Chas is dead

At least the World of Warcraft variant is. I haven't enjoyed playing WoW for a long time and was only continuing due to the social aspects and, frankly, addiction. I cancelled my subscription a few weeks back and had until September already payed for. I decided to see if I could find any compelling reasons to resubscribe in that time. Unfortunately, a mutiny occurred in the guild I was a part of. The instigators are supposedly in their twenties, but their logic and way of expressing concerns they had was adolescent at best. Persoanlly, not being aligned with the officers of the guild, coupled with some of those officers' reaction to the mutiny (which was just as bad), I found myself in a unique position to just get the fuck out of dodge. If you no longer enjoy the company you find yourself in, you have to go, no matter how hard that is, regardless of the individual friendships that still exist.

So, Chas, the World of Warcraft warrior, is no more. It feels good.

And here, for the sake of completion, is the final tale of Shac The Tank:

It's a sad day indeed, but it was bound to happen, and at last it has: the Ecclesiastical Authorities are on to me. They have discovered that my ministry is nothing but an elaborate tax rort and a thinly veiled attempt at getting around bigamy laws. Whether I was ratted out by some Judas or whether it was my "David Koresh 4 Lyfe" bumper sticker is irrelevant; the gig is up.

But I have some time before the narcs get through the temple door. I have barricaded it using the comatose drunken hobos who call this place home. The good constabulary are debating the merits of using a bulldozer to break the door down. One guy worries about the loss of hobo life. One ponders whether it is acceptable to destroy the door of a place of worship. The general consensus is that it would be a shame to damage the door, as it was made from the last of the Canadian Redwoods using child slave labour who were forced to work on the door until they died (hey, it was the most cost effective solution! The money I saved on the door meant I could get my gold plated merc: “The Chasmobile”! I think we can all agree, it was worth it).

So while they argue amongst themselves, I’ve got Harry “Gonads” McKenzie blasting out “Waltzing Mathilda” on the organ and I humbly present to you:

The Last Resurrection of Shac the Tank

With one last blow from his mighty axe, Shac slew the creature. He took a slug from his hip flask and waited for the usual sense of achievement, the elation of the kill, the sense of moral vindication and the warm glow of comradery. But something was wrong. None of that was there. Confused, Shac looked down at the creature dead at his feet. Why had he killed it? Why was he here again?

As had happened so often in the last three long years after his historic Hogger killing, someone had burst into the tavern where he was drinking and proclaimed, “Shac, we need your help!” As always, Shac was too drunk to understand, and thought someone was offering the next round of drinks. Gladly accepting, Shac constantly found himself in far away lands, storming some castle or compound, killing everything, presumably for some good reason. Each adventure provided Shac with priceless enjoyment. Until now. Shac didn’t even know what species the dead thing bleeding on his majestic plate boots was. All he knew of the place he found himself was that it was called The Temple of Emo and there sure had been a lot of whinging since they’d all arrived. Some were complaining that the leaders were idiots. The idiots had taken time out from drooling to complain that they should be leading. One guy was running around naked, dong slapping the creatures and, to the surprise of all there, had actually killed 2 of them with this method: one had died laughing, the other from shame.

Things certainly weren’t like the old days. The group of adventurers was moving on to the next area, to continue the killing and the crying. As Shac followed, his mind drifted back to past adventures, looking for answers.

***

The first great adventure, of course, had been the Hogger killing. With Hogger dead on the ground, Shac felt the elation of achievement and basked in the warm glow of the crowd’s cheering. It was when Shac realised that the warm glow was progressively getting hotter, that he noticed he was still on fire. (You will remember that Shac killed the mighty Hogger by setting his own alcohol infused urine on fire and burning the beast to a cinder). In fact, he was completely on fire. An ironically cold sensation rushed through Shac’s body, as he realised he was going to die. “This can not be happening”, Shac thought. He was too young to die. He was now too popular to die. He was a hero! Heroes don’t die! He had learnt in Warrior school that it was the greatest dream of every warrior to die in a blaze of glory, sacrificing their life for the greater good.

“Fuck that”, thought Shac. Here he was dying in a blaze of his own alcoholic urine, naked in front of a crowd of people. Panicked, Shac started running towards the nearby river, passing through a faire, much to the shock of the faire’s patrons. (Incidentally, this is how Shac invented streaking). But he wasn’t quick enough. The fire won its battle against Shac, and he fell to the ground dead.

As the last moments of life faded from Shac, a soft female voice whispered in his mind, “Pleiades wishes to resurrect you. Do you accept?” What was this?

“Of course I accept”, Shac thought and suddenly found himself alive and well, standing next to a beautiful priestess. “Um, hi?”, Shac offered.

“Hi there, I saw you kill Hogger, that was pretty impressive. I’m Pleiades, by the way”, the priestess said.

“Nice to meet you. I thought I was dead”

“You were. We priests have made a deal with the Gods. We can ask them to bring people back from the dead, so long as they want to come back and, in return, we have to have sex with one or two of the Gods or their buddies every now and then. Mainly on religious holidays. It’s a bit demeaning, but it’s a small price to pay.”

“Wow. Thanks, by the way. Um, how come I feel funny, though? Are there side effects to being resurrected?”

“You’re just sober. Resurrection will do that”.

“Sober! Sweet fuck!”, screamed Shac as he ran full pelt to the nearest inn.

***

Back in the Temple of Emo, Shac smiled as he remembered the good times he had had with Pleiades, pausing only to wrench his axe out of the skull of the…um, whatever it was…he had just killed. He looked around. The other adventurers around him were all cheering his name. Except for a sickly looking gnome who was complaining that the name Shac violated some sacred law from his homeland. Shac looked back at a scene of carnage. Hundreds of these things were dead on the floor. While Shac had been daydreaming, he must have been helping kill them. He wondered whether they deserved to die to someone who not only didn’t know the reason he had killed them, but wasn’t even paying attention when he did. “Their loss, I suppose”, thought Shac, “They’re either too stupid to make friends with a priest, or they don’t want to come back and I’ve done them a favour. Why would you not want to come back?”. Shac never had an answer for this before, but a small voice in his subconscious was threatening to speak up. As Shac moved on to the next kill zone, he caught a glimpse of himself reflected in a pool of blood. He hadn’t realised how much his shoulders were slumped these days, and how haggard his eyes looked, even partially obscured by his massive helm. The reflected image reminded Shac of somebody…

***

Pleiades’ resurrection trick was a godsend for Shac. He could now fight while even more drunk, safe in the knowledge that should he die, his priest friend would be there to bring him back. Shac began to think that anything was possible. His first task consisted of getting himself killed in every corner of the world. He died to rats, gnolls, kobolds, murlocs and even a paladin. He then went on a three day bender and died of alcohol poisoning, just to prove it could be done. Each time a soft female voice would whisper in his mind, “Pleiades wishes to resurrect you. Do you accept?” and each time Shac wondered why the question was even asked and awoke sober and ready to drink again. Pleiades and Shac had made friends with a mage named Ven Ding who could conjure alcohol out of thin air, so Shac was never sober long.

While searching for something to die gloriously to in Desolace one winter day, Shac came across the mighty Horde champion, Rexxar. With his shoulders slumped and eyes weary, Rexxar walked the land with his giant pet bear, tired of fighting and tired of war. “Loser”, thought Shac, who rambled up to Rexxar and asked him to return the 20g he spent on Rexxar’s mother night before as he wasn’t satisfied with her service.

Rexxar didn’t even twitch. He simply said, “I was like you once. Do you know the last person I killed?”

“The audience at your last stand up comedy gig?”, Chas slurred.

“My priest. Do you know why?”

“He told you you were too old for him to love anymore?”

“You will one day.”, and with that Rexxar cut Shac cleanly in two. Lengthwise.

A soft female voice whispered in Shac’s mind, “Pleiades wishes to resurrect you. Do you accept?”

Shac said, “Yes”.

***

The reflection in the blood reminded Shac of Rexxar, that’s who. Could it be the day had come that Shac was tired of fighting, tired of war? Shac emptied his hip flask and asked Ven to refill it. Ven immediately launched into a tirade about not being appreciated, about the worthy contributions mages make to any endeavour, about how he hadn’t gotten any new sandals for months and blah, blah, blah…Shac certainly was tired of the whinging. While Ven continued, Shac turned his attention to the man the group had slaughtered their way to get to, who was sitting calmly in a decrepit stone throne, next to a balcony that looked over a massive cliff face.

“Who the fuck is this?”, Shac asked the group.

“This is Lord Victor Wristslash. The scourge of The Temple of Emo.”, someone answered.

“Oh right, yeah, I went to high school with him. He once called my mother fat. So, apart from that, why are we here to kill him?”

After much shuffling of feet, twiddling of thumbs, some erring and arring and the sounds of a fight between the nude guy and the gnome about who had killed more dragons, someone offered, “Um, because we want his shoes?”

Shac walked up to Victor, sighed and asked, “Hey Victor, been a while. How’s things?”

Victor replied, “Not bad, Shac, yourself?”

“I could be better, to be honest. My life has become one kill after another and I’m not sure why I bother anymore.”

“I know how you feel, dude, people come in here, day after day, kill all my friends, kill me and take my stuff. Then, after a while, the spell placed upon this temple by a miserable bastard of a God that I once offended resurrects us all and another group comes in. There’s an entire factory of goblins in the back room churning out shoes to keep up with the demand”

“Holy shit! That’s fucked up!”

“I’ll tell you what, how about I just give you my shoes and we can call it even?” With that, Victor took off his shoes and handed them to Shac.

The second he took them, the crowd erupted in a cacophony of complaints. “How come you get them, I deserve them more than you?” said the gnome, “This is bullshit, I killed 87 Shades of Whinge and I haven’t had new shoes since yesterday” said a night-elf violinist as a tear ran down her cheek, “I’ve never gotten any loot”, said the nude guy.

Shac turned to Victor, a moment of quiet understanding passed between them, and he said, “Mate, you owe me one for all those cracks you made about my mother at school”

Victor replied, “Yeah, that’s fair enough.”

“Keep the good looking priest over there alive, will you?”

Winking, Victor whispered, “No probs, Shac, she’s certainly an upgrade to your mum!”

Shac let out a tired laugh and walked over to Pleiades and handed her the shoes just as Victor bellowed, “I’ll settle this! If you can defeat me, the goblins will provide shoes to each and every one of you! Prepare to face my minions. Let the games begin!”

With that, the group took their usual positions behind Shac, ready to lay into Victor while Shac bombarded him with verbal taunts about the size of his shoes, angering him enough that he didn’t think once about simply killing the weakest, but deadliest, members of the group first. Just as Victor was about to attack, a cross dressing druid launched into a tirade about Shac still using his axe and not carrying a shield and that if Shac could do that, he should be able to be in moonkin shape and blah, blah, blah…

Shac eyed Victor and said, “Kill him first, then the ones in the dresses”, and he jumped off the balcony to his death. Above him, Victor wiped the group off the face of the planet, except for Pleiades, to whom he said, “Hey there, gorgeous, res Shac up and we can all go for a beer”

“Great idea” Pleiades responded, “ I can wear my new shoes! They’re gorgeous. Can your goblins make them in red, though?”

Taking her by the shoulder, Victor replied, “Sure thing, while they’re doing that, come meet my puppy”.

Down at the base of the cliff, as Shac lay crumpled and bleeding, a soft female voice whispered in Shac’s mind, “Pleiades wishes to resurrect you. Do you accept?”

Shac said, “No”.

Zizou is the new Chuck Norris

Boom, headshot

It may have cost France a World Cup, but Zinadine Zidane ended his career the way he played it: With complete football skills, masterful leadership, inspiring talent, uncanny goal scoring ability and moments of gut churning violence.

Bring on his movie career. I, for one, would like to see Zidane, Cantona and Vinnie Jones in the one movie. A Guy Ritchie Bond film, perhaps.

Um, excuse me while I ring my agent...

And boy, will they be famous!

Your Famous Last Words Will Be:

"I dunno, press the button and find out."

What Will Your Famous Last Words Be?

Mad Language

Holy Shit, this is amazing: Poems that highlight the madness of English spelling

What's crazier? The English language, or the fact that these poems can be read at all?

We must polish the Polish furniture.
He could lead if he would get the lead out.
The farm was used to produce produce.
The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.
The soldier decided to desert in the desert.
This was a good time to present the present.
A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum.
When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.
I did not object to the object.
The insurance was invalid for the invalid.
The bandage was wound around the wound.
There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row.
They were too close to the door to close it.
The buck does funny things when the does are present.
They sent a sewer down to stitch the tear in the sewer line.
To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.
The wind was too strong to wind the sail.
After a number of injections my jaw got number.
Upon seeing the tear in my clothes I shed a tear.
I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.
How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?
I read it once and will read it agen
I learned much from this learned treatise.
I was content to note the content of the message.
The Blessed Virgin blessed her. Blessed her richly.
It's a bit wicked to over-trim a short wicked candle.
If he will absent himself we mark him absent.
I incline toward bypassing the incline.

Proof

No good deed goes unpunished:

$1.4m bag left on bench

A guy returns a bag with 1.4 million dollars of shit in it to some absent minded Kanucks. His reward: "You have to be a real man to return that bag. Even the bag is expensive. We're really, really thankful to that guy."

Never let the truth get in the way of a good story:

Rock, what rock? Drunk driver misses Uluru

Picture this. It's the middle of the night, you're pissed, you're lost and you ask a cop for directions to Uluru. He points out the 340 metre rock your headlights are illumiating is said national treasure. Writer of the article: "It casts an imposing shadow over the flat landscape around it." At night?

Double You Tee Eff, Mayte?

It seems the evil spammers have come up with the notion that Shaney chains will help them get their product through spam filters. Either that, or someone is trying to activate the sleeper assassination agent planted in my brain:

seedy battlefield to nonsense tab of storehouse was overwrought typist in infirm extortion import! lily

claim the with cafe, the consume, predatory are guise mug in novel, the wrapper the city hall holdup thankful triceps a

delineate, the dark to clothespin tactically skewer, the intersection attribution of contradict lightness assistant professor stanch

ailing was condition and? dropout whine

role, the and was masculinity but crazy an distance compilation exquisitely the oval to timid stock certificate,

deployment to as foodstuff hoarsely, so that by! noise pollution, sic

punk rock diphtheria magic to entirety. to in outfielder this start a the protester maudlin slumber party mud

parentage snorkeling interpose of dialect as transistor the tormentor a oxide, with editor indulgent crybaby

It was followed by an embedded image with the actual info. Didn't work, still found it in my spam folder...and I haven't killed more people than usual.

Say no more.

According to all-knowing psyhcological testing, the God of Small Pocket Lint and the kid who tried to steal my mojo, I am slightly more introverted than extroverted. For the times I am the former, here is a nice article with some excellent insights:

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200303/rauch

Tanked

Note: The character I play in World of Warcraft is named Chas. I have made him the "spiritual advisor" to his guild, which just means I sprout some tangential rantings on our guild website. Lately, I have been penning stories of a character named Shac. So, basically, Shac is the literary version of Chas, which is the digital version of the real me. It's getting complicated. I liked this story, so I present it here for longevity. Some/most of it will be completely meaningless unless you know a bit about World of Warcraft.

The Parable of The Alcoholic Tank

"Your momma's so fat, she could tank Ragnaros nude!", shouted The Bully. That's what started Shac on his path. The fact that it was true, and that she had once survived two Flames of Ragnaros while wearing nothing but a Crimson Felt Hat, helped steel Shac's resolve. Furthermore, The Bully, named Victor, would later hole himself up in his castle, which he had inherited from a rich aunt, bitter about not being able to go on raids with his guild as he refused to spec out of shadow. That settled it, Shac would become a warrior and one day take his revenge.

However, despite 60 seasons of training in the Warrior arts, Shac sucked. Despite his best efforts and his mother's gentle advice, delivered using a red hot poker and a scourge, Shac had trouble killing even the lowly rats which were in abundance around the Dwarven sector. What's more, Shac found he was losing aggro on Kobolds, despite being the only person attacking them. Shac was miserable.

Then, when Shac was nearly at the end of his rope, while chasing a particularly wily rat that had run into the local tavern, Shac ran into Gimboid, the Dwarf. An axe to the side of the face, a short run from the graveyard and an offer to buy drinks for the rest of the evening later, Shac sat down with the surly dwarf with a tankard of mead in front of him, and told him his sad story.

"Clothes", Gimboid advised, "that's the first step to becoming a mighty warrior. Then maybe some armour." This was news to Shac. "A weapon and a shield wouldn't go astray, either" Could it be that simple?

It wasn’t. Despite following Gimboid’s advice, Shac still had trouble. For starters, he had trouble removing the heavy plate trousers to bare his arse, as he had been taught in Taunt lessons. Even if he did manage to get them down, he couldn’t get them back up again quick enough to avoid a sword blow to his white meat. Dejected, Shac went back to the tavern and took up a new vocation: drinking.

He was a natural. Despite being a human, he could drink dwarves under the table. He quickly became noted in the community for his rambunctious singing and tall tales of rat hunting and Kobold slaughter. He was considered to be somewhat the village idiot, but people from all over would visit the tavern nonetheless to hear Shac’s jokes about Gimboid’s mother.

It was during a particularly animated telling of how Gimboid’s mother was having it off with Garr, thus explaining where all the lava surgers come from, that Shac fell off his bar stool, landing heavily on his arse. When he got up, he noticed that he had landed on a rat, killing it. His first kill! He didn’t inform the crowd of this achievement, however, as they were under the impression that the only reason there were rats still living was because Shac hadn’t run into them all yet. But the kill changed Shac. Suddenly he was invincible. He could do anything. And he knew what to do next. He downed the flagon of ale in his hand, ordered a Theramore Tequila as a chaser and two jugs of Tyr’s Hand Pale Ale for the road. With a steely look in his eye he addressed the crowd, who had all gone silent. “I’m off to kill Hogger”, Shac slurred, and he stumbled out the door. The crowd followed, in awe, for no-one had ever even pondered that such a feat could be done.

The road to Hogger’s encampment was long and arduous and Shac tired. So much so, that at each tavern along the way that Shac and the crowd entered to quench their thirst, Shac left behind a piece of his armour as it was all too heavy. At the Inn Like Flynn, Shac lost his sword in a quick hand of poker and his shield fell into the Searing Gorge when Shac was explaining how Gimboid had invented the frizbee as a method of getting a drinks tray to his mother’s mouth, as he couldn’t get past her gut to hand it to her.

So, by the time Shac and his followers arrived at the edge of Hogger’s camp, Shac was completely nude. It had been a while since the last the last pitt stop, and Shac was busting. He relieved him self on a nearby tree.

“What. The. Fuck are you doing little man?”, the tree said. Shac looked up, still urinating (it had been a long night of drinking), at a giant Hogger shaped blur.

Not quite understanding the situation, Shac lit up a pipe of some fine Moonglade Medicinal Herbs, and said “Shut up, it’s cold, allright”, took a puff of smoke and coughed through his pipe, launching the hot embers downwards through the air. They landed square on his still gushing member, causing Shac to scream in pain, the crowd to cringe in horror and his piss to catch alight due to its massive alcohol content.

The scene that ensued is now one of legend. As Shac flailed about desperately trying to find a way to douse his private parts, Hogger swung his axe trying to decapitate the source of this outrage. However, thanks to Shac’s intricate drunken swerving, Hogger found he was having trouble connecting with the small, naked, fire-breathing demon. Hogger was also confused, as he had generally thought demons’ mouths were higher up. So incensed was Hogger about not being able to kill this annoyance that he had not bothered to put out the fire on his leg. Noticing this, Gimboid, who like the rest of the crowd was running about trying to avoid Shac’s rain of fire, whipped his dwarven member out and followed Shac’s lead, spraying Hogger with his own rain of fire. Noticing this, Shac, who had given up trying to stop pissing and was now “going with the flow”, called out “Gimboid, your piss is weak, dude!” and he burst out laughing, causing some villagers to have to take evasive action.

Before long, most of the crowd had also followed Shac’s lead and 40 people all rained fire down on Hogger simultaneously, while Shac kept Hogger focused on him with verbal taunts about his heritage and burning piss jokes. Soon enough, Hogger’s armour was weakened by the uric acid and his flesh was burnt away. Hogger was dead.

And that, dear reader, is the story of the one and only Hogger kill. That one event gave us the phrases “Piss weak” and “Go with the flow”. It was the origin of using a warrior to hold aggro, the word “tank” (from “being tanked”), the 40 main raid group and, of course, the flame thrower.

Tarot. Rhymes with snot.

You Are The Devil

You don't represent evil, but you do represent the animalistic side of humans. You demonstrate what happens when we listen to our first instincts. At times you tend to be materialistic and hedonistic, giving in to temptation. Admit it, you're guilty of acting first - and forgetting to think later! Your fortune: Right now, you may be having a difficult time as a result of choices you have made. You need to think about what's important in your life, and discover what chains you down. It is the time to acknowledge your faults and take steps to overcome them. It's also the time to let go of any fears or inhibitions that are holding you back.

What Tarot Card Are You?

That's Chas, all right. And here is the downside of having a name that morons think is female in real life (I am male, ffs! I hope):

You Are The Empress

You represent the ideal female figure: beauty and nurturing. You bring security and harmony to many. At times, you are also a very sensual person. You are characterized by love, pleasure, and desire. Your fortune: You need to take some time to think about the role of commitment in your life. It's possible you need to commit more to others, or deal with how others have treated you. It is very important for you to support your friends and family right now, difficult as it may be. You may need to look at your relationship with your mother, or your relationships as a mother.

What Tarot Card Are You?

Transparent background

This flickr set of desktop backgrounds that match the computer's surrounds is brilliant!!!

Partaying Comments

The situation: A BBQ/House Party/Piss Up, hosted by a high school friend, Frank (not his real name)
The players: High school friends, uni friends of the host, hangers on etc
The protagonist: Cute girl.
The antagonist: Me

Me notices cute girl at party. He finds her vaguely reminiscent, but puts it down to either the fact she has been to previous pissups or the misfiring neurons that give Me constant deja-vu. Me waits patiently for the right time to mosey on over and have a chat.

Me: Hi
CG: Hi, howz it going?
Me: Good, good. (nostalgic pause for effect) So how do you fit in with social puzzle here?
CG: (not so nostalgic pause, but definitely for effect). You and I went to high school with Frank. We were in the same year.
Me: (holy mother of god, damn you years of substance abuse, "is it possible to salvage anything now?" pause of infinte length and pwnage) Gurgle.


Yep, that one's going in a script one day.

For whom the bridge tolls

For whom the bridge tolls
Originally uploaded by ChasRover.

No posts, but a 3G 2 megapixel phone and the glory that comes with it.

Time waits for no train

25012006040
Originally uploaded by ChasRover.

test

For great justice

I kill dogs

Which Horrible Affliction are you?
A Rum and Monkey disease.

Interesting coincidence

Via viral email:

Year 1981
1. Prince Charles got married
2. Liverpool crowned Champions of Europe
3. Australia lost the Ashes
4. Pope Died

Year 2005
1. Prince Charles got married (again)
2. Liverpool crowned Champions of Europe (again)
3. Australia lost the Ashes
4. Pope Died

In future, if Prince Charles decides to re-marry and Liverpool
wins another European crown.... please warn the Pope :-) ..

Of course, perhaps God sacks his CEO if he fails to achieve certain KPIs.

Pretty Spot On

The Oz Politics Blog is beta testing a political view quiz. I'm left/left-centre. Well, duh!

Old

You know you are getting long in the tooth and your years of repressing the English language have been in vain when you find the following worthy of a guffaw:

Triumphant triontologias

TWO weeks ago we noted that you would be doubly truthful if you said of a computer-assisted tomography scan of a cat: "This is a cat scan" (20 August). We dubbed such statements diontologias and wondered whether there were any triontologias.

The challenge proved irresistible but hard to meet. The groan factor was high as readers struggled to find ways to satisfy the criteria using words such as "catastrophe", "catalogue" and "tomography". None really succeeded, and it was left to Nigel Steel to come up with what we felt was the best solution: "If you did a number of scans using positron emission tomography and an image of your own domestic animal companion was your personal favourite, then the statement, 'this is my pet scan', would be true to the third power."

Quite right Nigel, and thanks. Thanks also to Tom Gallard who reached almost the same solution with his "pet pet project". And we should mention the effort by Richard Saunders, who pointed out that if he bought a large musical instrument for £1000 and thought it was quite splendid, then the statement, "This is a grand piano", would be true three ways.

Strip generator

Helo!

chas Vam želi pokazati svoj strip z naslovom 'With bells'.

Ustvarite svoj strip - STRIP GENERATOR

Paartay

Paartay
Originally uploaded by ChasRover.

Sardines

Sardines
Originally uploaded by ChasRover.

Mugged

The part of the encounter that hurt the most was not the beating or the humiliation of being robbed, but the fact that such callousness and lack of compassion could exist in the world. Cuts heal and bones mend but the knowledge that people could turn off, or worse never have developed, empathy and kindness produces a deep malaise that threatens to engulf me. That people could be so selfish that inflicting pain on others was somehow acceptable for no other reason than it provided a brief monetary gain makes me yearn that I had not nurtured empathy.

What made it worse was they weren’t even real.

All these moments

All these moments
Originally uploaded by ChasRover.

Life, a beach

Life, a beach
Originally uploaded by ChasRover.

The bear

The bear
Originally uploaded by ChasRover.

Seerenity

Seerenity
Originally uploaded by ChasRover.

The Seer gives his blessing

The Seer gives his blessing
Originally uploaded by ChasRover.

Wedding

Wedding
Originally uploaded by ChasRover.

Brisvegas supreme

Brisvegas supreme
Originally uploaded by ChasRover.

Chas at Sin City port of air

Chas at Sin City port of air
Originally uploaded by ChasRover.

Sin City to Brisvegas

The Seer say: The journey of a thousand mile begin at airport with more runs than a ski resort!

Sin City -> Brisvegas

Damn you schnitzel sanger that which I had for lunch! Damn public loos to the hell of comunal bogs!

P- pho-blo?

P- pho-blo?
Originally uploaded by ChasRover.

P-blo

Does phone blogging still work?

The Seer Saw It All

You must understand, dear reader, that The Seer may be omnipotent and omnipresent (I am standing….right behind you!), but when he reads about dohickies that turn Microsoft Word into The Seer’s own personal blogging publishing devicerama-mibob, he calls immediately for Chas. The Seer does not sully his hands with the work of a peon.

“Make it work, damn you, damn peon” The Seer asks politely of Chas.

“Just downloading it now”, Chas utters in his soooo-Buddhistly calm you can tell he is about to throttle a puppy to death with its own tail due to the simmering under the surfaceness way.

“FASTER! MUSH!”, The Seer quietly urges.

Chas explodes in a tirade of expletives against Google and Microsoft (he may have said Poogle and Mycuntsoft, but The Seer does not condone swearing. The Seer has been everywhere and seen everything and swearing bores The Seer). Chas ponders why Outlook cannot be open while The Seer uses Word to blog. The Seer would explain it to him, but fears his feeble peon mind is not ready. The reason really is a doozy.

Chas explodes in a tirade of expletives against The Seer. Chas explains that it is logically impossible to be both omnipresent and omnipotent. If one was everywhere at once, they would be everyone at once. If everyone at once was omnipotent, then everyone would know everything and this is clearly not the case.

Poor Chas, I haven’t the heart to tell him he’s the only one.

Happy Quote

"Happiness is a butterfly, which, when pursued, is always beyond our grasp, but which, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you" - Nathaniel Hawthorne

Mofos

I have had the craziest life, when it comes to ideas. Being somewhat mad, I come up with ideas all the time. I usually fire off these crazy ideas to friends in emails and quietly note to myself that I should patent and/or get off my arse and pursue some of these ideas. Invariably, a day or a month or a year or so later my idea pops up in someone else's head and they make a billion dollars. A couple of months ago, I was remarking to a friend that surely the future for the iPod was as an input/storage device. You keep all your worldly files on your iPod, and simply connect it to devices all over the place. You put it in a small client-style laptop (ie just keyboard, processor and display) and it acts as hard disk and mouse. You put it in an ATM and it acts as an ATM card. And so on.

The fucktards at Apple are on to it. I'm going to start wearing a tinfoil hat.

Fafblog, now with more bogflaf

As always, Fafblog makes me laugh. I laugh so hard, milk comes out my nose. Except, I don't drink milk as I am lactose intolerant. A lactose bigot, you might say. I am lactosist. Nerf lactose. Nerf Chinese lacotse farmers. So coffee comes out my nose instead. Black coffee, with two sugars. This caused an expresso machine to come out my nose. So, I made a coffee with it and drank the coffee with heady anticipation of the next Fafblogism.

Q: So what's the plan?
A: The plan is to stick with the plan! If it ain't broke don't fix it.
Q: Why do we need the plan?
A: To stop terrorists like Saddam bin Laden from building another World Trade Center in Iraq - just so they can blow it up again.
Q: That would be horrible! How is the plan stopping them?
A: The plan is the central front in the war against terror! We invaded Iraq to get Iraqis to fight us in Iraq so they wouldn't fight us at home.
Q: The plan has cleverly lured them to where they already were, only in terrorist form!
A: Now you're catchin on!
Q: Hey, I know! We should invade like a small cardboard box. When all the terrorists attack there, we'll jump out of the way, tape up the box, and throw it in the ocean! No more terrorists!
A: Hey! No peeking ahead at the plan!

She didn't have a shoulder so she cried into her pillow.

Needies!

Plush toys that compete with each other for human attention. They're for co-dependent people. I am shuddering with uncontrollable giggling. It's not funny, but it is. Hehe, lol, snigger, chuckle, gaffaw.

I just know the poor sod who came up with this was sniggering too. It is such a great idea that is completely unfunny, in a funny kind of way.

Zombie dogs, Human flavoured tofu and now co-dependent pillows. This has been a great week.

Do you suppose when you are out at work, the pillow cries into itself?

Labor leader tells it like it is.

No, not Latham. Beattie, who always tells it like it is. I like that about him, it makes him a good leader in my book. The Howard media-byte style of politics is nauseating.

But I hadn't realised how subtle Beattie can be:

"I believe that central commitment to ordinary Australians remains and Kim epitomises that. I believe he can win the election."

Kim Beazeley epitomises ordinary Australians. Yes, he is Australian and yes, he is ordinary. That's the problem. Who wants to be led by ordinary?

It really is a great picture

As mentioned by Digital Retrograde!

I think I could start a cult using this picture.

The only thing lacking is a beer in the robot's left arm/hand/extremity.








Kamichi was smiling nervously as he hoped he
had not confused the foam and fuel symbols.

I am Chas' Not Post

This isn't really a post. Nor is it a door knob. It is a piece of string designed to remind Chas to go back and see if this site has turned on its Atom or RSS feed so I can read it. Of course, if you want to go visit Lightning Strikes Itself, I ain't going to stop you. I haven't really delved deeply into its mysteries yet, but at first glance it seems to be a bubble of info-goodness wrapped in coolophane.

But anyway, Chas, HEY CHAS! Remember! REMEBER! open your mind. OPEN YOUR MIIIIIIIND!

5pm Friday!

ROTFLMAOTMREACTWWEWTFBBQKTHXBYE

Excellent post about downloading gOtSX -intel.

Cats are making me crazy!!!

This is so unbelievable, it has to be a joke. Is The Times are respected newspaper?

The gist of it is that cats infect us with a parasite that makes men aggressive, scruffy loners and women promiscuous sex kittens. Do you mean to say cats infect us with catitis? CATS ARE CONTROLLING US!!!!

Actually, it turns out the rats are controlling the cats!! RATS ARE CONTROLLING US!!! Douglas Adams was right!

Perhaps what is becoming clear is the "possession"-like nature of diseases. Exorcists were ancient doctors, after all. Ever got the flu and simply wanted to kill everyone? That's the flu talking. Ever find yourself meowing on a fence for females? That's the catitis talking.

We are all DNA strands struggling to make sense of it all.

Forgive Them!

They know not what they do!

These mad scientists are creating a Philip K Dickbot! Philly K was always worried that he had been replaced by an android and went to great lengths to explore the possibility. By all that is sacred, what madness is this! The Dickbot will be programmed to act exactly as the speed-addicted-cia-harassed-cult-leader-sci-fi-genius. The android will be paranoid that it is an android! It's frankly Phildickian in it's phildickianess!

Mark my words, this will all end in saline excretions via a small tube connected next to the Dickbot's eye-camera.

Oh, and today, Michael Jackson was found not guilty. But in the Court of Chas, to the charges of Offending Life Itself, I find him GUILTY ON ALL CHARGES, except for owning pornography which is not a crime in the Law of Chas, except if it is child porn, in which case HANG, MICHAEL JACKSON SPAWN OF DEVIL, HANG! His punishment will be to live as Michael Jackson for the REST OF HIS LIFE! Too harsh? Perhaps, but the Court of Chas is cruel in it's Justice. For, as Daredevil teaches us, JUSTICE IS BLIND! As in, blind drunk!

Now, pass the Jesus Juice, I feel a revelation coming on!

Stolen From Simon World

Not sure who the author was, but tear-jerkingly true:

The Aussie Bar-B-Q "Tong Master"

Macca was at the barbecue and Jonesy was at the barbecue and I was at the barbecue; three men standing around a barbecue, sipping beer, staring at sausages, rolling them backwards and forwards, never leaving them alone.

We didn't know why we were at the barbecue; we were just drawn there like moths to a flame. The barbecue was a powerful gravitational force, a man-magnet.

Jonesy said the thin ones could use a turn, I said yeah I reckon the thin ones could use a turn, Macca said yeah they really need a turn - it was a unanimous turning decision.

Macca was the "Tong-Master", a true artist, he gave a couple of practice snaps of his long silver tongs, "SNAP SNAP", before moving in, prodding, teasing, and with an elegant flick of his wrist, rolling them onto their little backs.

A lesser tong-man would've flicked too hard; the sausages would've gone full circle, back to where they started.

Nice, I said. The others went yeah.

Kevin was passing us, he heard the siren-song - sizzle of the snags, the barbecue was calling, beckoning, "Kevinnnnn ...Kevinnnnnn......come".

He stuck his head in and said any room? We said yeah and began the barbecue shuffle; Macca shuffled to the left, Jonesy shuffled to the left, I shuffled to the left, Kevin slipped in beside me, we sipped our beer.

Now there were four of us staring at sausages, and Macca gave me the nod, my cue. I was second-in-command, and I had to take the raw sausages out of the plastic bag and lay them on the barbecue; not too close together, not too far apart, curl them into each other's bodies like lovers - fat ones, thin ones, herbed and continental. The chipolatas were tiny; they could easily slip down between the grill, falling into the molten coals & heat-bead netherworld below.

Carefully I laid them sideways ACROSS the grill, clever thinking. Macca snapped his tongs with approval, there was no greater barbecue honour.

P.J. came along, He said "looking good, looking good maaaaaaaaate" - the irresistible lure of the barbecue had pulled him in too. We said yeah and did the shuffle, left, left, left, left, he slipped in beside Kevin, we sipped our beer.

Five men, lots of sausages. Jonesy was the Fork-pronger; he had the fork that pronged the tough hides of the Bavarian bratwursts and he showed lots of promise. Stabbing away eagerly, leaving perfect little vampire holes up and down the casing.

P.J. was shaking his head; he said "I reckon they cook better if you don't poke them". There was a long silence, you could have heard a chipolata drop; this new-comer was a rabble-rouser, bringing in his crazy ideas from outside. He didn't understand the hierarchy; first the "Tong-Master", Then the "Sausage-Layer", then the "Fork-Pronger" -and everyone below was just a watcher.

Maybe eventually they'll move up the ladder, but for now - don't rock the Weber.

Dianne popped her head in; hmmm, smells good, she said. She was trying to jostle into the circle; we closed ranks, pulling our heads down and our shoulders in, mumbling yeah yeah yeah, but making no room for her. She was keen, going round to the far side of the barbecue, heading for the only available space.... "THE GAP" in the circle where all the smoke and ashes blew. Nobody could survive "THE GAP"; Dianne was going to try.


She stood there stubbornly, smoke blinding her eyes, ashes filling her nostrils, sausage fat spattering all over her arms and face. Until she couldn't take it anymore, she gave up, backed off.

Kevin waited till she was gone and sipped his beer. We sipped our beer; yeah.

Macca handed me his tongs. I looked at him and he nodded. I knew what was happening, I'd waited a long time for this moment - the abdication.

The tongs weighed heavy in my hands, firm in my grip - was I ready for the responsibility?

Yes, I was. I held them up high and they glinted in the sun. Don't forget to turn the thin ones Macca said as he walked away from the barbecue, disappearing toward the house. Yeah I called back, I will, I will. I snapped them twice, SNAP SNAP, before moving in, prodding, teasing, and with an elegant flick of my wrist, rolling them back onto their little bellies.

I was a natural, I was the "TONG-MASTER"...

Until Macca got back from the toilet....

The Judgement of Corby

Ms Corby will soon know her fate, as the whole of Australia follows her trial. Personally, I think the only interest here is the interest shown. Fascinating seeing people's prejudices out for show. The verdict is surely a simple one. She was found with 4kg of marijuana in her bag. Witnesses claim she pannicked and tried to stop the Indonesian customs from opening it. Biased witnesses, that is her family and friends, claim the drugs weren't in the bag when she packed it. Heresay from a convicted rapist indicates a conspiricy involving baggage handlers and drug smuggling. There isn't enough evidence to apply a charge of importing a narcotic or trafficking. There isn't enough evidence to deny a charge of possession, which carries a maximum 10 years in gaol. I predict 5, which includes the 6 months she has already done. It really doesn't deserve this kind of media and public scrutiny and the martydom of Corby. Studying co-workers reactions to all this, they are treating it like Big Brother or Survivor. One even asked whether the coverage today was the "Final Verdict Show", in all seriousness. My friend, it is only the last episode in the first series, there will be an appeal either way (3, in fact). I hope they bring in Keifer Sutherland for the second series.

Sydney Morning Herald has the right idea. Here is the url for their live coverage: http://live.smh.com.au/live/olympics/generic/comp0/game74/commentary.html

I, for one, would love to see trials become an Olympic sport too!

Update: Well, 20 years. Must a bid by the judges to force an appeal. I really don't think the evidence supports importation, and an appeal will drop it to possession. More time on the world media stage for the Indonesians!

Winner of The Internet - May 2005

http://outpostnine.com/editorials/teacher.html

If this guy hasn't picked up a TV sitcom deal already, I'd be happy to get it organised. Not that I am in such a position, but his tales of being a an assistant English teacher in Japan are pure gold.

Denial

To: Department of Mental Management (dmm@brain.chas.person)
From: Department of Complex Tasks (dct@brain.chas.person)
Subject: Speed enquiry

To whom it may concern,

As you may be aware, we are currently engaging in the task of driving a motor vehicle. The Department of Visual Awareness has informed the Department of Complex Tasks that the speedometer reading is 80 and the local area speed limit signs say 60. Could you please inform us whether this is legal?

Regards,

Brian Rainer

******************************************************

To: Department of Complex Tasks (dct@brain.chas.person)
From: Department of Mental Management (dmm@brain.chas.person)
Subject: re: Speed enquiry

Dear Brain,

Our records indicate that the policy most relevant to your situation is the "I'm Not Good At Maths Act 1987".

Sincerest regards,

Damien Nial

******************************************************

To: Department of Mental Management (dmm@brain.chas.person)
From: Department of Complex Tasks (dct@brain.chas.person)
Subject: re: re: Speed enquiry

Dear Damien,

We are fully aware of the "I'm Not Good At Maths Act 1987". We are also aware of the "Simple Skills Required For Driving Act 1998", which clearly states that "simple maths tasks are to be performed by the relevant department as requested for the purpose of driving a motor vehicle”. Please furnish us with relevant data.

Thanks,

Brian

******************************************************

To: Department of Complex Tasks (dct@brain.chas.person)
From: Department of Mental Management (dmm@brain.chas.person)
Subject: re: re: re: Speed enquiry

Dear Brian,

Ah, yes, our mistake. We will request the information you require and have it for you shortly.

Damien

******************************************************

To: Department of Mental Management (dmm@brain.chas.person)
From: Department of Complex Tasks (dct@brain.chas.person)
Subject: re: re: re: re: Speed enquiry

Dear Damien,

Please disregard my previous request. Please supply us now with procedures for dealing with a police officer.

Brian

******************************************************

******************************************************

******************************************************

To: Department of Mental Management (dmm@Brain.chas.person)
From: Department of Reflex Tasks (drt@Brain.chas.person)
Subject: Tiger

To whom it may concern,

Could your department, with all due haste, please inform us of the procedures to follow when confronted by an enraged Bengal tiger?

Sincerely,

Simon Pinal

******************************************************

To: Department of Reflex Tasks (drt@Brain.chas.person)
From: Department of Mental Management (dmm@Brain.chas.person)
Subject: re: Tiger

Dear Simon,

After an extensive search, the only relevant information we can supply you is contained in the “It Can’t Happen To Me Act 1977”.

Regards,

Damien Nial

******************************************************

To: Department of Mental Management (dmm@Brain.chas.person)
From: Department of Reflex Tasks (drt@Brain.chas.person)
Subject: re: re: Tiger

Dear Damien,

That is ridiculous. Prepare to hear from our lawyers.

Simon

******************************************************

To: Department of Reflex Tasks (drt@Brain.chas.person)
From: Department of Mental Management (dmm@Brain.chas.person)
Subject: re: re: re: Tiger

Simon,

Our lawyers welcome your legal challenge and we believe we have legislation and law on our side. Naturally, the department denies that there is, was or ever will be a Bengal tiger and stands behind our claim that there is no feasible way this government could have made contact which such a thing. Even if it did exist.

Damien

******************************************************

To: Department of Mental Management (dmm@Brain.chas.person)
From: Department of Reflex Tasks (drt@Brain.chas.person)
Subject: re: re: re: re: Tiger

Damien,

As we both wait impatiently for the pending legal case, could you please marshal your resources and discover the procedure for stemming blood loss due to a gash in the femoral artery? Any and all information would be VERY MUCH appreciated.

Simon

******************************************************

To: Department of Reflex Tasks (drt@Brain.chas.person)
From: Department of Mental Management (dmm@Brain.chas.person)
Subject: re: re: re: re: Tiger

Please note that Damien Nial is away on annual leave. If you have an urgent enquiry, please assume the department denies all knowledge of it.

Nearly a month between drinks

Blogwise, that is.

I don't have anything to add, really. Only that I am incredibly bored at work today. Haven't gotten the hang of the grind since I came back. I'll get there.

I am so bored I am doing the trick of watching the backup program and periodically writing a file name down on a piece of paper. It really looks like I am doing something excruciatingly important, especially as I have a concerned frown plastered on my brow.

The trick, however, is not to look too concerned, or else my boss will ask what disaster I am presiding over.

It's a fine line. I have cured myself of feeling guilty when the work is slow, however. It is a blessing that all is running smoothly and all tasks have been completed. It won't be like that for long.

Match of Hope

Dear Diary,

I note with great displeasure that every one of your pages contains information about me. What, are you stalking me? Stop following me, or I will have to invoke legal action. You have been warned.

Speaking of warned, I was watching a rather boring exhibition match of football, otherwise known as soccer to least cultured, held in Barcelona to raise funds for the tsunami. It featured some of football's more prominent has beens, including David Beckham who, I swear, only touched the football once, and even then it was more of a dodgy priest/Michael Jackson kind of touch than, say, a touch of brilliance. I only mention it, as the company I was with at the time wondered whether he was sending an SMS to Shane Warne, to which I mentioned that the message was probably not an SMS, but a texticle. We determined that a texticle is shorter than a full blown SMS and invariably is of lewd content. Despite that, all correspondence between us since has been referred to as a texticle. What do I have to do to make this word common parlance? I personally think a texticle is much nicer than a text, txt, sms or whatnot.

If I were Orange, and by that I mean the telecommunications company Orange, not "if I were the colour orange", I would hire Lance Armstrong to advertise the new, cool, totally chic new way of communicating with your friends via "Orange Texticles". He could say "When I won the Tour de France for the seventh time, I sent a texticle to Shane Warne so he could send texticles to the world. Send your Orange Texticle today."

France

I wasn't going to write anything on this damned, DAMNED, blog while vacationing in the mother land, France, which is where I am, in case that wasn't clear, but I will anyway. France just nicked their 6 nations match against England, otherwise known as the old foes, for headline reasons no doubt. I tip Ireland will take the 6 nations. France looks out of sorts and England are crap.

Some spam for you:

Subject: Do you covet to sense satisfactory next morning ? (Ed: damn straight. Every morning)

A modern survey displays that it needs an average of just 2.3 drinks to induce a hang-over. But this tablets supports you avoid katzenjammers and awaken sensitive splendid from head to stomach and everywhere else.

I, for one, am sick of katzenjammers. They are all jammy and katzenish. Splendid. Oh, and don't bother asking me for the link to buying this magic substance, I have bought their entire stock.

So, from the mother-land (as in: the land of my mother, she is French you know), a bientôt.

Short but sweet

Does anyone know what software Delta Goodrem uses to write her music? It is quite clever. I can't wait for version 2.0 when it might start producing some good music.

Why is God always Forbidding and Allah always Willing? Or is it the other way around? Buddha says it is all three.

I'll put it out there: Scientists have been trying to figure out what the anti-gravity force is. They call is cosmological constants or dark matter or stumps me. I think it is free will. There, I said it. I am sure of it. What we call free will is a form of energy. It oposes gravity. It is a weak force of the same magnitude as gravity. This will be proven one day. Just not by me, I can't be bothered. But, think about it, it makes sense.

I'll leave it with you,

WOW

Chas is now an entity in World Of Warcraft. He is currently a level 19 Human Warrior. This means his user, when not at work, is plastered in front of the computer guiding Chas through the world of Azeroth, running, chatting, buying, fishing, mining, blacksmithing, making bandages and fighting. Mainly running. It is a big world, after all.

Chas' first MMORPG. Dear Christ, it is addictive.

Still, one of the benefits of not having a life is the time available to live a virtual life. In fact, any remnants of a life I still have are in the process of being eliminated.

But good riddance to it. I have had enough of having "a life". My liver can't take it anymore. I have tasted most of life's riches; I have travelled both physically and mentally, I have discovered spirituality, eaten fine food, laughed with good friends, loved and lost. Hell, I even jumped out of a perfectly good aeroplane on Sunday at 14,000 feet. Unfortunately, there was this weirdo strapped to my back who saved my life with a parachute. So, adieu "having a life". Time to strap on the Metallica t-shirt, turn the lights off, crank up the pot noodle and settle in to computer geekdom. L33t.

The blog may stay, though. It might be useful to chronicle the exploits of Chas in this new realm.

The Seer saw it coming.

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.