve at my little sister's place.

Did you all have a good New Year's too? I hope so.

Hey read my lips/ 'Cause all they say is kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss

2009-01-01T07:27:00.006+11:00

Oh hai and a very Happy New Year to you all.

This year has begun more or less as the previous one ended, as, halfway through typing this post, I hear a sound that my tired brain eventually recognises as a garbage truck, causing me to think "Oh it seems to be Thursday, this is not good" and sprint to the front door, pause to think for just a moment, sprint up the stairs to find some pants, rush back down the stairs, pause again to actually put on the pants, and run down to the street with two bins clanking noisily behind me.

Thankfully, that is not the sole point of this post.

I need your help. I got a $20 itunes card for Christmas so I have the opportunity to add some new material to my very well worn ipod playlist. My problem is that, as a dedicated public transport user with children who are too young to appreciate Triple J at home, I have been listening to far too much commercial radio and I have heard very few download-worthy tunes whilst doing so.

As a result, my list of songs that I am thinking about downloading looks like this:

1. Emiliana Torrini - Jungle Drum

2. The Choirboys - Run to Paradise

It is entirely possible that only one of those will make the final cut, so I need to think of about 10 more.

Since you all have excellent taste, please leave your suggestions in the comments section below.

Fraser - 1 Pope - 0 Foucault - Rather surprised to be involved at all

2008-12-26T21:21:00.004+11:00

We interrupt this temporary holiday hiatus to announce that I am in love with Giles Fraser.

Here's why.

Usually, I would add a few comments of my own, but on this occasion there is simply no need. I may actually have to move to Putney now.

And with that, I'm off to the beach until New Years Eve. Happy holidays to you all.

'Twas the week before Christmas

2008-12-23T00:05:00.002+11:00

And I was up late working because I want some time off over summer. And so it is time to post.

I sort of did my what Christmas means to me post for the year already, so I wont repeat it here.
I was planning to do a "year in review" type of post instead, but that idea has been ditched too.

Why? Well, a list of examples of how nothing much I have attempted this year has actually worked well, or worked at all, would have been therapeutic for me but of questionable value to anyone else. Trust me, if I had written it as planned then I would have had to change the title of this post to "Tis the season to be whiny".

Then I read this lovely post which sums up my year so well that there's really nothing I can add. It made me feel so absolutely good about my life that I lost the desire to whinge. Also, I read my post from last Christmas, and the one before, and noticed that there was a common theme of desperately wanting my brother and his family to be here to celebrate with us. Well, this year they will be. And so I am thrilled.

This Christmas is set to be the best one in living memory. The boys will go absolutely mental when they see their new trampoline, the whole family will get together for lunch, bad jokes will be explained, the family tradition of eating recently frozen pomme noisettes will continue unbroken even though none of us really know why, hordes of children will run (or in some cases, crawl) around with wild abandon, and we will all collapse at the end of the day with a sense of great contentment.

Christmas will be followed by a few days in Rye with some very dear friends in their very pleasant beachhouse, and then back home to play host to a series of interstate visitors, and two whole weeks in which to forget about work and enjoy the awesome company of my wonderful, gorgeous family.

Next year can sort itself out later. For now, the immediate future looks excellent and that is all that matters.

Once again, a very, truly, utterly, madly, fantastically, unbelievably and almost inconceivably Merry Christmas to you all.

Monday Shoutouts

2008-12-15T20:30:00.000+11:00

It's time to recognise a few of the people who have amused me in the past week. And so these shoutouts go:

To the milk bar/cafe type place on Alexandra Parade in between Brunswick Street and Smith Street which now has a sign out the front saying "Last coffee before Frankston"

To my boss, for using the phrase "You have to find a new paradigm" and really meaning it

To my dear brother Fox, for having the sheer nerve to create a "Least Valuable Student" award and give one out every year.

To the guy at the cafe down the road wearing a T-shirt which says "Hold my beer while I kiss your girlfriend"

And to the guy in front of me in the bus queue who took the time to lean over and write "Dr Phil Sux" in the dust on the side of the bus just before getting on. Thank you for sharing your issues with us all.

Each of you have, in your own small way, made my little world a more entertaining place to live. Thanks.

I am broken like an arrow/ Forgive me, forgive your wayward son

2008-12-10T21:26:00.002+11:00

A huge thank you to my very dear friend Melbs for another fascinating post. I was going to leave a relatively lengthy comment but it got far too long, so here it is as a post instead.

I will, resist, with some difficulty, the temptation to launch in on another round of ranting about Richard Dawkins, who is, at the end of the day, a very intelligent guy who will now doubt achieve great things if he ever gets over his debilitating obsession with teapots.

For those who miss those ranty good times, you can relive them here.

The thing is that, despite MG's very tempting invitation to pull out my best Pat Benetar impression, whilst I'm happy to take a 'best shot' approach to politics, social justice, sport and film reviewing, I just don't think it works for matters of faith.

Why? Because it's really hard to find anyone who will tell you that they embraced any particular faith solely on the basis that someone sat them down and talked them into it through a blindingly compelling intellectual argument.

Before diving too far into this, I want to make it clear that I am all for trying to get intelligence and faith to work as a team. I have been bugging my fellow Christians about this for years. When it comes to working out what one's faith means and how it works in the real world, we each owe it to ourselves, and to the people we cross paths with in our lives, to apply to highest level of intellectual rigour and brutally honest self reflection as we try to figure it out. Having said that, it doesn't follow that that is how we got there in the first place.

I can probably express that a little more clearly by analogy. When it comes to being a good parent, I need to be as smart as possible, and as deliberate as possible, in how I go about it, so I can provide the sort of loving, supportive, structured environment that my children need. To do anything other than to work as hard as I possibly can, and to be as smart as I possibly can, is to give my kids less than they deserve from their father.

However, this does not mean that I needed someone to sit me down and explain to me why I should love them to distraction.

I don't love my boys because someone talked me into it, I love them because I took one look at them and it was impossible not to.

So, should I try and convince you all that God exists and heaven is there? Whilst I am about it, I may as well try to explain why the four right chords can make me cry. Or why the view from the battlements of Carlisle castle once caused me to break into spontaneous applause. Or why it is that we fall in love. I have little interest in trying to reduce the mysteries of the universe to a series of logical propositions, each more fiendishly clever than the last, and I'm not going to try.

Instead, let me share a little bit of my own journey, and perhaps a little of what I love about this Christian faith that I embrace, and which I try to put into action in my own life.

Quite simply, it's when I am connected to the beliefs I cherish and the spirituality that I pursue that life seems to make the most sense. The colours are brighter, the edges are clearer, and the path ahead looks well lit and inviting.

Then there are those other times which, quite frankly, include almost all of this freakishly bad year called 2008, when I get too tired, stressed and pissed off to focus on those things that matter most to me. Whilst the good things in life are still there, and I still feel endlessly thankful to be sharing the journey with those nearest and dearest to me, living day to day starts to feel like a slow, exhausting slog, through what can best be described as the Swamp of Stupidness.

So, however disconnected and flat out lousy I may feel right now, I go on believing, because I remember those times when it works, and because one of the few things I have learned in my 35 years on this planet is that the bleak times never feel like they will end, but they always do. Yes, that requires some faith, but not a faith that is blind. It's a faith built on a solid foundation, not of someone else's beliefs, but on my own experiences.

So if that's a small insight into why I believe in something, why is it that Christianity is the something that I choose to believe in? Here's a few of the reasons.

I love that God is portrayed as the father whose son demands half his inheritance then leaves town, blows the lot on wine and hookers, and comes skulking back penniless and humiliated, bringing endless disgrace to the family. When the father sees the son coming, he abandons all dignity and runs down the road to meet him, throws his arms around him and celebrates his return with a huge party.

I love the idea that there will come a time when people will stop wanting to kill each other and there actually will be peace on earth.

I love any faith where the rules can be reduced down to the simply propositon that if we all love each other enough, it will work just fine.

I love that one of the biggest criticisms levelled at Jesus was that he ate too much, drank too much, and spent too much time with the most marginalised people in his society.

Most of all, and since it's nearly Christmas, I love the idea of a God who cares so much for his children that he would choose to become one of them, and to share the experience of living on this earth.

In doing so, in being the only person in history to be able to plan every detail of his life in advance, did not opt for a life of luxury, but chose to be born in a dirty stable to a mother who was pregnant before she got married. By the age of two he was a refugee in Egypt. He grew up in a town that can best be described as the first century equivalent of Moe. When he reached the age of 30, he took to travelling around, permanently broke, and bringing a message that caused his family to suggest he was mentally ill, the residents of his home town to try to thrown him off a cliff the first time he taught in their synagogue, and the religious leaders of his community to accuse him of being possessed by demons. Eventually, people who had celebrated his arrival in Jerusalem only a week earlier called for him to be killed and the authorities put him to death in the most painful way they could devise.

Quite simply, if the universe is to have a creator, if it is to be here for a reason and to make some sort of sense, I know that, even if I will never be smart enough to understand it, there is great comfort in knowing that that creator understands the pain and joy of being human. Some would say it's arrogant to imagine that a higher being would care about our day to day existence. I don't think so. I think it's almost inconceivable, but it's simply marvellous.

Just in case I forget to say it later, a very merry Christmas to you all.

Musing sounds better with you

2008-12-03T20:08:00.003+11:00

Following on from a very pleasant indeed chat with the lovely Melba, and her rather interesting post here, I am looking for ways to make this little blog more interactive. I too miss the old days of blogging when the comments flowed freely and tangents abounded.

Really, I don't think anyone reading this thing could fail to notice that the comments are invariably wittier and more insightful than the actual posts. Since I have no plans to offer cash and/or prizes for the best comments, I must find other ways to get you all enthused about improving this blog of mine, simply by turning up.

This does not mean that there will be a repeat of this particularly spectacular debacle. For I learn. But surely there is another way.

Whilst I search for it, I leave you with the news, as reported in last Sunday's Herald-Sun (I found an old copy on the train today) that former Australian Idol judge Mark Holden plans to become a full qualified lawyer.

Frankly, I hope he goes further and becomes a Judge (of Courts not reality shows). I could appear in his Court and make submissions and he would say that they sounded great even though everyone else who was listening could tell that they were absolutely awful.

Anyone who wants to leave comments along the lines of "ba da bing, ba da boom, I find for the plaintiff" is warmly encouraged to do so.

Of all the stories I have ever been told, this one was the most absolutely unexpected

2008-11-24T21:16:00.003+11:00

I'm really not sure whether I can do this story justice, but I really, really have to give it a go.

We start with the happy news that my parents are back from their latest six week trip to the home of country music, and a reminder than any state that voted for McCain by a fairly large margin must be a little bit nuts. Just how nuts could they be? Let me tell you.

Whilst they were over in crazy-land, a friend invited my parents to go to a show at one of the local universities. The show was put on by a group called the National Theatre Company which turned out to be pretty much just 4 guys from New York and possibly a not insignificant stash of dried herbs.

The show was a re-enactment of a curious period in Southern history when someone apparently decided that Sunday School teachers in rural areas needed to be entertained. The idea, I am told, was to put on a travelling show to help such folks learn about some more liberal type ideas and expose then to the sort of literature and cultural type stuff that is not readily available when you live within shouting distance of Dollywood and popular local music inevitably begins with the phrase "Pardon me boys..."

This notion, whilst a little patronising, was not, in itself, completely insane.

At first.

The problem was that, after a while, competition from vaudeville and Charlie Chaplin movies and the like was affecting attendance levels, so the shows had to become more and more entertainment based, and eventually even a little bohemian, to keep attracting the crowds. And it was this historical development that was re-enacted for the entertainment of my unsuspecting parents.

I sat, awestruck, in my parents' kitchen as they described the show. First, jugglers appeared with clubs and acrobats entertained with flipping. There may have been fire eating. There was certainly one dude swallowing a sword. My mother believed this was some sort of illusion until she found out later than this guy was the president of the American Sword Swallowing Association*

My parents thought the whole eating of metal thing was going a bit far. But the best was yet to arrive.

Next, a man walked onto the stage and started removing his clothing. It did not occur to my parents for a second that he would do anything other than stop this activity at some suitably tasteful moment.

No.

And here's where it gets a little bit strange.

Just as underwear was being removed, another member of the cast came running out with a piece of cardboard and placed it in front of the area recently vacated by said underwear.

Then he got out a texta.

And drew a picture of a genital on the cardboard.

Still not done, the carboard was then exchanged for a guitar, and the naked guy played four verses of a folk song before inching off the stage sideways, guitar still strategically placed in front of him and dragging his pants off the stage with one foot.

It is a while since I have laughed this hard.

For my mother went and saw a stripper.

My saintly Anglican mother, went and saw a stripper.

My saintly Anglican mother who walked out of "Pretty Woman" within the first 20 minutes due to the adult themes, went and saw a stripper.

With her husband.

Best of all, she told me about it. And thought it was hilarious.

I am, as ever, in awe of my parents.

* or some similarly titled group. Now that I think about it, there isprobably not a group called the A.S.S. Association.**

** If there is, I should probably refrain from mocking anyone tough enough to eat a sword

Weihnachtliche Milchschokolade mit Gewurzen und Orangenol

2008-11-19T20:53:00.003+11:00

Well it's been a very pleasant few days, thanks to a visit from my sister in law, her husband, and my two beautiful nephews.

One of the many unexpected pleasures of the visit was the discovery that my in-laws are obsessed with playing Carcassonne, an intriguing little German boardgame which I must buy soon.

Another was watching Honey Bear make her sister laugh so hard that English Breakfast Tea nearly came out her nose, but back to the board game.

Not only is it fun to play but, being of germanic origin, it was the perfect excuse to finally open the Schokomod'l that had been sitting in my cupboard and freaking me out at night ever since our neighbours gave it to us last Christmas.

This leads me to comment on the curious fact that, when I googled Schokomod'l in preparation for writing this post, I could only find one reference to it anywhere on the entire web.

And it's here. Yes, my little blog is the only place on the internet to go for information on schokomod'ls. I knew if I searched hard enough, soon or later I would find my niche.

In view of the very weighty responsibilities that come with being the leading world expert on freaky Austrian Christmas snacks, let me tell you more about this exotic and artistic treat. Even though my research is, of necessity, confined to what I can read off the back of the box.

Salzburger Schokomod'ls are made using the original molds from the Peter Nagy chandlery in Salzburg. The box optimistically describes its contents as "a feast for the eyes" even though a brief glance at the freaky little eyes and calmly homicidal facial expression of the chocolate figurine could provide a month's worth of nightmares for an entire unit of SAS troops. Seriously, this thing looks like it should be coming to life and trying to kill Buffy. Or spending the early 70s stalking Jon Pertwee.

Once you close your eyes and take a bite, you will discover that chocolate infused with orange oil, cinnamon, ginger, cloves and cardamom tastes, well, about as good as you might expect.

This 'exceptional chocolate specialty' (yes, the box again) is only made at Christmas time and is available from, well, my neighbours' house. And thus is my knowledge of schokomod'ls exhausted.

All suggestions as to what I should give my neighbours for Christmas this year will be received with enormous gratitude.

Look! Over there!

2008-11-11T22:18:00.003+11:00

All having gone stupid around these parts, I cannot imagine writing anything good about the week I'm having. In my current mood, I would end up SCREAMING THE ENTIRE POST IN CAPITALS and that gets tedious after a minute or two.

Instead, I recommend the possibly entertaining little story that I posted over here, just for you.

Have a great week. I'll be back, you know, whenever.

In an un-gardened moment

2008-11-04T21:39:00.003+11:00

Just a few of the things I was thinking about whilst gardening today:

If Barack Obama loses, it will be because everything thinks he will win and no one bothers to vote for him. If the USA is so concerned about voter turnout, would the first step in sorting this out possibly be to move the election to a damn weekend?

Who was it who first came up with the term "booby trap" and did they realise just how funny people would find that in the future?

If I am ever asked to construct an ad campaign for a speed dating service, I will find it very difficult not to use the slogan "Wine me, dine me, ill-define me"

Thanks to this excellent post, a whole bunch of stuff about ethnicity and identity that can now be found in the comments section of aforementioned excellent post.

Is it possible that the producers of "I kissed a girl" might have made even more money if they had found a singer who did not try to convince us that she "liked it" even though she sounded like someone had stuck her foot in a bear trap and refused to remove it until she got the words right?

There is absolutely no excuse for Lilydale Topping. Unless someone is planning to eat Lilydale, stop making it.

I guess this is throwing up

2008-11-03T20:29:00.004+11:00

There were a few good things about yesterday's sudden and offensively spectacular attack of food poisoning.

For example, it's years since I've even thought of Sleeper's Sale of the Century, which must be the most underappreciated song in the history of britpop. So, it was not at all bad to have the bit where Louise Wener sings "It's been too long, so it can't just be something we ate" stuck in my head for a few hours.

Also, I'm all for new experiences, and throwing up so hard that 20 minutes later I was still blowing food out of my nose certainly fell into that category.

More importantly, since I wasn't going to do much except sit around the house all day until the tendency to hurl at short notice abated, I had plenty of time to indulge my inner politics junky by looking up every electoral map I could possibly find and then clicking on each state to see the latest polls, just to make sure all the areas marked 'leaning Obama' still were.

It turns out that every poll ever taken shows that Barack Obama is absolutely going to win this thing. This includes a poll of 11 Peruvian shaman, which Obama won 9-2. Actually, I struggle to believe that this poll was ever actually taken, and I'm pretty sure someone in Peru is having a little bit of fun with the Associated Press. Still, it's nice to have the spare time to find out how they would react to this poll in South Dakota. And, indeed, how it was reported in Turkey.

As far as I am concerned, the two shaman who are backing John McCain should be fired immediately.

As a side note, people who remain obsessed with the Bradley Effect are yet to explain why they think anyone anywhere would lie to a pollster they have never met and never will just on the off chance that said pollster might jump to the conclusion that the voter in question is a howling mental racist rather than, say, someone who just happens to be voting for the other candidate.

Also,the same people who are currently obsessing about this may have noticed that there was o sign of this alleged Effect during the Primaries despite the rather obvious fact that Hillary Clinton is, quite openly, white.

Look, everyone just needs to stop worrying. Barack Obama will be the next president of the United States. And Sarah Palin will not run against him in 2012 because, although she hasn't realised it yet, CBS news actually keep their recordings of interviews for more than four years.

We just have to trust in the good judgment and common sense of the American people. And, really, how could one do anything else when faced with headlines like Naked Halloween Pumpkinhead Arrested.

Yes, finally, a news story that combines my twin passions of streaking and pumpkins.

I could probably have got past the fact that a bunch of people ran around naked with pumpkins on their heads. I could even have got over the revelation that this is an actual organised event which has been running for the past ten years.

What I can't quite cope with is the part where Boulder police Chief Mark Beckner said police officers "wanted to do something before (the event) got out of hand".

He's right. 10 years of naked people running around with pumpkins on their heads is tolerable, but allowing it to go on for 11 years is just plain nuts.

So, in conclusion, the future of the world's largest democracy is clearly in good hands.

It lasted for an hou-ou-our

2008-10-28T22:12:00.002+11:00

Anyone who:

Is rushing to finishing cleaning the shower before his in-laws arrive for the week,

And gets a call to say they are going to arrive early,

And decides that the only way to get it done in time is to strip off, jump in the shower, turn the shower on and rinse the Shower Power off the screens all at once,

And then decides he may as well wipe down the taps while he is doing this,

And wonders why the shower is suddenly hellishly cold,

Is an idiot.

What I did on my holidays (Part 2)

2008-10-26T06:21:00.003+11:00

Well hey, I know it's not possible to go back to work after a really great holiday and then say "Oh I am so happy to be here, I do not miss sitting on the beach at all". What I don't understand is why I needed to have one of the worst weeks at work in living memory. Was someone concerned that after a week off I may accidentally forget that I don't enjoy working there?
I will spare you the whiny details and get straight to a few more holiday highlights.

The place we stayed at had a truly exceptional mini golf course. It wasn't so much the course itself, since some sadist had decided to put a few of the holes on slopes so that, if you miss a necessarily long putt, your ball will roll back past you, off the edge of the course, and into a paddock across the road where it will be eaten by a goat. The good part was what happens if you actually hit the ball into the ninth hole. Underneath the hole, there is a vacuum cleaner, which, when triggered by the arrival of the ball, sucks the ball down the hole and then shoots it up a pipe to a track which runs overhead for 10 metres and then drops the ball back at the start of the first hole.

Who would even think that up? The only unfortunate side effect is that, once the boys discovered it, then lost interest in actually playing minigolf and just wanted to drop a ball down that hole around 18 times per day.

While we're on the whole golf thing, I should mention again that computers play a role in my children's lives. It's partly my fault, since I had told Bundle and Cherub that the place we were going to had a mini golf course like the one in Bundle's favouring "Dora" game.

Why am I concerned? Because after completing the first hole for the first time, Bundle said "Oh, I'm going to go and try the next level".

Oops.

Another one of the more exciting things for small children to do in that region is the ferry from Queenscliff to Sorrento which, if you don't take the car, will do a return trip for the reasonably modest price of $44.00 for two adults and two children under 5.

If you take the ferry at 11.00am on a Wednesday, there is also little difficulty in finding a seat.

In between rides, we stopped for lunch at the Via Sorrento. The first thing we noticed was the music they were playing. After 20 minutes of "Khe Sahn", "That's what I like about you", "Land Down Under" and the Hooters' "And we danced" (a song which I thought had not been heard anywhere other than my ipod in the past ten years), I started to wonder if a cover band somewhere had decided to make an album, before realising it would be way easier to just download the originals from itunes at $1.70 a pop.

I was close. We made enquiries and discovered that were listening to disc one of "World's Best Beer Songs".

If lunch happens to be seafood pizza, chips and beer, followed by toffee apple icecream from the place over the road, then that soundtrack is entirely appropriate.

The place where we stayed also had a fair collection of donkeys, geese, chickens, rabbits and birds for the children to feed. In amongst this reasonable sensible collection of animals, there is one emu, which wandered onto the property a few years ago and is yet to leave.

It only freaked me out slightly when, the day after the song writing relate revelations in the previous post, I discovered that the emu's name was Edwina.

Every night after the children went to sleep, we ate cheese and drank wine and watched movies. For the record, these included all three "Matrix" films, "Ten Things I Hate About You", "A Good Year" (which is possibly the most underrated film ever) and "The American President". If I ever get time, reviews of each will appear over here, but that may take a while.

We also spent plenty of time playing at the beach. I know the waves at Anglesea are not huge, but it is still great to watch two little boys running at them without a trace of fear.

It is also great to see the whole "sunsmart" thing has really taken off, even if the local interpretation seems to be that it is fine for a child (who looked about three) to run around the beach completely naked so long as he was wearing a big floppy hat.

Finally, we rounded out the trip by stopping at the Werribee Zoo on the way home, which I mention mostly because I am thrilled that it is still there.

Now all I have to do is to remember to go on holidays far more often.

Shocked like the lightning from up above

2008-10-18T21:44:00.004+11:00

I am back from the most amazingly good holiday. There was playing in surf, there was the building of sandcastles, there was mini-golf, there was icecream, there was feeding of donkeys, there was a lighthouse, there was a ferry ride and pizza for lunch at Via Sorrento, and there were too many other good things to mention all in one sentence. There were also a few of the types of moments one might expect when a two year old and a four year old share a small unit for a week, but we shall not dwell on those. In other words, there were many things that were perfect, some that were flat out bad, but only one conversation that left me utterly flabbergasted and still unsure what to make of it all.

And it went a little something like this.

We drove from Torquay to a not too distant seaside town to visit a very close friend, let's call her Sunshine, and her two children, who are just a little older than ours. We chattered the afternoon away happily enough while the children gradually warmed up to each other and ended up jumping on the trampoline and playing some sort of Dora the Explora type game on the computer.

Just as we were getting ready to leave, I happened to mention to Sunshine that, as of last August, we had now known each other for 10 years. We briefly discussed a few of the things that were going on when we first met (it was around the same time that Sunshine met her husband) and then came the bombshell.

"You know," said Sunshine "I still have your tape in my car".

It took me just a moment to figure out what the hell she was talking about, during which time Sunshine helpfully added that it was her daughter's favourite song.

And the memories came flooding back. It was a particularly muggy Saturday night in Geelong. I hadbeen away somewhere, probably visiting friends back in Melbourne for the day, when it occurred to me that a few of us were having lunch for Sunshine's 24th birthday in a few days' time, and I had not thought about a present. I was out of ideas and possible a little bit broke, so in a moment of reckless creativity I decided to write a song for the occasion.

Together with an ever supportive and patient flatmate, I took my guitar over to the church we both went to and sat down to record. My flatmate helped to set things up and figure out levels and stuff and then wisely went home, and I spent the next few hours in a not at all airconditioned space writing, re-writing, recording, changing keys, re-writing some more and generally wondering if I had finally gone completely mad.

I should clarify at this point that, unlike some previous songwriting efforts of mine, this was not an unsuccessful attempt to get a date, or, for that matter, a successful attempt to do so. It was simply an act of friendship, and this was something that was heavily hinted at throughout the lyrics. As I was recording it, and for the next couple of days as I was wondering whether I should just rush off to the Geelong mall at lunchtime and try to find a nice scarf or something, I was convinced that this would either be great and Sunshine would feel endlessly flattered, or it would be the sort of hideously embarassing disaster from which a highly valued friendship would never recover.

The one thing that never occurred to me was that, ten years later, Sunshine would still be playing this tape in her car (which means her husband has surely heard it more times than he would care to) and that it would be her three year old daughter's favourite song.

I simply cannot believe this. I have spent the last week trying to figure out whether to be elated or completed embarassed by the whole thing, and I still don't even know where to start figuring it out.

After this, you may need a holiday too

2008-10-08T21:57:00.003+11:00

Hey folks, its break time again. Happily, this time it has nothing to do with exams and sleeplessness and all things stressful, and everything to do with a family holiday in Torquay.

I will be far away from all things work related, including computers, hence the posting of stuff shall have to wait until I get back.

Instead, I shall wander around the town with my boys, pausing occasionally to sit on a beach or stroll through a park, particularly the one with the impressive playground.

This activity is technically known as "walking the Torq".

I will write again in a week or two, by which time I'm pretty sure I still won't have been forgiven for that last joke.

And nor should I be.

Tracee Hutchison has gone COMPLETELY MAD

2008-10-06T20:28:00.004+11:00

At least, that's the only explanation I can come up with for this.

It seems like it was only a few weeks ago that I left a comment over at Melba’s place suggesting that regular Age columnist Tracee Hutchison has her good and her bad days. That’s broadly true, but it seems the good days are few and far between lately.

I decided to let it go when, around the time that I was suggesting that there were a few issues surrounding the choice of Governor Palin as running mate to John McCain, Tracee Hutchison was writing hymns of praise to Ms Palin and complaining that attacks in relation to her qualifications to govern were sexist.

Just for the record, I was right. Also, saying that a person is entirely unqualified to hold high political office is not an act of sexism merely because that person is a woman and the person making such a suggestion is not. To take that a little further, crying ‘sexism’ whenever a woman is criticised, regardless of whether or not the criticism is valid, serves no good purpose and hands a whole bunch of ammunition to the critics.

In passing, Hutchison’s impassioned defence of Governor Palin was somewhat marred by her inability to resist taking a gratuitous swipe at the choices the Palins made when naming their children.

In any case, I was quite happy to let Governor Palin continue to say random words in interviews and thus demonstrate the flaws in Hutchison’s theory without anyone needing me to join the dots, but Hutchison’s latest contribution to the world of "insane stupidity really thinly described as journalism" cannot be allowed to pass without comment.

When it comes to climate change and journalistic slackness, its quite possible that boiling frogs, proverbs about being unable to eat money and references to the emperor’s lack of clothing are the three biggest cliches around and Hutchison manages to fit them all in to one relatively short article.

For the record, the story about the emperor’s new clothes was about the powerful not wanting to appear stupid, not, as Hutchison seems to think, about the powerful trying to con the rest of us. Also, the boiling frog thing is about failing to notice that anything is changing until one is already dead from it, and if Hutchison thinks nobody has noticed climate change she is possibly a little bit mistaken.

As for the saying about not being able to eat money, it has been suggested that this is not actually an old saying but something that a Canadian geography teacher made up in the 1970s. I can’t be sure on this, since when I googled the phrase I got around 55600 hits and I am yet to read them all, but there are a few indicators that suggest a certain amount of urban mythology. Firstly, there seems to be a couple of different versions of the quote. The one Hutchison uses appears to be more recent, in that it refers to air pollution in place of concerns about over-fishing. Secondly, the quote is variously attributed to Chief Seattle, Chief Sitting Bull of the Sioux tribe and, most commonly, to the Cree people, who actually live in Canada.

Since most people seem to think that someone from among the various groups identified as Cree said this some time in the 19th century, it’s a little curious that there is absolutely no mention of it on the Cree Cultural Site. From this we conclude that if, at some point in history, a member of the Cree people did say this or something like it, the Cree have long since gotten over it and everyone else should too.

Let’s accept for a minute that the quote just might be genuine. Even if it is, Hutchison should probably consider that repeating it is nothing more or less than flat out lazy journalism. She should also consider that, if one is going to invoke the wisdom of a long standing culture with a close connection to the earth in support of one’s argument, one could perhaps spare the time to look at a damn map and stop referring to these people as Indians. One could also look at Wikipedia and discover that Cree is a French slang term, and the people we know as Cree actually call themselves "Nahathaway".

This blog is now officially better researched than the opinion pages of The Age, which is absolutely terrifying.

And my concerns with this travesty of journalism are far from done. Hutchison takes a moment from whatever she was doing in this article to take a swipe at Russell Crowe for getting his maths wrong when talking about the Wall Street Bail Out plan. This would be fine (if somewhat irrelevant) except that Hutchison, mid-swipe, manages to get the population of the United States wrong by approximately 270 million people. She then wanders into an equally irrelevant swipe at Sarah Palin, which seems a touch on the hypocritical side, considering her recent writings on that topic.

As if all that is not enough, we then come to a more central problem with this article. Hutchison passionately argues that the environment and the economy are ‘inextricably linked’, which is true, but she does it in the context of the collapse of Wall Street without ever coming close to explaining how global warming and drought caused a number of under regulated banks to lend too much money in the sub-prime mortgage market.

Hutchison’s only attempt to actually demonstrate the link comes half way through where she points out that we watched the Wall Street collapse on televisions that use non-renewable energy sources. (Yes, this is the link that is so obvious that Hutchison cannot understand why no-one else can see it and she therefore suggests we all must be stupid.) Hutchison claims this is ironic, at which point I simply stop pretending that I have any idea what this woman is talking about and start to suspect that she doesn’t know either.

Incidentally, it’s not even true in my case, as, in order to do my part for the environment, my television is powered entirely by rechargeable batteries.

Since we’re on old proverbs, let me add that Hutchison’s increasingly unhinged search for a link between the economic collapse and global warming does remind me of Rowan Atkinson’s description of "A blind person. In a dark room. Looking for a black cat. That isn’t there."

Just to round out this utterly surreal collection of wacky non-sequiturs from someone who really shouldn’t be patronising about Sarah Palin, Hutchison goes completely mental and starts trying to talk like a cartoon pirate. Then, equally mystifyingly, she stops again.

In the end, none of this matters all that much, however tempting it may be to point out that if Hutchison loves the environment, she should stop wasting paper by writing this complete trash. What does matter is Hutchison’s utterly callous and staggeringly stupid response to the economic crisis, which is, in effect, "bring it on and isn’t it great that this is happening to those terrible Americans".

It is no doubt obvious to everyone in the world except Hutchison that the financial crisis is not going to cause the world’s largest polluters to lose their homes. It will, however, cause this to happen to any number of families who were already struggling. Relationships will break under the strain, children will suffer. Global warming will only be reduced to the extent that those who no longer have homes won’t have to worry about heating them, but the cost in real human pain will be high.

Anyone who can look at this crisis unfolding and say ‘bring it on’ forfeits all right to claim the moral high ground on an issue ever again.

Tracee Hutchison, I hope you google yourself often, just so I can tell you that you are an absolute disgrace. If your employers have a shred of common sense you will be fired immediately and replaced by a decent human being who can actually write sensibly about serious matters.

And, in conclusion, please go away.

Maturity

2008-10-03T22:17:00.004+10:00

Is not something you're likely to find on this blog on a Friday night. Particularly after half a litre of Dutch beer.

So, instead, I present our first, and probably last, game of "Name that flower".

A few clues:

1. It's a particular species of lily, common to the Smoky Mountains region of North Carolina.

2. The sepals and petals are up to 4 inches long.

3. It looks like this:

4. It has the absolutely greatest name of any flower anywhere in thw whole world ever.

The answer is, quite seriously.....

Wait for it

LILIUM SUPERBUM

And for those who think that I surely must be making it up, details can be found here. Also here, here and right over there.

After reading it a couple of times, I think I understand how that name happened.

This does not make it any less funny.

That particular Saturday was Father's Day

2008-10-01T21:44:00.000+10:00

Our story begins on the first Saturday after Father's Day. We had deferred our celebrations for six days because the awesome present that my beautiful wife organised three weeks in advance was still in the post.* Based on an entirely fictitious assurance that it would only be a few days late, we decided we could celebrate father's day a few days late too. Of course, the gift still didn't arrive, but we figured that if we went ahead we would get to eat pancakes, and so go ahead we did.

My slightly late father's day started slightly early. Next year I shall explain to Cherub that father's day is, among other things, a day for letting daddy sleep in instead of waking me up at 5.30am. I explained it this year too but apparently he wasn't convinced. Still, we had a pleasant if offensively early breakfast together and waited for the rest of the family to wake up so we could start with the cooking of the pancakes.

After consuming slightly more maple syrup than was strictly necessary, we decided that it was a good day for a trip to the local swimming pool and off we went.

Our local pool appears to be subject to some sort of council regulation to the effect that every couple entering the pool must consist of an awesomely hot woman and an average looking and surprisingly hairy man. This meant that Honey Bear and I got in with no questions asked and we were offerred some modelling work for the pool's next advertising campaign.**

Bundle did an excellent job of showing me all the stuff he has been learning at his swimming lessons and Cherub did a pretty decent job of keeping up even though he won't even start lessons until next term. It was all very pleasant, apart from the mild case of tantrums when we said it was time to get out and have some lunch. Soon enough, it was back in the pool for more paddling, giggling, and attempting to catch boys between the end of the waterslide and the bottom of the pool.

We did this reasonably well, most of the time.

After four hours or so, it was time to head home. We parked our tired but happy children in front of "The Heffalump Movie" on DVD (with soundtrack by Carly Simon, just in case you were wondering what she's been doing since "You're so Vain"), cleaned up a few things around the house, cooked dinner for the boys, and, not a moment too soon, it was time to head for Lygon Street and dinner with fabulous blogging friends.

It was an evening that can be summed up in just six words.

Awesome. Awesome awesome awesome. Freakin' awesome.

For those who want a little more detail, I grabbed a drinkable Cab Merlot and drove over to Lygon Street, where parking is an entertaining challenge*** and walked a reasonably considerable distance to Papaginos. I was a little stunned to find I was early and even more surprised to find there was no need to wait for a table.

I have to admit to a fairly severe case of the nerves at this point. I has met Actonb once before, which meant I had gotten those nerves out of the way a while ago, but the thought of meeting Gigglewick was a little intimidating. Still, after a few minutes, two awesome people arrived and I could stop worrying.

I should also confess that I am completely hopeless at working out the 'do we do the kiss hello' issue, particularly on a first meeting . I get anxious, I look for the subtle cues that other people seem to instinctively be aware of, I find nothing, and I fight the temptation to fake a sudden coma in order to avoid the whole issue. Fortunately, Giggles cut through the whole tangle by walking in and saying "Hi, we should kiss".

The night passed very pleasantly from there. We ate garlic bread and a reasonably curious pizza topped with potato and something that may have been prosciutto, I didn't check. Someone, not being me, had the sense to order a salad. We chatted about whatever. It was good.

There is nothing surprising in the revelation that MsB and Giggles are excellent company. The only surprises I can think of from that night were discovering just how much Actonb knows about the finer points of burial at sea, and the remarkable statistic of Giggles only saying "dude" once even though we were there for over four hours.

Having knocked off the pizza and the merlot, the original plan was that we would then head over to Brunswick Street and have a few drinks at Polly's. As it turned out, we were all too chilled out to do this so we went with Gigglewick's excellent suggestion that we should wander up to Readings and browse for a while. We hung out and looked at books, we went to one of the million good places for coffee on Lygon Street, we wandered a little further and found some pretty decent gelati, we chatted some more, we took photos that will never appear on this blog, and, to my great regret, it got late and it was time to head home.

So, after a very fun night, all that was left was the long drive home, which gave me time to think about just how much it sucks that neither MsB nor Giggles actually lives in Melbourne, but also how wondrously good is blogging, without which I never would have met either one of these fine people in the first place.

If you haven't met these people yet, and you get the chance, take it.

* Okay, yet to be posted. Possibly still being manufactured. It turned up about two weeks later and it is every bit as good as expected

** Exagerrating? On this blog? How dare you, etc

***next week, Brunswick Street, where parking takes longer than actually getting there

Can we fix it? It seems we have no choice, quite frankly

2008-09-29T23:02:00.001+10:00

My life appears to have settled into a steady pattern of awesome weekends interspersed between truly freakin’ awful weeks. And oh my goodness was today a fine example of that YES IT WAS.

I plan to focus on the weekends, since the bits in between are way too ugly to record, and I would much rather write about the good stuff. So, in the near (or at least foreseeable) future there will be posts about a truly awesome Saturday culminating in dinner with Giggles & Actonb, a very entertaining weekend where I went to a 40th birthday party and a 4th birthday party and I can’t decide which was better (but only one resulted in a deeply humorous text message), and of course a grand final day spent taking excited children for a ride on Puffing Billy rather than watching the first three quarters of a rather depressing football game. This was, of course, followed by a few commiseratory texts to dear friends who had had a very unpleasant afternoon.
However since all of that will take a while to write, this post will be devoted to asking what the freaking hell is up with parents who take their children to Bunnings?

I have been spending rather a lot of time at Australia’s most frighteningly large hardware store lately, as apparently anyone who lacks for projects around the house need only leave a four year old child unsupervised for a minute or two. This would explain a recent trip to buy a door latch because to open our front door one must turn the handle clockwise whilst simultaneously turning the deadlock counterclockwise and a certain smartypants has figured that out. As we do not have a front fence, the idea of our children getting out the front door unaccompanied is remarkably unacceptable.

That little project was easy enough. More complicated was dealing with the after effects of said four year old running full tilt into a sliding door and breaking several of the bits that make it slide. And back to Bunnings we went.

A very nice man pointed me towards the items I needed, explained how to fit them to the rest of the door, and politely pretended not to notice my increasingly blank expression. He concluded by explaining that all I would have to do after installing the runners would be to electrify the door so that children would learn not to run into it, and smiled politely when I asked in which aisle I would find the necessary kit.

So, after a quick dash to the bathroom (which we will skip over, pausing only to note that I am starting to dread the phrase "Hey daddy, I’ve got a great idea") it was off to the playground and the inevitable fun that follows.

So, I must ask, what sort of insane parent says to a four year old "Hey, why don’t you stay and play here by yourself, I’ll be back in a while"? My first act on arriving at the playground was to persuade young Alex (for that, I later learned, was his name) that, even though it was possible for him to walk out through the childproof gate when I openned ito let my kids in, and he had, he probably should actually come back into the playground area rather than running around a big hardware store entirely unsupervised.

I’m glad he agreed, since if he hadn’t, I’m not sure what I could have done to stop him. I do know there are very few stores with more sharp things per square metre, not to mention easy access to a busy carpark and even busier major road out the front.

Also, I’m not one for stranger danger style hysteria, but, quite frankly, any parent who sees me hanging around a children’s playground should perhaps at least check that at least one of the children there knows me before leaving their children alone in my company.

Bundle and Cherub look absolutely nothing like me and were some distance away and inside a tunnel, so why any parent would take one look at me and think "Hey, I think my kids should hang around with that guy" is beyond me. I know I'm not a complete psycho, but they don't.

I am not actually going to grab someone else’s child and do a runner, but it is appalling to consider just how easy it would be. It takes Bunnings staff 10 minutes to turn up when all you want is someone to cut a piece of shadecloth to length. Would you bet your child’s safety on their response time being any better in the case of an abduction attempt?

In the case of young Alex, the scariness only increases when you consider that within two minutes of my arrival at the playground he was chatting happily to me and calling me ‘daddy’. If I ever find one of his parents, I may have a few suggestions to make about some fundamentals of responsible parenting.

Still, in the end all was well. Bundle breathlessly informed me that he had made a new friend named Alex (but not the same one I mentioned earlier), I eventually tracked down someone who agreed to sell me some shadecloth, the lawns got mowed, and we can open and close the door to the study once more.

Now, if I can just get through this week without going utterly mental, I will be able to post about everything else that has been going on, and soon.

Al'Thor

2008-09-17T20:33:00.004+10:00

Does anyone else miss those posts full of random and often stupid dot points? I KNOW I DO.

Lets get on with that important work.

For years, I worried that I was not musically educated enough because I had no idea who Louis Burdett was. It took me until this week to discover that he is just some Sydney musician who knows Tim Freedman and who is, apparently, less than thrilled that a song written about him last decade is still way more famous than he is.
Now that I think about it, it's possible that none of Tim Freedman's friends were entirely thrilled about that song.
If you were taking your very young children to the zoo for the first time, and you started chatting to the guy you parked next to because he also had young kids, would you, in the short time it took you to get from the carpark to the main gate, tell him all about the fight you just had with your husband because his parents insisted that he go off to find firewood with them even though you had been planning this zoo trip for ages and had put it off several times so he wouldn't miss it and now he wasn't there anyway?
If you did do that, would you be a little bit pissed if you ever found out that I put that story on the internet?
The zip on my suit pants got so comprehensively stuck this morning that it took two hours to sort it out. I guess it's good that, after 35 years on this planet, in which time I thought I had experienced pretty much every available emotion, it was good to feel something entirely unique. It would have been better of that feeling was not best described as "Trapped in my own pants"
Louis Burdett could probably swap a few stories with Marty Jones from California. For those who don't immediately recognise the name, Marty Jones was in every band that Adam Duritz played in before Counting Crows. It can't have escaped Marty's notice that his buddy Adam wrote a song about a couple of unsuccessful musicians dreaming about being famous, the result of which is that now one of them is, but it's not the one the song was named after.
It's good to see that I'm not the only one who realised that the fastest way to irritate Malcolm Turnbull would be to say the word 'republic' on his first day as leader.
Games invented by my children in recent weeks include "Pillow on You" and "That's not a beach, that's my head". A full list, possibly with explanations, ~~will be posted on WDTAOK when I remember to do it.~~can be found on WDTAOK RIGHT NOW
I'm not sure which is worse for my musical credibility - not knowing much about the Whitlams or knowing way too much about Counting Crows. It doesn't matter because, judging by the react I got from a couple of fellow bloggers when I revealed this snippet in an email chat last week, I will lose any last shread of credibility I may have once had when I reveal that I once played in a band that did a heck of a good cover of "Paradise City"

And that's it for now. At some stage, there will be a more coherent post about the most interesting weekend I just had, and, in particular, about a very fun evening with the two incomparably awesome young ladies better known to the internet as Actonb and Gigglewick.

And, really, props to them just for showing up after the Paradise City revelation.

A very happy rest of the week to you all.

The gold of the early sourdough's dreams

2008-09-03T20:05:00.003+10:00

And we're back, just in time for the Republican National Convention. For an event that I was planning to ignore entirely, this has turned out to be an absolute barn-burner. Anyone who thinks Christian fundamentalists have no sense of humour will surely have to reconsider now that it's been revealed that John McCain's selection of Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate was not, as wildly suspected, a stroke of genius from a bold, independent politician with a gambler's instincts and the nerve of a barbary pirate, but a last minute compromise forced on an unpopular candidate who can't even get his own party behind him a few weeks out from an election. And yes, it was America's ever admirable Christian Right leading the charge of the Palinistas.

Let's look at how its working out for them, so far.

Things started well. How could America not fall in love with the obscurity to riches story of Sarah Palin, the former high school basketball star who was once voted "Ms Congeniality" in the Ms Alaska competition, and who has now gone from Mayor of Wasilla to nominee for VP in a remarkably small number of years. And if that wasn't enough to love, she is married to Todd, an an oil worker, commercial fisherman and champion snowmobile racer, known to Alaskans as, quite seriously, The First Dude.

I haven't researched whether he had this nickname before his wife became the Governor but a blogger can dream.

Maybe's it's the last minute appointment and the lack of time for the usual, rather thorough, background checks, but there have been a couple of rough patches since.

Let's start with her belief that teaching abstinence prevents teen pregnancies. Let us avoid all cheap shots concerning the pregnancy of Governor Palin's 17 year old daughter, as common sense alone tells us that anyone who thinks that teaching abstinence will work wonderfully well is a little bit nuts.

Now, I'm not suggesting that it is impossible to make it through one's teenage years without ever having sex. For some of us, it was depressingly easy to achieve this. What I am suggesting is that, in a two horse race between a not quite 100% effective contraceptive device and the self control of a bunch of ecstacy popping teenagers huddling together for warmth in the middle of a cold Wasilla winter, I know where my money would be safest.

And the revelations have kept on coming since.

It turns out that Governor Palin couldn't quite make it through her first speech after becoming the presumptive nominee without telling lies about a bridge that no-one has ever heard of and which was never actually built.

Next, whilst I still refuse to make jokes about the teenage pregnancy thing, there is little that more clearly illustrates the McCain campaign's lack of background checking and general ignorance of all things internet-related than the MySpace antics of Governor Palin's future son in law.

If I quote The Age precisely, young Levi Johnson 'describes himself as a as a "f***in redneck" who likes to snowboard and ride dirt bikes'.

He helpfully adds "I don't want kids".

And he's still not done.

"I like to go camping and hang out with the boys, do some fishing, shoot some s- - - and just f - - -in' chillin' I guess," he wrote before his MySpace page was removed. "Ya f - - - with me I'll kick [your] ass."

How can this young man expect to support a wife and child when he can't even afford a fully functional keyboard?

My absolute favourite part of this story is the quote from his mother, also in The Age:

The boy's mother, Sherry Johnston, told Associated Press there had been no pressure put on her son to marry Miss Palin

Really? No pressure?

And still the fun kept coming on Monday, with reports that Governor Palin is a former member of the Alaska Independence Party.

This may not actually be true. From Wikipedia:

Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, the presumptive 2008 Republican Party nominee for Vice President of the United States, attended the state party's 2000 convention while she was still mayor of Wasilla. Lynnette Clark, the party's current chairwoman, also said that Palin attended the party's 1994 convention, a year after party patriarch Joe Vogler died, but the John McCain campaign denies this. Clark and other members also claimed Palin was actually a member of the party in the mid-1990s, but Alaska Division of Elections records show Palin has been a registered Republican since 1982. Palin recorded a message welcoming party members to its 2008 convention as Governor of Alaska.On September 2, 2008, the political website Talking Points Memo reported that Palin's husband, Todd, was a registered party member from 1995 through 2002.

Wikipedia also tells us that party founder Joe Vogler once announced "I'm an Alaskan, not an American. I've got no use for America or her damned institutions." I'm not sure this sentiment is going to help Governor Palin attract votes in the other 49 states.

It's impossible to learn that there is an Alaska Independence Party and not immediately want to find out more, so here's a few more fun facts from their official website.

Pretty much the first thing you will read there is that:

We are not affiliated with any political party with a similiar sounding name in other parts of the United States.

Yes, they really did say that.

The FAQ page is also quite the page turner. For example:

Q: Would I lose my U.S. citizenship?

A: Depending on the form of independence, several forms of citizenship would be possible, including the retention of U.S. citizenship or dual citizenship. However, considering the moral, educational, and economic decay of the U.S., Alaskans' who hold themselves to a higher standard might very well decide to at least maintain an arm's length distance from a country in decline.

Again, I'm not sure that one is going to play so well anywhere except Alaska. And since there are 111,526 registered Republicans and 66,218 registered Democrats in Alaska, I'm not sure that it quite counts as a battleground state. Just for the record, there are 13,542 registered members in the Alaska Independence Party, making it the state's third largest.

Still, it's nice to know that these people maintain some contact with reality. Question 2 on the FAQ page relevantly asks:

Q: Aren't most Alaskan Independence Party members a bunch of radicals and Kooks?

A: The party has its share of individualists, in the grand Alaskan tradition. No longer a fringe party, the A.I.P. is a viable third party with a serious mission and qualified candidates for elected offices.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest that the party may have slightly more than its share of individualists, particularly since a number of members answer the question of what to do after seceding from the USA with a very simple solution.

Join Canada.

There is enough gold to last a lifetime on that website, but let's leave it there for now, except to note that Alaska has an Anthem. And yes, it will be found at the end of this post.

Really, it's not that bad a choice. There is something wonderfully encouraging, and utterly startling, about the Republicans choosing a woman with five children as their proposed VP instead of telling her to stay home and look after the kids. And the New York Times are complete punks for questioning whether it's responsible for a mother with a very young child to run for high political office. The First Dude will be home with the kids, which makes this no different to a man with a young child running for VP while his wife stays home, except that the New York Times appear to be too stupid to see that.

Certainly, we won't be using the choice of Governor Palin as a reason for questioning John McCain's judgment. No, we will question his judgment because he wanted to choose Senator Joseph Lieberman.

It's not exactly surprising that this was not popular with the Republican Party, given that Joe Lieberman has run for VP once before.

In 2000.

With Al Gore.

Had the Republican Primaries gone slightly differently that year, he would have been running against a Republican ticket headed by, yes, John McCain.

Senator Lieberman also contested the Democratic Primaries as recently as 2004, although it is possible that few people noticed, as he came pretty close to last, well behind John Kerry, Howard Dean, John Edwards and Cyril the pet pick who got entered by his stoned owner for a $10 bet.

None of this, however, is the real reason why Senator Lieberman should be kept as far from the Oval Office as possible. No, it's something he said during his (very) brief appearance in the 2004 Primaries. After gathering about 2% of the vote in New Hampshire, he announced that he was very optimistic about winning the nomination.

Why?

Because his campaign had "Joementum"

I swear I am simply not creative enough to make that up. He really, really said it.

Words fail me but not, saints be praised, half as much as they fail Senator Lieberman.

And so, as we sit back and wait to see what the Republicans do next, we present the musical stylings of Marie Drake and Elinor Dusenbury, writers of the finest anthem in all of Alaska:

Eight stars of gold on a field of blue

Alaska's flag. May it mean to you

The blue of the sea, the evening sky,

The mountain lakes, and the flow'rs nearby;

The gold of the early sourdough's dreams,

The precious gold of the hills and streams;

The brilliant stars in the northern sky,

The "Bear" the "Dipper" - and, shining high,

The great North Star with its steady light,

Over land and sea a beacon bright.

Alaska's flag - to Alaskans dear,The simple flag of a last frontier.

A Native lad chose the Dipper's stars

For Alaska's flag that there be no bars

Among our culture. Let it be known

Through years the Native's past has grown

To share life's treasures, hand in hand,

To keep Alaska our Great-Land;

We love the northern midnight sky,

The mountains, lakes and streams nearby.

The great North Star with its steady light

Will guide all cultures, clear and bright,

With nature's flag to Alaskans dear,

The simple flag of the last frontier.

Tell those friends with cameras for eyes

2008-07-30T20:41:00.002+10:00

I have been spending a little too much time over at I can has cheezburger lately. You’ll understand later why I brought that up.

You may have noticed the increasingly sporadic nature of posting around here, and possibly a general deterioration in quality (just for those who were wondering if such a development were possible).

There are a few reasons. One is that I have been spending a lot of time reading sentences like this:

“For the purposes of the preceding provisions of this section but without limiting the generality of those provisions, a provision of a contract, arrangement or understanding, or of a proposed contract, arrangement or understanding, shall be deemed to have the purpose, or to have or to be likely to have the effect, of fixing, controlling or maintaining, or providing for the fixing, controlling or maintaining of, the price for, or a discount, allowance, rebate or credit in relation to, goods or services supplied as mentioned in subsection (1) if the provision has the purpose, or has or is likely to have the effect, of fixing, controlling or maintaining, or providing for the fixing, controlling or maintaining of, such a price, discount, allowance, rebate or credit in relation to a re‑supply of the goods or services by persons to whom the goods or services are or would be supplied by the parties to the contract, arrangement or understanding or the proposed parties to the proposed contract, arrangement or understanding, or by any of them, or by any bodies corporate that are related to any of them.”

This leaves me too tired, and indeed to irritated that my tax dollars paid for someone to write that, to form a coherent sentence, let alone a halfway interesting post.

I have also stupidly decided to add a few exams to my already reasonably busy schedule, meaning there’s no realistic prospect that I will write anything worth reading for several weeks. Anyone who wants to comment that that just sounds like business as usual, should feel free to do so.

So, my friends, it is hiatus time. Assuming I still have anything to say, I’ll be back some time in September.

This is as good a time as any to note that I don’t spend nearly enough time appreciating the wonderful people who read and comment on this blog. The comments are almost invariably more intelligent and funnier than the actual posts, and it’s some comfort to know that whilst this blog will never make me famous or convince the world that I’m a great writer, it will make me just a little bit cooler by association with the highly talented folks who comment on it.

So, to everyone who has ever taken the time to comment here, let me just say you are all wonderful, and, furthermore:

Alternative medishinsh

2008-07-15T21:30:00.002+10:00

INC: So, I suppose when I'm on these antibiotics, I shouldn't drink alcohol?

A doctor: No, don't worry about it. You can have a quiet beer. Possibly a bourbon. It might make you feel better.

INC: This is how medicine should be practised

....

Any mild sense of surprise experienced by regular readers (yes, both of you) in relation to this piece of medical advice will, of course, be dwarfed by the utter shock experienced on reading that I actually went to see a doctor.

For the record, I think that was the first time in five years.

In light of the health concerns I've blogged about recently, I have to wonder at this point whether I'm stupid or simply wildly inconsistent. I don't think so. I would even venture to suggest that there is some logic at work around here somewhere.

The reason why I will go to a doctor for a sinus infection, for that is what it was, but not for stress related chest pains, is that, as far as I know, most doctors can't do anything for my stress levels. The one who prescribes beer and bourbon is the exception that proves the rule, obviously. However, they are fairly good at prescribing things to make sinus infections go away.

So far, I'm not feeling too stupid about this. But here's the part that's more concerning. The post immediately before this one express a certain level of irritation about the whole work/life balance thing. And yet I discover that I'm unwilling to see a doctor about something which may have long term consequences but doesn't interference with my ability to work right now, but as soon as an obviously temporary infection comes along and makes me too woozy to type a whole letter without collapsing, it's straight off to the purveyor of antibiotics for me.

It's entirely possible that this makes me a cross between an ostrich and a guy with no sense of perspective.

Which is something I should probably spend a little more time thinking about, really.

At least I'm not watching Lipstick Jungle right now

2008-07-13T21:16:00.004+10:00

And so with the passing of another financial year, I can at least say that's it will be 11 months before I have to fill out another self assessment form where I try to convince my employer that I like my job, that I have goals for the next year, and that my work and life are nicely in balance.

Out of curiosity, if an employee fills out a form, and no-one ever reads it, was I really lying?

This, and also the fact that I spent today at home studying while my wife and kids were out for the day, got me thinking about the possibility that "work/life balance" might just be the second dumbest phrase in the world.*

For a start, at some point, someone will notice that work is actually a part of life rather than something entirely separate to be balanced against it.

More importantly, there will be an emerging global consciousness of the fact that working is not that much fun and, as a general rule, most of us would rather be doing something else. Work is the part of my life that I have to put up with in order to enjoy the other parts of my life. Technically, I don't need to work in order to enjoy time with my children on the weekend. However, I do have to work if I want my time with my kids to involve something other than homeschooling them.

In a tent.

In other words, money doesn't buy happiness, it buys rather more useful things like food and stuff.

So, having figured out that work is the part of my life that I enjoy the least, why would I want to balance it with anything? This is like saying that my next overseas holiday should have a "seeing cool stuff/getting food poisoning" balance. Perhaps television should have a "Buffy/Today Tonight" balance. And, frankly, I could go on for a while here.

My point is that "work/life" balance may just be a phrase employers came up with to try to imply that they are doing us a favour by allowing us to occasionally see our own families. We should, apparently, be grateful that they do this for us and pay us too.

This is, of course, insane.

And it's probably going to annoy me for a while.

* A close second behind "I think Kyle Sandilands should host this show"

Theology for the cheerfully insane

2008-07-07T21:01:00.002+10:00

You could be forgiven for thinking that this is a post about World Youth Day, but it's actually about today's trip to the doctor.

My boys, with their usual creativity, had managed to both get ear infections even though they were already taking antibiotics. In one case, the antibiotics had been specifically prescribed for, yes, an ear infection. This was not exactly good news, but the afternoon was not without it's compensations.

Doctors' waiting rooms are interesting places even on a quiet day, but never so interesting as when a 3 year old looks at the television in the corner and says "Oh, mummy, that's your show", which just goes to demonstrate that you can still learn something about another person even after seven years of marriage, because the show was "The Bold and the Beautiful".

I had absolutely no idea that my wife had ever watched this show. Ever. The revelation that she has watched it enough times that Bundle now associates it with her was quite the pleasantly amusing surprise.

Still, the best was yet to come. As the friendly people sitting nearby were having a good chuckle at this particular revelation, and elderly and somewhat distinguished-looking gentleman sitting nearby informed us that it was unfortunate that we had not arrived earlier, as Judge Judy had been on.

He then proceeded to tell us "That's the reason why God gets angry sometimes. It's because he's been watching Judge Judy."

This is either a colourful way of saying that Judge Judy is not the best thing on television and if so someone give this man his own column immediately, or it's an insight that will be sure to transform our understanding of theology and spirituality in precisely the way that the Celestine Prophecy didn't.

Either way, you read it here first. If this infection doesn't clear up, we will be back to the same waiting room next week to discover that string theory was invented by The Goodies.

Do you hear the people sign?

2008-07-02T20:48:00.004+10:00

Dear Village Roadshow

We win! We win!

Yours faithfully

I’m not Craig

Dear State Government

I figured this out weeks ago. What took you so long?

Still, better late than not at all.

Your endlessly irritated constituent,

INCraig

Dear The Age

What exactly is up with this headline?

Even if you add a preposition it still makes no sense.

Just wondering,

INC

It seems that I'm not the only one who uses free websites for all my Latin translation needs

2008-06-28T21:07:00.006+10:00

You'll understand later why I brought that up.

It's been a great week for news items that I should take seriously but I just can't.

I was particularly tickled by a sign outside my local newsagent will the day's headline from The Age, which proclaimed, in wonderfully large letters, "NIXON DUPED BY MR FIXIT".

Just for a moment, I thought that someone had discovered that Gigglewick's husband was involved in Watergate, but on closer reading it became obvious that this was as reference to Victoria's Chief Commissioner of Police and her thus far unsuccessful attempts to set up an anti-corruption section which is not entirely corrupt.

I will skip lightly over my own views of police corruption in this state. The point is I can't take this thing seriously, when the headlines produce a mental picture of our Chief Commissioner foolishly taking a clock to be repaired by a fox in a basball cap who accidentally causes it to sound like a bicycle bell instead of going cuckoo.

Hmmm, one too many viewings of Richard Scarry's "The Talking Bread" there, I suspect.

Meanwhile, since I know how you all love ancient language quizes, vero possumus means:

(a) We really are pretending to be dead

(b) We are a group of vigilantes hired by an insurance company

(c) Verily, Every Republican Organising Political Operations Should Surely Use More Unclear Slogans

(d) Yes we can

I really, really wish it wasn't (d), but it is.

I know that the decision that Americans will make concerning their next president is important. Citizens of Iraq, for example, would no doubt be somewhat disappointed that one of the current candidates didn't get significantly further a couple of elections back. But when the presumptive Democratic nominee, who leads the other guy by up to 15 points according to some recent polls, appears at an official event with a faux presidential seal saying vero possumus stuck to the front of the podium, it really it a little bit difficult to take this whole thing seriously.

Barack Obama seems to be a reasonably bright guy and I like his policies. However, he has been accused of being an elitist, partly because of his poor ten pin bowling skills and his disinclination to eat a Philadelphian cheesesteak, and partly because Hillary Clinton said so enough times that people seemed to forget that it wasn't actually true.

Well, when you're up against a straight talking war hero, what better way to shake that elitist tag once and for all than to translate your own campaign slogan into Latin.

The seal, complete with slogan, made just one appearance, but surely it was clear to all involved that this was one too many. At the risk of actually agreeing with a Republican about something other than not wantingo stand too close to George W Bush, the McCain campaign summed it up pretty well when they described the seal as "laughable, ridiculous, preposterous and revealing all at the same time".

Or, as they say in the classics:

Serio dude. Vos went stolidus

I can see you, your poorly concreted driveway shining in the sun

2008-06-22T14:20:00.002+10:00

I suppose that, as soon as my sister told me that the house we grew up in was up for sale and therefore open for inspection, that it was inevitable that I would be unable to resist checking it out. And it was as weird as I should, perhaps, have expected.

To set the scene, up until 1997 I lived in a house that looked pretty much like this:

Or, indeed, exactly like that. I'll spare you to interior pictures, which are very tragic indeed.

It had been a very long time since I set foot in that house. It was before my boys were born, and before I met and married the love of my life, and therefore at a time when my life was pretty close to as different from now as it could conceivably be.

Honey Bear like the idea of seeing where I grew up, and suggested that we should take this opportunity to make out in my old bedroom. This lead me to the depressing realisation that I had, in fact, never kissed anyone in that room. This is not a record to be proud of, considering that I lived there until I was 24. Sadly, we forgot to actually carry out this excellent plan, so my perfect record remains intact.

I was probably distracted by how little the place had changed in 11 years. And oh the little things that I had forgotten that came flooding back because they were still there. The bathroom where we inexplicably had 40 plain tiles and 12 with a pattern on them, and the tiler decided to use 6 of the patterned ones as a feature, and then to scatter the other 6 randomly around the wall. The wall in the laundry where my parents created a blackboard by the simple means of painting half a wall black. The tiny electric stove that was there when we bought the place in 1978 and probably still doesn't work well. The awful kitchen cupboards. And, most pleasingly, the basketball backboard and ring that my dad and I built together and secured by the highly sophisticated means of digging a hole and sticking a really big post in it.

I'm surprised that no-one thought to take it down. I'm even more surprised that it hasn't fallen on someone yet.

The one thing that was new was the sattelite dish concreted into the back yard which was of sufficient size to have me looking around for Sam Neill and Tom Long. There was another, smaller, one on the roof and a spare one in the space between the garage and the fence, presumably just in case.

Bundle and Cherub enjoyed seeing where I grew up, although they were disappointed by the absence of toys in the back yard. Fortunately, the frankly dangerous rope swing had disappeared at some point. The boys had a fabulous time running up and down the driveway with their cousins (my sister brought her husband and daughters for the tour as well) and seemed entertained by seeing the bedroom window that I used to jump out of when I was over it.

Honey Bear's reaction, apart from the stunned silence at some of the excesses of decor, was to comment, perhaps more than once, that this answered an awful lot of her questions about me.

My sister and I finished the tour with a photo out the front of the house, which is surely the last time we will be able to do that before someone knocks the place down and builds at least three units on the quite sizeable block. And finally it was time to say farewell, one last time.

I don't have any particularly profound insights to share about this little experience, although I will say that I was pleased not to be at any risk of being overwhelmed by nostalgia. Life was very different when I lived there, and perhaps even somewhat less complicated, but I wouldn't trade it for where I am now. This is not just because I now live in a much nicer house, although that is undoutably true. It's because Ilive in a much nicer house with a hot babe and two adorable kids and I have no desire to return to any other life thank you very much.

I should add that it did get me thinking about what makes a a building into a home, and how to make the house I'm in now as good a place to grow up in for my boys as that poorly decorated bleached brick place was for me.

So, in closing, for no particular reason other than that it's quite a pretty song, here a complete set of the lyrics to Amy Grant's "If these walls could speak":

If these old walls,If these old walls could speak
Of the things that they remember well,
Stories and faces dearly held,
A couple in love living week to week,
Rooms full of laughter,
If these walls could speak.

If these old halls,If hallowed halls could talk,
These would have a tale to tell
Of sun goin’ down and dinner bells,
And children playing at hide and seek
From floor to rafter,
If these halls could speak.

They would tell you that I’m sorry
For bein’ cold and blind and weak.
They would tell you that it’s only
That I have a stubborn streak,
If these walls could speak.

If these old fashioned window panes were eyes,
I guess they would have seen it all
Each little tear and sigh and footfall,
And every dream that we came to seek
Or followed after,
If these walls could speak.

They would tell you that I owe you
More than I could ever pay.
Here’s someone who really loves you;
Don’t ever go away.
That’s what these walls would say,
That's what these walls would say.

Old people say the darndest...

2008-06-15T22:09:00.002+10:00

My church has been undergoing renovations.

Wow, an opening line like that just grabs your attention and won't let go, right?

Anyway, the current effect of the renovations is that we have no carpark. Honey Bear was working this morning and the prospect of parking at the school way up the road and transporting two small children a great distance by pram was unattractive. Happily, our good friends BT & Cruz invited me to park at their house and walk to church with them and their three gorgeous children.

We made it all the way to church and most of the way home without any more serious incident than a malfunctioning waterbottle*

Things only got weird at the top of the last hill. A very nice lady walking the other way up the street smiled as we passed and apparently felt the need to comment.

There are, I'm sure, any number of things that one could say when confronted with the sight of three adults and five children, all under the age of four, out for a walk together.

Many of them are even quite innocuous and sane.

In this case, however, what we got was:

"Wow, this looks an orphanage out for a day trip"

I like to think that I'm reasonably good with words, but I've been thinking about it for ten hours and I still have no idea what I should have said in response.

None at all.

* Not a metaphor

I want some down time, so call me when you can and I'll be fine

2008-06-11T19:53:00.005+10:00

Okay, sure, this is not the most original concept ever, but this blog is badly in need of some light relief and so, inspired by the existence of such excellent Facebook groups as "Don't Blame Me, I voted for Bartlet" and "I judge you when you use poor grammar", here's a few of the groups I'll be setting up whenever I next have way too much spare time:

1. I don't know which way up to put this label on my A4 envelope and I don't think anyone else does either

2. We all just happened to join the Celestine Prophecies appreciation society

3. I bet I could find 1,000,000 people who don't use Facebook (if I looked somewhere else)

4. All my Egyptian friends walk exactly the same way as I do

5. None of my friends have a secret crush on me. Stop it

6. I still have the Schokomod'l my neighbours gave me for Christmas and I don't know what to do about it

7. There are three types of people in the world. Those who can count and those who can't

8. If there was an award for excellence in disorganisation... we'd all be late for the ceremony

9. I just watched Momento. Apparently.

Anyone who wants to actually start any of these groups should rush to do so now. And then tell me so I can join.

I'm going away to be alone, I'm coming back with answers (ah ah, ah ah)

2008-06-06T20:34:00.003+10:00

I am not a doctor.

I suspect, however, that a list of symptoms that includes shortness of breath, heartburn, insomnia, elevated heart rate and shooting pains in the chest area may not be grounds for me to make proclamations to the effect of "My excellent health, let me show you it" any time soon.

If I had to guess, I would probably venture the suggestion that my stress levels might be a little bit high.

I'm not sure what exactly to do in this situation, but the approach I took this afternoon may not have been worlds best practice, unless the best cure for stress is to have another really strong cup of coffee and keep working.

So, this evening will be spent drinking gin and listening to Holidays on Ice. This is probably a better plan.

I think I should probably avoid any hit singles by Faker for a week or two, also.

Any other suggestions as to how I might make it to the end of the financial year without introducing myself to the back of an ambulance may be left in the comments section below kthxbye.

John Brumby is an idiot. He really, really is.

2008-05-31T16:41:00.010+10:00

A trip to a zoo should lead to a sense of peace and connection to nature. This is perhaps, particularly true in relation to the Werribee Open Range Zoo. If that's too much to ask, it should at least be a relaxing day out with the family.

To some extent, it worked the way it was supposed to. The day started well, with a pleasant 50 minute drive across town. We met up with our good friends BT & Cruz, and their three delightful children, BGF (3), Dynamite (2) and Extreme (1).

After arriving and giving five excited children a few minutes to chase each other madly around and jump off high things, we took a bus tour of the zoo, with utterly awesome close up views of rhinos, hippos and giraffes, and the kind of unintentionally funny commentary from the driver that you just can't script.

Here's a few highlights from the commentary (note: not all commentary provided by bus driver)

Busdriver: And on the left, there are some bison. Very big animals. Big heads.

*Honey Bear and Cruz giggle for about five minutes*

....

Busdriver: It gets very hot in the desert...

....

Bundle: My daddy's funny!

Cruz: I'm glad you think so, Bundle

....

Busdriver: And on the left, there's a group of zebras. You will notice that they all have stripes.

INC: Look kids, those two zebras are having a cuddle

*general merriment ensues*

Busdriver: [commentary becomes far too explicit to put on this blog]

....

We were particularly thrilled that the rhinos did not charge at the bus, as our driver cheerfully informed us that these magnificent creatures could run at 60 km/h and I privated wondered if the bus could do the same.

We wandered from the bus to a very pleasant picnic area with a playground for the kids and tables for adults who wanted to chill out, eat a sandwiches and drink some Merlot, and a collection of replica african huts for the kids to explore after lunch. The thatched rooves were particularly useful, since I had already been asked to play the role of big bad wolf and chase the children all over the park. All those straw and sticks really give a guy something to huff and puff at.

I was also quitely relieved that there were no chimneys so I could not be called upon to attempt to climb down one.

Eventually, we resolved the whole situation when Bundle informed me that I could in fact come in to 'his house' so long as I promised to be good. BGF added that it was also a condition of entry that I must 'love them all very much' and then there were cuddles.

This was slightly more relaxing than Dynamite's response, which was to wave a stick at me and announce that he planned to 'use the force' on me if I came any closer.

After a long and leisurely lunch we checked out a couple of the walking tracks. The children did not quite pat an emu, but this was because we wouldn't let them, not because it was out of reach or anything like that. We saw lions, we saw monkeys, the children played on an abandoned river boat, we wandered back to the car and we drove home happy.

So far, so serene, and I would have stayed this way if it was not for our State Government's plan to give a whole bunch of this zoo's land to Village Roadshow to turn it into a theme park. In a stunning failure to understand who should pay who when land is exchanged, the State Government is also planning to subsidise Village Roadshow's new theme park to the tune of $100,000,000.

For those who have been wondering lately whether public/private partnerships are a good thing, the answer is 'not in this case'.

Perhaps we just need to give our state government a quick refresher in relation to the purpose of a PPP. The idea is that we, the people of Victoria, get something that we actually want*, and instead of paying for it solely using the money that you gouged out of us by way of stamp duty** a private company contributes to the cost and recoups its money through some sort of toll/massive government subsidy/both. This means that the government has more money available to improve education by increrasing teachers salaries, particularly if the teachers in question are very, very persistent.

The purpose of a PPP is not to take something that is publically owned and pay a private company $100 million to wreck it and then charge us greatly increased admission prices if we want to see what's left of it, all for no benefit to anyone except said private company as far as I can tell.

There is no way that this much land will ever again be made available for a public space like this, ever again. If we lose this zoo, we will never get it or anything like it back again.

If $100 million of our money is to be spent at this location, spend half of it improving facilities and saving endangered animals, and the other half giving free tickets to people who aren't Friends of the Zoo Members like us and can't afford the prices of $23 per adult plus no doubt something extra if your children are a little older than mine.

Do not spend the $100 million paying Village Roadshow to take this oasis of natural beauty and destroy it irretrievably.

John Brumby's talent for politics can be measured by his utter inability to lay a glove on Jeff Kennett in what seemed like about a million years of politics. I voted for this guy in 1996 on the basis that he was not Jeff Kennett. One of many excellent reasons to vote for anyone who was not Kennett was that Jeff's government seemed to be committed to taking public spaces and putting them in private hands for dubious and hard to measure benefits with no due process whatsoever. Brumby was happy to jump on the Save Albert Park bandwagon in opposition, but now that some other idiot resigned and left him in charge, we now have exactly the same thing going on, only this time it's in relation to a much more precious public asset.

Rumour has it that the Spring Street Assclown Collective's next plan will be to replace the penguin parade at Phillip Island with a giant screen where we can have nightly viewings of "Happy Feet".

In other words, the only difference between Brumby and Kennett is that Kennett was infinitely more entertaining and there was at least the illusion of an reasonable alternative.

If this theme park gets built, I will dedicate every waking minute to removing John the Idiot from public office forever, and consequences, including the risk of the other side getting in, be damned.

Still, I don't want to simply be a naysayer here. If Village Roadshow think that there is a market for a theme park which justifies their investment, they are welcome to build the theme park and let the free market decide whether it was a good idea. If the State Government wants to give them some land to build it on because people in the surrounding area may receive an economic benefit, well, leaving aside the fact that Village Roadshow can afford to pay for the land like anyone else, they may want to consider the following 10 entirely suitable sites:

1. Coode Island

2. The area next to the aluminium smelter in Portland where the industrial park isn't

3. That area in Hastings where they wanted to build a nuclear reactor

4. The Deborah Triangle in Bendigo. With a bit of luck, this works the same way as the rather more famous triangle in Bermuda. I know at least one person named Deborah who refuses to go there just in case

5. John Cain Memorial Park. I know it's not big enough, but if you insist on completing Jeff Kennett's work for him, at least get the symbolism right

6. If it's a PPP, what more appropriate site than Laverton's Port Philip Prison.*** The Underbelly ride could be a particularly authentic experience

7. Avalon Airport. Because I like any plan that annoys Jetstar/may spare us any more of their appalling advertisements

8. That area next to the basketball stadium in Dandenong which claims to be a newly developed wetland but looks rather like a swamp, and not even a very wet swamp.

9. John Brumby's house

10. Any other reasonable flat bit of land between Melbourne and Geelong not current occupied by numerous endangered animals. Last time I checked, there were freaking heaps of sites matching this description.

The petition you are no doubt wondering about by now is conveniently located RIGHT HERE. Please join me in working to ensure that this latest attempt to wreck Melbourne is stopped before it's too late.

* Or at least someone wants, particularly when what we get is whopping big freeways instead of a sensible level of investment in public transport.

** Surely, for the $20,000 or so I recently paid, I should at least have received a stamp or two. Sadly, this was not the case.

*** See what I did there?

Lightning flash and everything is sharp and clear

2008-05-19T20:16:00.003+10:00

So hey, yes, things are quiet around these parts, mostly because I don't want to produce depressingly morose reports on what may best be described as "This Present Suckfulness"* and I've been too busy/cranky/blah/etc to write about anything else.

So rather than dwelling on such things, here's some of the good stuff that's been going on lately...

1. I tipped 8 out of 8 AFL games and won the weekly jackpot. Admittedly, this would have been more exciting if the jackpot had been accumulating for more than two weeks, and/or if four other people hadn't tipped 8 out of 8 also. This reduced my share of the prize pool a little bit.

My actual winnings - $2.00.

2. My local shopping centre has awesome 'parents rooms' and the one I went to yesterday had a big sign on the door saying "Dads welcome". Technically they shouldn't have to say this but it made me happy anyway.

3. A week or so back, I wandered through a local market place and discovered some dudes selling Obscura Coffee. It's from the the only certified Fair Trade & Organic coffee group in Laos, it works very nicely with my espresso maker (see profile photo for details) and they sell it for the ridiculous price of $6.20 for 200g.

4. I took the boys on their first bus ride yesterday. The very kind young lady driving the bus presented the boys with their very own bus tickets. This made an already exciting trip an absolute thrill for the boys. They still have the tickets.

5. At the end of the bus trip we found Belgrave. Specifically, we found chocolate gelati for the boys and a pretty decent chai latte for me at the Puffing Billy Cafe. We will go there again.

6. I finally made it to Bunnings to buy a few essentials, including a shelf for the cupboard under the sink, which is essential in the sense that there was clearly a shelf there when we bought the house but not so much when we moved in. If anyone can lend me a saw then that would really make installing this thing easier.

7. It is reasonably impressive that a child who only turned two this month is already using whole sentences. But when, as is the case with my Cherub, one of those sentences is "Daddy, I love you sooooooo much" then everything else can be as average as it likes because there is nothing in the world that could have made me happier than that did.

* On the off chance that noted Christian author Frank Peretti ever reads this, he may get cross. Then again, having once read Piercing the Darkness right to the end, I DON'T CARE

Unbilled

2008-05-12T20:04:00.003+10:00

For those who wonder what I do all day, it's mostly conversations like this...

Scene - somewhere near the photocopier. Empress is photocopying. Ginger is also there

*INC enters*

*Empress stares at INC with narrowed eyes*

*INC returns narrowed eyes look with interest*

Empress: So, we're communicating without words now

INC: I'm too irritated to speak. I'm just letting my irritation radiate

Empress: Yes, I can feel it from over here

INC: There is a village in northern Peru where then have never seen a computer. And yet they are feeling my irritation right now.

*Empress turns to Ginger*

Empress: He says the most inane things. It's very entertaining.

Ginger: Huh? What? I wasn't listening.

*fin*

And thus staff morale is maintained at an all time high for another day. The important thing, being the actual thing that is most important, is that I GOT PAID FOR THAT.

Oh no.......

2008-05-08T06:52:00.001+10:00

I hate it when my eyebrows don't behave.

They seem to forget that I'm the one who raised them.

We have recommenced talking about our kids

2008-04-30T20:44:00.001+10:00

That's right, for anyone who happens to enjoy hearing stories about small (and, occasionally less small) children, there are three, count them, three recent posts right over here.

The one by Gigglewick is good.

This blog will return with more musical references of questionable relevance soon.

You know I needed to have my say/Don't need no life full of disarray

2008-04-23T20:43:00.003+10:00

WARNING: This post contains references to songs that will get stuck in your head. If you are going to hate me for this, it's probably best to stop reading now.

Of course, if you're a big fan of early 90s Australian techno-pop, and you read the title, I'm pretty sure it's already too late so you may as well just read on...

In recent times, I have been foolishly listening to both commercial radio and the songs on my ipod that are there because they were automatically downloaded from itunes for free and I haven't yet removed them. So, here's some not-excessively-up-to-date news from the world of music.

Some introductions are too long
I have discovered that if you hear the introducetion to a song, and you think that it sounds remarkably familiar but you haven't heard it in years and you won't recognise it until the lyrics start, and the song is in fact "I need a lover who won't drive me crazy", then you will be ready to kill someone by the time JC Mellencamp finally starts singing.

For those who have always wondered, I googled it and found that the last line of the chorus is apparently "Some girl that knows the meaning of 'Hey hit the highway'", which just causes me to imagine a large group of confused women randomly punching roads.

The song also includes the line "Well I'm not wiped out by this poolroom life I'm living" so apparently JCM was having a 'completely mental day' when he wrote this.

I should mention at this point that my sister used to walk around the house singing "I need a brother who won't drive me crazy" but I am assured that this was not directed at me.

Playing in a cover band in the mid 90s can have long term effects
I know this because I was standing in the checkout line at Coles when I noticed that:
1. They were playing "Mr Jones" over the store PA
2. Without realising it, I had started singing the backing vocals in the chorus*
3. Out loud

Some songs entertain for far longer than one might expect
I was utterley surprised when, driving home late one night, I flicked over to Nova and heard the openning bars of Euphoria's "Love You right". It took me a while to figure out exactly why this made me so unreasonably happy. It turns out there are endless numbers of reasons

1. I love the rags-to-riches nature of Simon Baker-Denny's rise from extra in the video clip for this song, to murder victim who got two lines in LA Confidential** to star of the awesomely cheesy US prime time series, "The Guardian".

2. My 18 year old self particularly enjoyed the E-Street promos which featured this song as the soundtrack to Kate Raison steaming up a shower that, frankly, looked like it was already pretty hot before Marcus Graham turned up.

3. When I bought the album, I discovered that these guys somehow got Young MC to rap on one of the tracks. Like, you know, back when people had actually heard of him.

But, having checked with YouTube, the main reason was:

4. My 18 year old self's fondness for this dress, which, when worn by Holly Garnett, ensured that there was not a straight man anywhere across the nation who cared or even noticed that the band's second single was rubbish.

Remixes confuse me
My ipod features Groove Coverage's club mix of "Moonlight Shadow" by Mike Oldfield. However, there are entire verses where the beats have been removed entirely, which actually makes it impossible to dance to.

Particularly on a crowded bus.

*Sha la la, sha la la, yeah, if you must know

** This is apparently French for "The Secret Information"

Another little insight into why I turned out like this

2008-04-21T20:17:00.002+10:00

Sunday was pleasant.

Sadly, Honey Bear was working from home so, after an entertaining morning of crawling around in between the roof and the ceiling trying to fix a downlight (don't ask) I took the boys off to church and then around to my parents house for the afternoon. The boys were thrilled to see their grandma and grandpa and to watch "Snoopy Come Home", and I got to eat Welsh hotpot for lunch and it was in every sense a Good Plan.

Later in the afternoon, we all walked down to the local primary school to visit the sheep and play on the various slides and other playground items. In the middle of lifting my 15.7kg Bundle from one platform to a somewhat higher one, rather than allowing him to walk across the chain-link bridge, I experienced the invigorating sensation of four different muscles in my lower back going PING in quick succession.

Happily, the PINGing stopped after a couple of minutes and there were no long term effects except that it made me feel like I was getting old and, for reasons I can't quite recall, I commented on this to my father.

He was, of course, amused, but didn't say too much. Things only got concerning when he decided to mention this to my mother, resulting in the following little conversation:

My father: Bad news, honey. INC is starting to feel the effects of old age.

My mother: That's not bad news, that's just to be expected.

INC: No. I prefer my father's point of view here. WHAT THE HELL DO YOU MEAN "THAT'S TO BE EXPECTED"? etc

My father really did look like Christmas had made a mysterious and unscheduled mid-April appearance. The thing we all appreciated most is that if anyone other than my saintly mother had said this, I would have known that I was being sledged, but in this case she really was trying to help.

My father, meanwhile, spent the rest of the afternoon finding new and creative ways to insert the phrase "That's to be expected" into casual conversation and I am quietly confident that this will continue for several weeks.

Everyone who thinks my parents should have their own blog can leave their supportive comments below. Anyone who would like to point out that 34 is not actually all that old should feel free to say so, too.

Pop Quiz

2008-04-16T22:00:00.001+10:00

To improve your 'enjoyment' of this post, imagine that I sound a lot like Dennis Hopper. And let's face it, as far as most of you know, I just might. For extra points, scowl for 90 minutes straight whilst simultaneously flirting with Sandra Bullock.

It's Sunday. You have a one hour window in which to get a much needed haircut and you are stuck in an unfamiliar shopping mall. You discover that you can't go to Just Cuts because you don't want to pay $24 for a no-appointment-anything-can-happen haircut, and, even more critically, this business is heartily endorsed by Grant Denyer.

This leaves you with a choice between:

1. Spending another week or two looking like you forgot what size your head was and grew three times as much hair as you actually required, or

2. Bob the Barber

What do you do?

What. Do. You. Do?

Ordinary people, it's okay/ You don't have to wear those wings

2008-04-11T20:24:00.002+10:00

I do not have any solid, scientifically valid evidence to establish that the world is heading in the general direction of a mysterious accessory known as Helena's handbasket. Overall, things are probably no better or worse than usual. However, amongst my friends, there is an avalanche of bad news and some to spare. Illness, divorce, random yet potentially fatal injuries, those I know and love are doing it all.

I'm not sure how most of my blogging friends are travelling, apart from a couple who are clearly having a stinkful time lately, and many more who join me in being uninspired and/or a bit grumpy, but it seems that the blogosphere has been a bit short on celebrations lately.

For me, the last few weeks can be adequately summed up by a phone conversation with my lovely sister-in-law, who will probably be unimpressed if she ever finds out that I have decided her nickname should be "Herbs".

It went like this:

Herbs: Hi there, how are you?

INC: Pretty good. How are you?

Herbs: I'm good too

INC: That's great

*beat*

Herbs: Are we lying? I know I am

INC: Yes. So am I.

There is nothing particularly terrible going on in my life. I am concerned about some health issues that are not mine, which I won't be blogging about because they are not mine. My job is stressful and not particularly fun, mortgage payments are hard to keep up with, and I would sell at least two non-essential organs for a week where I get to sleep for at least seven uninterrupted hours per night, but compared to nearly everyone I know, I'm having an easy time of it.

So, I'm not entirely sure what my problem is, but I think if it was expressed mathmatically it might look something like:

Exhaustion + stress + adorable but challenging children = grumpiness

The real problem is that when this grumpiness ends up pointing in the general direction of the children, I forget that they are really very young and that they are allowed to have a bad day or two here and there, and I hold unrealistic expectations that they will behave wonderfully all the time just because they do it most of the time, and so I end up getting unreasonably cross and then hating myself for it.

Something that contributes to all this is that up until four years ago my career choices were based on the idea of finding jobs where I could actually feel like I was doing something positive in the world. With the impending arrival of little people, it was economically necessary to find what we like to call in the trade 'a real job'. So, now I earn, quite literally, twice as much money as I used to but that's really all that gets achieved.

I can put up with the nine hours of 'this is stupid' per day if the rest of the time is spent with my fantastic family and I can even perhaps think that maybe I'm not so bad at the whole parenting thing. But when the grumpiness equation takes effect, I find myself wondering if I've ever been good at anything at all, ever. I start to have some difficulty in remembering why I care, and I realise that some days I have only the vaguest idea of who I am. I also wonder how old I have to get before I feel like I have some idea what I am doing instead of just making it up and hoping people are fooled.

It's possible that I have been subconsciously projecting this mood onto my blog, given that my last 7 posts have covered emoing, ceasing to emo, lolcats, Frances O'Connor, courage, basketball, dried fruit, a band I saw last year, and now whatever the hell this post is. I'm not sure I ever knew what this blog was about, but if I did then I have clearly forgotten.

Multiply that sentiment by about one million and that's how I've been feeling about my life lately.

So.

Time to take a deep breath.

In.

Out.

That's better.

I need to remember that there are nights when I walk in the door and two small crazy people come running into the hallway and do their best to actually knock me off my feet as they grab me and yell "Daddy's hoooooooome", and that these are really, really good nights.

It's also time to take the advice that I freely dispense to others whether they have asked for it or not and accept that I'm just an ordinary person. I don't have to be perfect at everything and I get to fail from time to time without the world actually ending. The wearing of wings is best left to some surprisingly musclebound young lady at 6.30pm each Sunday. As for me, I do not have to wear them, because Angie Hart has already explained that they are Stupid Things, and she's right.

I'm not sure that this will help. I suck at taking advice, especially my own, but I'm hoping that posting this here will serve as a much needed reminder. And maybe, just maybe, I can climb back out of this spiral of confusion and self loathing and reach the point where I can possibly start to think that I have regained the ability to get it right, at least some of the time.

I have to get this right. The fate of the world doesn't depend on it, but there are two little people who need a good daddy and I'm their one and only shot at it.

I have to get this right.

I have to get this right.

Why would anyone name a pub after a bad show that was on Channel 9 ten years ago?

2008-03-31T21:12:00.000+11:00

Some time around last November, I ~~attempted to recapture my lost youth~~ went and heard a mate's band play at a pub.

The mate in question is the half of the duo known as "Simeon Acoustic" who was not actually named Simeon. Since I have played the odd gig or two with this guy, and he also played at my wedding, this is not going to be the most objective review ever. Still, having foolishly promised to write it shortly after the gig, now, a little over four months later, I shall.

I did not promise that this would lead to massive attention from the mainstream media, sales through the roof and sold out shows at Calder Park. And it won’t. Still, since good music deserves to be reviewed and this is pretty much the only forum available to me right now, here it is.

It must be said that of all the pubs I have ever been to, when it comes to acoustics and generally suitability for gigs, the Water Rat in South Melbourne must rank amongst the Top 3 "Most Pants Ever".

At number one.

Just to add to the fun, Simeon had a case of tonsilitis so bad that he could barely sing and had to cut the gig short, so it's fair to suggest that these boys may have not had their best night ever.

This turned the evening into a sort of anti-Idol experience, which can only be good.

There was no missing the obvious quality of the songs, and it's impossible not to like a duo who stop for a full five minutes mid-gig to talk about conditions in the poorer parts of Africa and provide the opportunity for the semi-inebriated crowd to sign up to sponsor a child at that table up the back.

Simeon's voice falls somewhere between Chad Kroeger and Ed Kowalczyk, but fortunately his music has a lot more orginality and less blandness than the middle of the road tragedy otherwise known as Nickelback. I might not have thought of the comparison with Ed if the evening hadn't ended with a cover of "Lightening Crashes", but once you notice it's hard to miss.

The set was almost entirely made up of originals, although it was broken up by a pleasantly rowdy cover of Paul Kelly's "Dumb Things". Good though the originals were, there was a certain similarity in style and tempo to more than a few of the songs. The set could benefit from a couple of slower ballads, some reggae in the manner of Cold Chisel's "No sense", or perhaps some sort of offbeat electric bass and horn combination mildly reminiscent of Missy Higgins' "Casualty". Or something.

The same could be said of the demo CD that I got for free just for turning up. It's probably not safe to generalise from just three tracks, but I don't think the album is out yet so I'm going to do just that.

The CD is nothing less than very, very good. The CD opens with a studio track, "Satellite" which features a driving bass line and tight-as-fish percussion. This sits very well behind the nicely melodic guitars and strong vocals. The song neatly captures the sense of being far away and missing the one you most care about, whilst avoiding any wacky 'left arm that's been lost in a war' style lyrics, which no-one but the Waifs could even come close to getting away with.

Tracks 2 & 3 are acoustic numbers, also recorded live. I haven't managed to find out the name of track 2, since it's mysteriously absent fromn the band's myspace page, so I'll move on to track 3. "I hear your voice", is, for me, the clear highlight, partly for sheer melodiousness, and partly because, as regular readers may have noticed, I am an absolute sucker for anything exploring the intersection of faith and doubt, and this song does it well.

Good bands are hard to find, so if you happen to be passing a pub somewhere in South Melbourne and you see a skinny guy with a great voice unloading a guitar, get yourself inside and chill to some very good sounds indeed.

Or, if you want to take an approach that's a little more efficient than randomly wandering around the inner suburbs, you can find the band's facebook page here and listen to a couple of tracks here.

And then go to a gig.

Your scarf, it was apricot (dried)

2008-03-26T20:31:00.002+11:00

On my way home tonight, I overheard a brief snatch of a mobile phone conversation that went like this:

Dude standing in the rain: I know, I'm standing in the rain right now.

This made me wonder why this guy did not walk two metres to his right , thus cleverly ceasing to stand in the rain and therefore perhaps being able to reconsider whether such terseness with his nearest and dearest was, in fact, necessary.

It also led me to consider whether he would have been less unhappy with his situation had he been a piece of dried fruit, which naturally gave me an idea for my next work of non-fiction.*

I plan to publish an in depth study of dried fruit. In particular, I want to look at whether dried fruit improves over time.

It will be called "The Age of Raisins".

I'm hoping that John Farnham will write the foreword.

After that particular triumph of publishing, I plan to go on to international musical success with a cover of Dire Straits' "Sultana of Swing".

This may surprise you, but that's about it for this post. The good news** is that this will force me to post again at some future date, as I simply cannot stand the thought of this appalling collection of dad jokes being my final contribution to the world of the blogs.

On currant form, you may be waiting a week or two for my next post. Blogging will resume at some future date.

* I hope you enjoyed this subtle combination of the worst segue ever and a big huge lie as much as I did.

** A matter of opinion at this point, I suspect.

By the end of this post, there will be dancing

2008-03-16T08:55:00.007+11:00

A quick quiz

Q: Who are all these people?

Answer:

The guys in yellow are the 2008 National Basketball League Champions, the mighty Melbourne Tigers.

The guys in purple are just some other dudes.

It is perhaps a little sad that, after a fascinating five game grand final series, in which the Tigers survived the biggest choke in NBL finals history, losing game four despite leading by 18 points late in the third quarter, and then travelled to Sydney where they snatched game five in a thrilling final quarter in front of 10,240 angry Kings fans, these were the best photos I could find. And I looked everywhere, including the Tigers' own website.

It is even more upsetting that I can see Cashmere Mafia and 8 kinds of CSI on free to air TV, but I didn't see a single minute of the basketball finals because I don't have Foxtel.

It is tempting to flippantly suggest that the reason why Australian basketball is doing a poor job of marketing itself is that the league is currently run by some guy named Chuck who used to play for Illawarra, but I won't.

Because the league actually is run by some guy who used to play for Illawarra.

Named Chuck.

Still, this is not a time for recriminations. This is a time to celebrate the Tigers' second championship in three seasons, to waved legendary point guard Daryl McDonald into retirement with the best possible finish to his 42nd season, and to say "All is forgiven, Chris Anstey".

Also, because I promised dancing, and because this may be the only time I will have even a thin excuse for posting this picture, and most of all because the boots are awesome:

Courage

2008-03-10T20:31:00.004+11:00

I may, at some point, manage to blog about our recently completed weekend away with the family. This thing could not have gone less smoothly without actually starring Chevy Chase and Bundle has just told me that we should never go on holidays again, but apart from that it was good.

Instead, there is a particularly well written passage from Robin Hobb's "The Mad Ship". I read this around 18 months ago and I have been meaning to put on this blog ever since, but the moment never seemed quite right.

Well, some time last week I was chatting to a friend who has had much better days than that one, and the subject of courage came up. Several days after that conversation, it occurred to me that the lines I am about to quote define courage about as well as anything I've ever read.

For those unfamiliar with Ms Hobb's writings, most of her books are of the fantasy genre, meaning you get the odd strangely named character, grumpy dragon or, in this case, self aware ship that can talk. However, in this particular case you also get excellent dialogue and some very finely crafty characters.

And, if you are the friend I was talking to last week and you happen to read this, I hope you find yourself feeling just a little better.

Robin Hobb wrote:

'Innocent?' He was incensed at her suggestion he was somehow responsible for this mess. 'I've done nothing wrong, I intend nothing wrong. I am innocent!'

'Half the evil in this world occurs while decent people stand by and do nothing wrong. It's not enough to refrain from evil, Trell. People have to attempt to do right, even if they believe they cannot succeed.'

'Even when it's stupid to try?' he asked with savage sarcasm.

'Especially then,' she replied sweetly. 'That's how it's done, Trell. You break your heart against this stony world. You fling yourself at it, on the side of good, and you do not ask the cost. That's how you do it.'

'Do what?' he demanded, truly angry now. 'Get myself killed? For the sake of being a hero?'

'Perhaps,' she conceded. 'Perhaps that. But it is definitely how you redeem yourself. How you become a hero.' She cocked her head and eyed him appraisingly. 'Don't tell me you've never wanted to be the hero.'

'I've never wanted to be the hero,' he defied her. Paragon was still cursing someone defiantly. He sounded drunked and rambling. Brashen turned his head, to stare at the ship. The yellow glow of firelight danced on his chopped face. What did this woman expect of him? There was nothing he could do to help the ship, nothing he could do to help anyone. 'All I ever wanted to do was live my own life. And I'm having damn little success at that.'

She laughed low. 'Only because you keep standing back from it. And turning aside from it. And avoiding it.' She shook her head. 'Trell, Trell. Open your eyes. This horrible mess is your life. There is no sense in waiting for it to get better. Stop putting it off and live it.' She laughed again. Her eyes and voice seemed to go afar. 'Everyone thinks that courage is about facing death without flinching. But almost anyone can do that. Almost anyone can hold their breath and not scream for as long as it takes to die. True courage is facing life without flinching. I don't mean the times when when the right path is hard, but glorious in the end. I'm talking about enduring the boredom, and the messiness, and the inconvenience of doing what is right.' She cocked her head and considered him. 'I think you can do that, Trell.'

What's next...

2008-03-05T20:00:00.005+11:00

And we're back.

I seem to have regained at least enough perspective to recognise that I don't have that much to emo about and it's time to get on with things. Thanks again to everyone who sent nice comments and emails during my brief (and, may I say, somewhat spectacular) loss of emotional balance. I can't guarantee that it won't happen again, but, just for now, I'm doing pretty well.

Part of the reason for my good cheer is that Honey Bear and I will be spending the long weekend with our friends Bingtown and Cruz and five, count them, five children aged three and under, in ~~an exotic and mysterious location~~ their beach house in Rye. If this doesn't take my mind off stuff, nothing will.

Also, let me just take a moment to mention that I love being married, and here's why:

Finally, I have a question. Frances O'Connor acted both Cate Blanchett and Richard Roxburgh off the screen in "Thank God He Met Lizzie". She was awesome in Mansfield Park and she was, quite clearly, the only redeeming presence in the merrily script free disaster otherwise known as Kiss or Kill. I genuinely believe that this woman is incapable of turning in a bad performance.

All things considered, and taking into account my almost equally great respect for Miranda Otto, would it be best if I avoided tonight's episode of Cashmere Mafia?

Just asking, etc

Not Drowning. Or Waving. Emoing

2008-02-28T20:12:00.002+11:00

The lack of recent activity on this blog here can be attributed to my odd decision to spend almost all of the past week emoing like I've never emoed before. If it ever becomes an Olympic sport, I am confident of at least a silver in the 'long slow luge into self-involved whiny despair'.

So, to spare you from having to read any of the self indulgent nonsense I have been writing over the past few days, I'm taking a brief break from posting. If I happen to bump into my sense of perspective in the pickle aisle at Coles, I'll know it's time to write some more.

If the past week is a guide, I suspect it's not going to happen any time soon.

I wouldn't mistreat you/ For my weight in gold

2008-02-21T21:47:00.005+11:00

I simply cannot lose weight when there are cakes and cookies in my house. No matter how much time I spend exercising incredible self restraint,* at some possibly alcohol fueled point, the sugar cravings will go critical and I will eat this stuff.

So, the only solution is to get these things out of my house as quickly as possible. Since all my friends are dieting and I was always taught that wasting food is utterly unacceptable, the only way to get the cookies to go away is to eat them.

This means that my current diet plan is to eat every cookie in sight, really quickly.

Popular? Yes

Effective? No

Meanwhile, the people I work with like to help out by leaving massive double chocolate chip muffins on my desk any time I'm not looking. I am not fond of these people any more.

I am also fairly sick of those Biggest Loser ads on the sides of buses. You know, the ones where two reasonably fit looking people grin at me whilst announcing some fun fact like "To burn off a can of soft drink, you have to walk 3 kilometres".

This may be true. However, I'm betting that I could burn off the same can of soft drink by sitting on the couch watching sport for three hours. Or by sleeping for seven.

By that logic, if I start drinking a can of soft drink immediately before bed every night, I won't gain any weight. This sounds like an excellent plan to me.

Still, there is reason for celebration. Until I saw that ad, I had no idea how lucky I was to be living exactly 1.5km from the nearest milk bar. If it wasn't for such excellent local town planning, I'd probably be dead by now.

* as opposed to, say, just exercising

We do talk about our ancestors

2008-02-16T20:14:00.002+11:00

Or, This May Answer Some of Your Questions About Me

Spending a day with my grandparents is always a fascinating experience. I don't need to do anything except sit, listen and enjoy the spectacle.

Today, they spent some time discussing their trip to a lavender farm and, in particular, the lavender scones that they ate in the cafe, which did not taste at all like lavender. The cafe is called, of course, Purple Haze. Unsurprisingly, there's a bit of a colour theme going on, which was described like this:

Mum: They had purple table cloths, purple curtains...

Grandma: But I didn't see a purple cat go past

Mum: Um, were you expecting to see a purple cat?

Grandma: Well, not at the time. I've only just thought of it.

INC: [tries not to damage internal organs from laughing]

This was followed by a lengthy discussion of purpleness. My mother informed us that too much purple was not a good thing. In fact, in Russia, they used to paint the cells of political prisoners entirely purple because that was the colour that would drive them mad the fastest.

This is the sort of stuff my mother knows.*

My grandparents, perhaps surprised at how fast we had moved from scones to psychological torture of political prisoners, asked a couple more questions, which led to this:

Grandpa: So, having the colour purple around makes you go mad?

Mum: Well, yes.

Grandpa: [taps the sprig of lavender in his buttonhole] Well, watch this space.

Later on , my grandmother showed me some of the original documents from when the family moved to Australia inthe 19th century.** Particularly entertaining was the story of my grandmother's great grandfather. After half a page or so of general historical stuff, it suddenly took a sharp left turn into amusing anecdote territory with the story of two of his daughters. I didn't write it down but it said something like this:

"Lydia and Cynthia worked for Mrs Aldergate, performing tasks including ironing the clothes. Being rather young, they folishly reasoned that they only needed to iron the front panels of each shirt, as that was all that could be seen under a gentleman's waistcoat. This practice came to an abrupt halt when they received a curt note from Mrs Aldergate saying "The whole of the shirt is to be ironed."

When reading this to my lovely wife, I prefaced it by saying "See, it's genetic".

She agreed wholeheartedly. And laughed for quite some time.

* or, just possibly, makes up. I can't tell.

**We enjoyed this so much that my particular branch of the family did it again in 1977.

A truly great day

2008-02-13T20:48:00.002+11:00

Our Prime Minister said:

I move:
That today we honour the indigenous peoples of this land, the oldest continuing cultures in human history.
We reflect on their past mistreatment.
We reflect in particular on the mistreatment of those who were stolen generations - this blemished chapter in our nation's history.
The time has now come for the nation to turn a new page in Australia's history by righting the wrongs of the past and so moving forward with confidence to the future.
We apologise for the laws and policies of successive parliaments and governments that have inflicted profound grief, suffering and loss on these our fellow Australians.
We apologise especially for the removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families, their communities and their country.
For the pain, suffering and hurt of these stolen generations, their descendants and for their families left behind, we say sorry.
To the mothers and the fathers, the brothers and the sisters, for the breaking up of families and communities, we say sorry.
And for the indignity and degradation thus inflicted on a proud people and a proud culture, we say sorry.
We the Parliament of Australia respectfully request that this apology be received in the spirit in which it is offered as part of the healing of the nation.
For the future we take heart; resolving that this new page in the history of our great continent can now be written.
We today take this first step by acknowledging the past and laying claim to a future that embraces all Australians.
A future where this parliament resolves that the injustices of the past must never, never happen again.
A future where we harness the determination of all Australians, indigenous and non-indigenous, to close the gap that lies between us in life expectancy, educational achievement and economic opportunity.
A future where we embrace the possibility of new solutions to enduring problems where old approaches have failed.
A future based on mutual respect, mutual resolve and mutual responsibility.A future where all Australians, whatever their origins, are truly equal partners, with equal opportunities and with an equal stake in shaping the next chapter in the history of this great country, Australia.

I just watched the full speech and I am too wrecked to do anything but sit in awe and let the tears of pride flow freely.

The night that Anna Bligh stood before a jubilant crowd in Brisbane and introduced "the Prime Minister of Australia... Kevin Rudd, I felt hope for the future of our country for the first time in many years. Like everyone, I hoped our new leader could live up to the weight of our hopes, our dreams, our dearest wishes and our highest of expectations.

A few short months later, on the first day of this new Parliament, my expectations have been exceeded in ways I never though possible. I have never, never been so proud of our country as I am now.

To all my indigenous brothers and sisters, I proudly join our Prime Minister in saying just how sorry I am. And to anyone who ever reads this, I say let us always keep the faith, for this, more than anything that has come before, was a great victory for the true believers.

The most important part of acting is re-acting. This does not mean acting again

2008-02-10T13:54:00.000+11:00

There is a long and involved explanation as to how I got to that title but since it makes no sense and even if I successfully explained it, it still wouldn't be funny, I'm going to move on to the results of the least popular internet quiz the world has ever seen.

First of all, thank you to Mizanthrop, Actonb, Leilani and Meva for actually sending in entries, thereby saving this from being a complete debacle, even if it was still quite a big one. Thanks also to MelbourneGirl and Gigglewick for giving it a red hot go, and to Adam who was involved in some manner or other.

I have considered feeling despondent about how bad an idea this was. I probably should have realised that, as actonb correctly pointed out, bloggers are by their very nature anonymous personas. Or, as I would put it, we're all so used to being mysterious that this competition was always going to be impossible.

Still, we learned a few things.

The award for most surprising fact must go to Gigglewick for her under 17 kayaking exploits, although there were strong challenges from actonb with her love for skodas and Leilani's three metre high bamboo teepee, which should be a great timesaver for her legion of internet stalkers everywhere.

Meva wins cutest fact for the student union one and her cat runs a close second for "most gross" with the 4am weeing incident.

Adam wins most recognisable blogger since he was the only person to have all three of his facts correctly guessed by the same person (well done, Meva).

I was intrigued about which ones people would think were mine. Two out of four people thought I had won an egg throwing competition. That was, in fact, MelbourneGirl. A different two out of four people thought I used to be able to do a 360 on a skateboard. Again, that was actually MG, so let me take this opportunity to point out that we are not in fact the same person.

And yet another two out of four people thought I had no opinion on Nicole Kidman's pregnancy. Actually, I think it's nice for the Urban and Kidman families and everyone else should find something else to talk about. Sure, it's not a very interesting opinion, but it will have to do.

I wasn't surprised that people were unaware of my (mixed) netball playing past with the lovely and talented Ms Redpath, and I am eternally grateful to actonb who, despite knowing what I look like, still didn't guess that my brother thinks I have a big nose.

Congratulations to Leilani and Meva who were the only two people to guess any of the ones about me. They both figured out that my favourite cafe in the world is in Chattanooga. This is either excellent research (I did blog about going to Tennessee once) or a heck of a guess. For the record, the place is called Rembrants and the baked cheescake is so wrong it's right.

And finally we come to the one that seemed to capture everyone's imagination. Unsurprisingly, it was number 6, being the 'icecubes' one. Gigglewick, Meva and Mizanthrop may be interested to know that they each got one vote on this one. Leilani was the only person to get this right, but no extra points for guessing there, for she was the one who did it. On the bright side, Leilani now gets to be MelbourneGirl's instant hero, and does it get any better than that no it does not.

For those who want to know the correct answers in full, here they are:

1. I have never owned a car. Adam
2. I grew up in a Angelina Jolie style 'rainbow family'; both my sibs were adopted from different countries, in fact I'm the only member of my immediate family, (aside from my child/ren) to be born an Australian citizen. Miz
3. When I started uni at 17, I wouldn't go to the Student Union for the first week because I thought I would have to show some kind of card to prove I was a Unionist. (And, no. Tony Abbott isn't my uncle.) Meva
4. Once I drove to Sydney with 2 girlfriends in a VW beetle. We stopped in Albury for the night and went to a pub and met about 8 guys and we all then squeezed into the beetle to go to the local disco. I kissed one of the boys later. MG
5. I have not eaten McDonalds since 1991. Giggles
6. To get back at one of my brothers I once froze my own wee into ice cubes and served it to him in a glass of lemon cordial. (I was nine years old) Leilani
7. I went to primary school next door to Pentridge Prison. Through clumsy ball play and schoolyard bullies I lost a football, basketball and 4 tennis balls over the bluestone wall and in the 6 years I was there we had our lunchtime cut short twice while police scoured the area for escapees. Adam
8. I used to be able to do a 360 on a skateboard. MG
9. I once told my Christian best friend that Greek Mythology makes more sense than christianity. actonb
10. I was the under-17s doubles-kayaking champion in my state. Giggles

11. My elderly cat pissed on me while I was sound asleep in bed at 4am last week. Meva
12. Once I won an egg-throwing competition. MG
13. Paul McDermott once sat on my lap. I think this caused permanentdamage to my sense of smell. Miz

14. My brother used to sledge me by singing "You’ve got a big nose" to the tune of 1927’s "You’ll never know". INC

15. I never finished high school. Miz

16. I got a massive and extremely well done line stroke painting of a samuraislasher for Christmas. Adam

17. My favourite café in the world is in Chattanooga. This is irritating. INC

18. I didn't get my first car until I was 26. It was a 1968 Merc with a fold back sunroof, I thought it was so cool, until it died. Leilani

19. I have no opinion whatsoever on Nicole Kidman's pregnancy. Giggles

20. I have a three metre high bamboo teepee in my front garden. Leilani
21. I have played netball with the daughter of Australian cricketing legend Ian Redpath. INC
22. My favourite car ever is a Skoda. actonb
23. Both of my parents seriously considered joining the Communist Party when they were in their early 20's. Meva
24. I still harbour a grudge against my mother for not letting me learn morris dancing while at Infants School. actonb

And so we come, at last, to the results. Mizanthrop lead early through the clever strategy of being the only person to enter. She was eventually knocked out of first by place by Actonb. Leilani tied with Actonb for first and we remained deadlocked for a week while I hoped someone else would enter so we wouldn't have to do some sort of fire making challenge.

A last minute entry from Meva looked sure to solve the problem, but Meva's excellent guesses came up heartbreakingly short by a mere one point, leaving Actonb and Leilani to share the honour of being the first and only winners of this competition ever.

Seriously, thanks for playing everyone. I'm not sure if anyone else enjoyed this, but I found it fascinating.

Why can't I write like this?

2008-02-07T21:42:00.000+11:00

ONE DAY when the sun had come back over the Forest, bringing with it the scent of may, and all the streams of the Forest were tinkling happily to find themselves their own pretty shape again, and the little pools lay dreaming of the life they had seen and the big things they had done, and in the warmth and quiet of the Forest the cuckoo was trying over his voice carefully and listening to see if he liked it, and wood-pigeons were complaining gently to themselves in their lazy comfortable way that it was the other fellow's fault, but it didn't matter very much; on such a day as this Christopher Robin whistled in a special way he had, and Owl came flying out of the Hundred Acre Wood to see what was wanted.

Once again, this proves my theory that, some days, the only effective cure for a slightly bruised soul is a good dose of the beautiful and whimsical writings of Alan Alexander Milne.

This week can end any time it wants to. Right now would be good.

UPDATE: It did. Happy again now.

Lazy holiday blogging

2008-01-26T21:55:00.000+11:00

A few things that may help to distract you from being annoyed with me for posting the most frustratingly difficult quiz ever....

1. I was driving to a friend's place last night and flicking through various commercial radio stations when I heard the last 15 seconds of "Walk Like an Egyptian". I was disappointed until I remembered that I had that song on CD and the CD was in the glove box. My first though was 'YEEAAAAH!", closely followed by "I really shouldn't put this on the blog."

Oops.

2. Fans of the multi-talented Ms Hardy may agree that this is surely her best contribution to television reviewing yet.

I am in awe of this woman's ability to get them to print this stuff.

3. If a cow laughs too hard, would milk snort out its nose?

4. I don't usually do the stupid criminal story thing because I've dealt with cases way dumber than most of the ones that appear in the paper but I have an ethical duty not to blog about them. Having said that, this one from The Age is a gem.

5. My wife thinks I should have put some pants on before going out to bring the bins in this week. I think it's a quiet street and it was staring to get dark anyway.
What say you?

6. My mother owns a book on the lost art of Towel Origami.
I am not even mildly surprised

The gay Ms O'Foot

2008-01-21T20:26:00.000+11:00

Okay, I'm posting this before it gets any bigger.

For those who didn't read the post before last, several lovely people have submitted three statements about themselves, and your task is to email me your guesses as to which three statements match which blogger.

I'll email you your score and once entries are in, or in around a week's time, I'll announce the winner. I'll also post the correct answers, along with a few comments as to which of the guesses were most surprising.

Thanks to everyone who joined in. There are three statements each from Meva, Gigglewick, Mizanthrop, Adam, Leilani, Actonb, MelbourneGirl and me.

And here they are:

1. I have never owned a car.

2. I grew up in a Angelina Jolie style 'rainbow family'; both my sibs were adopted from different countries, in fact I'm the only member of my immediate family, (aside from my child/ren) to be born an Australian citizen.

3. When I started uni at 17, I wouldn't go to the Student Union for the first week because I thought I would have to show some kind of card to prove I was a Unionist. (And, no. Tony Abbott isn't my uncle.)

4. Once I drove to Sydney with 2 girlfriends in a VW beetle. We stopped in Albury for the night and went to a pub and met about 8 guys and we all then squeezed into the beetle to go to the local disco. I kissed one of the boys later.

5. I have not eaten McDonalds since 1991.

6. To get back at one of my brothers I once froze my own wee into ice cubes and served it to him in a glass of lemon cordial. (I was nine years old)

7. I went to primary school next door to Pentridge Prison. Through clumsy ball play and schoolyard bullies I lost a football, basketball and 4 tennis balls over the bluestone wall and in the 6 years I was there we had our lunchtime cut short twice while police scoured the area for escapees.

8. I used to be able to do a 360 on a skateboard.

9. I once told my Christian best friend that Greek Mythology makes more sense than christianity.

10. I was the under-17s doubles-kayaking champion in my state.

11. My elderly cat pissed on me while I was sound asleep in bed at 4am last week.

12. Once I won an egg-throwing competition.

13. Paul McDermott once sat on my lap. I think this caused permanent
damage to my sense of smell.

14. My brother used to sledge me by singing "You’ve got a big nose" to the tune of 1927’s "You’ll never know".

15. I never finished high school.

16. I got a massive and extremely well done line stroke painting of a samurai
slasher for Christmas.

17. My favourite café in the world is in Chattanooga. This is irritating.

18. I didn't get my first car until I was 26. It was a 1968 Merc with a fold back sunroof, I thought it was so cool, until it died.

19. I have no opinion whatsoever on Nicole Kidman's pregnancy.

20. I have a three metre high bamboo teepee in my front garden.

21. I have played netball with the daughter of Australian cricketing legend Ian Redpath.

22. My favourite car ever is a Skoda.

23. Both of my parents seriously considered joining the Communist Party when they were in their early 20's.

24. I still harbour a grudge against my mother for not letting me learn morris dancing while at Infants School.

Once again, this proves my theory that the most interesting thing about this blog is the people who read it.

Good luck!

Tickled by emo

2008-01-20T12:56:00.001+11:00

This blogging hiatus is scheduled to last a few more days, or until the final entry in our little getting to know you game arrives, but I couldn't resist taking a few moments to give a shout out to my fabulous 16 year old niece.

As I wandered through my loungeroom a couple of days ago, I caught a snatch of one side of a phone conversation that went something like this:

"Honey Bear? Oh yeah, she was emoing because her wireless broadband wasn't working, but it's okay now".

Yes, really.

"She was emoing".

Quite seriously.

Without a trace of irony.

"Emoing"

That's right, there really is someone in the world who actually talks like that.

And I'm related to her.

Excellent.

I'd like to get to know you (well)

2008-01-08T21:57:00.000+11:00

I meet with a small group of friends around once a week to catch up, talk about deep stuff and possibly read some Bibles and so forth. For our last get together before the Christmas holidays, my dear friend Rubies decided that we should find out how well we knew each other.

It worked like this. Each of us wrote down three short statements about ourselves. The only requirement was that they had to be true. Rubies prepared a question sheet for each of us which had the names of the 11 participants across the top, followed by 33 statements. We then had to match three statements to each name. Each correct match scored a point and the person with the highest score won cash and/or prizes.

So it looked something like this:

Participants: Pacey, Rubies, Doc, Petrolhead, DangerMouse, Betty, Hunter, INC, Widget, Duke & Wigs*

There followed a list of 33 different statements, which included:

I played the tambourine on the stage at the Sydney Opera House

I nearly blew up the backyard when I was young

My youngest sister has five stitches above her right eye where I hit her on the backswing with a cricket bat

My first date with my spouse involved floating down a river in a rubber innertube

I helped run a youth group named “Only After Dark”

My first car’s name was Luke

When I was in the under 16c cricket team at school, I had a bowling average of 4.

I featured in a fly fishing magazine article (photo and all)

I once spent an entire week at a Bible College. It was a Baptist college so they played drinking games with water. Two guys drank so much water that they threw up

I love Glen Murcutt’s architecture

I chose my dog primarily because my boyfriend said he ‘didn’t like that one’.

When my flatmate visited Tasmania, I insisted that she must send me a postcard from the town of Baghdad. She ended up driving about 50km out of her way and her friends got cross with me.

etc etc etc

I scored 12 out of 33, which include the three that were about me, so when it came to guessing other people's I actually got 9 out of 30. I've known most of these people for two years or more so it's a bit embarassing.

It should be emphasised here that most people in the group did worse than that. Also, the absolute highlight of the evening was when DangerMouse turned to the young lady next to him and said "Well, I guess you're the one I know least about, Heather", and got the reply "My name is Betty."

Regular readers have probably already guessed that the one about getting a postcard from Baghdad was one of mine. Two of the others are mine too, but I'll leave you to guess which ones.

Which brings me to the most surprising discovery from this exercise. Rubies, who compiled the quiz, told me afterwards that she had nearly decided to edit the "Baghdad" one because she thought everyone would guess it was me instantly. But not because it involved a stupid postcard. No, it was because, apparently, I am the only person in the group who would use the word 'cross'.

Who on earth would notice something like that? I hadn't noticed and apparently I'm the one who says it all the time.

So, in the spirit of pointless curiosity and also coming as close as I will ever come to starting a meme, here's an opportunity to see how well we all know each other. If you'd like to join in, email me three statements about yourself (preferably not things that you have blogged about recently) and the address of your blog. If at least five people actually do this, I'll throw in another three from me and I'll post a list of the participants and their statements. You can either guess in the comments section or, if you want to know your score, email your answers to me.

There will be a small prize in the form of getting your name mentioned on this blog for the person with the highest score.

Feel free to take your time sending in entries. One of my nieces is arriving tomorrow and she's staying for a week. Another niece arrives the day the first one leaves and she'll be here for another week, so if I get a chance to post anything, or even check this blog, in the next two weeks I'll be mildly surprised.

Have a fabulous fortnight, folks.

* Yes, I spent hours trying to come up with nicknames for everyone. Which may be a waste of time since I'm pretty sure none of these people read this blog

You both have excellent taste

2008-01-05T20:13:00.000+11:00

I had a slightly odd moment today when I realised that every woman who has ever been crazy enough to go on a second date with me was in the same room at the same time.

Of course, that wasn't hard to organise, considering that there are two people in the world who have ever done so, and one of them is my wife.

This could mean that I was never one for dating lots of people to see what would happen, or it could mean that I took a really long time to develop the knack of making a good first impression.

I'm really very happy that I don't need to work out which of those answers is correct.

Dare to dream of seamonkeys and twinkies, good people

2008-01-01T21:10:00.000+11:00

Or I would post anything for Melbs, but I shouldn't post this: Part 2

Every once in a while, I make a promise without entirely thinking it through. I suddenly find myself saying "Yes, I would be happy to play the role of Blooper the Dog in 'Sunday School Camping Adventure'", and then I spend a number of weeks considering the many, many ways in which I am likely to regret such rashness.

I still have it on video and I solemnly swear that none of you will ever see it. Ever.

To show that I learn little from past mistakes, some time last August I foolishly made a promise to MelbourneGirl, and my other two readers, that I would post the lyrics to the least successful love song ever written.

So, despite deep concerns to the effect that none of you will ever return after reading this post, it's time to start the new year as I intend to continue it but posting stupid stuff that will make you all think less of me. So, with seriously big reservations, I will now post, in full, the lyrics to "Nothing Rhymes with Edwina".

This will, of course, stuff up the anonymity thing good and proper if this blog is ever read by anyone who met me in between 1989 and 1995, that being the length of time for which my annoyingly persistent crush lasted. I'm pretty sure that everyone who met me in that time heard about it at least once.

Except Edwina.

In hindsight, I kind of had that all the wrong way round, really.

Edwina and I grew up together at the same largish church in Melbourne. We were friends but I wanted more and, being to shy, or too scared, to tell her how I felt, I spent many hours moping to the tune of the Bangles' "Be With You". This was stupid beyond belief, but I was young and terribly insecure and these are not character traits that are likely to lead to big Seth Cohen coffee cart moments.

Some time around 1993, Edwina grew, quite reasonably, fed up with the insane internal politics at our church and, realising that she had a driver's licence now, promptly joined a different church several miles away.

We went to different universities and had few mutual friends. We still spoke on the phone from time to time but that was all. Clearly, drastic measures were called for.

So, I wrote a song and, with the help of an incredibly supportive and patient friend who happened to own a microphone and a guitar, recorded it. I posted a copy of the cassette, together with a brief letter, to Edwina and waited for the phone to ring.

If there is a copy of this song still in existence, the only person who could possibly have it would be Edwina. I suspect that that copy no longer exists. So, working purely from memory, it had an oddly upbeat tune and some excellent chord progressions and the lyrics went like this:

She's gone away, she won't come back,

and she probably thinks I don't care

I tried to write a song for her,

but it reduced me to despair

So I talk to my blank sheet of paper

And I don't know who to blame

How can I write a song for her

When nothing rhymes with her name?

It's months now since she went away

It's so long since I've seen her

I tried to write a song for her

But nothing rhymes with Edwina

It's not that I don't like her name

It's the best I've ever heard

But trying to find a rhyme for it

Is nothing short of absurd

So I sit with my blank sheet of paper

And I wonder how many times

I could have written a song for her

If I could find a word that rhymes

It's months now since she went away

I't so long since I've seen her

I tried to write a song for her

But nothing rhymes with Edwina

For the record, Edwina was a little bit moved and deeply, deeply amused by this. But, since I still lacked the courage to actually suggest going out some time, it all went nowhere. Over time, we gradually drifted apart ( I suspect she utterly disapproved of my increasingly lefty politics) and in the end Edwina married a very nice guy who was not much like me at all.

Whether her husband ever wrote her any songs is unknown, but if he did they were probably better than that one.

I, on the other hand, spent several years considering whether I should just join a monastry. Of course, it all ended happily when I met and married my true soulmate, whom I still love to distraction.

I don't know where Edwina is now or what she is doing. I just hope that she is happy, and, more importantly, that she spends no time whatsoever googling her own name.

God rest you merry gentlefolk

2007-12-25T07:31:00.000+11:00

I have been trying for several days now to think of something profound or even interesting to say about Christmas. It hass't worked.

I have spent the entire month of December running around, doing stuff, and being just too tired to feel the sense of happiness and peace that I normally associate with this time of year.

So, once my older son and wife are finally awake, we’re going to open presents, and then go to church, and then spend the afternoon with my parents, my sisters and my nieces. We’re going to laugh a lot, and eat a lot, and annoy my brother in law with more bad puns, and I’m going to think about how much I wish that my brother and his wife and daughter could be here in Melbourne instead of somewhere in the remoter bits of Western Australia.

There will be a most pleasant absence of giraffes, seamonkeys and Beverly Hills Pimps. Instead, I am going to spend today enjoying all the things that make my life a very happy one.

And I hope and pray that you all have a truly awesome day too.

All right! Stop!

2007-12-19T22:07:00.000+11:00

Yes, I know I said I was too busy to blog, and I am, but really, I just hadn’t counted on this…

Truly funny link, right here.

Yes, Mr van Winkle is back. In fact, apparently he never left.

That link is worth clicking on just for the killer photo, my friends. And possibly also for this description of Christmas Ice-style:

While most people spend time with family and exchange gifts, Ice hosts the Vanilla Ice Holiday House Party every December, featuring human bowling, vanilla pudding wrestling, Beverly Hills pimps and ho's, a live giraffe, and women swimming with sea monkeys.

He has finally reached the point where there’s just no way to take the piss that he hasn’t already thought of first, hasn’t he folks? Well, maybe not:

Ice said he laughs it off when people make fun of his 90s image, and has a league of loyal fans for his new music, which he describes as "not very radio friendly".

Would it be overly harsh to suggest that not much has changed since “Ninja Rap”?

My favourite part is this absolute worst pitch for sympathy about the hardships of fame ever:

"I thought it was going to be a bunch of girls in the hot tub and a bunch of money thrown around everywhere.
"That's true, but there's another side to it."

Food parcels can be sent via his agent. Please ensure that you include at least one (1) pound of bacon.

Worst excuse yet

2007-12-18T21:18:00.000+11:00

Dear folks

I am too busy to blog this week as I am, quite seriously, attempting to build a sandpit from random bits of wood that I just bought.

This will, theoretically, be a Christmas present for small children.

Shortly after Christmas, expect to see either a picture of the most impressive looking sandpit in the history of the world, or a lengthy and no doubt humourous post about just how badly this ended.

Predictions welcome, so long as you're predicting that it will be the first one.

Teaching science using popular music Part 1: Moonlight

2007-12-05T23:28:00.000+11:00

If we learned nothing else from Coyote Ugly (and we didn't), at least we learned that, no matter how much you try to resist, you can't fight The Moonlight. Despite years of research, Leann Rimes concluded that no matter what you do, the night is going to get to you.

Popular musicians have been concerned about moonlight for quite some time, ever since Mike Oldfield warned us all that even its shadows can carry you away. It's no wonder that Cat Stevens didn't want to be followed by one of those things.

When dealing with such a potent force as moonlight, it seems the worst thing that one could do would be to antagonise it. That's why we have had years of public service announcements in bad nightclubs reminding us that, should something slightly mysterious known as 'it' happen to occur, one is much safer blaming 'it' on 'The Boogie'.

So, with all that in mind, no-one can blame Brandon Flowers for failing to correctly predict that his moonlight could be ruined by a rumour. Still, this serendipitous discovery has been invaluable in our ongoing struggle to be able to go out at night without getting caught in the middle of a desperate fight.

Scientists are confident that, within five years, they will be able to accurately predict precisely when it will be a marvelous night for a moondance.

Next week, we learn what exactly you can do when someone tries to steal your sunshine, and, in particular, how to handle this tricky situation if you happen to be walking on it at the time.

A list. And not even a very long one.

2007-12-02T22:30:00.000+11:00

I have been too busy celebrating the election result, sending emails and taking unexpected trips to Moe to actually finish writing any of the 27 million posts I want to put on this blog, so purely to pass the time until I write something with a point to it, I am pleased to announce that I have finally figured out how to use an iTunes card and I can present the following list of the first 10 songs I hav eever downloaded. In the order I downloaded them, and for no particular reason, they were:

1. Scissor Sisters - I don't feel like dancing

2. The Hooters - And we danced

3. The Veronicas - 4ever

4. The Killers - Somebody told me

5. Dixie Chicks - Not ready to make nice

6. Panic! at the Disco - I write sins not tragedies

7. Tom Cochrane - Life is a Highway*

8. Kisschasy - Opinions won't keep you warm at night

9. The KLF - Last Train to Trancentral

10. Gin Blossoms - Hey Jealousy

And I don't know what to make of it all either.

* Obvs

YAAAAAAAAAAY!!!!!

2007-11-24T21:40:00.000+11:00

A little tune dedicated to our former Prime Minister (and is that not the happiest phrase EVER), lyrics by INC and music by Mike Oldfield (who probably thought he was writing a song called "Moonlight Shadow" at the time)

The last time ever we saw him (carried away, by a massive landslide)

He found out nobody adores him (carried away, by a massive landslide)

Stuck in a nightmare this Saturday night

Completely pantsed by the other side

Interest rates went up and it was really goodnight

And his message just wouldn't cut through

The rodent's finally leaving (carried away, by a massive landslide)

And I don't see anybody grieving (when he was carried away, by a massive landslide)

He really thought he could win another one

As the kids today say "Dude he went so dumb"

Turns out it was over before it had begun

And his message just couldn’t cut through

I say, hooray

That stupid bastard's finally going away

I say, o yay

I knew we'd be rid of him, one day

He made me think of emigrating (until he was carried away by a massive landslide)

With his policies that were all written by Satan (until he was carried away by a massive landslide)

Such a shame to see him looking so bereft

When he always thought that he was so deft

Turns out fear and loathing were all he had left

And that message just didn't cut through

I say, hooray

I knew he'd lose to Kevin and it happened today

I stayed, I prayed,

That I'd be proud to be Australian again, one day

......

And, with that, we can conclude that Redgum have been right all along. And I will wake up tomorrow as a very, very happy man.

R.E.S.P.E... oh forget it

2007-11-22T21:01:00.000+11:00

I had a little conversation at work today that I thought I'd share. I was chatting to my dear colleague The Empress about parenting but specifically about the lack of sleep that goes with it. It went like this.

INC: The thing is, you have never actually seen what I am like after getting proper night's sleep*

Empress: You're sane?

INC: Well, no. But I have much more energy for coming up with funny stuff

Empress: OH FAR OUT! *quite literally runs out of the room*

*beat*

*Empress returns*

Empress: You need to have more kids.

I will refrain from commenting on the utter injustice of this and content myself with assuring you that, yes, she really did actually exclaim "Oh far out!" and that was the most wonderful thing I have heard in ages.

* The Empress and I have been working together for three years. Just for context.

There is a light at the end of the tunnel (says The Way of All Things)

2007-11-19T22:39:00.000+11:00

Hey, remember this post from last year?

A couple of the predictions may have been slightly on the ambitious side, but with three sleeps to go it's looking like more than one is going to actually happen.

Frankly, I'll take it.

As you are celebrating the long overdue departure of the lying rat faced bastard formerly known as the Prime Minister, remember that you read it here first.

Expect me to be found wandering the streets of a previously safe Liberal but by then marginal Labor seat at 3am on Sunday morning screaming "ALL HAIL NOTCRAIGSTRADAMOUS"

Just when we thought there were no lows left...

2007-11-19T21:54:00.000+11:00

Confirming again that I should never glance at the newspaper whichis being read by the person next to me on the bus, I found this story in the People's Paper. With only minor alterations, it said this:

ABOUT 6000 drug addicts and dealers would have their welfare payments "quarantined" under a re-elected Coalition Government.

Anyone convicted of a criminal drugs offence would lose control of their welfare payments for at least a year.

They would still be able to buy food and pay the bills, through the use of vouchers, but would not be able to get cash.

John Howard said yesterday taxpayers' money should not be used to buy drugs.

"We are the zero-tolerance Coalition when it comes to drugs," the PM said.
"It's not right that people should have control of taxpayer money when they have been convicted of such offences.
"This will mean they will not be able to spend the money on those sorts of drugs, or for that matter, alcohol or tobacco."

The policy would initially hit those involved with hard drugs, such as heroin, cocaine and ice. But it could be extended to the users of other drugs, including cannabis, in the second phase of the policy.

Under its Tough on Drugs election policy, the Coalition would also help addicts get back into the workforce by giving them higher levels of support under employment programs.

A spokesperson for halfway sane people everywhere, who didn't give his name except to mention in passing that it wasn't Craig, said:

"Much like absolutely all of this government's policies on drug, this one is absolute genius. It really is about time we took this approach.

"Independent study after independent study has shown that when a drug addict runs out of money, he or she would not even think of committing a burglary or an armed robbery to get money to spend on drugs. This is particularly true for long term users of speed and ice.

"Further, when researchers suggested this possibility, every single drug user surveyed was shocked by the very possibility that such a thing could even be hinted at.

"This research is strongly supportedby anecdotal evidence. In ten years of appearing on behalf of violent criminals, I can assure you that not one of them had ever used drugs. I guess they were just all born evil.

"With all the millions of dollars that this government is putting into top rate rehabilitation services, and those great ads aimed at parents of middle class kids, I'm utterly confident that six months from now no-one will be using drugs anyway.

"In case you are wondering, this sort of sarcasm is, indeed, the only thing that stops me from spiralling into a pit of the blackest despair when I realise that someone, somewhere, is so insanely disconnected from reality that they think this policy is a good idea and that person is, by an unfortunate coincidence, apparently writing the government's drugs policy."

"Okay, I'm done now. Fortunately, so is the government."

Schools there are many/ renowned in our story

2007-11-17T20:30:00.000+11:00

Yes, folks, Carey Grammar may have the stupidest school song ever, but they now balance it out by having Excellent Dude of the Month as their headmaster.

Phil de Young, asked by The Age what he thought of the government's latest bribe (otherwise known as some sort of education rebate) briefly conceded that it would lighten the load for parents, before adding "But is it going to solve long term equity problems? I wouldn't think so". He added to my reasons to love him endlessly by adding that the biggest challenge that both parties should tackle in education was disadvantage - or "unequal outcomes because of unequal opportunities" - across the government and non-government systems.

The next day, he was back again. The Age asked him about the economic merits of the rebates.

He said:

"Without getting into marginal propensities to consume, one would assume that the rebate would find its way into expenditure patterns of consumers and, clearly, have the potential to be inflationary."

And my favourite one:

"Personally I'd rather see the surplus going back into infrastructure, perhaps expanding educational opportunities, on research, on building schools or hospitals."

I'm glad that he didn't go into marginal propensities to consume, because frankly I just can't see how a tendency to eat too much of a polyunsaturated butter-substitute is relevant, but apart from that this man is my new hero.

All former students of that school must be pretty happy right now. Except for Peter Costello, who is, quite possible, a bit cross.

In more concerning news, less than two weeks from the election, a member of the Coalition has finally given some indication that he is aware of what might actually be important to voters and, even more surprisingly, he is willing to discuss it honestly.

Barnaby Joyce, who really should switch parties now, said this week that the government would lose if the latest polls were repeated on election day. He added:

"It's important to say back to people that you understand the way they're thinking, so that they get the feeling that you are in touch with them. If you say 'I understand you're ambivalent and I'm going to tell you why you shouldn't be (that's good).

"If you say 'I think you're wetting yourself with excitement over how excellent our campaign is', then they'll just say 'Well no, not really mate'."

So, with exactly one week to go, I have a very important message for our Prime Minister:

KEEP DOING EXACTLY WHAT YOU'VE BEEN DOING. IT'S WORKING GREAT!
AND MOST IMPORTANTLY, DON'T LISTEN TO BARNABY! IT'S A TRICK!

Stupidity? It's On The List

2007-11-09T22:04:00.000+11:00

My esteemed colleague, Ogre Boy, is getting married in a few weeks. Earlier today, my wacky workmates decided we should come up with some songs to play at their wedding. Ogre Boy likes to cut hair in his spare time. His lovely fiance apparently likes to cook. Challenged to makewith a list of songs about haircuts and cooking in ten minutes with no internet access, here's what I came up with:

Get a Haircut - George Thoroughgood

She Cuts Hair - Darren Hanlon

Running with Scissors - Ben Lee

I don't feel like dancing - Scissor Sisters

I just died in your arms - Cutting Crew

Clambake - Elvis Presley

Hotdogs & Hamburgers - John Cougar Mellencamp

Scenes from an Italian Restaurant - Billy Joel

Ice Ice Baby - Vanilla Ice

Comfort Eagle - Cake

Fall of Rome - James Reyne

Cook Me Up - The Veronicas

Are there more? There must be more, surely.

If INC was a cat, he'd be dead by now

2007-11-08T21:14:00.000+11:00

I should probably start by explaining why I find the title of this post so hilarious.

The 'phrase 'he'd be dead by now' is not inherently comedic or anything, but in the right context it is seriously funny. Many years ago, around March and specifically the Sunday immediately after daylight savings ended meaning that the clock was claiming that it was an hour earlier than my body thought it was, I sat through a stunningly tedious evening church service.

The guest speaker, whose name utterly escapes me (perhaps this is fortunate) seemed to have no regard for the general concept that anything worth saying can usually be said in half an hour and if it can't too bad becuase people will stop listening if you go any longer than that on a Sunday night, chose to talk about nothing much really for about an hour and a quarter.

Early on in this utterly uninspiring exercise, this guy tries to illustrate faith or some similar concept by telling a boring story about a boy trapped in a burning building (it's not easy to make such a subject boring, but he managed it), the point being that the boy had to jump out a window so his father could catch him and apparently there was some faith involved in the exercise somewhere.

Anyway, at the point at which I was seriously considering just going home because this guy had been talking for an hour and showed no signs of stopping, but I had decided that would be a bit rude because I was playing bass that night and people would probably have noticed if I packed up all my gear and made multiple trips to the car to load it all up, something interesting finally happened.

After talking about I can't remember what for I don't know how long, our speaker said "We now return to the boy in the burning building". One of the young folk in the fourth row, unable to take any more, called out "He'd be dead by now!"

See, in context, it's richly comedic.

Much as I enjoyed that moment, it was not the point of this post at all, or even the reason for the title. It may actually turn out to be the best part of this post, but that's not the point either.

The point I was actually planning to make was that I have a terrible case of curiosity. But, before we get to that, there's a little more context needed.

The 940 people who, at last count, had read my profile may recall that I have listed, among my favourite bands, the legendary-for-possibly-not-all-the-right-reasons Christian rock band known as Petra.

The lovely Actonb, who is probably the only person reading this who has ever heard of those dudes, has commented on this before. It would be fair to say that Ms B was rather unimpressed to find this band associated with my blog in any way.

It's true that I did listen to rather a lot of Petra's work when I was an impressionable teenager. I even saw them live at Festival Hall on their 1988 tour, and, tragically enough, I STILL HAVE THE T-SHIRT.

Pleasingly, it still fits.

I continued to listen to their music for a couple more years after that, but I am reasonably relieved to be able to say that I am completely unfamiliar with anything they recorded after "Beyond Belief", which I bought (on cassette) in 1990. I can't remember when I last listened to it, but some guidance may be gleaned from the fact that when I was in Perth this time last year, I found my copy of that album in my brother's car, which at least explained what happened to it. As far as I know, he still has it, although I must say I'm not sure why that is.

So, with all that in mind, I was moderately amused to receive the following email:

To: notcraigorama@gmail.com

I noticed you have my old band Petra on you favorite music list. I want to invite you to my personal blog.

Talk to you soon,

Pete Orta

http://www.ortaology.com/

"Talk to you soon", in this context, may be the most optimistic sentence ever written.

I have never even heard of Peter Orta. However, since I was unable to resist googling, I know know that he joined the band a few years ago (yes, they are still going) and has since left it again, to be replaced by the original guitarist who has been in the band since 1972.

Yes, this band is older than I am.

So, naturally, I forwarded the email to Actonb in the hope that she would be as amused as I was and decided to otherwise leave it at that. Surely, I thought, I would not be silly enough to follow the link and actually read this thing.

Why? What did I not delete it immediately? Am I insane? Why?

Sure enough, curiosity got to me and I ended up reading the blog of Peter Orta. I justified this on the basis that I thought it would be interesting. And I was right.

If you suffer from the same sanity threatening condition that I do, feel free to follow the link and experience the magic for yourself. I have nothing more to say, about that blog, other than that it is an excellent argument for never being curious again.

And of course, I have to add one other small message:

VICTORIA BECKHAM, YOU HAVE LOST YOUR TITLE.

Let's see if this works

2007-11-05T22:21:00.000+11:00

Dear swinging voters

I have written my election night post already.

And, with all due modesty, it's excellent.

More importantly, it's a musical tribute to our soon to be departing Prime Minister, to the tune of a classic tune from no lesser musical genius than Mike Oldfield.

Of course, the only way that this will get posted is if Kevin actually wins. So, if you vote for the Liberals, you will never get to read it.

So, if 11 years of this country getting meaner and dumber is not enough to get you to change your vote, maybe the prospect of entertaining musical posting will do it.

How do we sleep when our campaign's burning?

2007-11-04T21:19:00.000+11:00

Peter Garrett is either a complete idiot or a total genius and I honestly can’t decide which it is.

Here’s why.

On the face of it, Peter’s little joke with Steve Price is the kind of insanely bad gaffe that whole elections can be lost over. With three weeks to go, and the Government living their worst nightmare as nothing they do causes the polls to shift their way even a little, and Labor apparently cruising towards a landslide with a single minded focus on a small target strategy so blatant that ‘me too’ may as well be their official campaign slogan, it is utterly unbelievable that a frontbencher from the Labor Party would say, in any context, that they are actually going to ditch the 'me too' thing the minute they get elected.

It would be staggeringly stupid to say this at a meeting of the local branch of the Labor Party with no journalists presents and with every person present having made an Unbreakable Vow in the manner of Severus Snape and Narcissa Malfoy never to breath a word of what was said to anyone ever.

It is about a billion times more stupid to say it to Steve Price, a man with no love for Labor who would be utterly unable to resist grabbing the first available microphone and telling everyone.

Can I say at this point that having Richard Wilkins present for the conversation is just weird.

Every media report on this that I have seen or read so far has commented on Peter Garrett’s lack of political experience and taken at face value that it was an ill advised joke that has been an unintentional yet huge gift to the Government.

So, a pretty strong case for the total idiot theory there. But I still have my doubts.

Even though Peter has been in federal politics as a Labor party member for a few years now, most people haven’t really paid much attention to his earlier involvement in politics. This is why everyone assumes that his little joke was simply the undisciplined act of a political novice.

Everyone seems to have forgotten that this man ran for election to the Senate as long ago as 1984. He was at the time a member (and indeed, co-founder) of the Nuclear Disarmament Party. He needed 12.5% of the vote to win a seat in the Senate, but a primary vote of just over 9% was insufficient when Labor withheld preferences.*

After that, Peter went on to be president of the Australian Conservation Foundation from 1989 to 1993 and 1998 to 2004, and did a bunch of other relevant political stuff, including being on the board of Greenpeace.

In other words, the general perception that he got done with playing at the Sydney Olympics, briefly wondered what to do next and then strolled into Parliament on a whim is at odds with reality. So, is he really inexperienced enough to make a mistake so basic that even I wouldn't have made it? The alternative is that the rest of the Labor Party, also not being complete morons, may have started to catch on to what a number of pretty intelligent analysts like this blogger, as well as some rather less cluey types like me have been worried about for a while, which is that if you don't give people some reason to change the government, they won't bother to.

So, since it's a bit to late to officially stop with the 'me too' shenanigans, and since said shenanigans have actually been irritatingly effective so far, why not send out a few hints that actually things might change a bit after the election.

Lets face it, no one believes the official promises made by the parties any more anyway. Rudd isn't willing to go all Latham and present himself as some sort of radical ideologue (and would anyone have believed it anyway?), and we need to give our ridiculously afraid of change compatriots some reason to believe that the Labor Party can handle the economy and generally take a sensible approach to running things. As I said, that's been working pretty well. But if, in addition to creating a general impression that a change is safe, you can also create a general impression that your party has it's own vision for the future, then you're in excellent shape.

So, if you do want to drop the odd hint that the Labor Party may behave a little bit like a Labor Party once it wins government, what better way to do it? Take the one guy on the front bench who is not perceived as a political insider and who can't be pinned as a unionist, get him to make a joke to a broadcaster who is taken seriously by no-one other than rusted on Liberal voters anyway, do this in the most casual setting imaginable (in the presence of political heavyweights such as, er, Richard Wilkins) and then officially deny the whole thing and blame it on political inexperience.

If it is a deliberate strategy, it's staggering clever, although history will judge whether, in giving the government a whiff of oxygen at a point where they looked like they were about to suffocate themselves with their own pants, it may not have been too clever by half. It's also possible that this is just something dreamed up by a blogger who is half cynic and half optimist and who desperately wants to believe that Kevin & Co are pursuing some brlliantly intelligent masterplan, instead of believing that they started with a strategy I hated and now they are screwing it up becuase Peter Garrett chatted to Steve Price shortly after he'd finished 'celebrating' Silverchair's recent success at the ARIAs with old mate Daniel Johns** (which would also explain, finally, what the hell Richard Wilkins was doing there).***

If there is one thing that emerges from this rambling exercise in stream of political consciousness blogging, it's that if there is one person on the Opposition front bench who could get away with this, it's Peter Garrett. Can you imagine what would have happened if Julia Gillard (or, heaven forbid, someone with actual union connections**** like Lindsay Tanner) had said it? However, as I've been at pains to point out, most people seem unaware of Garrett's political history.

The pleasing part of all this is that the Government has had plenty of time to attack Garrett over his ties to the Greens movement or everything else he's done in politics for the past 23 years. Instead, they have apparently been working on the theory that it is far more effective (and, I'm sure they privately believe, devastastingly witty) to have Alexander Downer regularly quote Midnight Oil lyrics in his own special snotty way.

So, if Labor gets away with this one (yes, I'm back to leaning towards the 'stuff up' theory) it will be largely because of our Government's incredible arrogance and determination to take cheap shots at its opponents instead of engaging with the issues, coupled with 11 years of commitment to dumbing down public debate at every opportunity.

That loud clucking you hear from 8.00pm on 24 November onwards will be the sound of 11 years worth of chickens all coming home to roost at once.

Yes, just like the lovely and talented Ms Higgins, I am All for Believing.

* Not actually ironic, but something similar

** The word 'allegedly' may be inserted into that sentence at will, and should be, several times.

*** Let's face it, Tony Abbott is also pretty experienced in this politics thing and if anyone can tell me what his masterplan is, I'm impressed. Actually, scrap that, he's clearly decided that of Howard wins and hands over to Costello, Abbott will never be PM, whereas if come November 25 Costello has around 6 years as opposition leader to look forward to, I'll bet Abbott thinks he could cut that to 4 years 6 months and have a reasonable shot at the title after that. Oh great now even the footnotes are rambling

**** Being a lawyer at a firm that has represented a union DOESN'T COUNT

Perspectives

2007-10-31T20:33:00.000+11:00

From the always entertaining Peter Roebuck, in The Age on Tuesday:

"Symonds also bowled his off breaks tidily, at any rate until he started to toss the ball up in an attempt to buy a wicket. His shoulder action has improved and he made the batsmen work hard for runs. The Queenslander also prowled the cover region in the manner of a leopard informed that the Nutrigrain had run out."

No, that is not, as far as I know, a typo.

He actually wrote "in the manner of a leopard informed that the Nutrigrain had run out."

He really truly did.

Yes, we could engage in probing enquiries as to whether this issue is a major concern for the average Leopard. We could wonder why a Leopard who felt a pressing need for overly sugary breakfast cereal would be hanging around the covers at the Sydney Cricket Ground rather than, say, the nearest IGA. We could certain ask Peter Roebuck exactly how he knows what a big spotty cat bereft of sufficient quantities of Corn Oats and Wheat in the form of Iron Man Food would look like, exactly.

But of course we are not going to raise such trivial issues when this is clearly the finest piece of sporting journalism since Jane Kennedy interviewed Paul Maley and his wife the day after Paul Maley said winning a basketball grand final with the North Melbourne Giants was better than sex.

More importantly, I am going to remind myself daily that no matter how bad things get at work, at least I am not the guy whose job it is to inform the Leopard that we have run out of Nutri-Grain.

Finally, understanding dawns

2007-10-31T07:20:00.000+11:00

I have recently worked out that my main, and possibly sole, motivation for losing weight is that if I can get rid of around 5kg, then I won't have to keep watching what I eat all the damn time.

Possibly this explains, in some small way, where I have been going wrong with the whole 'lose weight and keep it off' thing.

Just in one of those moods, y'know?

2007-10-27T21:14:00.000+10:00

Dear Management of MMM

Yes, I know this has already been commented on,but I just started reading Tony Martin's Lolly Scramble and so I have to ask you a simple question.

How much crack did you people smoke before you decvided to axe "Get This"?

Also, did you move on to some particularly potent crystal meth before you decided to explain your reasoning?

Here's where I'm confused. Your rationale was, apparently, that you wanted to divert resources to your new breakfast show, apparently starring Peter Helliar and Myf Warhurst.

They are replacing "The Cage". Presumably the five members of that particular 'morning crew' were not working for free. Myf is coming to you from Triple J where she is used to working for the type of salary that causes those guys washing windscreens at traffic lights to mock you. Offer Myf whatever Duclos was on, I'm sure she'll take it, despite being a billion times better at what she does.

And then we have Peter Helliar. Listen carefully: THIS MAN IS NOT FUNNY. He never has been. He never will be. If you are paying him four times as much as the average Cage wage, you are not getting value. Around half of what Pete Berner currently earns would seem to be a reasonable starting point.

So, given that your salary costs for the breakfast shift will now be aqround 70% lower than they were, you could actually give the Get This team more money, which seems sensible since they rate well and they are actually funny, and you would still break even.

If the actual issue is that you wanted to play more music during the day, did it even ocur to you clowns that, speaking of keeping costs down, you could have at least offerred 'Get This' the breakfast shift? Or was working out the daily schedule just too difficult because all the clocks kept melting? I hear those invisible ninjas can be terribly distracting also.

Despite all this, you continue to find ways to give Jason Dunstall more airtime. What did Andrew Gaze do to upset you? Exactly?

If you want me to never listen to your radio station again, wouldn't it have been simpler just to send me an email?

Yours most sincerely,

INC

Well he nervously shakes while we rattle his stage

2007-10-24T20:52:00.000+10:00

I hope you all enjoyed the election debate as much as I did. Actually, I hope you enjoyed it more, since after the first hour I decided I really needed to buy some puffed corn for the boys breakfast and, thanks to Coles' talent for hiding said item, I missed the end entirely.

I have it on video but whether I will ever get around to watching it is anyone's guess.

From what I saw, I thought young Kev was not particularly inspiring but he did rather better than John "I've never won one of these things so why would I start now" Howard, who just seemed cross about being there, and looked less and less comfortable as things progressed. And his attempts to avoid answering questions on Iraq were particularly entertaining.

It was good to see Kev havinga good night after what was, according to the media, a terrible first week for Labor. A bad opinion poll (it takes a special kind of journalism to report a 54-46 lead as 'bad' for anyone other than the guy who is on 46) an apparently politically brilliant tax package that caught Labor 'flat footed' because they failed, not having teh resources of government, to release their own package the same day, and a general sense that now the campaign had started, the momentum was swinging back to our politically masterful government and it was going to be 2004 all over again.

I realise I'm not the first to comment on the apparent dissonance between the campaign as reported and this week's Newspoll, taken before the Great Debate, showing that following this disasterous week for Labor, their lead had increased and it was now 58-42.

Despite the fact that every political commentator has mentioned this already, I'm going to join in because it just makes me incredibly happy.

I've said it before, I'll say it again:

And may the best moves win, rodent boy.

Warning: pun ahead

2007-10-22T06:48:00.000+10:00

An old friend, who I have not seen in years, recently got hold of my email address. Ever since, he has been sending me endless emailed invitations to see his new band. These are clearly emails that are sent to everyone else on his email address list too.

As far as I know, no-one has yet come up with a name for this practice of marketing things to friends through annoying mass emails.

But there is an obvious one.

So, with apologies to anyone who has already thought of this and used it and can't believe I'm trying to pass it off as original, and indeed with apologies to anyone who hates puns and therefore apparently has never read this blog before and didn't take the warning at the top seriously...

Here it is:

SPAMWAY

On reflection, I'm going to just make that a general apology to anyone who has ever read or will ever read this.

GREATEST GAME EVER EVER EVER

2007-10-20T21:15:00.000+10:00

And also the most satisfying thing that you could possibly use your computer for.

Click HERE, right now.

That is all.

And so it begins...

2007-10-15T22:09:00.000+10:00

Yes folks, this is how far I am willing to go to see the back of this government. I have been wearing, in public, this:

Hint of chest hair entirely blogger's own.

The happy news is that, despite the debacle that we like to call 'last week', yesterday's Newspoll showed a small increase in Kevin's disapproval rating, an even small drop in his approval rating, and absolutely no change in Labor's primary vote, its two party preferred vote, or the gap between the leaders on the preferred PM scale.

We got ourselves a game right here, folks.

As Kirsten Dunst is so fond of saying, BRING IT ON.

This is another fine mess you've gotten us into, young man

2007-10-10T20:54:00.000+10:00

So, the week in politics so far looks something like this:

1. Kevin Rudd is furious with Robert McLelland for stating the official Labor Party policy in a speech approved by Kevin Rudd's office.

2. John Howard is furious with Robert McLelland for stating the official Labor party policy in that speech too.

3. John Howard is also furious with Kevin Rudd for not supporting the policy that Howard is furious about, even though they both used almost exactly the same words when criticising it.

4. Alexander Downer is furious with Kevin Rudd for agreeing with Alexander Downer's leader instead of Alexander Downer's direct opponent.

5. Robert McLelland is probably quietly furious with Kevin Rudd but so far he's been pretty quiet about it, even though, frankly, no one could seriously blame him.

Kevin, Kevin, Kevin.

Yes, the polls have been looking good for a while now. Yes, you want to avoid trouble as far as possible. And yes, talking in the vaguest terms possible and indeed never actually saying anything worked a treat for the other guy 11 years ago.

But. Dude. Seriously.

Please consider this.

Recent polls show that no-one actually believes that you will manage the economy better than the other lot. As this seems to be pretty much all that most people care about anymore, that could be a problem.

85% of people believe that coconut boy can run the economy better than you, or that which side is in power will make no difference. The same poll showed that the other 15% of people were kidding around. So, why would the most ridiculously afraid of change electorate in the world vote for you unless there is some actual reason to do so?

Did you learn nothing from the Republic Referendum (which historians will describe as the only time a monarch has successfully run for election)? Why were the public persuaded to vote for the Queen? Well, Malcolm Turnbull's efforts to get people excited about the repulic worked about as well as his recent efforts to persuade us that Mills are Good. The collective response sounded a lot like a world record 'meh' attempt.

On the other hand, it was suggested that this move was in some way vaguely risky. And from there, something that most people previously thought was a good idea was deader than dead can be.

This week, Robert McLelland finally said something inspiring and courageous on the issue of the death penalty. Your response was to talk smack about timing and sensitivity whilst running for the Redneck Hills as fast as your stumpy little legs would carry you.

In addition to stating the same policy that you stated when you had his job, Robert McLelland was also absolutely right. Respect for life should not depend on the nature of someone's crime or whether the victim was Australian. The death penalty is not effective as a deterrent, except in the sense that people who receive it tend not to re-offend. As a general deterrent, it's completely pants, particularly against people who are willing to blow themselves up anyway.

While we all feel the deepest sympathy for the victims of the Bali bombings and their families and friends, killing the bombers won't bring anyone back and basing our foreign policy on a sincere but misguided desire for revenge is quite simply a failure of leadership of the highest order.

How bad are your political skills if you can't even sell opposition to the death penalty, something that's so unpopular that every state we have has already gotten rid of it? And how much confidence can we have in you if you don't even have the courage to engage in the debate? How many votes do you think you can lose on an issue like this? More votes than you can lose by making yourself look like an idiot who criticises his own party platform? Or less?

And do we really want to try to test this?

If we wanted no leadership and endless reinforcement of everything that is worst about our country, we already have a government who are REALLY GOOD AT THAT.

Repeat after me: KILLING PEOPLE IS WORNG AND WHEN THE STATE DOES IT IN COLD BLOOD IT MAKES MURDERERS OF US ALL.

Did you learn nothing from the Tampa? Or the no children overboard incident? Your party's tragically spineless metooist response allowed the government to skate through an election campaign on the basis of a lie. Can you imagine how much better off you might have been if that lie had been exposed before polling day?

You ran for the leadership of the ALP claiming that this would be the most important election in the history of the world. Well, it won't be if your position is exactly the same as the other side's on just about everything, including Appalling Treatment for anyone accused of Being Distantly Related to a Terrorist, Building of Mills that no-one except the actual people who get paid to build it actually wants, giving ridiculous amounts of money to Geelong Grammar and Sweet Stuff All to Worowa Aboriginal College, and also Less Africans. It will be a complete waste of freakin' time if the only real diiference between the two parties is some minor adjustments to Workchoices and also Less Eyebrows.

If I wanted to vote in an election where my two choices were the Liberal Party and the Young Liberals, I would move overseas.

TO HELL.

The only way I can see you actually losing this election is if the government's oft-repeated claims that your policies are just a bunch of meaningless metooism starts to resonate with swinging voters and they swing right back to their default position of "better the idiot you know".

Having identified the one way that you could lose this election, you seem to be pursuing that exact policy diligently and with great discipline. What sort of advice, exactly, are you getting and can you sack the people giving it to you right now please?

Look, let's be realistic here. I will still vote for you because short of changing your name to Beelzebubbles* and running solely on pro-Satan policies, nothing could persuade me to vote for the other guy (and even then it would be teh toughest decision ever). But I would like to spend the next few weeks seeking to persuade everyone I know to also vote for you. This won't work if one of these people asks me why we should have a change of government and I DON'T KNOW THE ANSWER.

* Utterly gratuitous Blackadder reference that seemed somehow appropriate

How did this happen?

2007-10-07T22:39:00.000+10:00

Morgan Freeman is a genuine Hollywood legend. It doesn’t matter what role he plays, he always exudes dignity. He inhabits the skin of his character, whether it’s a prisoner as in the Shawshank Redemption and The Power of One, some dude of law enforcement in Seven or Kiss the Girls, or even the President in Deep Impact. He’s been in Oscar winning films like Amistad and Million Dollar Baby. And even when he is in a ridiculous film like Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, he manages to stand out as the one cast member who is actually doing any acting.*

Lauren Graham is not well known for her work in films, but has proved her acting talents beyond doubt on the small screen. With a little help from a great supporting cast and former Buffy script writer Jane Espenson, Ms Graham has brought us one of the most real, engaging, emotionally honest, flawed and utterly likeable characters in the history of television. It is a tribute that how well she has done this that most people would struggle to actually tell you who she plays, but few people have not, at some stage, heard of Lorelai Gilmore.

Steve Carrell has recently won endless amounts of critical acclaim for his performance in a show that most critics would have expected to absolutely hate, the US version of The Office. He is in just about everything that gets made at the moment, and even though I have no interest in ever seeing The 40 Year Old Virgin, there is no doubt that this man has considerable comic talent.

John Goodman’s career got off to a less than promising start, what with first achieving prominence as the husband on Roseanne and going on to star in The Flintsones and King Ralph, the latter being so bad that everyone single person the world mocked it, including John Goodman. Depsite these early missteps, he regularly hosted Saturday Night Live, he scored a recurring role on The West Wing, and he achieved endless amounts of indie cred for his exceptional performance as an embittered Vietnam vet in ~~Born of the Fourth of July~~ The Big Lebowski, which made up for all his past mistakes in the space of one very good film.

It is strange enough that even one of these people would agree to be in “Evan Almighty”. The fact that all four of them made this mistake is mindblowingly impossible to comprehend.

I hardly ever give up on a movie. I sat through Ben Affleck and Giovanni Ribisi’s “The Boiler Room” to the bitter end.** I have actually seen all of “I Still Know What You Did Last Summer”. I could even tell you in some detail how “Highlander II: The Quickening” ends. Despite all of this, I gave up on Evan Almighty after 25 minutes and I’m thrilled with that decision.

The appearance of these four otherwise fine actors in Evan Almighty clearly amounts to the biggest collective misjudgment since Dustin Hoffman, Warren Beatty, Charles Grodin and Isabel Adjani sat around smoking in the manner of Daniel Johns and Peter Garrett*** and saying “Hey, this script looks fantastic, lets all agree to be in Ishtar.”

Hopefully, this giant collective mistake will shortly be scientifically proven to have been exceeded by that meeting where a bunch of senior Liberal Party figures sat around and said “Hey, let’s stick with Howard, we’re sure he’ll win it for us.”

Join me in hoping, folks. Join me now.

*Yes, we all loved Alan Rickman as the Sherriff, but that was precisely because Rickman clearly was not making any attempt at acting, he was just having fun.

** Arguably this was worth it just to witness Honey Bear’s awesome perfect fury as she screamed at the television “NO, it can’t be over, NOTHING HAPPENED YET”

*** ALLEGEDLY

Grand final weekend

2007-10-02T21:20:00.000+10:00

Wait, don't stop reading. Hardly any of this post is actually about football.

I decided not to watch the Grand Final this year. Sure I was happy for Geelong (after all, I used to live there), but I suspected that Port Adelaide were in for a very bad day and this would only remind me that had Collingwood kicked one more goal the previous week, they would had been clear favourites to break their own 17-years-and-counting premiership drought.

Of course, I didn't anticipate the extent of the absolute one sided pantsing that the match turned out to be as most of the Port players were apparently affected by some sort of cursing of the Petrificus Totalis variety and Geelong spent the final quarter living it up Normandy Style, but the scoreline just served to underline the point, really.

Instead, my parents came around for the afternoon and we spent most of it in the garden, weeding, finding bicycles and planting a lemon tree.

The lemon tree is likely to bear bitter fruit consistently for the next 30 years. This reminds me irresistably of the decision I made as a sweet innocent four year old to support Collingwood.

At least, in the case of the tree, the fruit in question can be used to make scallopini.

We also skipped the NRL Grand Final, despite my secret fondness for all things Storm. It seemed a much better idea to take the family to dinner at the Aspendale RSL. For the real highlight of the evening, you'll have to read this blog over here, but apart from freaking out on arrival because it looked exactly the same as the RSL in that small town I used to live in, there was much to be impressed with.

For a start, I love any place that has about 7 items on the menu, including three kinds of schnitzel, but finds room for a Chicken Jambalaya in there too. I was equally happy with the three course soup/acres of roast meat/pavlova combination for $15 each.

Even better, though, was the endlessly old school nature of the entertainment, provided by one dude who spends most of his time playing in a Johnny Cash tribute band, and by said dude's wife, who it must be noted does have an excellent voice.

This dude was a bit obsessed with Gracie's 80th birthday celebration, which meant that we started the show by all singing happy birthday to Gracie. Then we sang it again after the second song. And after the fourth song. Dude of entertainment then sang it himself in the style of Johnny Cash, after first noting that they had tried to get the Man in Black himself to come and sing it but "We couldn't dig him up. He lost the plot."

Seriously. Old. School.

In between various other songs, many of them from the '40s, this dude kept us entertained with, among other things,a few jokes about the latest series of Big Brother. He was aware that the show is not on at the moment, but he cunningly introduced the gags by claiming that he had taped the last few episodes and he was going to go home and watch them after the gig.

He completed his tour de force of mystifyingness by approaching me in between sets and asking me which of the elderly folk was actually Gracie the birthday girl, despite the fact that I was sitting on the far side of the room from Gracie and her friends and there was not a reason in the world to suspect that I might know the answer. I guessed and pointed.

We will be going back soon. Oh yes, we really, really will.

4 now 4 luv 4 eva. Amen

2007-10-01T20:34:00.000+10:00

I have received a mild ticking off just over here for a comment that somewhat inadvertently implied or could possibly have implied that I was slightly minimising how absolutely good it was to have met my gorgeous wife Honey Bear.

Implying that was, of course, of all the things in the world that I could possibly do, the one that I wanted to do the least. Or, as Kevin Kline would say, I'd rather sell my nuts to a castrati.

So, let's clarify.

I met my lovely soulmate during an otherwise entirely less than good couple of years during which I lived in a town of 6000 people, mostly farmers, that for someone like me who is not a farmer and can't play Aussie Rules football for toffee, was just not an ideal place to be living.

For context, here's a few of the things that I put up with during that period:

* Shortly after I moved there, whilst living alone and knowing no-one in town, I went to the local cinema. They refused to show the film because they require a minimum of five people to make it worth the effort and I was the only one there. I seriously considered buying five tickets just so I wouldn't have to go back home but I couldn't quite justify paying $35.00 to see the Bone Collector.

* That cinema in general. It's bad when a cinema only shows one movie per week. It's worse when that movie is the Blair Witch Project.

* Visiting a church where they thought it would be a good idea to make me feel welcome by saying, in the middle of a service, "Hey, none of us have any idea who you are. Why don't you stand up and tell us a bit about yourself."

* Regularly attending a church where everyone thought I was a communist and there was one guy who was so convinced that the moon landing were faked that he actually heckled another dude for suggesting otherwise. During the children's talk

* Too much canned fruit

* Being mocked for using the term "baby cow"

* Bad coffee

* Being expected to eat something that claimed to be a "Vegetarian Italiano" at a localish Pizza Hut. It had freakin' PINEAPPLE ON IT.

* Being looked at like I was a weird uptight city boy for suggesting pineapple wasn't very Italian

* No-one being able to understand why I wasn't amused by jokes about Aborigines

* The seriously mad flatmate who set my couch on fire

* Having to explain that one, and the resulting damage to the walls, to the landlord, even though I was in another town when it happen

* Stony silence from the landlord when I tried making a light hearted reference to this six months later

* Accidentally gatecrashing a dairy farmer's convention because I tried to meet Honey Bear for dinner on a Wednesday night and the only pub that would serve us food was hosting the convention in question. I learned a lot about silage

* Somehow getting talked into driving a four hour round trip to go with my flatmate to visit her family, on the basis that said flatmate's family lived on a farm and they would be cooking a traditional old country meal. Which turned out to be sausage rolls and chips from a supermarket

* As part of running a local youth group, turning up to a combined event called "Survivor Night" which, as it truned out, involved standing in some farmer dude's paddock in the dark for three hours. When the kids asked afterwards "What did that have to do with Survivor?" I said "I don't know either."

* Hokey pokey night at the local community centre.

* A hoedown

And the list could go on. I suspect, however, that it just did.

Let me be entirely clear. Living in that town, with all the ridiculousness and houses full of rodents, was absolutely worth it in order to meet my fabulous, gorgeous, amazing Honey Bear who I love to distraction and always will.

If, as Gigglewick rather recently suggested, if my job had been pushing shards of glass up a sandpaper hill with my nose, it would still have been worth it.

Indeed, if for reasons beyond all imagining I had been elected chair of the local chapter of the Young Divas and Everyone Who Was Ever on Popstars Live Appreciation Society, again, still worth it.

Meeting Honey Bear, and being married to this stunning woman for six years with many more to come, would be worth it. No matter what.

Blog titles I never thought I'd use part IX: A good day at work

2007-09-27T20:37:00.000+10:00

And what was so good about it, I hear you ask?

Well.

At 9 o'clock this morning, everyone who works in my office got into a minibus and we were driven to an undisclosed location which turned out to be a catering company in one of Melbourne's snootier suburbs. We proceeded to cook a three course French lunch (Cider and Onion Soup, Chicken Normandy Style with French Beans and Crusty Bread, and Lemon Brulee) and then we ate it, while drinking more than one glass of a rather fine Sav Blanc.

And I really need to learn the French word for 'awesome'.

Two people were assigned to each course. I was paired with someone who cannot cook at all. His entire contribution was to peel and chop up two apples. Following this, my 'Chicken Normandy Style' was presented to two of Melbourne's best caterers so they could tell me where I went wrong.

These two complained at length about how often this job requires them to eat really badly cooked food. I got slightly nervous, particularly when they started bagging the soup because my team had diced the onion instead of slicing it.

The fact that I had never cooked French food in my life was also kind of playing on my mind at this point.

So, would it be bragging too much to report that they said nothing bad about my cooking, they ate the entire plate of it and they asked if they could feed the leftover chicken to their catering staff?

I hope not, because that is what happened, so the odds that I could resist blogging about it are around the 'none in a billion' mark.

In other news:

1. Apparently readers of this popular blog persist in thinking people with religious beliefs are stupid. I suppose this should not bother me, but it turns out that it actually does.

2. My father has now joined facebook. He sent me a friend request. In accepting, I ticked the bit that indicates that he is a family member and specifically, my father. Just until he logs in next and confirms this, facebook is rather distressingly telling me that my father refuses to confirm paternity.

Which strikes me as just the type of trouble making that is viewed by many as utterly antithetical to social utility.

3. As of last Friday night, I have completely lost interest in football until next April. Except for the round ball variety, obvs.

4. My local supermarket is selling Christmas decorations.

5. It's still September, people.

6. SEPTEMBER.

7. PEOPLE!

8. I plan to use/yell the phrase "Normandy Style" in casual conversation as often as possible.

I, I was standing, you were there...

2007-09-25T22:02:00.000+10:00

I may have mentioned in passing that, a fgew weeks ago, many of my lovely friends gave up a very pleasant Saturday to move my furniture from one place to another, which frankly can;t have been their first choice for how to spend a weekend. This made me realise how few of these people know each other, although at least one fishing trip got organised in the course of the day so I guess they all know each other now.

Mostly, everything went smoothly, except for one awkward moment when I introduced my friend the Dude to my other close friend the Real Actual Craig. It went something like this:

INC: Dude, this is Craig, Craig, this is the Dude

Dude: [looks at Craig thoughtfully for a moment] Right. So, you're not Craig, but he is.

Craig: [looks mightily miffed that apparently the first thing people who meet him think of is this blog. For slightly longer than is comfortable]

INC: [trying to think of a way out of this] Wow, do you see how famous I have made you?

Craig: No, this shows how famous you have made "not me".

And I guess he was right.

It is good that I have some very tolerant friends.

And that I never plan to move ever again.

Inventions that probably seemed like a good idea at the time, Part 1: Google

2007-09-18T21:58:00.000+10:00

With all due respect to whoever came up with this thing, Google has not improved our lives.

Someone, possibly my employer, recently decided we should do some work on our little company website. Someone had the bright idea of checking how easy the website was to find by googling the name of the firm. Then they decided to google the names of various employees.

Including me.

Of course, the result of this was that, ten minutes later, someone had taped to my door a very stupid description of me that I wrote ten years ago for the website of a band that hasn't played a gig since grand final day 1999 (unless playing at each other's weddings counts) but which is still on the internet.

Improvement in website: 0%

Improvement in productivity: 0%

Increase in mockery of INC: like, about a billion %

Not pleasing.

I also spent the rest of the day having waking nightmares imagining what would have happened to my career if one could google my real name and find this blog.

Even though I feel utterly confused maintaining a facebook account in my real name and a blog in more or less someone else's, I have decided for now that linking my real name to this blog in even the most remote and tenuous way is just a recipe for career disaster in the manner of a trains smashing into each other.

On the other hand, the only thing my facebook account has which this blog lacks is a fairly bad picture of me (fashion and I are not close friends) and the potential for readers to throw hadouken and/or trout-slap me.

Gotta say I still prefer the blogging.

Have you noticed how when chutney's bad it's still pretty good?

2007-09-13T20:52:00.000+10:00

The absolute highlight of work in the past two weeks was last Thursday, when I ate some chutney.

It was not even very good chutney.

So, rather than travelling down the long and whining road of posting about work. I decided to take some time to update my much neglected links. A very overdue and also very big welcome to Leilani, Killer Rabbit, Grover Jones, The Man at the Pub and everyone over at Square Eyes.

In other news:

After watching the Chaser last night, and reading that the Foreign Minister said "The point is they were in any case arrested, so I think the security works", I am convinced that, despite all evidence to the contrary over the past 12 years, Alexander Downer is clearly a comic genius.

Unless of course he is just a dude who is wishing he'd bothered to look at the video before commenting.

Also, this just in:

Hugo Weaving rang me yesterday. He was wearing a suit and some sunglasses and screaming "It is inevitable".

I assume he was referring to the fact that I have signed up for Facebook.

If so, he was right.

INC goes global (in Iowa)

2007-09-10T20:22:00.000+10:00

What with everything that's been going on lately, we have delayed our local Father's Day celebrations by a week or two (although, good son that I am, I managed to buy a reasonably decent looking box of chocolates and hand it to my father on the actual Day).

All things considered, I was very excited to find an email in my inbox at work today which said this:

"Hello, inc@incsworkplace.com.au
Of All The Famous Dads In The World None Compare To You."

This was followed by a fairly surprising link to the homepage of the Osky Indians.

I'm not quite sure how the good people of Oskaloosa, Iowa heard about my Famous Parenting, but it was very nice of them to take the time to acknowledge it.

To avoid confusion, it appears that I am only famous in Iowa. Nobody in Oskaloosa, Kansas has any idea who I am.

This is all pretty exciting, as Oskaloosa is also the home of Phil Jones, rock musician, who once toured with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.

As you may have guessed, Oskaloosa is also home to the Osky Indians Volleyball team. Their recent battle with the women of Pella is rather excitingly described here.

I read this review twice, partly because I enjoyed the vivid language along the lines of "The Lady Dutch used three straight kills and an ace by Ashley Meirick for a 12-10 advantage" and "Snowbarger, Flander and Abby Pollard all had five kills as Snowbarger added four aces, 11 assists and five digs", but mostly because I was endlessly fascinated to discover that "Pella clawed its way back following a timeout although it didn't know it at the time."

You do not find sports journalism of this quality just anywhere, people. Writers of the Pella Chronicle, we salute you. I will be checking for updates regularly.

When bad spelling attaks

2007-09-05T21:21:00.001+10:00

I read a story in The Age, possibly yesterday, about a woman who discovered that her youngish son had been googling "prawn" and she suspected that the onset of puberty had not caused him to develop a sudden interest in seafood.

Who knew that falling educational standards could protect our kids far better than multi-million dollar internet filters?

Still, spelling errors are not always a Good Thing. Here's a few examples of what happens when they go horribly wrong.

I tried to send a letter to an insurance company demanding that they pay up because their client had driven into my client's stationary vehicle. Unfortunately, my secretary typed it as "stationery vehicle" and the insurance company sent me a rude letter asking me what my client thought she was doing driving around in a car made entirely of manila folders and paper clips with pencils for axles and erasers for wheels,* and claiming that it was not their fault if a car like that got written off.**

I wrote to my former landlords asking for the return of our $1200 bond. They got confused and ended up sending me a $1200 bong. What the hell am I supposed to do with a diamond studded bong? Do these people think that I'm some sort of hip-hop uberproducer? DO I need to change my name to "I'm not Dre"?

Maybe this was my landlords' way of hinting that we need to do some more weeding.***

Then I went to Bunnings to buy a pair of Stair gates for my new house. Through a mix up that might have been amusing if it wasn't so damn serious, they sent me a pair of Stargates. You try telling your wife that the children tried to climb the stairs and now they're in freakin' Atlantis. It took me three weeks and a seriously hardcore submarine to sort that one out.

The next time a child asks you why spelling is important, remember that everything you need to answer that question is write here in the one post.

* hence the expression 'that's where the rubber hits the road'

** The important thing here is that I find myself hilarious

*** Zing, ka-pow, etc

Same old song/ just a drop of water in an endless sea

2007-08-30T20:13:00.000+10:00

I realise that I have posted about songs getting stuck in my head a time or two before, but I think I have discovered the stupidest one yet and it would be wrong not to blog about it.

For context, I have spent the past 28 days desperately trying to organize a loan from an incompetent bank with the help of an incompetent mortgage broker, whilst simultaneously arranging loans from two family members and mostly thinking the whole deal was going to fall through with the inevitable consequences of homelessness etc.

During that time, Honey Bear and I have used the expression ‘all our ducks in a row’ so often that when the last bank cheque was finally issued just a little less than 48 hours before settlement was due to take place, I rang Honey Bear and said “Quack”. She quite naturally enquired along the lines of “Dude wtf?” and I explained that that was the sound of the last duck in the row and she was very pleased.

The point here is that if there was a song called “Ducks in a Row” it would be stuck in my head by now, but since there isn’t, my brain showed way too much initiative and invented one without being asked. The lyrics are still a work in progress, but the chorus, sung to the tune of Kansas’ “Dust in the Wind”, is irritatingly memorable.

Sometimes I suspect that my creative side hates me.

For more on the meaning of having one’s ducks in a row, you really, really must click here

Settlement is due to take place tomorrow morning and all going well we move on Saturday. This means that it may be some days before this computer is in any way connected to an internet, so I apologise in advance for any non-responsiveness to comments and emails and stuff.

Also, if you will forgive the sickening crunch of metaphorical gears as we shift from birds to mammals, if this settlement actually goes ahead I will feel the sense of self satisfaction that can only be compared to a man who sets out to herd cats and ends up with something like this:

I can't hide all these thoughts in my mind

2007-08-26T07:19:00.000+10:00

Apologies for the pointformness of this post, which results from a degree of busyness consistent with moving house in one week’s time. In any case, here are a few things I did this weekend on the company ~~love in~~ planning weekend, held at a secret location guarded by an ancient order of monks ~~called Marysville~~

1. Hit the boss’s wife in the head with a snowball, from a quite impressive distance
2. Saw a very nice waterfall
3. Ate oxtail consommé
4. Played an entire game of volleyball with a heavy jumper on because the boss had threatened to sack anyone caught wearing a Kevin ’07 T-shirt
5. Drank possibly just a little bit more red wine than I should have
6. Remained lucid enough to refuse to participate in a sing along to a Robbie Williams song because, and I quote, “I hate his music with the fire of a thousand suns”
7. Agreed instead to entertain my colleagues with an a capella rendition of Gina G’s “Ooh Aah (Just a little bit)” on the condition that at least 5 of my colleagues acted as backing dancers.

My attempts to deny that that last one ever happened would have been more convincing if the office manager hadn’t recorded the whole thing on video. I’m sure she’s putting it on YouTube right now.

I have no regrets. No matter how ridiculous I looked and sounded, watching five lawyers trying to dance in some sort of co-ordinated manner was still close to the funniest thing I have ever seen.