Dear Androids,

I am writing to you to wish you all the best for the festive season and, in fact, for the rest of the year, the decade and your life. The reason for this letter is partly as an exercise in being nice, partly as I have nothing better to do but mostly out of empathy.

You see, empathy interests me at this time of year. Part of the Christmas spirit has always been about empathy. Phillip K Dick defined an android in his book "Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep" as a sentient being which lacks empathy. His argument was that there are members of the human race who are indistinguishable from robots as they have no capacity for empathy. His "Turing Test" for being a higher being was emapthy. Not IQ, not sympathy: empathy.

I write to you to tell you that I understand why you are the way you are. You are an android and you have no empathy. You meddle in others' lives as you feel that your life is one to emulate, but you cannot empathise with their lifestyle or their suffering and so you don't understand. You claim that morals are declining, values are missing and the cause of all ills is a lack of faith in some deity. Your lack of empathy creates a situation in your psyche whereby you cannot understand why others think and behave in the way they do. In ways that your lack of understanding finds offensive.

But I understand, and it is OK. I understand because I can empathise. I can create a mental state in my own mind that echoes yours. It gives me insight into why you think and behave in the way you do and I refuse to any longer find it offensive.

You see, I am tired of seeing otherwise intelligent people wasting their energy trying to make you understand concepts like compassion, kindness and empathy. You simply do not have the wiring in your brain. Without the wiring, which is formed early in development, there is simply no argument that can convince you. There is no slot in your mind to place the information. Just as I and my kind lack the wiring to understand your arguments and concepts.

We are all guilty of treating our own thought processes as correct. We all have the mental feedback loop that affirms our own ideas as irrefutable simply because we thought of them. It makes sense, as a brain which doubts its own knowledge is inoperative.

However, all is not lost. It is possible to condition the mind against such rigid thinking. I am not suggesting you try this. To embark on a journey of enlightenment such as this is a decision to be made by each individual free from external pressure. I only mention it simply to inform you that I am embarking on this journey. If you wish to walk the same path, I will welcome the company. If not, I'll see you when you get there.

Merry Christmas and all the best for the second half of the Naughties,

Chas

The Year That Was

2004.

Where did it go? It feels like nothing of any import happened on a personal front this year. And yet it was an important year. It was a year of little victories and steady progress. Am I in better shape now than this time last year? I don't know. I don't think I am in worse shape.

So that was the first half of the Naughties. Bring on the second half.

Person of The Year 2004: Viktor Yushchenko. A well documented case of poisoning for political purposes hasn't happened in my living memory (78 was the last?). A reminder, like S11 was, that 20 years of relative peace has gone and the machinations that inspired Ian Fleming are alive and well.

Defining Moments of The Year 2004: Results of Aussie and US elections. They didn't go the way I wanted, but kudos to the victors. The Naughties are truly the Decade of Demagogues.

Best Times for Chas 2004: Melbourne Conference and Sunshine Coast working holiday.

2005 Resolutions: Keep living in the present, not the future. Fuck resolutions. These are times to be endured.

I have created a religion.

Again.

From the most floopy regions of the spiritual plane, I have channeled the disembodied spirit of Douglas Adams, bringing to you the wisdom and Sofa of the lost city of Nutjob. To usher in the New Age of Octopii you must heed my words and flog slowly. The time is soon when the space death stars of our galactic cousins will return and our collective wizz-bangness will reach critical mass. The highest frequencies of the universe will spiral through the left toe chakras of the worthy, and our 3rd right ear lobe shall be opened. But first we must look deep inside and accept our inner photo frame. We must feel the inner photo frame, become the inner photo frame, kill it as though it was a cd. We must accept our karmic past, and, as our yogi master, Willam Shatner, always says 'The true form of a plane is actually a stupid cat , but enlightenment is like a fake hair piece on the wind'. For there is no right or wrong, no tricorder or anti-tricorder, only one great and omnipresent wing.

Where have I been?

Queensland. Sunshine Coast. Coolum. Golf. Working Holiday. Buggered.

Phew.

Still, I could be walking from Woolongong to Eden in search of enlightenment like Blake Elliot is (Blake is an old friend). I once walked from Auburn to Circular Quay (20kms or so) and that certainly provided some enlightenment. Like wear comfortable shoes.

I was born in the year of the Snake, so I know all about shedding my skin and reinventing myself. The markings stay the same, though. Good luck, Blake.

Everyone else, pop into Blake's blog and follow his journey.

Again

Got rid of the amazon links to the things I am watching/playing/reading etc...AGAIN. They annoy me, then I wan't to know what I was reading in July, then I realise the links tell me nothing, then I decide to write a program that will tell me and store these things for the sake of prosperity, then I don't bother sitting down and writing the thing as I am too busy watching/playing/reading, then I get bored and realise how boring everything is. I think I need to visit The Seer. Being omnipotent must be the most boring thing ever. The Seer tells a great story of his first (temporal) viewing of The Empire Strikes Back. At the climactic revelation scene, he screamed "Well, duh!". A 12 year old threw his Coke at him, but The Seer was ready with an umbrella. So the kid and a few of his older mates beat The Seer to within an inch of his life. I asked The Seer how one can measure the distance of one's life and why he doesn't use metric, seeing as he's omnipotent and all. He said he could do these things and more as he is omnipotent. I hit him with a spoon.

Which is all besides the point, really. Halo 2 multiplayer takes most of my time at the moment. The single player campaign is about as over hyped as Halo 1's. I wish they had a Story mode where you couldn't die and could kill everything in one shot with unlimited ammunition. It's not that I am bad, I don't have much trouble killing everything that moves, it's that I get sick of moving from room to room on what essentially room clearance. Boring! Eventually, I just start running through rooms ignoring everything. But the game often REQUIRES you to clear every enemy in a room before you can continue. For fucks sake, I just want advance the plot. The multiplayer is the arena for constant killing. But anyway, the multiplayer is great and sucks hours out of you. I especially like killing the dicks who constantly scream "suck my balls" through the communicator. Satisfying. My two favourite games so far (out of 50 or so, see the link above) were

a) the one where I jumped onto the gravity lift on Collossus right after a guy I was chasing, sprayed him with bullets at 100 feet up and finished him off at the apex of my jump (just as he was coming down) with a rifle butt. I actually landed on his dead, twitching body and emptied the rest of my SMG rounds for the hell of it. Satisfying.
b) in the pre game lobby of one session, a bunch of dicks called one of the players a bunch of asinine names based on his handle. He slaughtered the lot of them, winning the 25 kills within the time limit. I looked at the player v player stats at the end and he single handedly mopped the floor with the lot of them. Didn't touch me. Satisfying. I came second, by the way, by sticking to killing everyone else. It is best not to get involved when in gets personal.

Wonko the sane

Terrorists are being compared to Kubrick, thousands of people around the world are dying of war and hunger a day, Bush is pardoning chickens and assaulting Chilean security and most depressing of all, France loses to Argentina in the rugby…at home…in France… in the homeland of French rugby, Marseille…to Argentina…and all the news I can hear, read and download is about a soppy, delusional, career destroying talent show.

There are some at work who are claiming to be depressed at the outcome. So, a disgusting shift to conservatism, a war, countless dead, people being beheaded, refugees being interned in concentration camps, human rights going the way of the dodo and only NOW are you depressed? Simply because Anthony didn’t win Australian Idol? Because Casey will get the record contract? Let me tell you about depressed. I have not watched one episode of that hackery, nor engaged in a single conversation about it and have done all that is humanely and supernaturally possible to avoid any contact with it and I STILL KNOW THE CONTESTANTS’ NAMES. It’s criminal.

And the next person who asks if I can enter The OC competition for them, will get ninety thousand, two hundred and ten Australian idols shoved up their Melrose place. You know what I am saying.

It's a rant, I know, but so what?

A Texas (where else) man plans to set up an Internet Hunting Service.

The idea came last year while viewing another Web site on which cameras posted in the wild are used to snap photos of animals.

"We were looking at a beautiful white-tail buck and my friend said 'If you just had a gun for that.' A little light bulb went off in my head," he said.

What on Earth can we do to stop these idiots? Why is the killing of sentient creatures for SPORT even tolerated in the 21st century? It is totally insane! Kill for food, kill for culling purposes, kill out of control pests. But why make a sport out of it? And before some intolerant, ignorant redneck tells me it is tradition: it is tradition on Pitcairn Island to rape minors, it is tradition in Sri Lanka for tribes to rape and pillage their way through villages, it is tradition to provide wealthy dowries with brides in India and in Saudia Arabia you need 7 witnesses to get a rape conviction. Just because it is tradition, it doesn't mean it is not completely and totally STUPID.

He said an attendant would retrieve shot animals for the shooters, who could have the heads preserved by a taxidermist. They could also have the meat processed and shipped home, or donated to animal orphanages.***

So, now we have a new tradition. Shooting animals over the net. Live animals. Because some redneck dickheads can not be bothered to get off their arse and go out and hunt for themselves. What's more, they are pointing out that this is a great idea for helping "disabled hunters". DEAR FUCKING GOD! Did I read that right? It's a good idea to allow remote murder because there are those who are disabled who want to hunt? Now, I am 100% certain that we are not talking about disabled people who want to take up hunting. No. We are talking about hunters who are now disabled.

"Oh geez, I really wish Billy-Bob hadn't shot me through the spine, making me a quadraplegic. OK, I was wearing my female billawoppalus camouflage suit at the time. But thank the Lord Almighty for technology, now I can be a hunter again. With just one twitch of my left eyelid, I can sportingly kill a deer from 1000 miles. I feel like a gentleman again." - Dwaine Johnson, Misouri.

"Man, I thought my life wuz over when I crashed me pickup after getting on the booze at the end of a productive day's shootin'. I lost both my legs and despite some scienteest fella saying that one day they'd build a wheelchair that can go cross country, I thought my huntin' days were over. But thanks to Worldwide Hunting Internet, I feel like a man again" - Jayce Armstrong, New Mexico.

What do we do? These idiots are the same ones who vote other idiots into power because of "values". What happened to the value of life itself? Why do we allow these idiots to kill for fun? Why is that not considered a sin? WHY IS THAT NOT ILLEGAL? There must be something we can do. Surely, we who are educated, we the scientists, the artists, the educators, the lawyers, the doctors, THE INTELLIGENT can do something to eradicate this stupidity from this world. Why do we sit back and suffer these fools? We can see the psychological shortcomings, we can counter their every argument, we can point to how things can be better with proof to back up our assertions. FOR FUCK'S SAKE, we know how to build nuclear weapons! These redneck, illiterate, ignorant, bigotted, hate-filled, gun-toting fuckwits are toting guns that we built for them. Why did we do that? What conscienceless fucktard was intelligent enough to design and build these weapons but so lacking in scruples that he gave them to those who only have enough intelligence to control one finger?

Oh, how it shits me. This destructive behaviour is so incomprehensible. The reason we can't do anything about it is that we would become like them. We would need to use hatred, destruction and murder to destroy hatred, destruction and murder. If there is a God, he is laughing about that one. The most beautiful paradox in His creation. To rid the world of evil, we would need to hate it and turn off our compassion and empathy for these clueless people. We would have to hunt them and kill them.

Perhaps we could do it over the internet?


*** Let's all put in to offer a reward to the first hacker who gets into this site and shoots the attendant. Who's in?

Another completely lucid post

I need to fill up some space. I use this site as a bookmark store, and quite frankly I am sick of seeing that picture I did with the guy shooting up. I hate needles, and I think the point has been made, in my mind at the very minimum.




But how to take up space with absolutely nothing to say? Why talk to myself at all? This post is not designed to be read, it is designed to be worn. Like a cashmir. From Cashmir. Or Ungutu.




The timetable for moving into the ChasDigs (that is, the new abode) has been bumped forward to December. I don't want to get stuck in a year lease that won't run out until 2006. I may be in Melbore by then. Or I may not be. But in the latter case, I will be unemployed again. It took 8 months to find work last time (although 4 months of that was detox/mental recovery). 8 months! Fucking ridiculous. There is nothing more soothing to the soul than not being offered even an interview to the lowest paid menial local government job. Makes one feel good. Great even.





How much space is too much about the right amount of space? How far in not too far enough? How dyslexic am I? I type what I am thinking, read over it and find complete words are wrong. So, instead of writing "right", I have somehow written "having" or something. And it is never a word I was about to right that slipped in there as I think a few words ahead of what I am typing. Doesn't make sense. Which is the way I like it. Sense is for those uncomfortable with entropy. Not having an answer or a theory or an opinion about somthing is bliss for me.





Not lunch time yet. Just past pistachio time. In amongst Green Tea time. Must get some work done, even though I spent the last two days in a flurry of activity and don't really have much to get on with. I work like that. Like a typhoon. Or a hurricane. Or a marmot.




Speaking of marmots, do I need any stationery? Could I be any more stationary? I haven't moved in 2 hours. I hate my chair. My phone will ring soon, I can sense it. It is its des-tin-y. "Produce wireframe mockups" is due from our web developers today. Where is it? Huh? I don't mind not having anything to do, but I do feel anxious when I am sitting around doing nothing waiting for others so I can do something. Oh well, good chance to get some meditation in. Ahhh, that's better. The trick to any ailment, especially anxiety is to target it and stare it down. Much like knotted muscles can be relaxed once you realise the pain is giving your mind an excellent pinpoint for sending the relaxation drones.



Why do I even bother writing this shit down? Why do I feel the need to write at all? I don't, but I find it intersting to go back and read what I have written. It seems to act as a placeholder for mental states. I never manage to write what I want, but the words do trigger the thoughts again later on. That is interesting. And given I have the memory of a bullet riddled, swiss cheese, sponge like sieve, memory aids are allright in my book.




How about you?

A new park for Sydney,

The Sydney Morning Herald is reporting on plans for a new park for the centre of Sydney. Great idea. I especially like the artist's impression, it looks lovely. However, with my intimate knowledge of the area, I felt there was a couple of oversights in the picture, which depicts a vibrant 1920's era Sydney. For a start, the corner of Park and Pitt Streets does not and will never have so few cars. Even at 3 am, that corner is a miserable nightmare. I also took offence at the bright, sunny blue sky and the lack of drug addicts. Any park in Sydney is a great place for tourists to see our local wildlife in action. A positive will be that the traditional Sydney meeting place can now be a nice, brown, water deprived park, rather than the nice, brown Town Hall Steps.

Here is another artist's impression of the park at its opening in 2014:

This might come across as pretty strange.

It's Friday, and I have let the mental processes run amok. I don't know where I am, who or what I might be. If any of those.

Yasser Arafat. The Fat. Yasmin. What do I think about his passing? Not much. I defended and condemned him in two separate arguments with two or three (maybe four) different people in the last 24 hours. What does that mean? Two things:

a) I don't really have an interest either way. To be brutally honest, I could care less about Israel and Palestine's commitment to kill each other. To paraphrase some rapper guy, "I'll see you when you get there". But he said, then I said, then he said, then I threw a rock, then he called me a cunt, so I called him a fucking, fucking cunt and it was on. Where's the entertainment?
b) I like to argue.

And then what? Huh? You don't know, do you? You are expecting some kind of witty, well-written political rant with copious links to other sites and holier than thou, the pope and techno union cyber sloths attitude mixed in with some cutting insight into the nature of navel lint. This is a blog, after all. Well, give up your expectations, remove your attachments, run naked through city hall 'cause it aint gunna happen here, folks. Not on my watch, even if it is analogue. This blog plays by no rules, follows no leader and is less an aim. In fact, if it wasn't for the 18th Armoured Batallion of Angel Ants, this blog would have been torn down and shredded by now.

Who? Not you, I can guarantee that! This blog is the all singing, all dancing, plastic coated, digitally enhanced, cyber walled, automatically generated window into the portal into the viewing hole of your formatted, reinitialised, booted into a linux/windows NT hybrid created by Dr. Frankenstein's love child with Bram Stoker soul.

Lunch time.

Double Snake Eyes

Well, it's my favourite day of the year. 11/11. It could be a good day, or I might get killed. Who knows? Perhaps The Rapture will begin. All I know is that 11:11 triggers the obsessisive section of my brain. It is small, but for one day of the year I encourage its growth.

To kick off, here is a wonderful story of Australia's oldest man who turns 106 today. Plenty of other 11 references, as well.

Expect China to build a better missile, now that our venerable leader intends to continue with the ignorant missile defense shield.

Lest we forget. But what happens now that we have forgotten? We have forgotten why those before us died for our freedom - SO THAT IT WOULD NEVER HAVE TO HAPPEN AGAIN. That was naive.

The study of Wilfred Owen at high school opened my eyes to the power of poetry. I haven't come across a poet since who is quite as skilled. He was shot trying to cross a canal exactly one week before Armistace Day.

Anthem for Doomed Youth

What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?
-Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.
No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells;
Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs,-
The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;
And bugles calling for them from sad shires.

What candles may be held to speed them all?
Not in the hands of boys but in their eyes
Shall shine the holy glimmers of good-byes.
The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall;
Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,
And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.

Here's a thought

Apple has been training those of us with iPods to be able to navigate efficiently using their scrollwheel. What if they replace the mouse for their computers with an iPod? The mice are already Bluetooth, the iPod will surely be Bluetooth soon. Instead of a dock, you flip a switch on your iPod when you are near your CPU, and it turns into a mouse. You move it around like an ordinary mouse, but you use the scrollwheel instead of a button. Apple, to me, has always wanted to have more than one mouse button, but the PC world thought of it first and Apple was miffed enough to be stubborn about it. Thus, they would welcome a new paradigm.

And surely the time will come when the iPod will be the location of all your files. You move from computer to computer, link your iPod up. I know the world has been going away from the thin-client paradigm, but that is a mistake. In the not-too-distant-future world everything will be computerised: walls, chairs and pets. It makes sense that the data would move with you, rather than relying on data moving any distance.

Blah, blah, blah.

Thank you Apple

The iMac G5 has arrived. It's all good...except it has wiped my iPod.

You see, there was never enough room on my old laptop to keep the iPod synched. So I was obliged to "manually organise iPod". But this new computer has more than enough room to keep the iPod synched. So, in iTunes, I copy the contents of the iPod to the Library. Except, iTunes doesn't let you do that. In case you are a pirate. Ok...

So, I try to download iPod Downloader, a piece of software that gets around this crazy system of control. Except Apple has gotten the developer's ISP to turn the guy off. 'Cause pirates might use the software.

Ok, I would really like to be able to burn a DVD backup of my tracks. It makes me worry that the iPod could be broken or stolen and 6 months of ripping every CD I own followed by 8 months of rating EVERY track, ALL 25GB of THEM would be lost.

So, I go to iTunes preferences and select the Automatic updating option for the iPod. It tells me that if I click OK, everything on the iPod will be replaced with everything in the Library. The wording is ambiguous, does it mean it will overwrite the same songs or everything? Now that I have the space, I want all songs on the Library, so I don't have to plug the iPod in everytime I want to use the computer to play music. It seems likely that when I press OK I will lose everything on the iPod. I have no choice, I figure, if I can't get the songs off the iPod I am going to have to rip all the CDs again anyway. But wait. Surely Apple engineers wouldn't write software that wholesale deleted 5000 songs only to replace them with zero? Surely they wouldn't punish a legitimate user in order to stop illegitimate users? Who are going to get around the blocks anyway? Nup. Its all gone. Over a year of ripping cds, 5000 songs rated. Gone.

Well, on the up side I have a use for this new iPod killing monster. I was going to waste my time editing some video, making my own songs, living the good life. That would have been an improper use of my time. I'll spend the next 6 months doing what I did for the last 6 months. It seems almost spiritual. At least this new bastard is quick.

Thanks, Apple. That's the last time I try and do the right thing by you. If you are going to punish me for being a pirate when I am not, then I might as well give you a reason.

Cities and Reunions

Reading this article on the importance of Global Cities like New York and London has got me thinking. It mentions Sydney as a Global City, the reasoning being that Matrix was filmed here. It also makes the point that New Yorkers see themselves as New Yorkers first, Americans second. Parisians are the same. Yet, I am not sure whether I see myself as a Sydnian (what is the collective noun for someone from Sydney, anyway?) and an Australian second. Of course, I am half French as well, but that would come third anyway. Given the natural interstate rivalries between NSW, Victoria and Queensland, I certainly feel I am NSW before Australian. In fact, when it comes to sport my priorites would be Sydney above NSW above Australia. I have no idea what I am trying to get at here. I suppose it doesn't matter anyway, as there is a good chance that come 2006 I will be Melbournian, or Mexican - the preferred collective noun for those folk.

The 10 year high school reunion went as expected in the end. It was a great piss-up, but completely bereft of enlightenment. My main goal of the night was to be less boring than the average, a goal I only JUST succeeded at despite the level being well above the normal level for a piss up. I suppose it was interesting seeing the defensive behaviour that alot of people seemed to have. Many seemed to have the attitude of "I dare you to even THINK about judging me". I judged no-one and took pains to say as little about myself as possible. I chose mirth as the mood. I think 10 years will be exactly the right amount of time to wait for the next one.

The Seer is detached.

It may have been Gonzo the Magic Frog who once told The Seer during a bog-based meditation session that the biggest problem with being left wing is that politics is a system based on fighting. To convince voters you have what it takes, you need to be ruthless, uncompassionate and willing to trounce others under your foot like so much cat vomit. These are good, solid right wing virtues. You can't win in politics by being fair, compassionate and full of sharing. It may have been Pongo, the vigilant penguin. The Seer doesn't remember. The Seer sees forward, not back. But anyway, at that insight, The Seer gave up all reality-based, left-wing behaviour and joined the Light on the Right. The compassion, fairness and sharing wasn't working for The Seer, anyway.

Which is why The Seer is hopeful of converting Chas to the Light one day. He's all Monky calmness and compassion and help othersey and doesn't do anything the help himself and make himself rich and powerful. The Seer tells Chas that unless he gets with the program and starts thinking of himself above all others, the oncoming apocalypse will crush him under foot. Wanko, the right-god of Hand, tells The Seer that the cleansing of the unjust is upon us. The Seer tells Chas that all Us-Thinking will be expunged from this realm leaving only the Purity of Me. The I. The One.

Chas tells The Seer to fuck off out of the bathroom 'cause he has to go.

Finally, I feel hate.

Absolutely, unequivocally, totally, fucking, completely, goddamned, spot on RIGHT!.

I may have mentioned this on this blog before, can't remember, but I tell a story of how throughout my psychological development I created a mental zone where I would place the people I hated. I constructed an entire continent, surrounded by guard towers, barbed wire, dogs, a moat with crocodiles and a sophisticated satellite laser system that vapourised any who dared contemplate escape. The largest psychological concentration camp for those who deserved hatred ever. It had divisions the size of states for separating the inhabitants into easily defined borders of bigotry. The workforce consisted of billions of people: guards, cooks, cleaners, dog and crocodile wranglers. On every corner was a torture booth, ready to dispense incredible pain on the evil inhabitants at any opportunity. The only law was my will and, in this section of my mind, all forms of depravity would be unleashed. Once completed, I hosted a gala opening ceremony, attended by all the dignitaries of my psyche and the gestalt cheered and cheered. It was open for business and my mental agents were hard at work finding suitable candidates for entry. Except they couldn't find any. Long and far and wide they searched, desperate in their attempts to find people to hate. However, despite bigotry, prejudice, ignorance, intolerance and hate being found aplenty, none deserved to be hated back. Eventually, I placed one inmate to justify the enormous cost of the facility. This man didn't deserve to be there, yet was condemned to wander the nation sized camp, twiddling his thumbs.

I may have to alter that story soon. Given the direction the world is heading, I may not have planned a big enough cage.

Am I missing something?

Why is Bush being associated as an elephant and Kerry as a dog? If you look at the graphics behind the Electoral Vote numbers on CNN and SMH, you will see what I mean.

Update:

The Seer is prepared to call it.

The Seer, reeling from his miscalculation about the capture of Osama, not realising the portents were simply indicating an appearance from The Beard, is prepared to call the 2004 US Presidential election in favour of George W. Bush. The Seer does not belong to the reality-based community. The portents and vision guides have indicated the spirit realm's affinity with George and his belief-based community. "Without faith, I am nothing", God says. "Without Tru Calling, I am Faith", says Eliza Dukshu. "Denny Crane", says Denny Crane. "CNN called it at 8:30pm USEST 4 years ago and was wrong, what makes you think you can do better, The Seer?", asks a small militant leprechaun from the Valley of Gold Pot(s). "What's USEST? Sounds like reality to me. I want nothing of it", says The Seer.

The Seer is also prepared to call the 2008 US Presidential election, FOUR YEARS BEFORE CNN!!!! The Seer calls it for Jebidiah Bush and his running mate Diebold Vice Presidentbot 8.0b.

The Seer has seen.

Grand Theft Soul

Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas is out and I have clocked up 4 hours on it already. The Grand Theft Auto games for PS2 are by far the greatest games ever. I would go so far as to say they are the greatest entertainment ever. They have led the way in the gaming world in showing how games can be a much richer narrative entertainment form than movies and, in many cases, books. The sense these games give the player of being involved in a story are overwhelming and San Andreas has so much to do, from exciting story missions, to going to the gym and eating that reality, gaming and stories merge into an almost complete whole. Another couple of iterations of the GTA franchise, coupled with next generation consoles will see these games reaching that whole.

The only concern I have is that the GTA franchise is firmly entrenched in the Gangster genre. The games are incredibly violent and morally corrupt. I don't really have a problem with that, I love the Gangster genre in all forms of art and it really isn't a problem, so long as mature adults are the only ones exposed to it. Beating random strangers to death for a bit of cash to buy a tatoo is abhorrent to me in reality, but in the virtual world it's fun, partly as it is still abhorrent. But no-one really gets hurt and the random strangers in the GTA games are mostly designed to be obnoxious cariactures. The GTA universe is designed to be a hell of sorts, thus the rules of morallity are very specifically diabollical. I don't know why, but somehow that makes it all OK, in my mind. Somehow, the structure of the universe doesn't cross the line.

But it has got me thinking. These are games which condone criminal behaviour in the contraints of the "rules of the narrative". You are role playing a criminal. It doesn't cross the line, then, to act like a criminal. You wouldn't condemn Robert De Niro for playing criminals in his films. However, imagine the next GTA game put you in the role of a terrorist. GTA: Palestrael. Where the main character uses terrorism, rather than organised crime, to further his/her political narrative agenda. In my mind, especially in the current climate, that would cross the line. In abstract, organised crime and terrorism are morally and ethically the same. In practice, not so much as certain morals and ethics exist within both. In the current GTA games, you can play the story of the game without necessarily harming "innocents". All the story missions are against "the bad guys" who are always, in the narrative sense, "badder" than the main character. You could design a terrorism-based narrative where innocent casualities could be avoided in exactly the same way. Yet, in my view, this still crosses the line. I am not sure why. Perhaps it shouldn't. Yet, I think this issue exists in other narrative forms. Hollywood seems to agree that it would cross the line. I don't know of a movie that has terrorists front and centre in the same way as the Gangster genre has criminals front and centre.

Except for Star Wars, of course.

Lego Chas

Founded by digital retrograde: The legoarizer.

The Bones of Tealeaves

The Seer is still 98% sure of His prediction. The spin has begun.

Damn Straight.

Quizzes are still cool, so is Butt Ugly:


I am Dr. Herbert West, from "Reanimator."
I'm right. You're wrong.


Which Random Cult Movie Character are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

Never seen Reanimator, but it is number 1 on the must sees. Why? Geoffrey Coombes

Agent Myers: "My body is a road map, of pain!" (Frightners)
Brunt: "Brunt, FCA" (DS9)

He was also that snively alien that worked for the Founders. It's been a while.

It ain't fun, anyway.

A violently executed blog has a great post enunciating the problems of clinical depression, especially with the absence of a cause. During some of my deep depressions of the past, I have enountered the "you have nothing to be depressed about, my life is shit, I was abused as a child etc etc" syndrome from other people. I try to explain to them that the lack of cause simply contributes to the depression. I should be happy, my life isn't that bad, but I don't feel I can take it anyway, shit I am depressed is how it goes. I have managed to avoid the "chemical solution", but not for the same reason as the post above (not wanting to impact on the upswing, I hate my upswings), but because I know that in the long run pills do more harm than good.

I have found that being more mindful of my mood shifts enables me to respind to them better. Recognising the ups and downs and knowing the tide will turn eventually makes it easier. It's still hard sometimes, but it's easier.

Rules of Work

No, not the Laws of Work, but some rules to get you by:

1) When speaking on the phone, always use PhonePose. This is the pose you see in all the commercials about people being busy at work. Slightly laid back in the chair, staring at at indeterminate spot in between the roof and the wall, slightly twisted to one side of the body, phone to the ear. It exudes professionalism.
2) Never respond to friend's emails in less than 500 words. Short emails not only waste too little time, but look like personal emails. Write essays, and fast. It looks like you are hard at work explaining to a client or a supplier or a board member exactly how much better the company would be if it changed from the Swingline to the Boston stapler.
3) NEVER change from the Swingline to the Boston stapler. The building WILL be burnt down.
4) Always answer your phone (especially your direct line) with the company phrase, "Welcome to Blah Corp, this is Chas, how may I direct your call?". This is not to fit some kind of coporate WankSpeak, but makes the person on the other end (who will 9 times out of 10 be a cold caller) think you are the receptionist. Your options open 10 fold when you are in a position to "pass the buck".
5) NEVER "pass the buck". Shift the blame, spread the ball to the wings or even delegate if you have no other option, but NEVER "pass the buck".
6) Always accompany any "turn of phrase" with "quotation marks" or "air quotation marks". If the phrase is a sport derivative, ALWAYS do the corresponding motion to really "complete the pass" [Chas completes the pass]
7) When writing in your blog, use a word processor. Same reason as 2) above.

More "as they come in". Stay tuned.

Once I make a decision it is definitely quite possibly maybe final!

Right, that's it! I have decided. The new year will see me move back out into the Real World. Two years back home with the folks to recuperate from the last 3 year venture into the RW is quite enough, thank you very much.

And this time, it will be ALONE! No flat mates, no de-factos, no pets, no dwarves and certainly no Klingons.

Sure, finding a flat to rent (I have maimed, tortured, burnt and buried the idea of making The Bank and The Man rich by attempting home ownership) near where I work will take all my disposable income, my savings, my sanity and my left testicle. But what do I need that for? It is just going to waste down there anyway, given my current relationship status. Good ridance to it, I say. It has only held me back.

And you read it all here first! Aren't you glad you read this blog? The passion, the excitement and the drama that is typically only found on day time soap operas. The humanity. The human condition writ large in justified verdana size 11. Or 10. Or whatever it is, it isn't the type that counts, it's the typing. And the computer. That counts.

So ladies, be prepared for Chas 2005. There is a psychological theory that states that the further a man is from maternal care, the more attractive he is. I affirmed that theory the last time I left home, and intend to do some in depth further study. I'll have a job, my own place, independence, I find myself funny when drunk and boring when sober and I'll only have one testicle. What more could you want? Apart from two testicles, that is?

Bold prediction from the Seer

The Seer (me) has spoken:

"There are less than two weeks to go to the US President election. I predict the capture, alive or dead, of Osama (alias Usama) Bin Laden, within 1 WEEK!"

Believe it or not, The Seer has been right in the past. The Seer predicted the date (to the week) of capture of the Hitchhiker Serial Killer, Ivan Milat (have I remembered that right?), SIX WEEKS before his capture. The Seer even predicted the sequence of events leading to his capture.

The Seer also predicted the collapse of the North Twin Tower TWELVE SECONDS before its tragic fall, a full FOURTY SECONDS before the much vaunted news reader on CBS or CNN or NBC or whatever channel they were showing the events to The Seer, not letting The West Wing being interrupted for the pleasure.

The Seer also predicts CONTROVERSY. Whether The Seer's prediction is right or wrong CONTROVERSY will break out within TWELVE STANDARD MOONS!

The Seer know the CURE, however. MORE SLEEP and RELAXATION. Take the time to rest and charge your batteries for the onslaught of CONTROVERSY and SCANDAL that will engulf you, your family, your country and the fleas on your dog/cat/insert pet here.

YOU HAVE BEEN SEEN!

Because quizzes are cool.

So is digital retrograde :


Which File Extension are You?


Which OS are You?


Which Nigerian spammer are You?

Propaganda

It's amazing. People tell you things your whole life and you believe them and 90% of the time it is complete and total crap. Sometimes you do it to yourself, by making assumptions from the context of what people are saying. By believing implications that aren't there. I recently found out that it is a myth that people thought the world was flat. Total crap. The result of religious politics in the 18th or 19th century as one group tried to prove how retarded another group was by slandering them. Sure, people may not have thought the world was a sphere, but they knew it was curved and most either knew it didn't go on forever or didn't care. I remember laughing at school at the idea that people thought the world was flat. Now I am laughing at myself for being so arrogant that I once thought that people could be so clueless. He who laughs last, thinks slowest.

Now this one, from Raed in The Middle via soul pacific: The phrase "anti-semitic" is used by many to mean anti-Jewish or anti-Israel. I have taken that as fact for years and it seems that most commentators use the phrase in that context. Here is the definition of Semitic, via dictionary.com:

Se·mit·ic
adj.

1. Of or relating to the Semites or their languages or cultures.
2. Of, relating to, or constituting a subgroup of the Afro-Asiatic language group that includes Arabic, Hebrew, Amharic, and Aramaic.

n.

1. The Semitic languages.
2. Any one of the Semitic languages.

No one calls the racists and bigots who equate terrorism with Islam or terrorism with Arabs anti-Semitic. These same people who would call Palestinian Arabs anti-Semitic.

In the end, it is just a little thing. Just a grammatical misunderstanding, perhaps a deprecation of a particular conotation of the word Semitic. The deeper problem is the racism, bigotry and prejudice that produces the need for the phrase. Anit-Semitic is clearly a term like Un-Australian. It sounds like it means something, but no-one is actually clear on the definition, thus it can be used to forward whatever agenda you choose.

And I didn't even know.

Foyer

Home

Stumbling home

Arse-hell

No, its not a case of the dreaded roids, but rather a tale being phone blogged live from the mecca of inner west humanity: Burwood RSL. Thats right, Chas is waiting for his creators, beer in hand, raffle tickets at the ready. As low as one can go? Perhaps, but Chas does not feel the keen lack of a life as others do. Denial. It cures all ills.
Anyway, the parentals are here now and the three year old son of the local Ukranian crime lord or war boss is trying to steal my raffle tickets. I'll have to cut this live report short. Maybe another later if I feel like plumbing the greater depths of getting trashed on my own!

Not to toot my own horn

Thought of this, a music vending machine, 5 or 6 years ago. I even looked into how much it would cost to make a prototype, but like so many of the ideas I have had I couldn't afford (and couldn't be bothered) to take it to the next step. I even suggested at the time that coffee shops were the place for such a thing. I was 16 when I first wanted to open an internet cafe (that was 11 years ago, there would have been 1 in all of Sydney at the time, if that: I had never seen or heard of one). I put to some powers that be at Sydney Uni that student cards should have trackable chips in them to help security safeguard the university (a bit fascist, I know, but I had good strategies to stop the abuse of such a system). RFID is taking off, and is able to do very similar stuff, but without the abuse stopping strategies.

Zoocity was originally going to be an online short film repository, 3 years before the likes of ifilm.com showed up.

I guess the good news is that I should trust my ability to pick what's a good idea and what isn't. The bad news is that I don't have the confidence or the motivation to act on anything. Besides, all these ideas I have had were not to make money, they were things that I wanted to use or see or go to. Now that they are finally appearing, I can use, look and go to them. The key to a good idea, I think, is to not look for the "angle", but look for what's missing in the world.

Update: Sometimes it pays to misspell the odd word. <cough>I meant to do that.</>

Finger String

Many of the skyscrapers in Sydney have lights beaming into the sky at night. When it is windy, bugs are caught in a wind tunnel that propels them up the side of the buildings and up into the lights. Thousands of birds circle the area and have the wildest free feast of their lives. This would make a great episode for Prawns of The Nut World.

Just a note to self.

Please burn my brain

I am sure it is the same in other states of Australia, and probably most of the first world, but here in NSW we are asked whether or not we want to be organ donors when we apply for a drivers' licence. In the case we are killed, we can nominate which parts of our former selves can be given out to the needy and the researchers.

I always tick everything. I believe that what ever part of my makeup is "me" has every right to have every chance of travelling once the gestalt is gone. This is why I intend to be cremated. I don't want to have to wait for the worms to split me up and disperse me.

But anyway, back to this organ donor concept. You can, if you prefer, select which parts can be donated and which can not. So, you may only want your liver or kidneys to be lent out. But what if you only want to keep your brain. Most of the rest of the body is useful to other people: bone marrow, kidneys, heart, liver and maybe even the skin for grafts (?). That's not to say the brain can't be used, but say you feel strongly about having your head kept intact. What happens to your corpse, in the case you are buried or have a viewing before cremation? Do they put the head on a mannequin? Do they make sure they keep enough of the structure around that they can fill it with sawdust?

What if I ticked nothing but "Bone", which is one of the options and presumably means bone marrow? Do they suck out all the bone marrow, bung it in a coffin and then invite the loved ones for a viewing?

"Here lies Chas Rover’s bone marrow. It rests in peace. The rest of him has given others a new hope in life, also, hopefully, in peace"

Note from Blogger

Dear Chas,

We are returning this perfectly decent blank web space to you as someone has written gibberish all over it and signed your name to the top.

Regards,

The Blogger Team

Some Cosmetic Changes

And a poster!

Schlafen Nicht Denkend

If you search for Foxtel on Google Germany (Das Web), Sleeping Not Thinking gets an honourable mention. Without the honour, or the mention.

Thank God this election is over. A nice victory for social conscience and compassion. Oh wait, I'm in denial. It's three more years of intolerance and hate. Bring it on. I may finally be allowed to have a "governement sponsored"* Filipino whore, I mean maid. And can I say, finally someone will have a mandate to split this society into the tiers it has always needed. I am sick of sharing this world with the plebs. They should be weeded out and given their own bus (one, singular bus). The trains would run on time. The roads would be a pleasure to drive. I even know how to weed these weeds out. They are the ones who voted right-wing. Of course, if Labor had won, this post would be completely different. The word God would have been replaced by Allah.

I am not bitter. Really.

*Sponsored to the tune of "Do what you are told or be deported back to the shithole you came from. If you are lucky, you may get a something to chew on once in a while"

Update: Superman Dies. A sad day.

The post that brewed

In less than a month, I will be attending my High School 10 year reunion. I wasn’t going to, but I have paid for it now (electronically, my how the world has changed), so I guess I am committed. Not because I wouldn’t want to waste money, but because subconsciously I made a decision to go when I decided to pay.

A 10 year reunion seems to be a rite of passage and I am somewhat apprehensive. Which, in of itself, is not an emotion I am familiar with. I charge into most situations with reckless abandon, content to sort things out on the fly and deal with the consequences later. I am having trouble aligning my perception in that direction for this reunion. It frightens me. But it is not because I fear being jealous of others or feeling sorry for them or anything like that. I could care less what social achievements have been won and lost by my peers and I fight the auto-pilot reflex reaction that is social anxiety on a minute by minute basis.

What I fear is happening already. I have not thought about High School for a long time. I have never taken stock of what High School meant to me, what emotions I went through, what trials at which I succeed or failed. None of it. My tour of duty was a typical one, filled with challenges both academic and social. I have never had regrets about decisions made nor circumstances not fitting dreams, yet I have never stopped to take stock of the experience.

I don’t really know if I want to run into old friends long forgotten or ignored. 10 years ago I had a nice emotional wall built around myself that kept me distant from the confusion of teenage emotions. I have since ditched that wall. Do I really want to live the emotions again, perhaps for the first time in some cases? Will that even be the case, or will the banality that is 10 years of growth simply dispel any mental excursions into the past? Which would I prefer?

In the 10 years that have past, while most of me is the same, there have been changes. Changes in how I deal with and assimilate the world around me. Changes in how I deal with my internal state and emotions. Changes that mean I am better equipped to deal with difficult situations and awkward environments. These changes, however, are recent additions and may not be ready to deal with emotional states that will be triggered by the stimuli that are 10 years old. The inevitable regression that will occur, a temporary echo of a me past, will alter my psyche such that the new code may be uncallable. I don’t really want to be the teenager I was again, even for a short while, but that will be inevitable once the first “Chas, you haven’t changed a bit” is uttered by those bereft of anything original to say. My personality was wrought from the stone formed during my high school years, chipped away to reveal its nature in the ensuing years. It is still in rough form and in need of a lifetime of polish, but it has a shape now, which it didn’t 10 years ago.

Needless to say, this reunion has got me thinking. I don’t think I have ever been in such an acute mood of nostalgia as I have been in the last few weeks. There are sparks of emotion running through my subconscious that are eager to be felt. At the risk of sounding like a Freudian, pretentious wanker, I feel I never stopped to mourn the passing of my teen years. I have celebrated them and made friends with the teenage me, but they are gone and so is he. Perhaps this reunion is exactly what I need, perhaps that is why such a thing as a 10 year reunion exists. It is a rite of passage that allows us to celebrate and mourn a past lost to time. A necessary psychological threshold barrier that the crossing of which allows us to grow and start on the path to the next barrier. The Joseph Campbell growing up as myth theory told tall in our everyday lives. I wonder who my threshold guardian will be. I have an idea who it could be as the fear of this reunion only appeared when I realised this person would be going. It is not a bully or a rival or even a friend. It is a girl who will now be a woman. She chipped away the first of the excess stone when I first let a maelstrom of emotions through my defences.

I have not thought of her for 10 years. It was good that way.

Positive Mental Attitude

Beezelbublog is another of my psychological muses. This is mainly as the posts seems to be ripped out of my own mind, for the most part. The current post is about Centrelink and six months on the dole and the ignomy of having to go to a Job Search Assistance Centre. It ends with the mantra of all the unemployed and most of the employed:

I think I'm having a mid-life crisis. I am going to learn how to make things out of wood, I am going to learn how to sew. I am going to find someone to sing with. I am going to get fit. I will find someone to love (I am going to start looking).

<teardrops and violins>It is truth.</> But she's got me thinking about my time with a Job Skills organisation.

Arrival: “Sit down, show me your resume”

10 minutes in: “There is nothing we can do to help you, you seem to have it under control. When the I.T. market picks up you’ll be fine”

12 minutes in: “You need to fill out these forms and attach details of jobs you are applying for, just make it up from what you do on the internet at home and fax it through. You will, however, need to come in once a week and sign a form saying you were here 3 hours a day”

3 weeks later: “Good work getting a job (Ed: without Job Search’s help), that will be great for our next report to government. It makes it look like we are doing something.”

6 weeks later (after receiving a Job Search Questionnaire): (Phone Call) “Hi, how’s the job? Great. Did you get the Centrelink Questionaire? Yes? Would you like help filling it out? No, well in case you get stuck, just put Above Average or Excellent for each item, that would really help us out with more funding. Don’t put excellent for everything, though, Centrelink gets suspicious about us coaching people to fill the questionnaire out. Sweet. And thanks. Bye”

You may think I am exaggerating a bit, but I am outraged to say that the above is pretty much verbatim. The guy who ran the place knew what a scam he was running and knew I was smart enough to see it. To his credit, he didn’t patronise me and laid the truth out bare. I’ll let you make up your own opinion on the validity of Job Search Assistance programs for the dole in the country, but next time a government minister or Centrelink bureaucrat points to “healthy feedback about the program from Job Seekers”, try not to snicker.

Endarkenment

You don't have to look far for answers these days.

Too much not to say

Been quiet.

As quiet as a small bumblebee with social anxiety.

As quiet as a minute rhesus monkey with no vocal chords.

This election drives me up the wall. When it is over, I will feel better. I should let the rage out in paroxisms of gyrating blog posts, spewed forth all over your freshly spring-cleaned web browser. A geyser of hot character based diatribble on the subject of "Stuff". But I won't.

Fear not, fearless readers. Chas will return. Expect a raft of floating blog goodness when the iMac arrives. And a chat room, because I can. And a web cam, cause they used to be my speciality. And video, for the same reason. Text is really not my area of creative expertise.

Text is txt is txet, which fits me not best.

You think what now?

Religion Definition
are you mono or polytheistic?	i am plastic and electric
do you subscribe to a major religion?	no, but they send me their newsletters anyway
how do you feel about Jesus?	using my feelings
what holy book do you feel is most accurate (Bible, Koran, etc)	Leonard Maltins Movie Guide
do you believe in reincarnation?	yes
do you believe in the traditional heaven and hell?	no
do you believe in ANY heaven and/or hell?	mental
do you think the god(s) are vengeful or nice?	dont believe in gods
do you believe in angels?	no
do you believe in miracles?	no
do you believe in predestination?	no
do you believe in original sin?	no
do you believe in freedom of will?	yes
do you believe in souls?	yes
what do you think will happen to you when you die?	change
do you think there will be an armageddon?	i liked the original, but I dont think theyll make a sequel although a have a great idea for one
why do you think we exist?	to enjoy existing
do you believe in life on other planets?	yes
do you believe in evolution?	yes
do you think religion and science will always oppose the other?	science is a religion
what would you say to God if you met him/her/them today?	This is BULLshit.
anything else we should know?	from the ignorance inherent in the questions, Id say there is ALOT you should know
CREATE YOUR OWN! - or - GET PAID TO TAKE SURVEYS!

Ganked from A Violently Executed Blog. Is ganked the right word? If so, I feel bloggy.

Verbosity

I was remarking to someone recently about why business jargon is destructive. The phrase in question was "We are targeting AB & CD demographics". Now, I am no marketing stooge, so I don’t actually know what kind of person fits into either the AB or CD demographic. Thus, in order to understand that sentence, I would need to do some research. The rationale behind such a concept as labelling human beings with shorthands like that is that it makes it quicker to read, so long as you know what the short hand labels are. That is complete crap. What WOULD make it easier to read is if it was written out. Even those who know what an AB person is would benefit from having the full description, as the writing does the mental processing for you. When you use acronyms, jargon and short hand, you are taxing the mental processing of the reader. It is similar to a principle in user interface design whereby if you make an interface useable for those with disabilities, you make it more usable for those without. If you take the time to use redundant cues, for example colours and shading and font choice to indicate different functions, it makes the mental processing easier for all, not just those that are colour blind.

Now, consider this phrase from an email I just received, Microsoft’s Executive Circle Newsletter:

“This will allow you or your developers and administrators to increase efficiency during software testing and development, server consolidation scenarios and legacy line-of-business application re-hosting.”

Legacy line-of-business application re-hosting!!!! I have some idea of what that means. It means the allies are about to start D-Day. Surely, though, if you find yourself having to write such a sentence you shouldn’t have, “We hope you will find these useful when you’re thinking about improving communication in your own business.”, three sentences later.

It is the same issue a lot of us have with the txting crap that flies around everywhere these days. If you are too lazy to write proper English, all you are doing is putting the work on the reader. And why would anyone want to read something that is mentally taxing? I used to come across this bad English when I ran a chat room for a youth magazine years ago. I once pointed out that I didn’t think it was cool to use crap like ASL and n00b as you can’t be cool if you can’t create respect in others. How was I to respect a computer user who couldn’t type proper English fast enough that they had to abbreviate everything? It made a mark on a couple of the regulars and they made an effort to increase their typing speed or risk being labelled n00bs of the k3brd.

Torpid Nostaligia - Must Be Spring

"The first question I ask myself when something doesn't seem to be beautiful is why do I think it's not beautiful. And very shortly you discover that there is no reason." - John Cage

Awww, isn't that mind-numbingly sappy? True though. I once told a friend, who is so picky about what his perfect woman is that he has reached mid 30s without, how to say this tactfully, needing to lie on his application for the Young Liberals for Abstinence Party, that I see beauty in all women. Sure, this was partly arrogance on my part, coupled with a strong desire to argue that comes from my French heritage, but it was (is) also in part true. We are all human, we all breathe and think and feel pain and pleasure and laugh and cry and sing and dance and, while we all try desperately during our teen years and sometimes even beyond them to prove how different we are, we are all essentially the same. Short, tall, thin, fat, symmetrical, wonky, scruffy or coiffured. And there is beauty in that. Why? Because, I know there is beauty in ME, I can see it. It may not show itself in the mirror, or in many of my actions, or in some of my beliefs but somewhere, sometimes I’ll do something, or feel something or think something that is not ugly but beautiful. As do we all. And, if you look for it, you can see it in everyone else.

That is not to say that I am attracted to fat, ugly women as a rule, despite their inner beauty, I am not. But it is not for the social and peer pressure reasons of my friend. It is because society does not treat those it considers un-beautiful well, and a lot of inner beauty is destroyed by the nasty experiences that non-Pretty People are subjected to. Lack of self-esteem is not beautiful and the scars inflicted on social skills by ostracism can be insurmountable. I know people that ignorance would call un-attractive that have not let their esteem be crushed. They live happy lives and their partners live happy lives too. I have also met people who have become bitter for not being born a super model, who have it in for the rest of us for treating them badly. I can see bits that are worth seeing, but there does need to be a certainly base level of beauty, both physical and psychological, more the latter, for me to be interested. I suppose the truth of being outwardly beautiful is inescapable. Those that look good, will be treated better by others, make more friends and certainly being fawned upon is better for the psyche than being shunned. So, it doesn’t matter how hard one tries to be a better person by not judging books by their covers, the fact is society’s psychology makes it possible to do so.

However, consider this: Incredibly beautiful people, especially if they are both physically and intellectually gorgeous, have many of the same problems as the other extreme. If someone has extremely attractive features, most people are reluctant to socialise with them out of fear of inadequacy. This is compounded if they are extremely bright, as most people are intimidated by intelligence.

Like all things, beauty falls into the category of “Best in moderation”. The middle path.

The Greatest Guiltiest Pleasuring News Of All

The Last Starfighter, the guiltiest of the guiltiest guilty pleasures there is, the 1984 movie about how important it is to be good at playing video games has been made into a musical.

Now, if they would only release it on DVD (if they haven't already) along with Electric Dreams and Popeye, my childhood, my ENTIRE childhood nostalgia DVD collection will be complete.

And for the incredibly embarrassing record, here are the movies that I LOVED when I was a wee todger, that I guarantee there are few who would admit to:

1) Electric Dreams
2) Popeye
3) Last Starfighter
4) The Pirate Movie
5) Tron

Only the last two do I have on DVD. I need the others for my life to be complete. Just to go against my post below about expectations and contentment, I WILL NOT BE CONTENT or whole until I have the other three on my shelf.

Cup of Tea

An old friend and his family once told me they had a family tradition of believing (somewhat tongue in cheek) that the whole universe was contained inside a tea pot, a tea pot similar to the one they used to boil tea. Each tea pot contained a universe that contained a family like theirs with a tea pot that contained a universe and so on. They took guilty pleasure in boiling a cup of tea in the knowledge they had destroyed another universe. They looked forward to the eventual end of our universe when the beings who owned the tea pot with our universe felt they needed a nice camomile or perhaps an Earl Grey.

Of course, most of us have a version of the infinite universes in every atom theory. But, now that scientists have shown that there is sugar in the middle of the Milky Way, I think my old friend and his family may have been spot on.

The Science of Art

Via Boing Boing, a link to the Gravity Lamp: A lamp that is happy to see you.

And something to keep an eye on: 365 days of verse about Sydney in Sonnet form, called Equinox.

Happy Spring Equinox. Try not to let the pheremones make you sneeze.

Statistical Symphonies

Here is an interesting article from the SMH. It is firmly in the "well, duh" category but that is no reason not to read it. Aussies in their 20s want to be married but are too picky or too cautious to make it happen. Either category fits any number of friends I know who are desperate to marry and settle down, but are looking for the "perfect woman" or "perfect man". "Tosh", I say to them, "stop being so picky'. But I fit in the other category. I try not to have too many expectations about a partner, other than them being interesting in some way, but I am not out there looking for one as I am quite enjoying not being in a relationship, or at least I'm at a certain threshold of contentment that precludes me rocking the boat.

The real problem seems to be that my generation has never been told that a relationship requires building, building that requires work. Most sad singles I know think that the Perfect Being will bump into them at the laundromat any time now and marriage, a mortgage, a puppy and some kids will be here by Christmas. Not gunna happen. Why would you want it that way, anyway? Where's the fun? Where's the hard work that makes the rewards feel like rewards and not hedonism? I suppose it is part of this strange mental disorder that afflicts people my age that some older, wiser, know-it-alls are calling status anxiety. Reaching certain goals like having a super-model, Nobel-prize winning partner seated on an Italian leather couch in front of a 180cm plasma flat screen digital TV watching ads for the $400,000 BMW you just bought for your youngest child is the only way of feeling worth. Crap. It's the journey that is important and it doesn't matter how far away the goal is, you can enjoy every second of the way there, be it pleasurable or painful. And if you don't make it to the goal you had in mind, so what? You may not have gotten to where you wanted to be, but you will have arrived at where you needed to be (thank you Douglas Adams for that bit of genius).

And even if it is possible to achieve everything you have ever wanted, why be in a hurry to get there? Why not enjoy every mini-goal along the way? Remember the first time you could tie your shoelaces? I don't, but I bet it was the greatest moment in my life up to that point. Every next step along the way could be that same way, so long as we are content to have achieved what we have and not disappointed at not having achieved what we will in time.

If life is a race, I am in no hurry to get to the finish line.

Something to say.

Is it possible to be a muse for psychological musings? Whenever I read a post at Gempires I seem to end up spilling my emotional ramblings into a comment box on her site. Well, this time I wrote it all down, then didn't post it to her blog. The problem is I clearly have something to get off my chest that reading her post has triggered, but I am unable to latch on to what it is. So, here is the full comment I would have posted, had it been an actual comment rather than a dump of some broken part of my psyche, some unformed truth of existence I am struggling to grasp:

Nice to see you back. You never know how good something is until it is gone.

Now to a most difficult comment. Difficult because I have always been one to put up with the discomfort of seeing someone in pain rather than lending a helping hand, empathising but not wanting the reckless insertion of opinions to make matters worse. Events have occurred in my life that have made me realise it is better to try to help and make matters worse than it is to stand by and watch. It is also difficult, as I shun seriousness. Difficult, because I am not sure if it is something I need to say or something you would want to hear.

So, if I may, here is some reckless insertion of opinion. Everything you say is absolutely spot on. Much of what you say about men, while painted with a broad brush, is true. But I am not sure you should get jaded about motives.

Consider what it is like to be someone who is not loved by all they encounter. Someone who isn't immediately attractive to the opposite sex in a world where such a thing is considered abnormal. Someone who has those same incorrect preconceptions about what is attractive and loveable. Preconceptions that you, and many women, do not seem to have or can put aside. Imagine then what it must feel like when someone like that is confronted by the blinding, brute force that is being loved, or even liked! The sheer un-nerving truth of it. That it is nothing like it is in the movies. That it is a responsibility. It carries a heavy burden. You are suddenly responsible for the well being of another person's emotions. That emotion isn't black and white but every shade of grey there is.

The closest thing to this is being suddenly confronted with someone who is angry with you and you don't know why. Or, better yet, it is like agreeing to a friendly tennis game and realising after the first serve that you are playing against a pro. And, when it comes to love, the potential responses are similar: you can shy away from the barrage, unclear on how to continue or you can try and give as good as you get. The first response will appear to be insensitive, when it isn't. Unfortunately for the struggle for peace amongst the sexes, it is more often than not the response we males offer.

There is hope, however. In case you haven't guessed, I have been through a similar set of problems. Men are not equipped mentally to deal with emotion, except in small packets. It is actually a function of brain design, not a decision made. But, we can learn to give as good as we get. It takes practice, and a forgiving mentor. It seems to me, Gem, that you have a lot of feelings (good and bad) in this situation, but that is better than not having feelings at all. Whether you think there is a way forward or not, whether there is hope of teaching a slow student or not, my opinion (just to make that clear) is you shouldn't be jaded about it. In fact, you should take some solace in the fact that you are not only a better master of your own emotions than most, but you are better at putting them in words. Keep it up.

What a mess. The tragedy is I touched what I wanted to say briefly with the very end of my finger before it fell into the abyss. Sometimes I think I might be more fucked up than I give myself credit for.

But, fear not, apart from a post I have brewing in my subconscious about how I feel about an impending 10 year high school reunion, there shouldn't be too many of these diary style emotional dump blog entries to bore the crap out everybody. It just aint my style.

I have a cure for all disease - who wants to touch me?

Inspiritation and scientific discovery can come at the most surprising times. There I was, sitting on the royal throne, having a bowel movement that Robin Williams in Fisher King would describe as Enlightening when the solution to the problem of disease and famine came to me. It was a spark of informational inspiration that took the form of a magnificent star burst style burning bush. It may have been a shrub, or some grass...I don't want to overstate it.

And you, dear reader, are going to hear it here first. Before the wordy verbose padding required of Nature and Science Journals. Before the polish and quick news bites needed for the world's talk show circuits. Before the free life time health care given to every member of Oprah's audience on the day that i* appear.

The solution is one of terminology. The reason we can't solve the problem of worldly diseases and famine and poverty and bad stuff is we have too many names for it all. Influenza, The Common Cold, Turberculosis, Chicken Flu, Mad Cow Disease, Hunger, Famine, Starvation, Poverty, The Poor, Hicks, Yokels, Trailer Trash, Cancer, AIDS, Specific non-specific coronary flow amnesia, Spontaneous Human Combustion, Aliens, Bloggers. Too many names. In order to properly target and remove such evils in this world, an axis of evil if you like, we need to give all problems faced by the human race a common name. A name that can be weeded out in all its ugly forms, hunted down and destroyed. Wherever it strikes, wherever it takes hold. That name is:

Saddamonella alquidacoccus

Now that the beast has been named, it can be located, detected, classified, quarantined, tortured and obliterated. It is the duty of all mankind to seek out saddamonella alquidacoccus where it is found, where it lives and deprive it of its precious bodily fluids until it is no more.

Go forth, precious readers, fellow humans, bastions of the light and the right and remove this blight from our sight.

* seeing as I, pertaining to me, is already capitalised, and I would need to be capitalised for an appearance on Oprah, the only solution afforded to me is to put it in lower case.

Dost mine eyes decieve me.

I think Neo already said this, but do you ever feel like you are in a dream? Ever since I had a nasty glandular fever 4 years ago that lasted 2 weeks when it should have lasted 6, whenever I get a sore throat I wonder if I am still in a fever induced delusion. Maybe it's still 2000, maybe I have the Olympics to look forward to again. Maybe S-11 and Iraq never happened. Maybe I won't have loved and lost. Maybe I am not writing this.

Of course, reality is too mundane to be a dream. My dreams are very rarely mundane. Of course WHEN I READ SHIT LIKE THIS, I can only assume it IS all a bad dream. I wrote a post ages ago (and now can't be bothered finding it for the all too convenient link) lamenting that some scientists seem hell bent on making a mistake that will wipe out humanity. That time they were trying to mutate a monkey virus so that it would kill humans, to see how long it would take. This time, they are resurrecting the 1918 flu that killed 40 million people (YES, 40 MILLION!!!!) and injecting it into monkeys. I've got a better idea. Let's bring back dinosaurs using blood from biting insects trapped in amber. Or better yet, let's design some nano-machines that break down any matter around them and reform it into nano-machines that break down any matter around them and reform it into nano-machines that....OR, I know, an orbiting laser that can kill people based on sophisticated detection software that can be programmed using wildcards like "*yokel ENTER" or "*hick ENTER" or "*metrosexual ENTER" or "*scientists ENTER" or "* , huh, what was that, yep, I'll do that in a second, now where was I, um, I'll just clear the screen using this ENTER key here ENTER"...Ack.

...............................................................................................

An amazing test.

A test that is, in the words of a good friend I am about to plaguirise, "Bigger than Ben-Hurder, the sequel to Ben Hur".

Here is the test:



I can add images directly to Blogger now I am not using their server. Mwa. Mwahaha. Mwahahahahahahahahah. Mwe. Mwehippi. Mwehippiscum. Mwerightwinghatinghippiscum.

For your information, "T" starts my blog post titles more than any other letter and I have never had a title starting with K, J, X, Y or Z. So there. Mwa. Mwahaha. Mwe. Mwi. Mwo. Mwu.

Business as usual

Sick, tired, depressed, torn, anxious, weak, sore, annoyed, beaten, bruised and down.

Must be Monday.

Can't complain though. It is times like these that I realise how good life is.

A true vote

Is there some kind of law that forbids voting in the nude? I feel it would be prudent to strip down to the bare essentials whilst casting my vote (in the voting booth, of course). I think this would enable a full and free vote, unencumbered by any preconceptions, prejudices or clothes. The added advantage would be not needing to use the supplied pencil to cast my vote, which could have been tampered with.

Plus, a vote cast with precious bodily fluids is surely the most democratic of votes. A vote that could even be verified as mine, should the circumstances require it. A vote that contains part of my very being. A vote that could be framed, sent to the elected and treasured as Chas' Vote.

Is it just me?

I have noticed for the first time in my life that tear (from the eye) is spelt the same as tear (rip).

Although it could be the combination of ibuprofen, codine and pseudo-ephedrine I have coursing through what's left of my circulation system.

Meanwhile, idleprocess is no longer...awwww, but out of the ashes comes a new beast: Digital Retrograde (to be shouted through a megaphone for optimal appreciation). You Blogged it, you can't Unblog it.

There is no B3 bomber.

Blogs, news agencies and crazy guys with signs patrolling the streets are all reporting that an explosion in North Korea is nothing to be concerned about. Right on. I see how this works now. Where there is smoke, there is no fire. Where there is NO smoke, there is the potential for wanting to develop smoke programs that could destroy the civilised world.

However, all is not lost. Mother nature owns the Korean DMZ. Which is the most uplifting bit of news I have read all hour. Sure, the odd tiger and robotic bunny rabbit (gratitous Full Throttle homage) are going boom, which is bad, but consider 40 or 50 genereations from now when nature itself has disarmed the DMZ and Man can move back in. All the trees we will have at our disposal for creating paper and chairs and weird wooden masks to put on our walls and the tiger rugs and the robotic bunny rabbit door stops. A new age for mankind will begin. A new leaf will be turned over to expose the un-Australia pure underbelly ready to be set alight for the good of all mankind.

Thank God, for He created Nature for Us.

Comments

The teething problems continue here at the home of SNT. Comments should be working now. So all my fan (sic!) can comment now.

To be fair.

Reasons to vote for John Howard:

1) He sells a mean Jeep.
2) He was the father of prison reform.
3) He can get you fit.
4) He is very accomodating.
5) He is one of Australia's best character actors.
6) He had an excellent acting career in the late 30s
7) He wrote the underrated and completely unheard of 80s TV show "Jayce and The Wheeled Warriors"
8) He has been involved in American politics for a long time.
9) Mark Latham has done nothing of interest in the television or movie spheres.

All good reasons in my book.

Lies, damned lies, statistics and Foxtel Digital Polls

Sky News, a channel on Foxtel Digital here in Aus, has an Active mode where one can select different news feeds to watch (weather, sports, politics etc). They have also added recently a poll feature where viewers can voice their opinion on whatever topic the producers feel is worthy of polling. Here is the procedure to vote in a poll:

1) Press RED button on remote
2) Press one of four colour buttons (including the RED button, which corresponds to the first item in the poll) to indicate your vote.
3) Get a message saying it will cost you 55c to vote.
4) To continue: you press the RED button.

Now, can we all see the inherent flaw in this system? From a user interface perspective, when a user is confronted with the SUDDEN realisation they are going to have to pay for their vote, they will want to opt out. The LOGICAL button to press to go back is the RED button as it is the button that got them into the active mode in the first place. Also, the RED button is a BACK button in other active channels, eg Fox Sports.

Thus, the number of votes for the RED item (always the first item in the list) is going to be un-naturally biased, as people incorrectly press the RED button, desperately trying to avoid paying for a meaningless vote.

Surely the producers of Sky News Active have realised this? Surely, they are surprised that EVERY vote they have had on the show has had the first (RED) item register votes of 60%+? Every time. I have seen 4 polls now, and they are all skewed towards the first item. i can accept that the producers may simply not realise what is going on, that their knowledge of user interface issues is non-existant. However, I question why the poll items are not randomised per person, and why it is only once you attempt to register your vote that you are informed of its cost. The former looks to me like they WANT to be able to sway the vote to the first item and the latter shows me they WANT to dupe people into not realising they are paying. If either is true, it's disgusting.

I feel an email to media watch is in order.

The battle for compassion

The Oz Blog world is rampant with "I'm more compassionate than you". The left wing template resembles my stupid post below by targeting the coalition and naively trying to pin the embassy bombing on Howard THEN clumsily adding compassion for those who died. The right wing template gets free brownie points for pointing this hypocrisy out and claiming the compassionate high ground THEN clumsily adding compassion for those who died. Amongst all this are the idiots thanking every God there is that Aussies were generally spared and the pseudo-compassionate who manage to treat this as the tragedy it is and don't bring politics into it. However, I have yet to come across actual compassion, a sign of which would be the lack of religious blame. J.I, who have claimed responsibility are not Islamists. They are terrorists. Their target is innocence and the world (myself included) simply does not learn from history and allows innocence to be the victim.

The world is under the thumb of those that use violence as an answer to violence. The terrorists once asked the question. Now, pre-emptive questions are the preferred answer.

The true beauty of the blogging world

The one thing I really enjoy about reading other blogs and discovering new voices, is how often I come across posts that get it "spot on". This post on blogging, satan and spirituality at the wonderfully named BezzelbuBlog contains roughly 87.5% of my own thoughts about blogging, life and stuff.

Now, instead of being all "I coulda written that, gagnabit", I am all "She(?) has said it, so I don't have to". Marvellous. Blogging is the mental and literary version of open source code reuse. Truly marvellous.

Terrorists hand Australia back to Coalition

Maybe I'm being cynical, but the breaking news that the Australian Embassy in Jakarta may have been the target of a bomb blast is just the sensational news that Little Johnny has been waiting for. He will now trade the emotions of fear and loss for votes, regardless of the specifics of the attack. He will argue that to vote for the opposition would be a sign to the terrorists that their methods work. Latham won't have the balls to argue that the Australian Embassy was not protected by the current Australian government. Actually, I hope he doesn't, as that is just as cynical. The cynic in me wonders whether the Libs will see this attack as proof of their "strong credentials in keeping Australia safe from the terrorists".

I hope not too many were hurt or killed. One report already mentions that Australians may have been lucky as the embassy is built to withstand bombs like this one. I hope not too many PEOPLE have been hurt, Australians included.

I also hope that both political parties simply acknowledge this as a tragedy and don't make it a focus of the election campaign. Ha! Not likely.