Traffic Light Plus Red Means Stop

It's been a while since I checked the ACT road rules.  I do this from time to time to make sure crazy stuff isn't going down that I should know about, like it's suddenly law to rotate anti-clockwise on a roundabout.  These types of rule changes probably happen all the time.

The last time I visited the ACT Government's heaving, bossy pdf on the laws of the road was when I was querying a ticket that I received due to illegal parking in a parking bay.  They were right so I didn't fight.  Ooh, that rhymes.  But like so many other epic poets, I am in no mood to rhyme.

Has anyone noticed the great abundance of douchebags in Canberra who think the process of stopping at a red traffic light has somehow morphed into an option, rather than a specific fucking directive?  Last weekend I nearly got wiped out at an intersection because some loser in a green Ford couldn't be bothered waiting his turn.  Fair dinkum, I am so over dickheads.

Never mind the actual road rules; the last time I checked my common sense rule book of stuff-morons-don't-know, the signal denoting a red light meant stop. Just STOP. It wasn't a guideline. It wasn't a suggestion. It meant stop your fucking car in a fully halted fashion. Has this fairly logical rule changed?

I suppose learning how to drive a car on a road without causing minor/major collateral damage and killing yourself/everyone else can be quite a challenge for Canberra's wannabe Michael Schumachers, who are blissfully unaware that they are without the flashy, curvy Red Ferrari (Red Ferrari always gets capitalised in my world), any hint of skill or talent, and that actions have consequences.

I guess I can see the ambiguities in the regulations surrounding the mysterious red traffic lights.  I mean red is fairly open to interpretation.  It's just such a wishy washy colour, isn't it?  Does it mean stop, does it mean go?  It's all so confusing.  For stupid people.

Now while I like to believe that I have my vehicular basics down pat, I still don't know who goes first in an intersection with two oncoming cars when you both want to turn right.

Liberté conditionnelle - fancy talk for parole

Liberté conditionnelle.  It's French for parole.  Everything in the world sounds more fancy when you speak it in French with a bad French accent.  Which is strange, because the French are muchos bastards in general.  I know; I've met at least 12 of them.

Speaking of parole - such a coinkydink - I’ve always thought an efficient way for the Government to generate some extra revenue for their kitty would be through the installation of grandstand seating at police stations and charge non-criminals for the privilege of watching life’s shitheads report for parole.  I’d watch the heck out of that.

And we could clap and woop woop as criminals are led down to the gallows or whatever in their chains and be forced to watch a live feed of Big Brother for three hours and eat a plate of peanut butter-encrusted brussell sprouts.  Gross.

As if that wasn’t enough excitement for you, then there’s the uniforms. Oh wait. I’m pretty sure no-one on the earth has ever shown any interest in men in police uniform, so that’s just not relevant.

In reality, no criminal activity of any sort will happen on the day you have your tickets and you will just have to watch police officers do boring paperwork and talk over-the-counter to little old ladies. Sort of like requesting to attend swimming in the Olympics lottery and getting tickets to the diving.

They could have icecream sellers and everything. But not the ones who block your view for ages during important bits just so some moron can change their mind 18 times about whether to purchase a cornetto or that other one that is exactly the same fucking thing as a cornetto but has a different name. And then we get marzipan to throw at the prisoners. Such fun.

So I’ve recently been walking home via my local police station. There is a good reason for this. I’m not actually on parole anymore, so that’s not the reason. I have recently moved to an apartment and the copshop is on my walking route. When I walk past in the afternoon there are always losers sitting waiting to sign in for parole. I know they are on parole because they have losers on parole written all over them.

My concern is that they will be so bored stiff waiting in the backlog of deadbeats that they will notice some blonde chick walking past and decide to follow her for some sinister purpose. I'm assuming none of them are murderers but you just never know; especially if you live in Victoria.

Thinking actually works.

I seem to be on a foot-long sub blog fiesta at the moment.  What's going on there?  Who the heck knows.

I had a little thought bubble today.  I know it was wrong, and I know I should just block all mental and intellectual activity as soon as it pops into my little brain, but it happened OKAY.  It. Just. Happened.  But I will be aware of it happening next time and nip it in the bud, because we can't just have people thinking all over the place.  My thought went something along the lines of this.  WHY ARE THERE SO MANY FEKING STUPID PEOPLE IN THE WORLD???


Thinking is essentially good,
but best keep your pants on.

By my reckoning, at least 50% of the population went to Dickhead College, where there is no university entrance index to get you in.  Stupid gits just allow the academia to follow them around for 20 minutes and then they're magically enrolled. 

Despite the fact that the process of reasoning and deduction is unique to human beings, shitloads of fools seem utterly incapable of stopping to think about the consequences of their actions.

What they need to do is sit down, have a good hard look at themselves, probably note at this point how poorly attired they are, and perhaps note that the world won't complain if they pull their pants up or wear a dress that covers their arse, and then do the exact opposite of what they were going to do because what they had planned was essentially a really stupid idea.

Look to The Thinker as an example.  Sort of.  I'm about to give you pretty much the best advice anyone will ever give you so inhale it in. 

In so much as thinking is GOOD, it is usually best you keep your pants on while doing it, particularly if you are sitting on a bench in a public park or on a rock at The Gates of Hell, otherwise known as the security checkpoint in the lobby of your workplace.  Swans, especially, don't really approve of public nudity.  There's not much swans do like.  I love swans; they are my kind of people. 

Ramping Up

I haven't blogged for three-ish weeks. What's with that? Let's see, what's happened in that time. I went to Mustique, I got papped on the beach by some boganey bogans, I got called a 'shop window mannequin' by some depressing author who pens books in a novel, publishable-type manner, and then I did this and that and stuff and thing.

I quite frankly can't be bothered to construct complete sentences, but who can blame me, I am a royal after all. Oh, hang on, sorry, I think I'm getting my life muddled with that of Duchess Kate.

In the last three weeks I have been to the dentist. So there, Duchess Kate. Our paths are so eerily similar is shocks me. But shit got weird today. Very, very viard. Everything was just ticketyboo until I accidently drove up a ramp onto the back of the truck. I know. Weird.

Like there aren't enough things to worry about when I'm whooshing around in my Toyota; now I have haphazard ramps to add to the list. Rampophobia; look it up people. If anyone from AAMI is reading this, you're not really in a position to pass judgement, because I've seen your ads. You would insure a tractor-driving monkey if it could afford comprehensive.

Keep Calm and Carillon On

I went to Canberra's sickeningly photogenic Lake Burley Griffin this morning at the crack of -3 degrees to watch the Trooping the Queen's Colour, so I was a happy-go-lucky ray of fucking sunshine. 

Back in the day, colours were paraded before regiments so troops knew their team colours, as it is always quite useful to know which side you're on and which direction to point your gun.  But it's all just for pomp and pageantry purposes these days. 

In this ceremony, the Royal Military College Duntroon get their cadets to prance up and down and up and down a parade ground in their spiffy whiter than white jackets, licquorice allsort trouser pants, sheeny shoes and various shining accoutrements, while being yelled at by a loud-mouthed, order-barking field officer with a penchant for being loud-mouthed in a spectacularly loud-mouthed fashion.  And at some point in the event the colours are tossed around carelessly like a pass-the-parcel.  Sort of, but not really like that at all.    

I have attended several of these ceremonies.  I don't know why.  Nothing ever changes; the military like to maintain order and precision in everything they do.  And they also don't care much for spontaneity or surprises.  There is always a lot of choreographed marching and people yelling and shiny shoes and lots of standing around; by the poor cadets and by me. 

One can generally seat one's bottom at these things, but today I stood, right up the front, because I wanted to take some snaps without big boofheads blocking my way.

Due to the fact that I am utterly incapable of standing still for five minutes, I spent much of the time swaying and sighing and stamping my feet to the beat and occasionally I did cartwheels around the grass in a mostly choreographed fashion, but the cadets never moved a muscle, unless Officer Yells-A-Lot yelled at them to do so.  They never do.

Standing still is a discipline that anyone can learn, I imagine, except for me, time and flies.  Speaking of time; it does not fly when one has to stand still.  I guess I keep going back in the hope that one day one of them will go rogue and start moonwalking during the Symbolic Arrival of HM the Queen.  I'm sure no-one would notice a spot of freestyling.

Stuff I learnt today.  Canberrans, did you know that the Carillion is not actually called the Carillion?  It's the Carill-on.  I know, right!  The last time I was this confused was when I was told there was no Santa Claus. 

I really can't cope with this ridiculous piece of information right now, as it completely screws with my national landmark thought processes, so I will continue to call it the Car-ill-ion.  Probably forever. 

More stuff I learnt today.  There is a fine line between surreptitiously responding to a mobile text over and over and over again and being a rude dickhead.  I have decided to erase this line.  I am putting all these people into the same impertinent boat and then chucking them overboard.  Every man, woman and precocious child; I don't care how short you are. 

When I looked around at the crowd this morning, I noted a high number of mostly young people glued to their mobile phones - texting, sexting, but mostly being perplexing - to their smarter friends, who were likely still in bed. 

To these people who will apparently spontaenously be consumed by fire if they don't access their mobile phone every five damn seconds I say this: fuck off and stop being so damn disrespectful.  Maybe it was a Groupthink thing.  You can never underestimate the power of stupid people when they assemble.  Never.

Emergency Bogan Plan

I was sitting at the traffic lights today, minding my own business, as much as I ever mind my own business, when a rogue teenage hooligan (is there really any other type of teenager) ran from behind my car toward the car in front, apparently engaging in some type of ritualistic car musical chairs at the traffic lights.  As you do.  And it occurred to me that I really was not prepared for a potential carjacking.  It happens, you know.

Like any self-respecting girl-about-town or femme fatale serial killer, I tend to carry a bunch of things in my car that can be used as weapons, just in case one of life's bogans decide to Toyota-jack my little red car, channel their delusional road rage in my direction, or break-in to tag their name in the dust on my dashboard.  The latter is a bit of a stretch; how many bogans know how to spell their own name?

I've carried a concealed hockey stick under my passenger seat for years - and an old blood-stained hockey ball - for security and, let me tell you, I sure as heck know how to use them.  I played high school girl's hockey, during high school girl's hockey's Underbelly years, and I often practiced selective hearing when it came to the referee's whistle. 

So it has been brought to my attention that I might need to get in some practice of my emergency bogan plan, which will involve whipping out my hockey death stick and shoving it into the adam's apple of a six-foot tall hypothetical bogan with four teeth and a brown mullet who is standing at my window yelling random, unintelligble bogan slogans at me.

I think I will need to rehearse this.  At the traffic lights.  In peak hour.  You can never be too careful about which direction the loonies are going to come from.  Safety before sanity, I always say.  I might pop over to bogan-filled Charnwood to see if there are any volunteers to stand-in as the lone carhacker/jacker.  I can't see how that plan can go wrong.

I've recently added a jar of Aldi's Bockwurst to my collection of vehicular self-defence weapons.  Yes, I have some German sausage in a jar, in my car.  I found it rolling and carouseling under the driver's seat.  I think someone gave it to me ages ago.  It may save my life one day.  One can apparently boil them in five minutes for eating purposes, or chuck them at the very temple of boganism, for the purpose of serving the local community. You're welcome, Canberra.

Therapy for Road Rage

*Climbs on Soapbox*

How unusual of me to get on my soapbox about something that aggrieves me.  In this case, blogging as a form of therapy is cheaper, smarter and far more legal than road rage.  Because road rage is generally a VBI, that is, a Very Bad Idea.

I was driving along a highway in Canberra today - minding my own business, as much as I ever mind my own business - when a young hooligan in a dumb purple glitter V8 flew up behind me and decided to go around me only at the last minute, and then cut back right in front of me, narrowly avoiding transferring some of his purple glitter dust onto my front bumper.

After cramming my entire swear word vocabulary into a single sentence, I calmly let the whole episode pass over me, even though I am generally a boiling cauldron when bogan meatheads piss me off on the road.

While I didn't want to do him any harm in a moment of road rage madness, I absolutely hoped that he would take care of it all by himself.  It may not happen straight away, but it'll happen eventually.  This is my logic, and the road fatality statistics seem to agree with me.    

As I watched this idiot speed off into the distance, I hoped - as I often do - that I will find his vehicle wrapped around a tree further up the road, thus giving me the opportunity to mock him as he lay trapped in his crumpled sparkly car.  I know that's not very Christian of me, but I have a serious grudge against drink drivers, speeders and other road hooligans for various reasons.

I have held an argument with various people for years about my seemingly nonchalant attitude as to whether I would bother calling an ambulance or the police at this point - I would, because it's the law - and whether I would try and make things more comfortable for the idiot in his final minutes.  I'd like to think that I would, but I would understand if I didn't. 

Psychologists will tell you that boys behave like douches on the road because their brains - particularly the area responsible for judgement - are not fully formed until they are around 25.  Well it looks like we have a friggin' problem then, doesn't it?  Rather than banning them from driving altogether, why don't we play hardball and give some really tough love to the kids who have been caught speeding time and again. 

The only way to get through to these teens is on an emotional level - they have to feel and experience some pain and shock - so what better way to get across the seriousness of the problem than have a staged intervention as a court imposed punishment.  It goes like this.  The police call the hooligan in the middle of the night and tell them that a family member has been killed in a car accident.

Once their shock has subsided, the police can produce the very much alive family member and maybe the hooligan has learnt his lesson.  In reality, it's either going to be them or their parents who get that phone call.  Obviously this solution is rather stupid and not much of a plan, but I don't see any other ideas being produced by the people who get paid to come up with solutions to these things.

You know those people who flash their lights to warn you of a police presence up ahead?  Well the only time I flash my lights at cars is when there are definitely no police cars up ahead, but I just want people to slow down.  I pretty much do this every time I drive at night.

I will never, ever warn drivers that the police are up ahead, because if they are speeding, they will be caught, and thus will not run over your grandmother in a hit and run further down the track.  It perplexes and angers me why people side with other drivers rather than siding with the law.  I really don't get it. 

And then there are the people - from all walks of life - who race through the suburbs like they were Michael Schumacher, except without the talent, money and hot looking ferrari.  If these people want to break the speed limit then they can go for their life, but I hope when they do eventually kill someone it is one of their own family, rather than destroy someone else's, and I hope they are ready to deal with the consequences of their actions.  But of course they aren't, because these people don't think.

God writing is the best therapy...

*Gets off soapbox*

Breakfast & Butterfingers

Breakfast

*Gets on soapbox*

The Red Cross do incredible work for people in times of crisis, providing immediate and practical help and support to those in need around the world. As a charity, one of their fundamental principles is that no child should go hungry. To this end, Red Cross Australia manage an initiative called the Good Start Breakfast Club, which serves 850,000 breakfasts each year in 220 schools in areas of greatest need.

It sounds like a fantastic initiative but it begs the question that charities don't ask because they are open-handed and tolerant and don't judge people who possibly deserved to be judged every now and again. My question is this: If you can't afford to give your children breakfast then why are you breeding?? What the hell is wrong with people?

Unless you live in a third world country, it is inexcusable to send your kid to school without giving them a meal of some sort. Sending ravenous kids to school was unheard of when I was that age. No matter how busy my mum was, she always made sure we had something to eat before we headed off to school.

The oft used excuses dragged out in parents’ defence these days - ‘I don’t have time’ and ‘life’s busy these days’ – are all very well. But things have always been busy for anyone bringing up children. People create their own busyness. And all their busyness says to me is that they need start reprioritising and buy their kids some damn weetbix.

It's like anything in life that feels unfair, like those women who are unable to pay their bills because they have just bought an expensive pair of shoes.  We all have disposable income and we all have spare time on our hands; we just choose to prioritise things differently.

At what point do parents need to start taking responsibility for their own children’s health and nutrition rather than leaving in to the state and charities?

The Red Cross is for people who really need it. I imagine a lot of these parents do need their support, but, in that case, they need to put a halt in the breeding process and stop blowing their cash on grog and cigarettes.  And charities shouldn’t be abused by smug parents who can't be bothered to give their offspring cereal in the morning. Seriously, what the hell is wrong with people?

I can see people reading this now – “what does she know, she isn’t a parent?” Well, I know shirking responsibility when I see it.

*Gets off soapbox*

Butterfingers

I don’t really care to make new year’s resolutions, because who the hell keeps those things? But, for my own safety and for the safety of anything in my possession, I will resolutely endeavour to be more vigilant this and avoid walking into things as much as possible (for me).

I have a habit of walking into door frames, tripping over bed corners and coffee tables, walking into rear vision mirrors in car parks, and just generally hurting myself at least once a day. My talent for walking into things defies explanation.

I find it quite unfair when people tell me to just be more careful. I shouldn’t have to think strategically when I walk around a corner; shouldn’t the parts of my brain that look after spatial awareness and reasoning be onto this? I think someone has been having a siesta whilst on the job.

My explanation for this is my lack of depth perception – one short and one long sighted eye – but I will make an effort to walk into things less this year.

MMXI

It all began one Saturday morning three hundred and fifty something days ago. It was a quiet day, with much of the free world resting sore heads and pledging to start the new year with fresh resolve about changing or improving something in their life; a resolution most never planned on keeping past January 2.

Lots of stuff happened this year, as it seems to do every year. 2011 news bulletins showed us war, revolts, natural disasters, failing economies - all served in convenient, easy-to-forget two-minute snippets and topped off with an inspiring story of courage about a polar bear or somebody in India with an inoperable brain tumour.

Africa continued to starve due to the policies of the United Nations. So the U.N. did the only thing the U.N. knows how to do, which is to kowtow to suppressive regimes who know that the U.N. lacks any real power to do anything because it is completely ineffective and pacifist.  Although one thing the U.N. did in 2011 was to designate the year the International Year of Forests and the International Year of Chemistry, which would make one big accelerant bonfire.

Thanks to Facebook and other social media we watched the birth of Arab Spring, which resulted in most of the shitty countries of the world that have yet to discover democracy - Syria, Egypt, you name it - rioting and rampaging towards, well, who knows. All I know is there is a whole lot more anarchy in store. The criminal sect of the unemployed youth of London rioted through Tottenham, but not over a desire for change; just a desire to obtain a free HDTV.

Italy and Greece showed the world that they don't deserve to be nation states – SHOCKER - and they sure as shit don't deserve to have the rest of Europe bail them out. But the E.U. bailed them out.

The E.U. continued on their merry way of making important, yet stupid, decisions.

The Osama bin liner was expertly killed by a team of SEALs in Pakistan and the world went awesome! Except for the leftwing fools in the west who think that the U.S. government don't have a right to kill a man who is the definition of evil because he has human rights, you know. These human rights lawyers and the like don’t have a clue what life is like outside Toorak or the North Shore, let alone in a Middle Eastern country.  And they think the west killing a madman means we are just as bad.  Ah, the leftwing and their beloved dichotomy of good and evil. 

They seem to think the west is always on the precipice of crossing over to the dark side. I am always confused over the leftwing's confusion over who the bad guys are. The way I see it, the bad guys are the ones who deliberately fly aeroplanes into buildings and strap bombs to their chests and detonate themselves in packed nightclubs with the intention of killing a lot of westerners. And the good guys are the ones trying to stop them. I hope that clears up any confusion or grey area.  Same goes for Muammar Gaddafi and Kim Jong-il. Good riddance.  I hope their next life is everything they didn't want it to be.

Natural disasters lived up to their name.  Japan got hit with a massive earthquake, then drowned from the resultant tsunami and then had to deal with four leaking nuclear power plants. Our own Queensland and Victoria did not fair any better with unwanted attention from mother nature.

Wills and Kate got hitched. Two billion people watched. Bert and Ernie also got married, even though they are just friends. I think a bunch of confused 6-year-olds were forced to watch by their politically correct parents who are willingly destroying their kid's childhood.  

The highly reputable British trashbag tabloid, News of the World, was shutdown due to a phone hacking scandal. Apparently every other newspaper in the world is scandal free.

Barack Obama canned the 40-year-old NASA space program because it was gnawing away at funds that he preferred to spend on useless government programs that did nothing but create more bureaucracy, more socialism and more welfare dependent citizens. The U.S. space program has devoured US$196 billion over the years (around US$450 million per mission), but it was, without a doubt, one of the best things to come out of the United States.  And there goes the hopes and dreams of a generation.

Bogan gingerbread housing estates

It is widely acknowledged that I am somewhat obsessed with all things Christmassy, but there is one thing that really gets my goat.  Gingerbread.  There's nothing like the smell of fresh gingerbread cooking in the oven.  It's been over twenty years since I last ate gingerbread, when I was suffering from glandular fever and hepatitis-A, and I must say the aroma still makes me want to run and barf into the nearest garbage bin.

The odour is utterly, utterly repugnant to me.  You may smell sweet, sweet candy; I smell warmed up old garbage bags full of vanilla and cinnamonny grossness with a hint of burnt hair.  I don't much care for the taste either.



For some unfathomable reason, people who like to rampantly bake things think it's a super idea to make mini-me houses from gingerbread and other confectionery at Christmas time.  I call this out as a stupid tradition. 

Although this dirty little baking activity would improve immeasurably in my eyes if they instead created bogan housing estates and the like, rather than pretty stand-alones in the suburbs.  Everyone knows the 'burbs are densely populated with middle-class bogans and not marshmellow men with carob bud garden beds.  Let's keep it real, Martha Stewart wannabes.

Given the tremendously traumatic experience faced by those two young hoodlums, Hansel and Gretel, you'd think that baking edible housing estates would be discouraged, and you'd think their self-inflicted tale of terror would be used as an example to show the kiddies that eating apartment blocks will make you fat.  The timely message is right there, ready to be rammed down the throats of those little cake overeaters.  Educating kids on obesity; you're doing it wrong, Federal Government. 

The Christmassy lollies that have me in a dither at the moment are Cadbury's Electrical Chocolates, which contain insulated conductors that are used to produce a charge through your brain when you chew them.  Totally true story; I wouldn't make this up.  Cadbury calls them Magical Elves, but I like my name better.  The current batch have a particularly high wattage due to what Cadbury determines as 'popping candy', but I think they are wrong and it is due to some super duper electrical wiring.  



I'm not letting this wattage thing go, Cadbury, so it's best you come clean on your sugary secrets.  It's probably a bit negligent of me to discuss these electric powered chocolates, given that Cadbury has copyright on magical elves, the ellipse device, the colour purple and probably the word purple for all I know.  I'm like the Julian Assange of the confectionery world.  I better watch my back or I'll be kidnapped by gingerbread men in licorice balaclavas.  

And while we're on the subject of confectionery, I'd like to make a comment or two on Cadbury's lack of attention to detail when making their Flakes.  I have been one of their clients for many a year; indeed I imagine my purchases of their products have put some of their CEOs children through years of private school education.  But I to say that my disappointment - my DISMAY! - in their packaging has boiled to the surface.  The Flake bits FALL OUT IN MY HAND!!!  They are making my life a misery.  Can't they teach the people in their factories to seal the foil properly?  How hard can it be?



You callin' me a fackin bogan aye?
Gingerbread this, aye!



Aliens, FBI and Richard Branson

In the 100 or so posts I have blogged this year, I seemed to have neglected the extremely pressing and topical issue of aliens, UFO sightings, abductions and various other close encounters of the kind that always seem to happen to completely fucking insane people.  I must rectify this terrible oversight and write about them forthwith.

It's lucky that some poor stooge in the United States Federal Government doesn't have to investigate every alien sighting of every moron who thinks they've seen something mysterious in the night sky that they can't explain.  Oh wait, someone does have to do that?  I suppose someone has to give a shit.

You may think the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) spends every second of every day tracking serial killers, pedophiles, cyber bullies, and other people that, you know, aren't terribly society-friendly, but they are also required to look into alien sightings.  They have squillions of interviews with crazy farmers and various gap toothed, trailer park folk on their website - "I done seen it over there!" U.S taxpayer dollars well spent. 

The FBI were first drawn into this craziness in 1947, when there were a "rash" of UFO sightings.  Coincidentally, 1947 was also the year that the movie, Miracle on 34th Street, was first shown in theaters.  The movie is actually of no relevanace to UFOs and aliens, but my qustion to you is this:  why did they first show a Christmas movie in March? Totally weird year, 1947.

I'm sure aliens - or extraterrestrial life, if I want to be politically correct, which I rarely do - do exist, but not in a form that is visible or comprehensible to the human race.  I imagine they are simple bacteria-like organisms, which don't translate very well on the Hollywood bigscreen.

But you can't convince the Americans of this - they are totally obsessed with aliens in their scary, Hollywood form.  Think E.T phoning home.  Think, Mork.   Think any moronic character that Steven Spielberg or James Cameron conjures up.
 
It's anyone's guess why aliens would assume a human type form.  And why would they go to America?  Surely if you are looking for other intelligent life you would go anywhere but America.  And why would aliens choose to get around in flying saucers; given they're a Hollywood invention?  If I, as a human, am puzzled by these questions, I can only imagine how confused the poor little aliens are when sitting around their alien boardroom wondering where to send their alien astronauts. 
 
I must say, I empathise with other life out there in the final frontier.  Little do they know that Richard Branson is devising a plan to go intergallactic in the next few years with his Virgin brand, which means all life in outer space will have to put up with a bunch of spoilt, rich earthlings on Branson's outer space party shuttles.  I'm not sure how Branson will make the flight attendants look slutty in their over-sized space suits but I'm sure he'll find a way.

Things that annoy the shit...

Who are these people who walk around on their lunch break playing with their mobile phones? If you can't go for a walk without getting bored then you have a PSYCHOLOGICAL PROBLEM. If you are trying to look busy and important and relevant - let me assure you that truly busy and important and relevant people have no time for mobile phones and will have their staff answer their phone messages and update all their social media accounts. Just look to the Queen for proof.

Plus everyone knows that public servants are anything but busy, important and relevant. The Obama Messiah apparently updates his own Twitter page, but that's just so he can pretend to be one of the people, while fully maintaining his distance from the people. I think we should have a National Walk like a Person Attached to their Mobile Phone Day, just so these douche bags can experience how truly annoying it is to encounter them in a shopping centre.

Nanny State

Labor Governments have always been sensitive to those in society who are more foolish than the rest of the community.  I have noticed this week that the Feds have their nanny state fingers in many palliative pies at the moment and feel it necessary to point out the small print (see: bleeding obvious) to these mindless citizens.

Listening to the radio the other morning, I heard that there is a new sunscreen SPF rating - factor 50+.  Why the hell do we need a factor 50+?!  Who goes out in the sun anymore?  I guess those who choose to sit outside for hours and hours tanning their skins into a leather three-seater sofa in the Australian summer sun might care about that piece of information. 

And then a spokesperson of a cancer charity came on and said that it's not so great, because some people will get a false sense of security that their skin is protected and sit outside for longer.  Um, yes, idiots may have that problem.  I'm pretty sure kids should learn the dangers of skin cancer when they are two days old in this country.  Oh, that's right, it's the government's responsibility to tell them...

And then there are the warnings that will be voluntarily printed on alcohol labels; warnings that the Australian Medical Association say will be useless unless the labels specifically offer the range and severity of possible health problems associated with getting sloshed.  I don't know; I'm pretty sure they will be useless regardless. 

I'm not sure too many pissed, randy teenagers will care, let alone scan the fine detail of the terms and conditions in their drunken stupour or at any other time.  Teenagers should already know that alcohol is bad for them.  If they don't, then it's not the government's role to tell them.  Oh, that's right, it IS apparently the government's responsibility to advise them...

And then there's the Federal Government's Tobacco Plain Packaging Bill, which will make it an offence to sell, supply, purchase, package, or manufacture tobacco products for retail sale in Australia in anything other than the plain packaging requirements set out in the Bill and regulations.  Oh noes, the glamour's gone for smokers. 

I'm pretty sure those grown adults who venture outdoors in the freezing cold to light up, and the kids who hang outside shopping malls on a Friday night, won't give a rats about the packaging.  Shouldn't parents be telling their kids that cigarettes will kill you?  Oh, that's right, they think that's the job of the government...

As annoyed as I get with governments behaving like nanny states, I suspect it is a necessary function of the state for a lot of douche bags in the community. 

If people don't want bureaucrats sticking their noses into their fake designer handbags, drunkard social habits, bedroom antics, calorie-laden fridges, parenting skills etc, then they should occasionally do the right thing by themselves / their kids. 

A lot of people like to think they can look after themselves, but, in reality, it seems about 20% of the population require a sort of pre-palliative care just to get through the day. You know the ones; you probably see at least one every day. They don't really care for speed limits, they walk across a road without looking, and this is just the stuff that happens on the road.

Not stopping at stop signs is one that always has me vexed.  Yes, I know there are no cars around, but the sign says STOP. Which means you should friggin' stop moving.  All that is required of you as a responsible and reasonable citizen is to stop your car for a couple of seconds. That's it. 

Is it really that complicated to get your head around?   Maybe they need some small print placed on the sign that reads, "not stopping at the stop sign may kill you".  Oh wait, we DO have those signs.

Volcanic Fog Blog

So the latest maps from the fabulously named Volcanic Ash Advisory Centre (VAAC) forecast a new giant plume of ash from the Chilean volcano heading towards Australia.  The ash has already travelled twice around the globe since its initial blowout on June 4, after a decade of volcanic hibernation.

Based on guidance from the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO), Qantas' policy is to not fly into areas where the concentration of volcanic ash is unclear.  They wisely believe that it is simply not worth taking the risk, which is why they put safety before schedule.

Safety before schedule is Qantas' motto, which sounds like an awfully appealing credo for life. Sorry boss, I will be in late tomorrow because there might be a peakhour accident somewhere that I would very much like to avoid, and I'm all about safety before schedule...

I am most intrigued* by the cranky folk at airports who whinge and whine to a news crew when their plane is delayed because, for reasons they cannot fathom, the captain doesn't want to fly through big mobs of volcanic ash.  The plume, known as 'vog' (volcanic fog) in the vulcanologist industry, is something in which YOU DO NOT WANT TO FLY A PLANE. Renown vulcanologist Mr Spock and Qantas say so, so it must be true.

When I was at the Kilauea National Park in Hawaii last year, our tour guide told us all about the virtues of  vog, among other stimlulating volcano-esque titbits and rampant trivia. From his ramblings, I gathered that vog is BAD, and you're best to avoid it at all costs unless you want to DIE.

I am rather surprised that our fearless leader Julia hasn't formulated one of her ridiculous 'tax the air we breathe' policies to expunge that damn cloud - because that'll stop it. We could get New Zealand on board to send it back to where it came from. Or to Malaysia. Why won't Malaysia take the vog Australia rejects? Obviously we haven't offered them an appealing enough deal.  They're not much of an ally.  Actually, it's probably because Rob Oakshott says no to illegal sootlegging because it doesn't benefit his constituents in any way whatsoever so that's the end of the matter. 

* A civilised way to describe my reaction when morons do stupid things.

Unmark Everything

The marketing departments of cigarette companies like to espouse the virtues of smoking their addictive little sticks through stupid messages and graphic designs placed on their packaging and labelling in an attempt to encourage potential buyers to purchase their product.  Of course the evil little catch in the rather conspicuous small print is that this leads the buyer's health down the well-worn path of lung diseases, cancer, diabetes, stroke, hypertension, blood clots, emphysema, heart attacks, addiction, ashtray breathe, general stinkiness etc etc etc etc.

I think having unmarked cigarette packets is a rather excellent idea.  I don't think it'll stop people from smoking, or stop impressionable young things from taking up the behaviour, but I stand behind the idea of pissing off cigarette manufacturers and leaving their sellers out of pocket.  Why should the sellers be punished?  Um, because they are selling packeted poison that should be made illegal.  Screw the stupid sellers.

I actually think we should put plain labels on everything that's for sale on the market.  Because the real thing never looks like the cover on the box anyway.  Nearly all the models we see in magazines are air brushed, meaning they look nothing like the actual model in person. 

The same goes for food that, once prepared, usually looks nothing like it's model on the packet, which has undergone hours of food styling and hair and makeup teams armed with tongs and forks, and has benefited from the art of airbrushing and savvy lighting techniques.  Furthermore, lasagnes that drip tantalisingly with actual cheese on the box will often contain no actual cheese, just some sort of processed white sauce concoction.

But why not take it one step further and have no packaging whatsoever?  Just force smokers to rock up to their local Woolies with a plastic bag or cardboard box, and the seller can toss in a bunch of cigarettes while simultaneously judging them, correctly, as one of the world's least bright folk.  Considering that millions of people around the world die of smoking-related ilnesses every year, I think this is a valid appraisal of their intelligence. 

But I guess smokers are content to venture out into the freezing cold night and start puffing away, so a small inconvenience like a lack of packaging will probably be of little concern to them.  But perhaps by the time the smoker has carted their cancer stick-laden cardboard box home, they would likely be so damaged by water vapour, dust, and crushed to the point that they will be rendered useless. 

Alternatively, we could use one of those companies that wraps all their product in titanium-based plastic, the kind that you simply cannot remove, and get them to wrap all cigarette packets.  By the time the smokers get the darn stuff off, they would have gotten through all the nastier symptoms of nicotine addiction.

I don't know, I'm just trying to help.  I'm a helper.

Canberra jail is a great escape

I’ve always had this loopy idea that the Alexander Maconachie Centre (AMC), Canberra's favourite holiday destination for the seasoned criminal fraternity was, you know, more or less secure. More secure than less would be the ideal amount of secure, I am fairly certain.

Alas, last week the computer mainframes that control security infrastructure at Canberra's premier and only ClubMed correctional resort crashed, causing surveillance cameras, door locks, retina scanning devices and ankle and neck tags to fail. Epic electrological failure. Prison guards were forced to do perimeter checks and manually lock and unlock doors the old fashion way, like getting up off their arses to check perimeters and lock and unlock doors. 

Pretty flowers and white picket fences - domestic-style bliss.

 

The whole idea that prisons are controlled by computers makes me a little nervous.  Is it just me, or did anyone else think that prisoners were locked in cells behind big, dirty, iron doors with prison slats? When did this type of dainty prison infrastructure go out of favour? For AMC, which prides itself on being a 'human rights compliant prison', it's because they don't want prisoner's feelings getting hurt being surrounded by iron bars all the time which makes them feel like... criminals.  

I don't know. I kinda feel that people in jail are supposed to feel like they've monumentally screwed up, so it makes sense that they should suffer some sort of indignity, like occasionally being tossed delicately  into a stinking jail cell without a smart TV.  That's how being a criminal works I'm pretty sure. What better disincentive to not break the law than having no Foxtel?  I can't think of any. 

Let's see what the AMC has in the way of deterrents.  Well about half of the accommodation is in five bedroom domestic-style cottages designed around a central Town Square.  So it 's basically like living in the Cotswolds with staff dressed like Mr Plod.  These cottages are apparently designed to facilitate normalisation; to enable prisoners to develop and practice living skills. 

Well, given the nature of their circumstance, it seems the last time these cons practiced living skills they failed miserably; and I do believe their idea of normal may greatly conflict with mine. But normalisation is the key, so it's a good thing they have a friggin' TOWN SQUARE, because one never knows when one may feel inclined to start a civic riot, pee on a commemorative monument or pilfer from the local delicatessen. Or put another way, put their normal living skills into practice.

The designers also thoughtfully installed Environmentally Sustainable Development initiatives, due to criminals renowned concern over water storage, grey water recycling and solar hot water systems.  Going to prison used to suck; these days it's just a sabbatical in a holiday resort.

Best Before: May 21, 2011

Apocalypse now, anyone? I bet y’all have forgotten that the world as we know it is supposed to end today. In my haste to spend time in reality, I completely forgot that the world’s selectively perceptive people (see: village idiots) had deemed today to be the world’s use-by-date. Best before May 21. I hope I have a bit of time for one more blogpost before the armageddon hits the fan.

Despite all their constructive version of the facts (see: lies) and alternative wisdom (see: ignorance) that the world is nudging its Judgment Day, no-one in the mainstream (see: sane people) will take these folk seriously. Why is no-one taking them SERIOUSLY? They have a very SERIOUS message! They are screaming out to us: please have me commited. On a more serious note, I truly adore the more challenging, socially misaligned members (see: psychotic lunatics) of society.

Days like this give us a very clear indication of who among us is one of these excpetionally special folk, and it should be a time of rounding them up and introducing them to some type of correctional facility. Apparently the Rapture was predicted to occur in June 1994 as well, but when that didn’t pan out to anything remotely apocalyptic, they re-jigged the world’s use-by-date in a show of responsible citizenry and cooperative lunacy. 

When it turns out that they are differently logical (see: wrong) this time, I guess we’ll just call it a learning experience (see: mistake). The next time anyone gets word that the world is going to end, can you please keep it to yourself, because I am far too busy for such a crisis.

A bunch of plankers

Planking occurs when simpletons engage in acts of moronic stupidity by laying horizontally on precarious ledges 100 metres above the ground for the purpose of entertaining other idiots who want to look at their pictures on Facebook.  I first heard the term planking about 3 days ago, after some genius fell off the narrow railing of a highrise Gold Coast appartment. 

And if you need any further evidence that this activity is very foolish can I just mention that Sam Newman did it?  What happened to the good old days, when the weakest links succombed to tuberculosis or cholera before the age of five? 

Now they miraculously reach adulthood and lie around planking.  Planking is the new cholera - eventually it'll get ya.  I really don't understand why it's so interesting, but that's probably due to the fact that I have a functioning brain.  Isn't planking just lying down?

I tried to look up the Australian Planking Association on Google, to see what all the brouhaha is about.  Google asks me:  Did you mean the Australian Banking Association?  No Google, I didn't; use your brain.  Google asks me: Did you mean the Australian Plankton Association?  No Google, is plankton in the news right now?  I don't think so.

I suppose these plankers are like plankton.  They are pretty darn low on the food chain and they are taken out fairly early in life because they haven't evolved like, say, sharks or astrophysicists.  Are young human planktons so desperate for attention that they are willing to risk their lives?  Of course not; they are just dickheads.  But surely they would get the same rush by sticking to their traditional hobbies; like breaking and entering, assault and battery, and vandalism. 

Speaking of planking things, the former Terminator / Governator planked his maid Mildred ten years ago, which produced a bastard baby cyborg.  He decided to tell the Shrivernator of the illicit plank only after he left office.  Which was a good move politically, but a stupid move domestically.   Maria was all pissed and crankypants and was last seen leaving their palatial Malibu pad shrieking "Hasta la vista baby! I won't be back!"   

Even my fave royal - Queen Lizzy - has been up to a spot of planking lately; on the balcony of the Palace after Wills and Kate's international wedding circus.  If you weren't carefully paying attention, you may have missed the entire firm's outstanding display of Irish planking, or reverse planking, amid all the hoopla.  Right on trend.

McBogans

Ah, Today Tonight. What would we do without you? We’d probably get along just fine, and be a far less litigious society, and have far less cashed-up bogans, and no-one would notice you were gone.   Anyway, TT ran a story tonight on parents who take their children on family shopping adventures. What? So why is that TT-worthy? 

Well, aside from the fact that TT is completely ridiculous at the best of times, this story was about a type of shopping adventure that you engage in without any exchange of cash taking place. No, no credit cards either. Don’t need credit cards. It’s more of a five-fingered discount type of family outing. For arguments sake, let’s call it bogan shopping. Because bogans think shopping the traditional, old-fashioned way of trading cash for goods kinda McSucks.

But who can blame the bogans.  When the parole officer told Tracee-Lee that she should spend more quality time with her offspring, Chardonaay-Jaiymee, she probably meant do something that wasn't illegal.  But how can Tracee-Lee have possibly be expected to know that?  Those parole officers really need to be more SPECIFIC. “Quality time with your family” for convicted criminals means taking your offspring with you when you steal a three-pack of skivvies from Best and Less / hold up an IGA.

And then the journalist (that's italicised for the purpose of sarcasm), spoke to the security manager of one electronics outlet. Surely, if they have footage of a bogan lady walking out with a blue ray DVD player and surround sound system they should have caught her. How do these people get the guts to walk out with a pile of hot goods anyway? That’s confidence.

And what were the security personnel doing when the stock was walking out the door in the hands of bogan trash? Probably eating one of McDonald’s new Pounder burgers.  Rather than securing things, they were probably stuffing their faces with 50,000 calories of fluorescent cheese and a curious meat-looking product on a sesame seed bun-looking product.  Maximum taste, minimum wage. Sheesh, it's like putting Hamburglar in charge of the security department.

I really hate segways on commercial television. Why do they have to announce that they have just made a fabulous segway into the next story? It was stupid even before they decided to point it out.  Anywho, speaking of McDonalds...

TT also reported that McDonalds are denying they have a burger called the Pounder, even though they do in fact have a new burger called the Pounder.  Instead of dealing with the fallout of having a burger on your menu with a calorie count that would feed a third world country, and further bloat the waistlines of people who seem incapable of driving anywhere expect fast food outlets, the McDonald’s PR simply denied its existence.

Despite the fact the TT man (I can’t bring myself to call him a journalist again) had just gone into McDonalds and bought a Pounder.  Genius damage control. I like it. I stand behind it. Bill Clinton also famously got away with it with the skanky McIntern using this little tactic.  Well, got away with it in the sense that most lefties still think the sun shines out of his McArse.

British Royal 'pain in the arse' Mail

The big royal wedding is inching closer, but, alas, I still have not received my invitation. It certainly is no secret that I'm a constitutional monarchist, and the moniker of one of the most mentally stable members of the British Royal Family was bestowed upon me at birth, so it seems perfectly acceptable that I should expect to have received a royal embossed envelope in the mail by now. So, where the bloody hell are ya, my little regal invite? Hmm, I wonder if Lara Bingle knows where it is.

I shouldn't be surprised.  The postal classification of First Class merely ensures your mail will be lost even sooner that if sent at the regular rate.


It would just be so typical of the British Royal Mail to lose my invitation to the Wills and Kate nuptials.  During my backpacking stint in England many moons ago, I worked as a casual mail sorter at the Royal Mail Sorting and Letter Misplacement and Frequent Displacement Centre in Oxford.  During an action-packed five days working for the Queen's mailbag, I learnt much about the efficiency and professionalism of the national mail service. 

For example, one of my learned colleagues told me he sorted the letters by handwriting style, because that made his day just race on by.  Through watching my colleagues, I learnt that it was not necessarily essential to sort every piece of mail by the correct postcode.  Well, I kinda thought it was essential to sort every bit of mail by the correct postcode, so I had a formal conversation with my supervisor to that effect. 

Alas, the captain of the mailroom did not appreciate my insane common sense palaver, and so ended my short, turbulent career in the royal mailroom.  Which was a shame, because it was so mentally stimulating spending eight hours sorting thousands and thousands of white paper squares into numbered piles.  Unless you have undertaken menial work of this nature, you have NO idea how excited one gets when one comes across a red envelope!  I even got a blue one and a yellow one in quick succession one afternoon, and the sheer joy got me through my shift.  But no-one seemed to care if I sorted them correctly.  You know, in a way the average Joe might expect their mail to be sorted in a mail-sorting centre.

So essentially what I am saying is that the British Royal Mail is not really the ideal service to use if you want your Oxfordshire-bound postage items to a) get from A to B, b) get from A to B without going through C, D and E, and c) get to its destination in less than six weeks, if at all.