Hey Here's An Idea...

Next time you're on a bus or a train and you have to let out a ripper fart, do it and turn to the nearest female and say..."Don't worry love. They'll think it was me."

All Sooked Out

Man, this blogging thing is hard. I am so hard-up for a reason to blog that I can't even think of something to whinge about. Maybe this is what the doctor ordered. A little bit of public sooking and I am cleared of all things that piss me off.

Like Alanis Morisette with her "Jagged Little Pill" CD. Now that was one angry bitch. And then, after that album shot to number 1 and, like, about 9 out of the 12 songs were hits, she's suddenly a millionaire. And now she's happy. The next thing she writes is a song called "Thank you". Yeah I'd be thankful too if all you people actually paid me heaps of money to write about the things that shit me up the wall.

Look at Guns 'N' Roses. Every song they write sounds like they're really pissed off. What have they got to be pissed off about? "Damn I ran out of black nail polish...that just really gets my goat". I can imagine Axl saying "gets my goat". Be surprised if he remembers the words. I remember watching one of their live videos on the Japan leg of the "Use Your Illusion Tour". He had a tele-prompter with the words to his songs...and it was "Sweet Child O' Mine" of all songs. My 3 year old boy nearly knows the words to that one and the guy who wrote it needs a reminder!?

Anyways I guess now that I'm done whinging I can start to write about happy things...ummm nope. Too much like Home And Away. Every person that comes into that show starts out a bad guy, then by the end of their first season they're good and everyone likes them. About once every three months I find myself watching an episode and saying something along the lines of..."Hang on...the last time I saw this show she was trying to kill that guy, and now they're plotting a bake sale together?!? Cor Blimey!!! And even the simplest bake sale requires this massive organisational structure. The whole town (being the half dozen cast characters required for tonights episode) gathers at the diner to have Colleen delegate duties, which none of them actually carry out anyways. Yet, the very next day they have a bake sale on. And the only people who attend it are the ones who were at the meeting the night before. Why didn't they just bake a cake and take it to the meeting? Better still, buy one fresh from the diner.

Stupid Chain E-Mails

For the life of me, I can’t understand why so many people still think chain e-mails need to be forwarded on. Every time I receive a chain e-mail I am disappointed. Why? Because I load up my Outlook and hit the ‘Send/Receive’ button, and…YAY…I am getting an e-mail.

Even more exciting. It’s from Happy Harry Hardon or some other address I haven’t heard from in months. I wonder what Harry has to say today. And then comes the disappointment. It’s just one of those stupid chain e-mails.

So what was the excitement of hearing from an old friend has quite rapidly turned to disappointment and, to some extent, resentment. My initial feeling of self worth, that someone was actually thinking of me and decided to say hello. The anxious anticipation that there would follow some fantastic news that Harry was getting married or having a baby and, as a result, is getting married.

Instead, not only was I not thought about as Harry copied in all of the 289 addresses in his mailing list. I was used because the friggin e-mail that he got from someone who he hasn’t heard from in months told him to send it to as many people as possible, or else some horrific disaster would occur. Furthermore, I am now stuck with the same dilemna. If I don’t forward this message onto at least 25 people, I am likely to spend the rest of eternity writhing in agony in the pit of damnation. Or worse still, I might have to spend the rest of eternity reading bloody chain e-mails.

Well thank you very fucking much Harry! As it so happens, I only have 24 addresses in my mailing list. So how the crap am I supposed to forward it on now?! I started to panic. I read the e-mail carefully. I was hoping I would stumble on some disclaimer or escape clause that would guarantee me safe passage. Well at least until the next chain e-mail came along. It read:

“Make a wish and forward this e-mail onto 25 people within 15 minutes. Warning – if you do not forward this e-mail on within 15 minutes of making your wish, the opposite of what you wish for will happen”

OK…this is good. I don’t have to forward this e-mail on until I have made a wish. So I will be safe at least until then, and I will have 15 minutes to act. Good…ok. Now think. Damn I just wish I had one more e-mail address. OH FUCK! I just made a wish. Great! Now I have 15 minutes to find a new e-mail address and get rid of this monkey on my back. Ironically, once I do get the new address and forward the message on, I will get one more address as my wish will come true.

What am I gonna do? Hang on. If I don’t forward the e-mail on, the opposite of what I wish for will happen. Interesting. So I sat back and waited.

Sure enough, 15 minutes came and went and I had not forwarded on the message. And you know the scariest thing? It was all true. The opposite of what I wished for had actually happened. I was so pissed off with Happy Harry Hardon, that while I was waiting for my world to come crashing down around me, I deleted his address from my mailing list. And now I have one less e-mail address.

Didn’t think of that one now did ya Harry…retard!

Get it right people. Come on!

I’m generally not a spelling nazi. The way I see it, unless it’s a formal document, if I can make sense of it I don’t care about the formatting. I’m not sure why there are so many people out there who feel the need to correct people’s mistakes. Particularly in this online existence where almost all forms of communication are in writing. When you’re trying to keep the flow of conversation at a reasonable pace, you don’t need to worry about spelling errors.

If people are smart enough to know there is an error, they should also be smart enough to work out what the person is trying to say by the context of the conversation. I guess if the error is so bad that even the context is lost, then maybe people should take more care, but in that event I still don’t care. I just hope you weren’t asking me to do something. Cos if I don’t understand the request, it ain’t gonna get done.

There’s just two spelling errors that I feel need to be corrected. I never correct them at the time, hence the purpose of this post. I hope that it will serve to educate a few people on the subject, and serve as a blanket correction if you will.

The first is no biggie, but believe me you will look pretty stupid if you make this mistake.
“Voila”: It’s French. It loosely translates to “and there you have it”. Most commonly used, in English, when a magician performs his trick. All too often I see it typed as “wah lah”…or “wala”...or something, let’s say more phoenetic.

Like I said, this is no biggie, but now you can get it right.

The second is a biggie and honestly it shits me up the wall. It’s one that people continually get wrong. The problem with this one is there are three possible ways to correctly spell the word, but each one has a different meaning. I don’t know whether it is a case of me being more sensitive to it, but I think more than half of the population do not know the correct time to use each spelling choice. They seem to treat it like a multiple choice question. And quite often I will see the same person spell it incorrectly twice, by using the other wrong option. Crazy stuff.

I am referring to the word “their” (or “there”; or “they’re”). So here is your lesson. And if your only goal in life is not to piss me off (if it’s not, it should be), then you will take heed:

THEIR – means belonging to them.
THERE – in that place
And THEY’RE – they are.

I hope this has helped. Really I am only helping you to help me.

Brush your hair. You look like an idiot.

I am still hesitant to publicise which town I live in. For one, if I offend any of the locals, it wouldn't take much thinking to work out who I am. Luckily for me, most of the locals don't seem to do much thinking.

Needless to say it was approximately three years ago that I moved here. You all might know it as about the change of era where 'our' youth decided it would be cool to start dressing like those of you who are my age did when we were young. I am referring to the 80's look that has resurfaced. Funny, actually how the music resurfaced about 10 years ago, but only now has the fashion reared it's ugly head.

It's part of the reason I am so disillusioned by it all. You see, when my family and I told our friends and relatives back home, that we were planning to move to [our current locality], we were all told that the town was about 10 years behind the rest of the country. Next thing you know, we have made the big commute and sure enough, people are dressing like they did decades ago. Most shops still don't open on Sundays and probably the most unbelievable of all, there are still a substantial number of businesses that do not offer EFTPOS as a payment option.

Our family were right. This town is 10 years behind everyone else. So naturally I assumed the fashion was too. Well I was wrong. It seems that the youth of today are up with the fashion. But it's not the youth of today who are running the businesses. They're too fuckin lazy. They all have it way too easy. Living at home whilst claiming the Centrelink 'living away from home allowance'. They all drive better cars than me, whilst I bust my arse in the 9-to-5. You figure that out. It wasn't until four or five months later, when my wife had finalised the sale of our house back home and had come up to join me, that I realised the 80's rehash was nation wide. Possibly world wide.

At this point I will admit that I was not unlike these kids. In fact it was my mother-in-law who pointed out to me that the genuine 80's look I tried so hard to achieve 20 odd years ago was, in itself, a rehash of the 60's 'mod' look.

Thing is, the kids of today have put their own spin on it. Instead of the teenage boys spending potentially hours brushing, gelling, blow waving their hair all in the one direction (which was any direction other than down), now they are spending equal amounts of time competing to see who can make their hair the messiest. For crying out loud. Buy these people a brush dag-nabbit!

You wanna know what it is that really pisses me off about this though? Probably not, but I am gonna tell you anyways. No matter how much time I spent trying to get my hair all to go in the same direction, I failed. My hair was a mop of wiry messy, messy bush. This of course cemented the fact that I was never going to be a popular teenager. And now today they're spending a fortune to achieve a look that I could achieve in my sleep. in fact the less time I spent on it then, the more fashionable it would be now.

Ya gotta love it though. Like these 'emo' kids getting around in their black clothes and black lipstick and black nail polish. The 'non-conformists'. Their policy, if you will, is to not confirm to the trends that their peers have deemed so popular. Then why is it then, that they have all adopted the same look? They are essentially conforming to 'non-conformity'. Wow...heavy stuff. Cheer up emo kid.

Damn I am glad I am past defining myself by the way I look. Today I am fatter and balder than I have ever been before, and yet I am happier than I have ever been before. Except when I have to crap. But I have already told you that story.

Did you know.....

A flea can jump up to 165 times it's own height.

Wow. The guy who got 165 fleas to stand on top of each other should be really proud of that discovery.

Man I dislike fleas. I owned cats my whole childhood and the one thing that I hated about cats, was the fleas. I remember once my house got so infested, that I would put my feet on the floor to get out of bed, and instantly about 10 fleas would be on my legs.

Actually that’s not the only thing I hated about owning a cat. They don’t give (you guessed it) a flying rats clacker where they shit and piss.

In fact the whole reason I don’t own a cat today is because of what I experienced with the last cat I ever owned.

Now don’t get me wrong. Well you can if you want, but I am an animal lover. If I donate to charity, it is most often an animal rights type organization. But I really didn’t much enjoy owning this cat.

The poor bastard had a crap life. At about 1 year old it tried to pounce on a moving car. Ended up with it’s bottom jaw split right down the centre. Had to have a plate in it’s hip. But that’s my point. I so didn’t want to see the cat die, that I cost my mother hundreds of dollars to keep it alive. Ironically, only a few years later I got it put down. It wasn’t even sick or dying. I just didn’t want to put up with it’s shit any more.

I mean that literally. Our cats lived inside pretty much all of the time. They came in whenever they wanted. They went out whenever they wanted. They each learned to scratch at the front door and one of us would get up and open it for them. The thing that made me decide to have it put down was the last time it scratched at the front door to come in. At the time I didn’t know it would be the cats last time. Either did it.

Anyways, it scratched, and in accordance with our agreement, I let it in. It then proceeded to crap in the corner of the room and then went straight back outside again. Yep. It came inside to crap. So I had it put down.

Actually, funny thing about that. My best mate came with me to have it put down. Not for moral support. He was just hangin out with me at the time. While we were waiting for the deed to be done, he turned to me and said: “At least we’ll get the chance to find out if there’s enough room to swing one.”

Strange thing about that story is that I always thought cats were so clean. Same cat, and pretty much every cat I owned all acted the same way. What I mean is how well, and how regularly they groomed themselves. As I said before, I owned cats all my childhood. And more often than not, we had two cats at a time. So I had plenty of opportunity to study them.

They have a bathing routine, not unlike humans. I remember sitting there listening to music one afternoon and just watching this cat groom itself. They always start at the same place. The front paws.

They meticulously clean in between each ‘toe’ and scrape the dirt out from under their claws. Makes sense considering it’s the part of their body they’re about to clean their face with.

So next in line is the front legs and particularly under the armpit area. Then the chest. Once that section is done, its onto the head, including the ears. After the head comes the back and shoulders sort of area. And then down the body. Of course all that’s left before the tail is the back legs, and everyone’s favourite part, the genital area. One of my favourite jokes is the one where two guys are sitting there watching a cat ‘clean’ it’s genital area. One guy says to his mate: “I wish I could to that” to which his mate replies: “Ya better pat the cat first”.

Well like I said before; I think it’s funny.

Last, but not least, the cat cleans its tail. Probably the most elegant part of the routine. There’s really something to be said for the grace with which a cat controls it’s tail. So maybe 20 minutes later, this cat has cleaned every inch of it’s body from top to tail. And then you know what it did next? It started again. Went through the whole routine right over again.

I thought: “Well dang. This has got to be the cleanest cat I ever saw”. Then I thought about it some more, and I realised that this cat was not clean at all. It’s just covered itself in cat spit!

What's the worst thing someone has ever called you?

Skin ridden piece of filth.

Very memorable moment. To this day I am not sure why I remember it so well. Was it cos it cut me deep? I don't think so. I laughed it off. But that's just it. It was funny.

I was heading in to a night club with a bloke and saw these two girls sitting down outside. They weren't even real good looking but, as a bloke does, I looked at them and said quite simply..."Ooh". From that I got...."Fuck off ya skin ridden piece of filth!"...told you I was ugly. Apparently I am also skin ridden.

PS: if anyone ever works out what it means I would appreciate if you could let me know.

Do yourself a favour

Listen to Kate Miller-Heidke. Now I want to go on record stating that I do not condone illegal file sharing and software piracy.

For that reason, I am not going to suggest that anyone download, for free, and install a product such as Limewire or Bearshare. I am also going to recommend that you do not search under the music category using the string 'kate miller-heidke'.

And under no circumstances should anyone attempt to use this method to obtain a recording of practically any song ever written. That would be unethical.

So, as I was saying, you should (legally) obtain a copy of Kate Miller-Heidke's new album. 'Little Eve'. It's really quite brilliant. Easy listening. A little quirky.

But also. You should search (not in the search engine sense, of course) for a song entitled 'Career Advice'. It was originally entitled 'Australian Idol', but in the interest of avoiding legal action, she changed it on advice from another well known entity, whose name shall remain anonymous.

I don't really like contemporary music. I think I am verging on that age where modern music sounds like noise. But I am still always searching for a new sound that I want to listen to over and over again. Every now and then I find one. The last one I found was a guy named iOTA. Brilliant musician and you should also obtain his music by any means that does not involve downloading software.

Now it's Kate. Give her a listen. Not for me. Not for her. Do it for you.

BLOG-stipated again!

Kind of frustrating really. I had just given myself to the concept of writing a whole heap of shit that the whole world can read, but most likely won’t. A stream of crap (apparently not flowing too freely) that bears no philosophical meaning; that fails to serve any purpose, but to take it’s rightful place on the information super highway.

In fact the only people who will probably ever get anything out of this blog will be those whose lives are so uninteresting that they occupy their time by complaining about… well everything. I guess at least I will be giving them something to do. But make no mistake. Whinge all you want. I won’t give a flying rats clacker.

OK then, so why am I writing this blog? Well deep down I really want people to think I am funny. I actually enjoy providing people with entertainment. I don’t care if they like me. I don’t care if they hate me. I just want them to laugh at what I say. So part of the reason why I have nothing to write about, is because I don’t want to write it unless I think it’s funny. Let me clarify that last statement. Unless I think it’s funny. I don’t even care if you don’t think it’s funny. But if I do, then there is a slim chance other people will too.

There are many ways to entertain someone. Singing, for example. In case anyone who can help me out is reading this, I am willing to sacrifice any number of testicles (my own included) for the opportunity to stand in front of 70,000 people and have them all repeat anything I say. No I am not talking about getting everyone to admit in unison that they are an alcoholic. Although I am sure it would be possible to get 70,000 to admit they are an alcoholic, and not be lying. I am talking about being a rock star.

In 1991 I attended the single largest concert that, to date, had ever been held in the southern hemisphere. I am referring to the Guns ‘N’ Roses: Use Your Illusion tour held at Eastern Creek Raceway in Sydney. Absolutely fantastic day. It was almost like a big day out. Five hard rock bands spanning about 8 hours worth of entertainment. And at the time Gunners were, without a doubt, my favourite band. Until that day anyways. Their performance sucked. They came on late. Their set was cut short. Axl didn’t speak to us once. Duff and Slash were really good, but limited in crowd participation. Anyways I digress.

Skid Row. Until that day in 1991, I thought of Sebastian Bach as a pounsey glam rocker with more interest in how shiny his hair was, than how entertained his fans were. I still remember the first time I saw the “I Remember You” film clip. Man that chick singing that song was HOT! Oops…it’s a bloke. Did I just say that or think it?!

Either way, I was wrong about him. There were two events that made that concert one of the most memorable days in my adolescent life:
1. While we were waiting for Gunners to get their arses out and earn the money we were paying them, a plane flew over with a banner reading “Metallica: March 23” or whatever date it was. And;
2. Sebastian Bach getting 70,000 people all to stand up, in unison, and jump up and down on the spot. Man that would have been unreal to see from the stage. And why did we all do it? Just cos Sebastian Bach said so? Pretty much. Even I, who really didn’t like him prior to that night, was in awe of the power he wielded.

I want to be that man. I don’t want your money. I don’t want you lining up to ask if you can place my penis in your mouth. I can take it or leave it. But to know that I have given 70,000 a reason to smile….what a rush. Umm did I just say ‘I can take it’ in reference to inserting a penis? Oh well. I guess you know what I am trying to say.

There’s only one problem with becoming a rock star. Well two actually. The first one is that I am ugly. So straight away I am not really going to make it as a performer. The other is the fact that I can’t sing for shit so once again, at least as a rock star, I am not going to make it in the business. Now that I think about it there are quite a large number of reasons that I am never going to be famous. But today I am not going to list them. I just said I want to make you laugh. What I don’t want, is your pity. That, by definition, would make me pitiful.

Ok so we have established that I will never be famous. Thanks for your input on that. But maybe, I can still make 70,000 people laugh just once. Doesn’t all have to be at the same time. And really I will probably never know it. Yeah…meh.

Anyways it was good to unclog the pipes again. And It’s a legitimate excuse to visit my own blog and up that vist counter by another 1.

One in a million...

I have met a very special woman.

No I am not falling in love with her. I love my wife very much and have no intention of trading. If you knew my wife, you would know that for me to trade her in would be like swapping my Ferrari for a Hyundai Excel.

No I don't own a Ferrari. It's a metaphor. All I am saying is that this special woman is not special because she makes my heart go 'thumpity-thump' whenever she walks in the room. She's not special because she knows what I am thinking before I think it. None of that mushy crap.

In fact I don't even know her. I don't know her name. I just saw her walking down the street. So, what then? What makes her so special? What it is it about her that is different from EVERY other woman I know?

Her hair is only one colour.

I implore you...

If you are female, and you are fertile...

Please...PLEASE!! do NOT go to Erinsborough or Summer Bay.

You will almost certainly fall pregnant, and you won't know it until you pass out and hit the floor.