The Cure Is Hairier Than The Disease

The lifting of certain water restrictions lately have revealed the true extent of my laziness.

It became possible again recently to wash your car in Sydney without being thrown into gaol by the water police. Not owning a garden, I’m not entirely aware of what the water restrictions were, or what they have become. It is of only mild interest to me. Sort of like the economy. It’s there, but, well, isn’t there something more interesting to look at?

But I was aware of a whole bunch of cars suddenly looking a lot better than my two roving compost heaps.

In general, I don’t wash cars. I’ll run them through something, or by someone, or park them somewhere and hope to have it stolen so I can get another one if it’s become critical, but I hate washing them. It’s a labour of lost love.

For a while there, I was in good company. We were all driving around in righteously, environmentally sound filthy vee-hickles. The second the restrictions were lifted, though, I noted that I was the only one who continued to carry the empty watering-can of eco-dirtiness.

Sydney turned on one of its typically hysterical weather changes last night, and we went from a calm, hot muggy day to being blasted by an electrical thunderstorm and sheets of water that looked more like a vertical ocean than rain.

I was looking at the rain, thinking about a couple of the more egregious pieces of ibis poo currently on the white car and decided to swing into action (when an ibis empties itself on your wheels, it’s like someone has wrung out a toddler with a bad diet; if they did it from a height, it would dent the panel work).

Grabbing an umbrella and the microfibre eco-glove we use in the bathroom, I ran out to the car and started scrubbing.

Sure, I was standing there in an electrical storm, rubbing a large piece of metal with an entirely synthetic cloth and holding another metal shaft (umbrella) proudly in the air, but ibis poo can drive you to extreme lengths. It kills bats, for god’s sake!

Here’s where I give away a detail of Emergency Contact's appearance and some of our other domestic challenges.

I stood back to admire my sparkling ute, with the sun and the rain all glinting and pelting off it, and it didn’t.

It is now entirely covered in long, red hairs. They really stand out on white paintwork, too.

Dilly Of A Pickle

I'm paralyzed by choice.

Friends of ours detected our dejected air when we answered the ‘News Years Eve activity’ question with a certain amount of, “Oh, I dunno…”, and the implied staring down at our feet as we circled our pointed big toes in the dust with shoulders hunched and glancing shyly, but hopefully, at them. 

They live in Melbourne and I was in the mood for a road trip.

And because they are all class, that’s where we’re going.

I want to take both cars, but I only have one arse and one head.

Here’s the pro and con list that’s getting me -

2001 Falcon Ute: Manual 

PROS: New to me and I lerve driving it. More legroom than the Bismark. Big comfortable sensible seats. Grunt like a pig-farm. Don’t care about stone chips or wear and tear. Know the engine. Grunt. Legroom. Grunt.

CONS: EC can’t drive it (yeah, that is a con… sometimes.) No cruise control. Can’t lock the luggage in the back. Haven’t done a serious speed run in it yet. Brutal, 1 ton suspension that could cripple in a Syd - Melb trip.

2002 Subaru Liberty: Automatic 

PROS: Cruise control (during times of double demerit points, that is sooooo important). Tested on a couple of shorter country trips. Everything locks down. Pretty civilised inside if you are not over 6 foot tall. EC can drive it.

CONS: I am over 6 foot. That four cylinder engine in Sydney traffic is fine but uphill into a breeze at 110? Short wheelbase with sports suspension -  in some ways, it’s no better than the ute. 

Solomon's choice?

Nope. We’re doing it Smokey and the Bandit style. She’ll be running ahead in the cute little Scoobie, and I’m gonna be blasting in behind in the uterus, wailing some inconsequential stuff about numbers and rubberised bath toys into the CB radio.

Yeeeeeehah and Happy New Year!

Fahrenheit 72 Number 16 Is Up

Click Here, if you dare. It's not good.

A Little More Christmas Foot Pudding For You, Pope?

I was willing to leave the whole religion/Christmas thing alone for the moment. 

But, you just can't beat the Catholic Church (see how polite I'm being? I gave them capital letters.) for releasing bags of stupid down your chimney, can you?

In the news today...

Pope Benedict XVI says saving humanity from homosexual or transsexual behaviour is just as important as saving the rainforest from destruction.

... because that whole other thing with the celebecy is working so well for you guys, isn't it?

For fuck sake! 

I meant that.

I'm Renaming Blog. It's Now Blob. In The Christmas Lunch Spirit

Hey, Satan Claws is coming to town.

I've never owned a blob during December, so this is an unbelievable opportunity.

To all of those readers who know me personally... I thank you for reading this rant through the year. I wish you a very happy and safe holiday season.


To all those readers who don't know me personally... well you haven't been reading very long. But I sort of want to thank you differently (from the blobs perspective) 'cause that's an act of trust. The first group have just given in to nagging.

I'd like to tell you all that you've been deemed "Nice" by Santy, but I'm not certain, it is after all, a grey area.

May the new year bring all that you want, and very little of what you actually deserve.

Yours,

Nick

Fahrenheit 72 Episode 15 Is Up

CLICK HERE

To Your Good Elf

A Christmas mystery.

Where is Nick?

He's in front of a snow covered Christmas scene, but by the blurring, he appears to be bouncing around.

Are his little feet cold in the snow?

Here he is inside Santa's Helper's secret cave.

A secret cave, complete with beaded seat.

Where could Nick be?

Obviously, riding around in Santa's Helper's cab.

The thing that really charmed me about this lunatic, is that he is an Afghani Muslim.

He was, and I quote, "Trying to show some respect to the Australian culture and religion. I move here, is good, they say to me 'Why you do it' I say to them, 'To show that is easy to respect the other people's religion'."



He asked me what Christmas music I wanted to hear. I wanted to say 'None, it drives me up the wall' but thought better of it.

"Mariah Carey, All I want for Christmas," I said.

"No problem. I got." He pulls out an enormous CD collection, and puts his hand straight on it.

This is the vigour and tenacity that Afghans apply to celebrating a cultural tradition that isn't even theirs...

We are currently prosecuting a war on their home turf over something a few of them are genuinely passionate about.

We don't stand a chance.

Pug Nosed And Overweight

I’ve spent a bit of time around cars and am fairly hard to trick or impress with cabin gadgetry, but I learnt something recently about a feature that I found truly new and remarkable.

Currently in my clutches is a Peugeot 206. Emergency Contact is out of town with the owner of the car, and the keys were left with me to ‘look after’.

I used to be a big fan of the old 306’s and have driven a few of them. This 206 is not old. Just between you and me and the escargot, I’m not in love.

It’s pretty tall, so the body roll is alarming. The understeer is cataclysmic and the pedals are put so close together, I am forced to drive barefoot using only my big toes, leaving my feet flat on the floor.

It is very French: Why? Because things are on the wrong side, it smells pungent and the cigarette lighter is placed on the console as though it still plays an important part in the drivers life. If it was any more French, it would be smoking a Gauloise wrapped in a Gitane.

That’s not always a bad thing, it’s just a thing.

One of my objections to the way we often receive an import from Europe in this country, is that the manufacturers often choose the cheapest possible method for putting the steering wheel on the other side of the car.

They get the pedals and the wheel swapped over, sure, but nothing else is really dealt with. The stems on the steering column remain in the Euro configuration. We become used to having the indicator on the gear-shift hand, but that is not ideal. The left hand is too busy at times. When you are changing lanes or coming in and out of a corner (signalling) is also when you should be changing gears. It’s not insurmountable, but it’s not the best.

It also uses lots of indecipherable little symbols instead of words, all over the place – sign of a car company that did not want to pay for translation and different button manufacture for the EU. I can understand that, and eventually I'll understand the buttons. I can tell that the owner has not bothered to learn the function of some of them, they look unused.

One feature I am rather charmed with though, is the ability to change the pitch of the headlights from a dial in the cabin. You wind it up, and the headlights are stargazing. You wind it down, and it bats its eyes coquettishly. I surmised it might be for reducing light-bounce when it snows. Smurf agreed, but added another reason to the mix.

When you are carrying around a big load in the back of a little car, it makes the nose point up. If that happens you can wind your lights down to where they should be.

I asked how he knew this because it sounds so odd and he doesn't drive. I mean, we don’t have it here, and I would have expected the nanny-state to have made that mandatory by now if it was a genuine safety feature.

He actually said that he’d been pulled over with mates in the back of the Ford Festiva, in Europe.

The copper had told them to turn their lights down.

“But this car doesn’t have that feature.”

“Well, your mates in the back there need to lose weight.”

Panda Update... Thanks to Lolcats For The Pic

As a world reviled expert in pandas, I was delivered an important research document recently. 

Giant Pandas: The Last Refuge. (A DVD that came with my copy of the Sunday Telegraph).

Choice quotes (in an almost un-manipulated order): 

“For nearly a decade, these Chinese scientists have scoured the jungle for these elusive animals.” 

“Black and white on an entirely green background.”

“Eat for 17 hours a day... and then sleep.”

“Eat up to three different parts of the same bamboo patch.”

“… are so experimental in their younger months, that they will even explore small trees. But as they age, will lose their interest in other things, and only eat bamboo.”

“A diet that yields just 17% usefulness to the panda’s digestive tract.”

“… falls instantly asleep where it feeds when it is full.”

“The male, named ‘Lucky‘, is turned in by local villagers who were tired of his barking, was found to have a taste for plastic raincoats, metal b.b.q. utensils, and anything else that would disrupt his digestive tract.” 

"... grown overweight in captivity, so that mating only results in loud barking and an unsuccessful wrestling match."

“... then developed a taste for antibiotics.”

“… blood tests to confirm whether they are entirely first cousins.”

“Enslaved by the need to feed constantly.”

“… and maybe we can learn from them, for ancient armies at war in feudal China, did not wave a white flag of surrender. Instead, as a symbol peace, they waved the image of the panda.”

At the start of the DVD, National Geographic had its old promo where it went through some average lifetime statistics, by way of pointing out what useful things you could be doing with your own - three days looking for the remote, 30 years asleep etc etc. They said, "on average you will laugh 18 times a day." That statistic is obviously not accounting for pandas.

 

Citizen Cane Toad

Scientific bodies in Australia have a rich and comedic history when it comes to dealing with threats to our native flora and fauna. If there’s some exotic species out there, threatening the local ecological balance, never fear, because our forward thinking visionaries in the natural sciences will save the day.

Remember the prickly pear? No, neither do I, but from the 1860s to the 1920s, it was eating 400,000 hectares of Australia a year. The boffins imported a beastie called the Cactoblastis Moth, and in a year it cleared 11 million hectares. I’m sure you do remember what happened next.

It ran out of prickly pear and started taking children and domestic pets. It was eventually controlled by military intervention, when it was driven out to sea. It took up residence on a desert island, just to the east of New Guinea, and there it lurks, biding its time and waiting for the right moment to launch its counter-offensive. The Japanese have immortalised it in several interesting documentaries, battling Godzilla. (Quite a good portion of the above two paragraphs is absolutely true.)

Another backfire in biological warfare we’re all aware of is your chosen method to control a pest called the Cane Beetle. Nobody remembers the Cane Beetle, but everybody knows the cure.

What you do is search other continents for the most hideous, poisonous, feral, fast breeding lump of revulsion you can find, and import a few of the fecund bastards into your untouched wilderness.

What they will then do is rip across your top-end, killing everything that’s ever looked at a toad and thought 'jeez, I’m hungry. I guess it will have to do'.

We here at A Grey Area Institute of Fuzzy Things and Monumental Balls-Ups call it the “Perhaps She’ll Die” method of ecological management. (As in, “I don’t know why she swallowed a fly.”)

They are not content with the fallout from the first attempt at vermin control by introducing something worse, though. It appears that the work experience boy has come bounding up the sandstone stairs at Sydney Uni, tugged on the sleeve of a sleeping professor, and when prof has jolted awake and wiped the dribble from the corner of his mouth, he’s been hit with something he just knows is going to get him back in the papers.

From the news this week:

Professor Shine says researchers are also interested in releasing small sterile cane toads in areas yet to be infiltrated by the invading pest…Professor Shine says if animals eat the smaller "teacher toads" they will become ill and learn that the unfamiliar amphibians are poisonous.

You just know that's going to go well.

What is wrong with these guys? Has the work experience boy noticed that students get nauseous around teacher and thinks that this translates into the wild?

I, for one, wouldn’t trust a Cane Toad to stay sterile. Knowing them, they would be released into an untouched part of the country, look around, notice how much room there was and promptly grow a fresh set of nads. They are the von Neumann device of the natural world and exist only to replicate until there is nothing but them from here to the horizon.

Another thing that worries me is: who gets the job of sterilizing Cane Toads? That’s a killer on your CV, isn’t it? Toad Knackerer.

“So, you're standing here alone at this lovely party, and I thought I’d come over and say hello. What’s your name and what’s your game?”

“My name is Kyle Sandilands, and I sterilize Cane Toads.”

“Wow. I did not see that coming. So, I imagine it’s a pretty specialised field.”

“Yeah it is really. It’s funny how you get into these things.”

“I bet.”

“I can't work out why, but I became one of the most hated people in the Australian media, so I needed a break, because actually I'm absolutely fantastic. So, this guy I know was helping out in the Chinese Panda breeding program. I became a Panda wanker. It was really fulfilling.”

“Really?!”

“Yeah. Artificial insemination is the only way that they can breed, and someone’s got to get the goo. From there I was meeting with the right sorts of people to get into the exciting field of toad snipping.”

“Wow. What an incredible story. Can you just go over there and stand under that grand piano, sitting precariously on that rickety hoist? Thanks.”

Fahreheit 72 Chapter 14 Is Up

Click here or use the Fahrenheit 72 link on the right

I Don't Know From Money, Honey

The world financial crisis has certainly captured the imagination of many. It's a constant on the news and experts have come out of the woodwork to tell us what to do with our dwindling this and inflating that. Many of my colleagues have never been more interested in the topic of money, and it is a constant in conversation around the office. 

It is interesting to most people in some way.

I will admit though, to not being one of them. 

I find it really dull. I'm sure I could understand the more esoteric elelments of the markets if I put my mind to it, but I have never been able to put my mind to anything that I don't care about. In our personal lives, Emergency Contact and I have realised this, and have paid someone else to look after all that stuff. Honestly though, that person could be ripping us off blind, and I wouldn't have a clue.

I think I have hit a new low in wilfull ignorance about the financial state of the world, though.

December's Vanity Fair came into the house yesterday, and after I had torn my eyes off a near naked Kate Winslet, I saw that Niall Ferguson has written an article spruked by the header: Is This The End Of Banks? And I stood there for a while and thought,

"Do you know, as big a fan as I am of Iain's, particularly of the Culture novels, I reckon it could be. His last couple have been really lame, and it has hurt me to say it. I even took Gooby aside recently and said that I hoped that we could still be friends, but I was going to have to say that Banks has turned out some crap lately. Thankfully, Gooby is a forthright fellow, and not only agreed with my premise, but agreed to keep it a secret. But is all of that unfair? I mean, he can still bring it back. He's quite young. He only has to turn out another Espedair Street or Excession and all is forgiven... strange thing for Vanity Fair to put on the cover though... predictions of a literary demise... wait... banks... oh."

You Can't Make A Spare Lady Out Of Me

I might have mentioned recently that in a fit of middle-aged pique, instead of going to the doctor for some banged up ribs, I bought a ute. (Midlife Crisis? Me?)

Now, it should be said that Emergency Contact is not entirely thrilled by the order in which things were done in this particular escapade. She likes the ute, and feels a certain oestrogen-fuelled fruitiness as she’s riding around in the passenger seat. But to be entirely honest about the situation - I didn’t fully follow her instructions when I went base over apex in the bathroom. That has led to a certain, not entirely unjustifiable, anger on her behalf at the latest developments. 

It’s been long enough that I felt I shouldn’t still be getting the amount of pain that I was. The X-rays I went for this weekend show three broken ribs, and one fractured. Fortunately nothing else, like punctured lungs or Homer Simpson Syndrome (although I think EC is willing to argue that one).

I will say this though. Knowing what’s up does make me feel better about some things. I sneezed two weeks ago and almost passed out. I haven’t done it since. Turning over in bed and hearing a grinding noise, accompanied by seeing stars, is no longer so mysterious. I know why push-ups have seemed as onerous as they have been lately. 

Mine is not the most serious injury in all of this, though. The muscles in Emergency Contact’s eyes have been badly sprained from the amount of rolling they’ve had to do.

Some December Housekeeping

It was brought to my attention by a reader that the  “Comments”  fields on this blog had seemingly disappeared. 

I agreed, and pointed out that I had cunningly disguised them by renaming them (it’s an old government trick, that one). Comments is now “_ Bits of proof that I’m not mumbling into the void”. 

She is by no means a silly person, and admitted to reading quickly. But I am very aware that there are certain pieces of etiquette that advise someone posting, not to make navigation difficult or obscure. They should make it all as easily and quickly accessible as possible. 

Sure, but at the same time, I like the sentiment that I had expressed in changing the title. So I will try to hit some midway ground and advertise the fact that it is there.

You can still comment, are more than welcome to comment, just treat the “…bits of proof…” link at the bottom, as the comment field.

On to another topic. I was pleased for Jo Blogs recently, when she picked up a nomination in Cleo’s “Next Top Australian Blogger” competition. Thoroughly deserved. As though maintaining it’s infernal balance, the universe coughed up a hair-ball of recognition in my direction.

A lovely official looking thing with lots of correctly spelt words and phrases like “For immediate release” and  all sorts of self-important gear landed in my inbox.

As a fellow blogger, I was invited to become a key member for this exciting new organisation. I was told about the critical role that I play in gathering, assimilating and disseminating news and commentary (you are already starting to see the hole in their research, I assume.)

The director is going to get in touch with me because of the valuable asset that we can be to each other. 

Adam Bitely, said director - of NetRightNation.com - host address for ‘Americans For Limited Government‘, is obviously in deeper kaka than he has any idea, if he thinks that the Aussie bloke who throws together A Grey Area, should be “an important member of the conservative blogosphere.”

Smurf suggested infiltrate, destroy, rebuild. I think that sounds too much like hard work. I might indulge in a casual bit of white-anting though.

But the alarm bells that sound in my head as I read their sign off, actually drown out the TV. 

“Americans for Limited Government is a non-partisan, nationwide network committed to advancing free market reforms, private property rights and core American liberties.”

Maybe I should join. As they say, "keep your enemas closer."

Fahrenheit 72 Is Up At The Agency Site. Or You Can Hit The Link Below (Lazy)

Oh no. It's Number 13!

Hello... NRMA? I'm Un-Dead. Can I Un-Worry Too?

Now, If I could just find my Un-Derpants.

Wheelie Good

Please recycle responsibly

Where Are Your Buccaneers?

Hippies must be killed. Everybody knows it and Cartman has been saying it for a long time, but I can prove it, and it starts with a crossword.

One of the clues in a crossword this week in the SMH was simply, “Cerumen”. The answer had to be (3,3).

I had an ‘E’ at the start of the first word and because of its similarity to albumen, I kept on being falsely led back to the idea that it may have something to do with egg.

It turns out that it means ‘ear wax’. Idly thumbing through my desktop Wikipedia, I looked up cerumen to learn more, and I did!

There are two major sorts of the stuff and different types of people have different proportions of the two. Tracking the differences has been instrumental in anthropologists tracking the migratory habits of indigenous people.

But the first sentence to really catch my eye was:

“The primary components of earwax are the final products in the HMG-CoA reductase pathway, namely, squalene, lanosterol, and cholesterol. It has a bitter flavour.“ (my bolding)

Eeeuuuuuwwwww.

But I read on because this is science. I am discovering without prejudice. I am broadening my horizons… and after the following sentence, I am stockpiling weapons to go out on a hippy killing spree.

“A small but growing fan base, committed to the use of all-natural products, touts its use as a superior organic alternative to other varieties of lip balm.”

Fat Cat

The Kitty in the Car Park









Sometimes there are little intrusions from a far more interesting dimension, into the one that we inhabit.

The picture above is of a cat that lives around my work. The lads out the back in the warehouse made him a Hi-Viz safety vest, so he doesn't get skittled in the car park. He was doing pretty well for a stray, too. A whole bunch of people were feeding him. I haven’t seen him in a while, which made me worry a little, but an email from our security guard this week has put my mind at ease.

Subject: Small Set of Keys Found in Car Park

Good Morning All,

If you have lost a small set of keys, please contact security on ext: 2201.

Regards,
Michael.

Kitty in the Car Park must be commuting now.

Puritanism: noun. The Fear That Someone, Somewhere, Is Happy

In a humanist and thoughtful way, I don't care what you do with the internet. And that's the way it should be. 

(Try not to organise pogroms, jihads, paedophilia rings, or any other life threatening stuff, and we should get along just fine... but I suspect the fans of that kind of gear would do that - Clean Feed, or no Clean Feed.)

Other people should care about what you do with the internet as much as they should care about what you do in your closet/cupboard/bedroom/toilet.

One of the things that so many Australians felt some real hope about at the close of the Howard Era (or the Dark Age of Oz) was that it was time to open out and breathe again. It was time to stop the reactionary, conservative fear mongering. To stop the faux moral panics. Time to end the politics of division and have a crack at behaving like we're all not slavering idiots, hell bent on each others' costly and untimely demise.

I should state my leaning before going on. I'm not overly impressed by my new government either. I already feel let down. I was always going to be disappointed, I knew that. But I'm sad at how little time it took. I became faintly suspicious about three months before the election. There's a worrying amount of tight lipped control from Plastic Man, and precious little real movement on things of any consequence. 

Back to censorship: the fact that Kev so unthinkingly waded in on Bill Henson should have been a cause for national embarrassment. I'm not a fan of Bill's work either, but I'm not a fan on aesthetic grounds. Let's try and keep our heads and stop handing over more and more control to the least deserving people - the ones who crave it.

If you are under any illusions as to how bad it got under Howard, I recommend you pick up the Quarterly Essay # 26, 2007. His Master's Voice - The Corruption of Public Debate Under Howard, by David Marr. 

It's a nauseating ride into an Orwellian vision, and you know what? It wasn't fiction and it wasn't East Germany. For my money, not enough has been changed, repealed or deemed as crap behaviour, in the maintenance of a free press and free public debate, since Howard's long overdue exit. This preposterous 'Clean Feed' garbage being peddled by the current government is more of that. Click on the icon above if you want to find out more and do something about it.

A Grey Area will return to the regularly scheduled pap and sillyness, just as soon as possible.

The new Fahrenheit 72 is in. Use link below.

Fahrenheit 72 Part 11

A Grey Area Detective Agency has needed to separate out the Fahrenheit case from AGA. For tax reasons, you understand.

Nerds Of A Feather

I mentioned to an overseas colleague, who was asking me a lot of technical questions, that my nerd quotient wasn’t very high and therefore couldn't help much.

He came back wanting to know how nerd-quotient is calculated and I ran off a set of ground rules.
It was quick so, you know, feel free to help out.

Nerd quotient is calculated by starting with a base of 100

Subtract 1 point for every girlfriend kept for longer than a year.
Subtract 3 points for every one night stand with a partner of equal or better beauty rating 

Subtract 1/2 a point for every night spent hiking/dancing/sailing/gun running

Subtract 10 points for all of the following:

Having represented your country in a sport
Having more than one knife-fight scar
Being arrested for any of the above

Add 10 points for getting all of XKCDs jokes
Add 1/2 point for every Battlestar (new) episode watched
Add 5 points for needlessly quoting Buffy/Python/SG1/Underground uber nerd sites/Firefly/Penny Arcade/Star Wars.... and on and on and on
Add 10 points for beard covering multiple chins
Add 10 points for every time you've had a LAN party
Add 50 points for learning Shakespeare in Klingon

You Need To Get Out More Sunshine

Centennial Park has provided me with a bit of material in the past 

Didn't You Kill My Brotha?

Park Life

She's With The Band

It turns out the Centennial Park Effect is universal. Or at least consistantly detectable internationally.

The second last time my two-up-boss (and therefore someone whose anecdotes I am duty bound to listen to) went to Thailand, he came back with this little gem that I actually enjoyed.

A bit of a fitness fiend, he found a jogging track in Bangkok that was the equivalent of Centennial Park. 

It has a two and half kilometre return track complete with distance measurements every hundred metres. He went out for his morning jog before work, and was pleased to see lots of fit people out there, jogging along as well. 

He was particularly pleased that the fabled Thai friendliness even extended to exercise.

On his way around the track he was regularly handed a drink and a sponge by a smiling local. 

It wasn't until he had accidentally placed quite favourably in the local charity marathon that some smiling official told him he should be wearing a number, and therefore could not be awarded a place until he had attached the number to his shirt properly.

I enjoyed that little story when he told me the first time. He just got back from smiling Thailand again, and it appears that the park has worked its magic one more time.

 

He was jogging around and getting into his stride (competent long distance runner) when he came up behind a tightly huddled group in matching outfits. They were totally blocking the path, with no way to pass. Trailing them for a few minutes and getting annoyed, he eventually elbowed his way up and 'ran through' the crowd. (This is a polite phrase used by distance runners to make you believe that it is anything other than barging. Akin to shouting "Fore" the third time you drive into the group on the green on a par three.)

When he got to the head of the troop, he could see why they were shuffling rather than raising their rhythm. There was some dickhead with a bull horn, squeezing it made a quack noise in metronomic time, setting the lazy pace. He had heard the sound as he was approaching, but it had blended in with the wildlife ambiance of the park, so didn't think anything of it.

 

Second lap around, he caught them again and barged through, much less politely than the first time. They were just hogging the park and not making any allowances for people to pass. The normally taciturn boss had the shits.

 

The third time around, as he approached the slow moving crowd from behind, he decided to go through them like a Wallaby fullback at a four-year-old's birthday party. Just as he was about to drop the shoulder, the man with the duck bull-horn pulled over to the side of track. 

The group immediately and obediently followed him, and the boss watched as they all bent down and started their post jog stretching routine, which involved searching around with their hands for their white canes.

If It Doesn't Work, Well Then, What's The Point Of It?

A couple of mates took me and Emergency Contact out for a lovely picnic and some ‘messing about in boats’, up and down the Lane Cove River Park on the weekend.

For those of you unfamiliar with the park, it is in the middle of a pretty busy part of Sydney, but has cliffs and currents and trees and wildlife and a weir and all sorts of exciting stuff. The playground even used to have a retired steam powered tractor you could play on. I remember a birthday party there once where, I think I’m right in saying, there were about four fatalities and 18 serious injuries. It was brilliant.

I really enjoy water skiing too. The wind in your hair, the incredible sensation of speed, Emergency Contact in the boat in front, rowing for her life… anyway, I reminisced that there used to be a paddle-wheeler on the river. I had been told, as a kid, that it wasn’t a traditional type of paddle-wheeler. That it was, in fact, attached to a rail beneath the water line to keep everything under control.

As usual, I said this before thinking about it, and then settled down to think about how likely that would be. A paddle-wheeler steered by a rail. The more I thought about it, the more I considered it unlikely.

So when I got home, I went straight to the net to find out about the paddle-wheeler on Lane Cove River Park, and how it was steered. I felt certain that there would be some club site, owned by anorak-wearing dweebs, who would have scale models and an action plan for the reinstatement of the boat to its former glory and all the rest.

No.

The internet has failed, you can turn it off now.

Things Delivered To My Block Of Flats: November 2008

4 x carts - coal

3 x bushels (dry) - antimacassar starch

18 x units - Whitepages Telephone Directory

1 x hammer

1 x anvil

1 x hundredweight - horseshoe nails

1 x Fringelifter's Steam Powered Hat-Blocker

3 x automatic pre-heating ice-cream scoop

1 x elephant (white)

18 x Yellow Pages Telephone Directory

Midlife Crisis? Me?

Sometimes, important life facts are pointed out to me in such a way, they cannot help but goad my contrarian nature, and thereby elicit a completely inappropriate response.

I recently celebrated a birthday that , by the old rules, would have me in the middle of my term here.

To which I internally said, “Pah!”

Mother Nature heard me and laid out a glaring hint or two.

A few days ago, I managed to throw myself out of the shower in such a way that I broke the shower curtain, the wall mount for the shower rose, electric hair clippers, the top of the toilet and very nearly my ribs.

Nature continued to give me the hint by gently suggesting throughout the week (with red hot pokers) that maybe I hadn’t just bruised myself a little, maybe there was some more going on with my torso than what you used to bargain for when you came off the footy field.

So I scheduled a day off work. I could live without the stress of going from doctor's waiting room, to x-ray clinic, back again etc, whilst fielding calls and generally clock watching.

The leave day arrived. 

And I went out and bought a ute.

In your face, Father Time. 

Credit to LOLCATS

Source: icanhascheezberger.

I just needed a photo to go with the previous blog. I'm all out of ones that I have the rights to.

Schoolgirl Bitten By Panda

The ABC reports that a Schoolgirl was bitten by a panda today.

How, in the name of all that is right and holy, is that even possible!?

I am here to tell you, as a world reviled expert, that apart from the attack on a denim jacket of a Chinese man ten years ago (footage regularly screened on Australia's Most Violent Home Videos) pandas have been unable to muscle up the energy to even move from their own disappearing bamboo patch, let alone attack a fast moving schoolgirl. Plus, they are vegetarians. The old saying does not go, "Bamboo and spice and all things nice." (They wouldn't know it anyway, it's an English saying. Pandas are notably monolinguistic and too lazy to learn any other languages.)

If this unlikely story does turn out to be true, can you imagine what a hard time that girl is going to have explaining the interesting scar on her arm?

"How'd you get that?"

"A panda bit me."

"That is the silliest thing I have ever heard and I will not be seen with such a pathetic liar. You are fired and I will not marry you now. Give back the car."

Reference and research articles.

I Hear They're Not Even Good Eating

Pand On The Run

I'm Not The Only One

You are not alone. You don't have to take your frustrations out on a sign. You can win. I feel your pain, but let me be a beacon to you.

I assume you are young, as graffiti tends to be a young person's method of annoying people, so you've got time on your side.

Start your war now, and you should prevail somewhere circa 2011.

There's something else going on here as well. If I'm not mistaken, that is a stencil (note support struts that leave a blank bit, there to hold the centre of the "A", "O" and "p"). This means there's an organised campaign. Whoever "I" is, they're really shitty.

I would like to thank roving reporter, Sticky, for sending this in to the AGA News Bureau (Aus. Domestic Desk).

Obama-rama or Baracknaphobia

In no particular order, my observations on the election in the States.

Economics

The US has the right to be hopeful about Obama’s economic sense. As we learned yesterday, he promised his girls a puppy if he won.

That is really sensible considering he could have said ‘pony’ or 'Pennsylvania’.

Social Stability

It used to be said that whenever Mohamed Ali won a fight, crime rates in black ghettos would plummet. The disaffected felt that they had a voice and visibility.

Now, if winning a fist fight against one opponent can do that, becoming the most powerful man in the world should make Los Angeles, Shangri-L.A.

Respeck to Your Fathers, MF

He didn’t get there on his own, though. In an uncharacteristic fit of churlishness, Obama is yet to thank all that have helped pave the way, or as we say in the business, “Softened up the crowd.”

Dennis Haysbert, Sammy Davis Jr, Danny Glover and Morgan Freeman. They have all played black US Presidents (or are playing them).

The Rudd = Dud Effect

You can be as happy as you like tonight America, what with your well mannered, diplomatic, youthful, intelligent, socially progressive leader. We had one of them for a while. What’s that sound? Yup, that’s the sound of soggy rhetoric hitting the floor.

The Speech

I got a little misty when I was listening to the tail-end of his victory speech on the evening of his win. He introduced the final theme that underpins the big idea, thus:

“This election had many firsts and many stories that will be told for generations. But one that's on my mind tonight's about a woman who cast her ballot in Atlanta. She's a lot like the millions of others who stood in line to make their voice heard in this election except for one thing: Ann Nixon Cooper is 106 years old.

She was born just a generation past slavery; a time when there were no cars on the road or planes in the sky; when someone like her couldn't vote for two reasons -- because she was a woman and because of the colour of her skin. And tonight, I think about all that she's seen throughout her century in America -- the heartache and the hope; the struggle and the progress; the times we were told that we can't, and the people who pressed on with that American creed: Yes we can.”

He used the refrain: “Yes we can,” as he named the challenges to overcome, and related them to historic events that had occurred during Ann Cooper’s life.

Not to seem like a daft whitey foreigner, but the rhythms and the cadences put me in mind of Martin Luther King, particular with the anticipated return to the chorus. “Yes we can.” The crowd obliged by ‘giving witness’ and chanting back the chorus as he went. There wasn’t the operatic soaring of the voice and tremulous dramatic tones that MLK would hit, but there was something to it that smacked of the delivery style. There wouldn’t have been a dry seat in the house.

The content of the speech was pretty bloody good too, if you adjust for the usual amount of American patriotism. I can only imagine how many times Toby Zeigler’s rubber ball must have bounced off that dividing wall, as Sam Seaborne laboured away at the finer points.

Two Paper Bags Please, In Case One Breaks

Sometimes it’s nice to limp through life without having certain aspects of your existence confirmed by professionals. 

Australian men make a habit of this by not going to the doctor. I’m not advocating that though. I say, go, get your heart and your other bits checked. Stop leaving your dependants in the lurch by suddenly dropping off the twig in the middle Martin Place, clutching a half-eaten ham sandwich and a mobile phone that continues to say, “Larry? Are you there?” as your eyes turn up into your head.

Still, there are other things that it is not important to know. How many times your lover has cheated on you is one of those things, I reckon. Don’t tell me - I don’t want to know. If I haven’t twigged, and you haven’t given me any diseases, my life is not improved by being in full command of the facts.

Another of those non-life-threatening facts that can be happily avoided is where exactly you sit on the beauty spectrum, particularly if you occupy anywhere between ’fugly’ and ’half-sucked-mango’. 

I have always been aware that I am no oil painting. People do not run from the room screaming, and I have other personality traits to help me grease the wheels of human interaction too, so I’m not crying poor. But I have had a couple of knocks over the years that tested the leatheriness of my skin.

As a 19-year-old, I accidentally overheard my girlfriend’s grandmother and mother in conversation, just after Granny had met me for the first time.

“He’s a handsome boy, isn’t he?” says the presumably short-sighted biddy.

“In an off-beat kind of way,” answers slightly better-sighted and pragmatic Mother.

I’m of an age where I’ve had enough license and ID photos taken to confirm that it’s not just a couple of ‘off ones‘… that’s how I actually look. On top of not being photogenic, I can’t smile. I’m not a natural smiler. I have no experience at holding a smile. My face looks odd doing it. I laugh a lot and I’m not an unhappy person, but the default setting on my face is not with a grin. 

Emergency Contact and I had a photo shoot yesterday that will hopefully yield something un-horrifying  to accompany an article we were interviewed for. The photographer took his first shot to confirm lighting and the rest, pulled the camera away from his face, looked at the screen, grimaced, and said, “Oh jeez.”

The honest, gut reaction of a professional photographer. 

Needless to say, I will not be trumpeting the release of the article. 

Puff 'n' Stuff

Scene 1: Interior. Counselor's office. Possibly a university, maybe a very expensive private college.

Student: I’m just really, you know, just really not liking it and a lot of the classes are when I’m doing more important things… you know… shoes don’t buy themselves, so, you know.

Counselor: Ok. So, just so that I’m clear. You want to change your classes, again. This is the first semester and it’s week two, and you wish to change your focus, if I can call it that, of study. Again. Yes?

Student: Ah, yuh! Hellooooo, that’s what I just said?

Counselor: I guess. Ok, so we’ve gone from Law, because it was “all lawyerish and really dull and stuff and there were thick books that ruined your YSL handbag shoulder straps, and you didn’t think the wigs would suit you.”

Student: The law gave me a big ass…

Counselor: …Indeed…, changed out of psychology to Early Childhood Development, because, “It didn’t have any of that stuff like in the TV show Medium, that it was supposed to.”

Student: That stuff is sooooo spooky. I’ve got a friend who’s a psycho, and she can totally read, like, what’s in my mind. I mean WTF!?

Counselor: I’m sure she can. Does it take long? No. Nothing. Now, if we can just get back to the point. You are dropping all of those courses in preference for… it says here Industrial Relations and other stuff. Is that right?

Student: Yep! OMG, I love that music. I danced, like, all night to some deep industrial trance relations. I was so wasted! If I don’t like it though, I might have to change. Sometimes I’m not so good at that stuff where you’ve gotta, like, know all this really boring stuff? I mean who cares, right?

Counselor: Excellent. And, uhm, the career path that you will be exploring with this qualification? Do you have any thoughts about this? Any thoughts at all?

Student: Oh, I’m totally going into HR. All my cool friends are there? And we can help people and make them do their jobs better and teach them all this really cool stuff? It’s going to be awesome!

Didn't You Kill My Brotha?!

"What're you lookin' at, pansy?"

Apparently, all the swans in England are owned by Liz. I don’t know how the swans feel about this, and I’m not certain if Queeny goes and pats them and talks to them, but I am told they are all technically hers.

This fair isle of ours is still under the aegis of HRH, and I would hazard then, that the swans here are therefore technically answerable to her as well. So now we’ve got a starting place.

Centennial Park offered up its usual brand of light hearted tom-foolery last night, when a swan took a disliking to Emergency Contact, and chased her around the park for a bit. It is hard to buy this sort of entertainment. The often quoted saying has it that, “a swan can break a man’s arm, you know!” EC isn’t a man, so I wasn’t worried.

When things had calmed down a bit, she had to go back to the trainer’s car to fish out a new pair of shoes he’d got for her. As she was lacing them up, the swan peered around the side of the open car door, waiting for her to stand up and move off, and present some juicy part of anatomy for a good pecking. The swan had impeccable timing and comedy instincts. EC wasn’t so impressed.

“Dear Queen,

It is time that you did something about your swans. Swan number 15,072 has a bad attitude and needs to be dealt with.

A light cull apparently is good for the vigour of a group. You should royally look into it.

Yours truly,

She Who Must Be Contacted In Case of Emergency

P.S. After a bit of research, I have discovered that you only own the mute swans. I cannot remember if the swan in question was mute or not, I was moving too quickly to hear anything other than the wind in my ears.”

It Can Be Done. I Am Living Proof

The Proof.









What you see above you represents the pinnacle of human achievement.

Many people ask me, “Nick, what do you consider your greatest moment on this earth is? Was it winning the Nobel Prize for Literature? Was it toppling a corrupt South American government using nothing more than a telephone and your wits? Was it losing you virginity without losing your self respect or the use of a limb?”

And I say, “While all those things are good, nothing beats getting Optus to admit they’re wrong, and then getting the refund out of them.”

The saga involves a number of pieces of genius on their behalf. Here is a tiny selection of highlights:

Getting my name wrong and instead of correcting existing account, squirreling away my payments into that account and letting me go into debt on the corrected account.

Billing me twice and refunding me once, for a service I didn’t receive and then arguing about it.

Blaming the faulty wiring in the street that ensured that when it rained, we went incommunicado, on mythical 'other things'.

Insisting the man who came to fix the wiring in the street would have needed entry to our place.

After a series of excruciating screw-ups, ringing me at work for a customer satisfaction survey.

Not reading my complaint email properly and ringing up to offer exactly the wrong thing as a fix.

And it goes on and on and I won’t make you put up with it… but; up there, you see that I have prevailed, I have my cheque. It is for the grand total of $47.19 Australian (for overseas readers, that’s equal to a small, flat, brown rock at current exchange rates) and represents an hourly payment of approximately 50 cents an aggravation.

I will never, if I have anything to do with it, do business with that lousy bunch of card carrying fuckknuckles ever again. I exhort you, dear reader, to not have anything to do with them if at all possible, too.

Optus. No.

Not Mozart, The Other Guy

Making lists, as a way of writing, is a bit of a cop-out. 

I'll do it if I think I can get a cheap giggle, make a point, get away with it, or whenever I feel like it. Apart from that, I'm dead against it. (Woody Allen knew how to throw together a list, now look at him.) 

It should never be used as a way of writing a song, unless you have just accidentally written Imperfect List, by Big Hard Excellent Fish, and that has already been done by the band, Big Hard Excellent Fish. 

I've linked to McSweeney's Lists over there on the right. They are of varying quality and taste and I won't try and sell you only the ones I like. But the good ones in the huge collection are as good as 30 second fun gets, and you should have a look. 

The enjoyment in a really good list is, of course, filling in the blanks that make the rest of the story. What happened off-stage, to the left of the list, that made the writer arrive at this important, fridge-mounted moment? 

It's not so for everyone.

I know people who actually earn their living by filling in the blanks, checking, validating, verifying, researching and making the story credible. 

Pah.

Thanks and everything, keen eyed observers,  but how much more fun is reading the list I found Emergency Contact had made, without the tiresome rigour of sceptical analysis?

 

On this list, I meet a deadly, funky, sleek adversary. It simply reads.

• laser eyes
  
• hair removal
  
• dance lessons
  

Yeah, Baby!

May The Road Rise Before You, Dickhead

A.J. Mackinnon, a man who confesses that his interests include philosophy, conjuring and fireworks (and with that I would suspect no interests that include chasing girls, being chased by girls, or bumping into girls) has written an interesting, poetic, and at times genuinely amusing book, The Unlikely Voyage of Jack de Crow.

He sets off in dinghy from Wales, and in the spirit of adventure and appalling navigation, pops out at the Black Sea over a year later.

The book is not an unalloyed joy. It suffers from a few too many adverbs at times, and there are passages where, if you were present in the boat, you would’ve beat him over the head with his own oar. The unending self satisfied delight in his own company, the ability to name every blinking type of flora, and the non-stop saccharine optimism, I find deeply suspicious. People like that inevitably end up on the news, with a neighbour saying something like, “Oh, he was always very quiet and polite. He kept to himself mostly. Although he did smell of ether and insect repellent.”

But, on the whole, it is a really lovely little read about a man who tells a good self deprecating story and paints the country side in engaging detail. It also has amusing little sketches thrown in. I quite like a picture every now and then. Except the pictures in my old, old copy of Peter and the Wolf. Frightened the poop out of me, but couldn’t put them down.

What it did infuse me with is the yearning for adventure and getting back on the water. To set off with not much of an idea of home-time, or indeed where home would be. To rely on, and connect with, the kindness and comfort of strangers. To float upon the world and be a leaf on its stream. That impulse lasted until 4.30 pm, 27th Oct.

Last night, five cars in front of me, a guy broke down and he was making a real hash of extricating himself. People were just driving around him on the crest of a hill, on double white lines. It was going to end in tears.

I got past him and backed up. I could smell the petrol from 6 meters away from where he’d flooded it, but first of all I said to him, “Pop your hazards on mate, and we’ll throw your hood up so people can easily see your not going anywhere.”

He was thankful for the help and I was devising a plan for backing him off the narrow road and out of harms way, when a passing motorist, leant out of the window, yelled at me that I was a "complete fuckwit", and threw an empty packet of cigarettes at me.

Being unable to even work out why I was abused, my need to adventure in the world and commune with the people in it, died. I'm just not up to it.