If I had a dollar for every time I've thought, "It's like 'special school' in here," I'd have $147. Almost enough for a term pass on the Sunnyfield bus.
I had the following exchange with my South American this week, when I politely asked,
"What the hell is wrong with you?"
"Well. Basigally. I thing dere is soomthing going wrong with my ear, here on diz side of my head."
"Are you getting an ear infection? I said, ARE YOU GETTING... oh never mind."
"Jez, maybe I will be in lade for worg tomorrow. If id is nod eny bedder, I will go to the dogtor."
"How about, you go to the doctor right after work this afternoon?"
"Jez, I cood do that."
Next Day.
"How's your ear?"
"Well. Basigally, I pood a candle in id and id feels a lod bedder."
"Let me get this straight. You had a slight pain in your aural canal, and your response was to set fire to your head."
"Jez. Basigally."
(For the record, 'ear candling' is as large a load of crap as homeopathy and reiki.)
And while I'm on the subject of crap, I was hunkering down to my second delicious egg and bacon roll with The Family Gag Reflex the other day, when the subject of dogs eating poo came up. (It was happening within sight of us and couldn't be avoided.) Mama Gag Reflex said, "Our previous one used to eat her own."
Now, leaving the gut-churning revoltingness of this to one side, surely that's a self sustaining unit, right? Surely that's an animal that only has to be fed once? Have I discovered the holy grail of perpetual motion?
30 April 2010
21 April 2010
Take Me To Your Lizard
Dear Aliens,
I hear that you are making solid inroads into our societies, mainly by hiding your lizard selves underneath good looking wetsuits - as shown in the documentary, V.
Kudos. Apart from some minor hiccups, the plan seems to be going well. Have you considered the need for a local spin-doctor when it comes time for you to devour most other earthlings?
If I could be so bold, I would like to make a suggestion (in good faith) in the hope we will have a closer working relationship in the future. (And, can you please start devouring the people who park across two carparks out the front of my place during soccer practice? They won’t be missed.)
If you want the message of “We come in peace” to have a slightly more authentic edge, can I harp back to this parking thing again? Move your giant spaceships from hanging directly over the major capital cities of the world. You seem to be able to cover intergalactic distances fairly easily, and yet you park right over the top. Bad semiotics - and this is the type of thing that I can help you with… as a monkey-boy.
Also, it’s playing havoc with rental prices in the CBD and there’s a huge dead patch in the lawn where it doesn’t get enough sun.
Regards,
AGA.
I hear that you are making solid inroads into our societies, mainly by hiding your lizard selves underneath good looking wetsuits - as shown in the documentary, V.
Kudos. Apart from some minor hiccups, the plan seems to be going well. Have you considered the need for a local spin-doctor when it comes time for you to devour most other earthlings?
If I could be so bold, I would like to make a suggestion (in good faith) in the hope we will have a closer working relationship in the future. (And, can you please start devouring the people who park across two carparks out the front of my place during soccer practice? They won’t be missed.)
If you want the message of “We come in peace” to have a slightly more authentic edge, can I harp back to this parking thing again? Move your giant spaceships from hanging directly over the major capital cities of the world. You seem to be able to cover intergalactic distances fairly easily, and yet you park right over the top. Bad semiotics - and this is the type of thing that I can help you with… as a monkey-boy.
Also, it’s playing havoc with rental prices in the CBD and there’s a huge dead patch in the lawn where it doesn’t get enough sun.
Regards,
AGA.
18 April 2010
Crook As Rookwood
There was a sculpture exhibition on at Rookwood Cemetery (huge old place in the west of Sydney). I protested that no good could come of it and we'd regret it and that getting me off the couch on a Sunday was violating the natural order of things.
And I was right. It was, by and large, disappointing. There were a couple of nice pieces and a couple of artists not taking themselves terribly seriously, but on the whole there was a lot of pompous tosh.
The piece pictured cracks a mention though, because it had a lasting effect. As we were walking away, Emergency Contact said, "Of course, you know what stupid song I've got stuck in my head now, don't you?"
"No."
"Thriller."
17 April 2010
For God's Sake, Grow Up
You come to A Grey Area for the light-hearted whimsy, but you stay for the relentless religion bashing.
The Catholic Church is really getting it at the moment and all sorts of defences have started surfacing. My job as a loud-mouth atheist wouldn't be being attended to, if I didn't arc up and refute some of the egregious crap coming from certain quarters.
Miranda Devine wrote in defence of the Pope in the Sydney Morning Herald on Thursday, with the title of her article being “Evildoers, not Pope, to blame”. One of her demands was that we should stop picking on the head of the institution. (Let's just wait for her input on the F3 traffic jam and the NSW roads and traffic Minister, to see how consistent she is on that point.) But, leaving consistency aside, her main thrust is - It's not the Pope's fault - it's those fantastically clever paedophiles that tricked him.
“... for too long church leaders allowed themselves to be hoodwinked by paedophiles, who are by nature, brilliantly deceptive.” SMH. April 15, 2010. p.13.
She then tells us that the Catholic Church has been the most vocal and upright in the fight against moral breakdown in our society and that the Pope has been penitent, humble and frank about how this issue needs to be addressed.
Total and utter bullshit.
Miranda needs to see a 3 minute file story that played on Hungry Beast this week Catholic Church Sex Scandal that logged the Catholic Church's response to paedophilia.
Paedophilia being brought up as a problem, was first documented in... drum roll... the year sixty.
Yes - 60 AD.
A two thousand year paper trail of denial and stupidity.
It has been a routinely reported problem and universally brushed under the carpet. I particularly liked the part where a Cardinal Ratzinger (that name ring a bell?) recommended that it be dealt with using the highest level of Vatican secrecy. I think it's called the “Eyes-only, top-secret, don't tell anyone or we'll send out the Swiss Guard to kill you with the can-opener on a Swiss Army pocket knife” level of secrecy. I might not be right about that last bit, but to pretend that the Pope has been hoodwinked, is ridiculous.
The Church removes itself from the criticism of us mortals by claiming to be the moral authority on earth. Not only is this preposterous (at times it seems we are ethical despite the church, not because of it) they are manifestly unable to perform the job role they have described for themselves. As soon as you start to get into it though, you get shouted out of court for being disrespectful.
There is nothing more disrespectful than putting yourself into the position of authority and trust, violating that trust, and then pretending that nothing is going on.
Is the incidence of paedophilia higher, per capita, within the priesthood than it is in the general public?
If it is, is it because the environment is thick with defenceless fodder? Is it because the priesthood attracts people who wouldn't naturally compete too well in the real world? Is it because they then ask them to be celibate? Is it a heady mixture of lost souls, celibate losers, crazy ritual and systemic weirdness?
Let's pretend that it was another institution that was continually caught with its pants down. Imagine we were talking about an institution that is not protected by tradition and man's need to avoid the reality of death. Imagine if we were talking about a large, secular government body that kept getting repeated cases of child abuse surfacing. We'd tear it apart. We'd treat it like DOCS.
Devine blames modernity for the breakdown of morals and tempting these poor priests. She virtually quotes the Pope himself in his letter to the Irish Catholics last month,
“If paedophilia seems to be on the increase, it has been enabled by the eroticisation of our culture over decades, and even priests themselves are not immune.”
More incredible bullshit. Sixty AD they started to notice the problem! And, Miranda, in case you haven't noticed, the people coming forward to recount their abuse as children, are adults. See, there's a time delay there? See it?
It's not a young problem. It's a mature one.
The mature taking advantage of the the immature. A mature, secular society running up against an immature set of beliefs. Ancient problems being dealt with by people who have immature responses because they have been left in a state of adolescence by being, literally, cloistered.
Dear Church,
Take a good hard look at yourself and have the courage to grow up. In fact, do us all a favour and go away and die.
The Catholic Church is really getting it at the moment and all sorts of defences have started surfacing. My job as a loud-mouth atheist wouldn't be being attended to, if I didn't arc up and refute some of the egregious crap coming from certain quarters.
Miranda Devine wrote in defence of the Pope in the Sydney Morning Herald on Thursday, with the title of her article being “Evildoers, not Pope, to blame”. One of her demands was that we should stop picking on the head of the institution. (Let's just wait for her input on the F3 traffic jam and the NSW roads and traffic Minister, to see how consistent she is on that point.) But, leaving consistency aside, her main thrust is - It's not the Pope's fault - it's those fantastically clever paedophiles that tricked him.
“... for too long church leaders allowed themselves to be hoodwinked by paedophiles, who are by nature, brilliantly deceptive.” SMH. April 15, 2010. p.13.
She then tells us that the Catholic Church has been the most vocal and upright in the fight against moral breakdown in our society and that the Pope has been penitent, humble and frank about how this issue needs to be addressed.
Total and utter bullshit.
Miranda needs to see a 3 minute file story that played on Hungry Beast this week Catholic Church Sex Scandal that logged the Catholic Church's response to paedophilia.
Paedophilia being brought up as a problem, was first documented in... drum roll... the year sixty.
Yes - 60 AD.
A two thousand year paper trail of denial and stupidity.
It has been a routinely reported problem and universally brushed under the carpet. I particularly liked the part where a Cardinal Ratzinger (that name ring a bell?) recommended that it be dealt with using the highest level of Vatican secrecy. I think it's called the “Eyes-only, top-secret, don't tell anyone or we'll send out the Swiss Guard to kill you with the can-opener on a Swiss Army pocket knife” level of secrecy. I might not be right about that last bit, but to pretend that the Pope has been hoodwinked, is ridiculous.
The Church removes itself from the criticism of us mortals by claiming to be the moral authority on earth. Not only is this preposterous (at times it seems we are ethical despite the church, not because of it) they are manifestly unable to perform the job role they have described for themselves. As soon as you start to get into it though, you get shouted out of court for being disrespectful.
There is nothing more disrespectful than putting yourself into the position of authority and trust, violating that trust, and then pretending that nothing is going on.
Is the incidence of paedophilia higher, per capita, within the priesthood than it is in the general public?
If it is, is it because the environment is thick with defenceless fodder? Is it because the priesthood attracts people who wouldn't naturally compete too well in the real world? Is it because they then ask them to be celibate? Is it a heady mixture of lost souls, celibate losers, crazy ritual and systemic weirdness?
Let's pretend that it was another institution that was continually caught with its pants down. Imagine we were talking about an institution that is not protected by tradition and man's need to avoid the reality of death. Imagine if we were talking about a large, secular government body that kept getting repeated cases of child abuse surfacing. We'd tear it apart. We'd treat it like DOCS.
Devine blames modernity for the breakdown of morals and tempting these poor priests. She virtually quotes the Pope himself in his letter to the Irish Catholics last month,
“If paedophilia seems to be on the increase, it has been enabled by the eroticisation of our culture over decades, and even priests themselves are not immune.”
More incredible bullshit. Sixty AD they started to notice the problem! And, Miranda, in case you haven't noticed, the people coming forward to recount their abuse as children, are adults. See, there's a time delay there? See it?
It's not a young problem. It's a mature one.
The mature taking advantage of the the immature. A mature, secular society running up against an immature set of beliefs. Ancient problems being dealt with by people who have immature responses because they have been left in a state of adolescence by being, literally, cloistered.
Dear Church,
Take a good hard look at yourself and have the courage to grow up. In fact, do us all a favour and go away and die.
15 April 2010
Send In "The Cleaner"
The new cleaners at work are exciting, but not fun.
The old ones were fun. They had this comedy approach to stuff you just couldn’t beat. For instance, during the incredible red-dust storms in Sydney, these guys were out in the carpark with their leaf-blowers. Planes couldn’t land and visibility was down to six foot, but these guys were out there, moving leaves around in a Martian landscape.
They had this delightful approach to wondering through areas full of high speed, heavy machinery, too. Armed with nothing more than a broom and their iPod headphones they'd be oblivious to everything that was trying to kill them, just bopping along to the beat.
They kept me fit. With their generous approach to cleaning, my immune system was in tip-top condition.
So the facilities dude decided we could do better.
But this new mob… well, I think the beautiful little South American looking one has opened her supplies room, looked at a years worth of floor wax and said to herself, “I can get this all down in one evening.”
The place has never been cleaner, and I’m not saying it’s slippery out there, but I just beat Charles Hamelin back from the kitchenette, and I didn’t even spill my tea.
Ok, I am saying it’s slippery out there.
The old ones were fun. They had this comedy approach to stuff you just couldn’t beat. For instance, during the incredible red-dust storms in Sydney, these guys were out in the carpark with their leaf-blowers. Planes couldn’t land and visibility was down to six foot, but these guys were out there, moving leaves around in a Martian landscape.
They had this delightful approach to wondering through areas full of high speed, heavy machinery, too. Armed with nothing more than a broom and their iPod headphones they'd be oblivious to everything that was trying to kill them, just bopping along to the beat.
They kept me fit. With their generous approach to cleaning, my immune system was in tip-top condition.
So the facilities dude decided we could do better.
But this new mob… well, I think the beautiful little South American looking one has opened her supplies room, looked at a years worth of floor wax and said to herself, “I can get this all down in one evening.”
The place has never been cleaner, and I’m not saying it’s slippery out there, but I just beat Charles Hamelin back from the kitchenette, and I didn’t even spill my tea.
Ok, I am saying it’s slippery out there.
13 April 2010
The Wrong Stuff (Which Makes It The Right Stuff)
Don't mind me if I'm hanging around a football field laughing at your kids. It's not sinister. It's just that one of the greatest pieces of free entertainment you can get, is watching under-10s running after a ball - and falling over.
I live opposite a playing field that gets an awful lot of business. It's in an area that cares about its footy and the local club has representation at all age levels, at all grades and in all sexes. In winter, I can't park around my place for the number of soccer mums waiting for their tykes to track mud back into their Toyotas.
With all that talent running around, I have come to a considered opinion on what sports entertainment really is. It's not watching sports super-stars-in-the-making as they vie for a spot in the state and national league. It's under tens without a thought in their heads or skills in their feets, running around like giant-headed loons. And that's the real pleasure. It's the proportions.
Small people, the little people, people called 'kids', are mentalists and are shaped like some sort of stunt dolly. They are hilarious with how stupid they are and entertaining with how often they fall over.
They fall over so often because they have giant heads. If Da Vinci had given a toss about the right stuff, he would have come up with:
The 'Golden Mean of Face Plant'.
Head = 1
Body = 1
Legs = 1
Ball they are chasing = 1
When a little kid falls over, they only reduce their height by one third. An attitude change without accidental injury. They have moved from vertical to horizontal with the minimum of fuss. When an adult goes over, it's a change of height by seven eighths. For that height differential to become manifest, we have time to worry about injury, there is time to watch them 'come a cropper'. It's not funny. Little, giant headed kids, just go over without even the slightest care.
And their tactical sense, that's another entertaining point. There's a McDonalds ad I quite like at the moment, with the immortal line.
“.... another reverse hat-trick mate, well done!”
It is funny to me. Every time.
I live opposite a playing field that gets an awful lot of business. It's in an area that cares about its footy and the local club has representation at all age levels, at all grades and in all sexes. In winter, I can't park around my place for the number of soccer mums waiting for their tykes to track mud back into their Toyotas.
With all that talent running around, I have come to a considered opinion on what sports entertainment really is. It's not watching sports super-stars-in-the-making as they vie for a spot in the state and national league. It's under tens without a thought in their heads or skills in their feets, running around like giant-headed loons. And that's the real pleasure. It's the proportions.
Small people, the little people, people called 'kids', are mentalists and are shaped like some sort of stunt dolly. They are hilarious with how stupid they are and entertaining with how often they fall over.
They fall over so often because they have giant heads. If Da Vinci had given a toss about the right stuff, he would have come up with:
The 'Golden Mean of Face Plant'.
Head = 1
Body = 1
Legs = 1
Ball they are chasing = 1
When a little kid falls over, they only reduce their height by one third. An attitude change without accidental injury. They have moved from vertical to horizontal with the minimum of fuss. When an adult goes over, it's a change of height by seven eighths. For that height differential to become manifest, we have time to worry about injury, there is time to watch them 'come a cropper'. It's not funny. Little, giant headed kids, just go over without even the slightest care.
And their tactical sense, that's another entertaining point. There's a McDonalds ad I quite like at the moment, with the immortal line.
“.... another reverse hat-trick mate, well done!”
It is funny to me. Every time.
07 April 2010
Wombat Combat
There was a terrible (amusing and terrible) story out yesterday, about a wombat that attacked a man who was still getting over his injuries from the terrible bush-fires. The wombat took it too far (after being accidentally stood on) and there were terrible consequences. The full story is here. Terrible.
You've been through burns and mayhem
Your stump is kind of black
You've opened up the flywire door
To quietly step out the back
And there upon the threshold
Covering your mat
Is something unexpected
A killer, hairy wombat
But your mind has gone and wondered
You're not looking down
And stepping out to take the air
You stand on the hairy clown
The wombat doesn't like this
He takes exception to the move
Then takes a nice big chunk from your stump
And leaves a shocking groove
You go down like so much sacksa
Howling and in fright
The grey aggressive bastard
Moves in for another bite
It's not often that you say this
“Lucky the neighbourhood maniac was about”
The axe wielding one, (with problems)
He comes and sorts it out
It'll never be an Easter Show Attraction
The competitive wombat chop
But when they've got the mange and the taste for blood
It's so hard to make them stop
You've been through burns and mayhem
Your stump is kind of black
You've opened up the flywire door
To quietly step out the back
And there upon the threshold
Covering your mat
Is something unexpected
A killer, hairy wombat
But your mind has gone and wondered
You're not looking down
And stepping out to take the air
You stand on the hairy clown
The wombat doesn't like this
He takes exception to the move
Then takes a nice big chunk from your stump
And leaves a shocking groove
You go down like so much sacksa
Howling and in fright
The grey aggressive bastard
Moves in for another bite
It's not often that you say this
“Lucky the neighbourhood maniac was about”
The axe wielding one, (with problems)
He comes and sorts it out
It'll never be an Easter Show Attraction
The competitive wombat chop
But when they've got the mange and the taste for blood
It's so hard to make them stop
04 April 2010
The Least Cruel Cut Of All
With the voting on the questionnaire opposite coming to a close, I note that the majority decision is likely to be, “don’t go changin’”. But, the other votes add up to more than the majority, so I owe an explanation to those that asked, “What do you mean?”
A centre cut looks like XKCD or Pink Patent Mary Janes’ sites (click here). It’s quite common and I think it’s an easier format for smaller screens (like phones or the like. I’m not sure. I just note that lots of other people do it. So if they‘re jumping off a cliff, I suppose I better).
So there you go...
A centre cut looks like XKCD or Pink Patent Mary Janes’ sites (click here). It’s quite common and I think it’s an easier format for smaller screens (like phones or the like. I’m not sure. I just note that lots of other people do it. So if they‘re jumping off a cliff, I suppose I better).
So there you go...
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