What the Hell is Going on up There?

There are animals in my roof. I can hear them singing old Blancmange songs (livin’ on the ceiling, no more room down there, things fall into place…). Ok that last bit isn’t true. They sing UB40 (there’s a rat in my kitchen what I’m a gonna do?) They wish they could live in my kitchen.

Annnnnyyyyyyhoooooo, ‘The Rat Man’ came around and baited and then said that they will go away to die because “when their guts start to burn they go for their water source.” Emergency Contact asked if it was possums or rats.

“Ah luv, I’ve seen their faces, and it’s definitely rats.” EC later realised that he hadn’t been talking about seeing them face to face, it was just how he pronounced faeces.

She then asked how they were getting in.

“Ah luv, naycha. In all my years of dealing with naycha… it’ll always find a way ‘round ya.”

Night before last, if they were ‘going for their water source’, it was because they were thirsty from the vigorous game of football they were playing, or performing in little hobnail boots like some furry rodent Stomp dance troupe. Whatever it was, it wasn’t ‘going away to die’.

I was sorely tempted to poke my head up through the manhole, but I know how that would end.

I’ll refresh your memory of that scene from Aliens in case you don’t remember.

Our heroes have sealed themselves into a room to escape the menace and are backing away from the door and using their portable movement detectors to see how close the monsters are. As Hudson is counting down the range out loud, the tension grows. Then from Ripley or Hicks (I can’t remember), “It can’t be, that’s inside the room!”

“I’m readin’ it right!” yells Hudson and, as one, they turn their faces to the ceiling. Then Hicks does the second silliest thing you can do in a horror movie setting. He gets on a table and pushes a ceiling panel to one side to poke his little unprotected head up through the hole. The results are predictable. A thousand scrabbling, slobbering vicious aliens come running at his head and he survives by falling backwards out of the hole and shooting wildly into the air. Thus caving in the roof and letting all the aliens into the room.

That would happen if I stuck my head up through the roof to look at the rat dance troupe.

Note To Self

Time to sort out who's more pretty: Tamsin Greig or Noel Fielding. (Somewhere there is a universal balance for this.)

If you can't sort it out, it's 'cause Brian Molko confused the issue... or was it Natalie Portman in The Professional.

It's not right to tell your single mates to hang around outside screenings of Sex in The City with the promise that "there'll be a lot of unfulfilled totty falling about."

It's un-Australian to hope that Top Gear Australia falls on its arse.

It's un-Australian to give faulty advice about the Australian citizenship 'values' test to wanna-be citizens. Sure, you don't like the guy or the test, but it's so Oz to to want to see the results on the page:

Bradman's batting average? Three and a half kilos.
How many states in Mainland Australia? Four - Dismay, Beta, REM and Curdled.
What famous desert is named after an Australian fine arts performer? The Peach Gunston.

The Ballad of Ham

I became fascinated with the story of Ham and Enos when my dear mate Gooby told me about them. They were two chimps involved in the Mercury space program. I don't think they volunteered, I think they kind of got roped in, but they were troopers both of them.

The point of the program was to find out how humans would cope with doing things in space, particularly if there was any decrease in acuity. So Ham and Enos were trained to do simple tasks, blasted into orbit and asked to do them again.

It is rumoured that Enos had a particularly tough time in space, because they accidentally wired his probe up in reverse and he was punished with an electrical zap, every time he did something right. He kept on truckin' though.

If you look at the black and white photos from the Mercury project, there is humour, along with a certain heartbreaking naiveté. I find them deeply moving.

Ham's story is cuter than Enos's, and is the one in the doggerel below. It should be noted that when the capsule returned, he had worked himself free of his harness, so when they cracked the door, he shot past the handlers and fucked off into the rafters of NASA's hangars. When they got him down to take him out to meet the press, the handlers had to walk him past the capsule. Ham thought they were going to stuff him back into 'the bad place', so he tore the ass off one of the handlers and fucked off back into the rafters. I love his style.

In the cutest but un-verified part of the story, both Enos and Ham are buried at the Arlington Cemetery. That's the impressive military one with all of the identical, white headstones.

As a side note, when the film Alien was released, it's promotional line was "In space, no-one can hear you scream."

I wrote this actually as a gift to Gooby on his birthday because we had both giggled so much about it at the time of his telling - I reproduce it here without his permission.

Oh, and Washo and Coco really did learn American Sign Language and are reputedly never offered after dinner speaking engagements..

The Ballad of Ham

A monkey called Ham, a young chimpanzee,
Got sent into space with one arm free.
His masters weren’t happy, when home he returned
As every good photo had to burned.

Humans were going to the moon it seemed
When Democrat Presidents, had money and dreams.
White Man would stand on the moon and say,
Those dirty pinko Russkies aren’t coming this way.

But testing space ships on whities aint done.
Pesky new laws said the blacks were no fun
So down the chain to some fuzzies from trees
The scientists thought they could test them with ease.

So Washo and Coco were interviewed twice
They said flying in space sounded quite nice
But school was too hectic, there was no time to burn,
With new sign language signals that they had to learn.

Dolphins were seen as the next on the list,
But you can’t hold a joystick when you can’t make a fist.
Dogs had been, and said it was cool
But the capsules had to be emptied from all of the drool.

Up the back of the class a furry hand hits the air,
But the scientists know that it wouldn’t be fair
On the public or program to give this one form
As his principle hobby is burping the worm.

He’s a nice little fellow they all heartily agree
A bit of a booboo taking him out of his tree
We’d all cop it rough, we’d all get no thanks
If he makes it to space and then sits there and wanks.

But Ham’s a changed chimp, his trainer insists
He can do a lot more than just shaking his fists
He’s not too hairy as far as chimps go
So attaching the sensors won’t be too slow

So against better judgment, against all in the know
Ham gets the green light, he’s going to go
Into black space to see what can be found
Just as long as his arms are properly bound.

The day of the launch finally arrives
With leaders and astronauts and some of their wives
All gathered around straining to see
The hero of the hour, the young chimpanzee.

Ham’s in good form, he likes a good crowd
The cheering and clapping cannot be too loud
He waves and smiles his best toothy grin
His trainer reminds him not to commit sin.

Ham nods and promises, with a cross of his heart
He’s a proper team player and he knows his part
He’ll pilot his spaceship and try not to crash
And resist the urge to have a quick thrash.

But launches and space flight are not like they look
You can’t watch TV or read a good book
You sit and you sit, and your mind can go a bit blank
It’s not too long before you may think of a wank.

The launch boys on the pad had all been told
That the furry little arms could grab a firm hold
Of passing bits and pieces that took Ham’s fancy
And his overwhelming desire to act a bit pantsy.

But Ham had practiced his winning ways
He’d perfected his act over hours and days
To look sweet and innocent, to do no harm
And maybe they’ll overlook one furry arm.

Ham makes it to space and starts having a wank
The public wonders why their screens have gone blank
Mission Control walks around with straws in his hands
Choosing who’ll do the cleaning when the capsule lands.

And as Mission Control starts to plan his attack
A question arrives in his mind, at the back
It starts to fester and really to niggle
In space is it possible to hear a chimp giggle?

Artificial Intelligence is Better Than no Intelligence

I remember the moment I felt the rot had set in… or was it the great turning point? Or maybe just one of those things... whatever. I remember when it happened, because I rang a couple of people and said, “Mark this day well heathens, this is the turning point, or the great change, or one of those things.”

Gary Kasparov had conceded a win to Deep Blue. Some background for those who neither know nor care.

Gary Kasparov is a meat puppet and Deep Blue was a silicon based life form, and they played each other in chess.

For a long time, people who were nervous about being superseded by computers would console themselves with the defense of, “Oh well, they’ll never compete with our creativity. Take chess for example. It’s a game of computational type skill, but requires the human creativity of strategy.”

Gary (say it like Team America World Police, it’s more fun that way) was one of the most successful Grand Champions in chess at the time, and a box with some lights beat him. From memory the series wasn’t terribly decisive either way, but the point had been made. There was some double-dip irony going on here as well. Gary had been making a motza through the 80s and 90s putting his name to any old portable chess computer that wanted to carry his imprimatur.

Another rot moment: My dear mate Gooby told me recently that self replicating, self evolving strings of code get more complicated but then start to evolutionarily simplify over a course of a few thousand generations. (This happens quickly inside computers.) They have found that the short string children of the long string parents, have bits of code in them that appear to be junk. But take the junk out and the code doesn’t work… the human coders can’t determine why.

Now this sounds insanely like the genetic biologists who say, “Well genes are really long and complex, but there’s a lot of junk in there and we just don’t know what it’s doing.”

Super-predation and hyper-parasitism is going to ensure that the interweb is already crawling with things that are going to grow up to send Arnold Schwarzenegger back in time to kill my budgie. There probably is already an artificial intelligence lurking around out there, it’s just very hard to recognise. Let’s face it, people of different genders refuse to understand each other, imagine the alien brain of a different species. There are also days where I’m sure a couple of my colleagues would fail a Turing Test.

Mark my words heathens, it’s already happening to us, sort of, I mean I just lost my way around the St George Bank site again, and that sure feels like a plot.

Disorient Express

Sean Penn congratulates himself on getting away with the 'Great Train Robbery'.

Emergency Contact and I had promised to take my nephew and niece to the zoo this past weekend. The weather was foul and we had to postpone, not that I thought that the kids would melt, it’s just those precious little prima donnas, the animals, are a guaranteed no-show if the conditions don’t exactly suit them and their freshly cleaned fur coats.

As a get out of gaol, we went to a model railway exhibition. Now there are lot of things to say about the type of people, sorry, middle aged men, who sequester themselves away in a shed and spend 20,000 man hours on a toy, but I’m sure you’ve heard them and I’m not going to get into it. (Some fascinating skin conditions though…)

I’ve only seen a couple of other model train exhibition in my life so I confess that I’m no expert, but I think I have detected a couple of fashion changes in the ‘art form’.

First of all, no cultural cringe, and neither there should be, Australia has some great train trips. There were a couple of European dioramas, but all the rest were Australian and they really had the feel down pat.

They also don’t build the whole thing anymore. I remember that you used to look down on a big plank and you were supposed to appreciate the whole thing. Now, apart from a couple of models, you look at a framed section of the display and the models pass through it (usually to circle around the back on bare masonite) like a 3D moving painting.

One display had a nice piece of surreal absurdity in it. When you looked carefully at the beach scene, there was a sign in HO scale that declared “72 Remote Control Battle Group” with little model humans playing with there tiny little remote control battle ships beside the model railway.

It should be noted that the owners of even the most accurate and blindingly detailed displays, knew how to charm half the punters. In more than one display, in among all the historically spot-on mining towns and shunting yards, Thomas the Tank Engine would come steaming out of a tunnel and the kids would be rapt.

My Left Out Foot

It’s winter in Oz, and that means there’s a lot of football on telly. I don’t like football - but it has given me greater self awareness.

Illustrating our cultural depth and foundations, Australia supports more professional football than any other country. Rugby League and Union, (with another dozen variations for the different numbers of players on a team). Football (once called soccer), and the local game Aussie Rules.

Unfortunately I’m unable to enjoy any of them. I was born without the Chase-the-Inflated-Leather-Sack gene.

It has been pointed out to me that this is unmanly and un-Australian, but I’m hetero, and I’m a good build to play some sort of footy. I’m not a total spazzimodo. I’ve played and trained in other sports where the requisite qualities of bone-headedness and lack of fear are admired. (Think combat sports.)

So it’s not a fear thing. I used to put it down to just being a boredom thing, but I have come up with the major contributing personality flaw. It’s a lazy thing.

I am bone-deep lazy. It doesn’t mean I don’t like to do stuff, I just don’t like doing it for too long, stupidly, or once it’s boring. I liked the Tale of the Man Who Was Too Lazy to Fail as a kid and took it to heart. I revere "Work smarter, not harder". It's affordable elegance.

To illustrate: I used to own a telly that didn’t have a remote control. I could change channels and volume through the video, but I had to get out of bed to turn it off because it was across the room, along with its power-point. No good for the lazy in summer, hopeless in winter (I did maintain an odd one sided tan for a while from sleeping with it on. I told my mother it was a driving thing). So I bought two extension cords, ran one from the power-point up next to my bed, and the other back to the telly, so the connection was resting on my bedside table. When it came time for lights out, I just unplugged the telly; remotely.

That’s one of my proudest moments, so how is footy ever going to appeal to the genetically lazy? I just can’t admire it.

To illustrate:

1) Rugby - the players have to run ‘that way’ but they’re not allowed to throw the ball in the direction of travel. Wha?. Rugby players are understandably confused about what they should be doing. When they score, it is called a “Try”, not a “Well Done”.

2) Aussie rules – where to start - but I’ll suggest that it is both too hard and too easy to score, if it takes that many of you. Ask your average Aussie how many people there are on the field at a game, and the answer will vary between 34 and 87. In this case, there is too much of a “try”, not enough "Well Done". Everything gets awarded. Behinds, In Fronts, Balls Ups.

3) Soccer - My god man, pick the ball up. Maybe those other doe-eyed actresses will stop trying to kick you in the shins, if you show that you’re a proper primate.

4) Cricket - The players don’t work too hard. The batting team only has to present 18% of the manpower at any one time. Those in the field get to do a good deal of standing around chewing fresh grass stems, and the bowlers only work part time.

Don’t get me wrong, Emergency Contact is happy that I’m not into watching that much sport. She and I just wish that there was more on telly for us to choose from during the winter months.

Peril Sensitive Windscreens

There are some great things about owning a new car.

It’s nice to sit in. I don’t know where the ‘new car smell’ is generated in nature, but I like it. I expect it to start in the morning, unlike the old one where I was just pleased when it started. Subtle difference. It speeds up, slows down and goes around corners with less fuss than the old one. The old one does all these things, but it has more in common with a slightly decrepit amusement park than a car when it does them. And the new one is very clean.

There are some not so great things, like really caring about where you park. That was an extra stress I should’ve seen coming, and most importantly, the newly revealed terror of driving in the real world.

“What Grey Area? You weren’t driving in the real world before?” I hear you say.

Well not really. The old car had done a lot of kilometres. If you read this blog regularly, you know that it was closing in on 750,000 of them. There is a level of distress that happens to all things when they travel that much. It has driven over so many lumps and bumps that every bit of the car has moved further away from every other bit.

You know how nuts can loosen themselves off over time? Well that happened to the old car on a grand scale. So much so, it is two and a half centimetres longer now than when it was bought. That’s nice isn’t it? To think that if you drive a car enough, you can improve the leg room in the back. (That last bit is not entirely true.)

But it's not driving a rag-doll floppy car that shifts you out of reality. When everything is relaxed like that, it just makes it like driving a powerful cloud. What really divorces you from the current time-space continuum is dirt.

There is a level of dirt that a windscreen collects, both inside and out, that cannot be cleaned off when a car has done that sort of distance. The windscreen wipers don’t put their back into it quite they way they should either, they sort of lob themselves across the thing in a dissolute attempt to make it to the other side.

This new car has a crystal clear windscreen and muscular, no-nonsense windscreen wipers that make me realise I’ve been driving around in blind, blissful ignorance.

I can see what you’re all doing on the roads now, and it’s terrifying. You are a pack of maniacs and I can’t see how any of us are going to survive.

I Might Have Mentioned it Once, But I Think I Got Away With it

"British holidaymaker was awarded compensation by a court because there were too many German tourists at the hotel he booked in Greece, newspapers reported Saturday". (Link)

I know how he feels. The other day I went to Indiana Jones and the Suburb of the Blah Blah Blah and there were all these kids in the theatre. Totally ruined it. You just don't expect that sort of thing.