Abandoned vegetales

According to an eyewitness account, someone has recklessly abandoned their health today, after vegetables (pictured) were found strewn on the side of a path.

Chucked in wild abandonment, until someone placed them neatly on a ledge, and bound and gagged them, like some sort of confused serial killer copycat deconstructing the scene of a crime. 

How did this all come about, I hear you cry out, desperate for more information. Was the planned meal abandoned due to poor cooking conditions? Was it lack of cooking ability? Was it forsaken, cast aside for a prepared meal from Uber Eats? Maybe the carry bag was sinking fast and the vegetables decided to jump ship? 

Or is because it’s celery, which deserves to be strewn on a street. We’ll just never know. Because the eyewitness wasn’t so witness-y after all. 

As an Enquiry and, more importantly, an Inquiry, is launched into why there has been a significant increase in vegetables being strewn all over the place on this path and how to prevent it in the future, the fate of the vegetables in question hangs in the balance, and their future is most certainly unclear.
 
What is known, however, is that they are currently wilting in the sun. If it’s any consolation, the vegetables had very few loved ones.

The Curse of the Mandarin

Since I've returned from my holiday to the United States of Crazy, I've stupidly begun a healthy eating diet, which people tell me means I need to eat health food or I fail.  Well that's got recipe for disaster written all over it then, doesn't it?

So I've been eating a lot of healthy food lately, and lots of fruit, which isn't much different to usual.  But the word on the street is that fruit is healthier for you than chocolate.  Wha...??  While I find this so-called 'fact' fairly difficult to stomach, I'm going to give health food (italics used to denote derision) a shot in the name of eating-options-that-are-brain-debilitatingly-boring.

Now, bananas.  I've always been a big banana fan. They are delicious, zero drama and easy to consume.  No mess, no fuss; just a completely psychologically balanced fruit that appears to have no discernible personality disorders.  My type of fruit. I hate crazy fruit.

Citrus fruit, on the other hand, make me fairly angry. Take mandarins. They have an obstructionist manner that I just cannot tolerate. There are simply too many steps involved in eating a mandarin. I ate a mandarin today. This is what happened to me - I'm sure you've had a similar experience. Step one is always choosing one that doesn't smell like it has been invaded by a herd of marauding worms.

Step two involves peeling the damn thing; like I have nothing better to do with my time.  Mandarins need to take a banana leaf out of the famous yellow fruit's book and learn how to be peel friendly. No-one will ever love you if you continue to be a narcissistic, passive aggressive ball of hard to peel, orange annoyingness.

Step three brings you to the eating stage, but that doesn't mean you can rest on your laurels. There is still much work to be done. The eating stage involves monitoring the fruit for pips, of which there are usually about 500 of the damn things in every segment of mandarin.  And the final stage is mandarin juice.  Everywhere!  This fruit is so annoying.  

Mangoes are one of my favourite summer snacks, but they can also be quite frustrating, given that one can only eat about 30% of the fruit, and it is so slippery and slimy you need to take a shower after you've dealt with it.

I've only just started noticing avocados, after a life filled with fear and terror of putting the green slime in my mouth. They have rapidly become one of my favourite snacks, even though they come with a big pointless stone in their centre.  I think that's about it.

Royals, Ears and Vertigo

It's been a wee week since I blogged about all the trivial, superficial stuff that happens in my life, or the general vicissitudes of being remarkable in a world replete with commonfolk, or the fools that cross my path on a daily basis, exposing me to their veggie garden variety trashbagness.

To be honest, I think the only explanation for the way the interweb blogosphere has been able to cope with my lack of prose is the blanket media coverage given to the Annus Diamondus Jubilius celebratus. Well, no need to fret any longer.

I don't have anything even vaguely fascinating to write about, but that never stopped me creating this blog thing in the first place, in the hopes that it might be mistaken for some type of scholary work.  I just make it up as I go along, as they used to say at NASA's Mission Control Centre.  Speaking of  NASA, I will be visting them very shortly.  Oh wait, the Obama Messiah got rid of it... That is a bloody bummer.

I'm not counting but my anti-winter, pro-summer holiday is possibly a mere 36 days away. I may or may not be going up to the moon on a turbo-charged space jet plane from Cape Canaveral.  It's going to be quite the expaarrience, although it's all a bit to be advised at the moment.

Speaking of jet planes, I very recently took one to sunny, warm Brissie, completely forgetting that the last time I flew a small distance on a jet plane I discovered that I have a Eustachean Tube Dysfunction.  I can't be arsed explaining it again on here, but it's all to do with stupid ears and air pressure and flying and what not. Suffice to say, I now have stupid vertigo. 

Admittedly, it is the cool type of stupid vertigo, involving the sensation of riding massive ocean swells and roller coasters - like the ones that have screamin' and thunder and death machine in their name, rather than the type of vertigo that gives rise to spinning, nausea and vomiting.  Last time it only lasted a few days, so I will use this time wisely to prep for Disney World, whose rides are more expensive and less fun than my vertigo adventures.  

It's all very exciting, bobbing up and down on a virtual ocean while sitting at your desk at work, gripping anything and everything on the white-knuckle ride into pseudo-LSD weirdness, but it is a tad awkward and embarrassing when one has to hold onto filing cabinets while walking down the corridor, mumbling that the ground is kind of rolling and the walls are sort of bouncing about and so forth.  It was all great fun.

That is all. Good day.

Note to self: Best not go to the gym when you have vertigo. It is a bit of a VBI (Very Bad Idea) 

Wisdom Toothectomy

I don't have any scientific evidence at all to support this finding, but I'm pretty sure Canberra's recent 'earthquake' dislodged one of my wisdom teeth.  One of those small, whitish structures that are impaled into my jawbone has been causing me considerable distress of late.  Since the earthquake-ette, in fact.  I guess you could call it tectonic teething problems. 

'They' say you shouldn't mess around when it comes to your tooths, eyes, and something else; I really don't remember.  I probably should listen from time to time to those mystery people, whose identities elude me. The winner in this whole teething brouhaha is my dentist, of course, and the jolly shareholders of the pharmaceutical giant that produce my best mate, Nurofen.  I huge shout out to Ibuprofen.

Stupid wisdom teeth have absolutely no point whatsoever.  They come up whenever it bloody suits them, and you can't get rid of them even if you ignore them, plus they really don't have any job description except to be completely annoying and extremely painful and just generally get in the way of the proper order of things.  They are the Kardashians of the dental world. 

Today I went to the dentii (there are six in my practice) to get some advice on the way forward, but dentists only really offer one option when it comes to pointless molars. Extraction, extraction, extraction. Dentists are far too comfortable and confident in discussions regarding removing things that are attached to your face. I find it most unnerving, but I suppose it is far better than an apprehensive dentist.

I should have had the darn thing pulled on the spot, but I heard the word extraction and tried to make a beeline for the exit.  Who knew the dental hygienist at my new practice had such good defensive door-blocking skills. 

So instead of having the procedure there and then, I now have to wait another few days before I head once more into the breach, dear friends, which is another few days of anxiously wringing my hands waiting for the day of extraction.

Another added benefit is that I will need fork out for another consultation fee, but I will happily do so, merely as a way of thanking the dentist for sending a shooting pain through my entire central nervous system.  I think dental practices should have one of those alarm systems connected to their front door, that helpfully chimes "ka-ching" as you enter the establishment, to alert the inhabitants that their next victim has arrived and is ready to have their bank balance drained.

And then one as you sit in the chair, and one when the dentist engages you in conversation, and one when you spit bloody saliva into a suction sink, before the final tone at the reception desk to alert you to the fact that it's time to pay off your tab.

Being Sick Sucks

I'm finally rising out of the ashes and mountains of snot-ravaged tissues after a nasty bout of head cold-itis.  I love the moment when you realise it's going away and you feel vaguely human again.  Stupid head cold completely ruined my easter this year. 

Not even the Easter Bunny wants to go near someone with a head cold.  Just because I didn’t have anything more exciting planned this long weekend than having coffee with friends and family doesn’t mean I wasn’t royally ripped off.

I would like to thank all my sponsors who have worked so hard for the past few days - Kleenex, Panadol and Day & Night, the OTC decongestants who made me who I am today and, umm, I'd also like to thank GOD! I'm sorry if I've forgotten anyone, but you know who you are.

Head cold's are pretty sucky.  Women may berate men for whining when they have a blocked nose - and have even coined the infamous Man Cold - but I can certainly hold my own in the war on whinging when it comes to being on my deathbed.  See?  Dramatic much? 

The dreaded Pariah Cough has been trying to rear it's head again - and has been vaguely successful - but it hasn't amounted to anything like it was in it's heyday (about four weeks ago).  Three courses of antibiotics almost annihilated the darn thing, so I guess one more oughta do it.

So I’ve been laying low the past few days, which is quite difficult for me, given my proclivity for moving around 24 hours a day. My body may be exhausted, but my head still wants to do stuff; stuff that my body is not currently capable of doing. Like moving.

Because I'm feeling utterly sorry for myself today, I decided to do one of the things I am most happiest doing; a spot of blogging.  And after 15 minutes I am tired and have a headache and need a nap. Being sick is like being in prison, except without the free internet access, free food, free accommodation and criminals trying to bite off your ear lobes.  Other than that, it's exactly the same as jail.

Daytime commercial television is appallingly bad.  In fact, it should be a key motivator for the unemployed to get a job and for young mums to stop having children.  Oops, possibly hit a raw nerve there.  Hey, it's not my fault they are trapped in their Govvie flats without access to Foxtel.  If you can't afford the little brats, don't have 'em.

Hot Chips Sink Ships

I know I bang on occasionally about my alleged exercising ways, and it can become quite tedious for those drones who are bored enough to read my blog (um, no offence), but it has come to my attention that I haven't written about exorcism (we have previously established this amounts to the same thing) for at least a week, and this must be addressed forthwith.  

Sometimes at the gym I can simultaneously watch The Biggest Loser and Masterchef while doing my thang, and this must be fairly annoying for those who are addicted to food or those who are running from food (me in my twenties) or those who can't cook (sadly my present day status).  Technology can be a cruel mistress. 

Although, to be fair, toast is bread after it has been cooked.  Nigella knows all about this technique.  Do I get any brownie points for knowing who Nigella is?  And for being able to cook bread?  I like Nigella because she raids her fridge in the middle of the night for her show credits.  Kudos. 

With the strange, mysterious and hopefully permanent disappearance of the Psycho Cough last week, my body has reluctantly engaged in a bit of cardio this week, and my gym thing is going fairly well, with a new program with new equipment that has left some of my less used - and evidently most lazy - muscles thoroughly pissed off.  Not my problem.

Breakfast, lunch and dinner.



As some form of cruel punishment, my brain has done what brains have consistently done since time immemorial when they don't want to do something they feel is quite taxing and beneath them; it has planted a seed that involves me thinking and salivating about greasy hot chips for 90% of my day.  My brain is a vexacious little bitch, but she won't win.

An Apple a Day

I'm thinking about opening my own GP practice.  How hard can it be?  Don't give me that bollocks about needing a medical degree, and a licence to practice, and a stethoscope, and a fucking clue.  It really can't be all that difficult to diagnose patients. With me throwing my hat into the medicine ring, you better start eating a lot of apples.  Lots of apples. 

I'm going to need to watch my language over the next few weeks, because I have been crook at home for a few days and have thus watched every episode of the quite brilliant  Inbetweeners, and have somehow managed to pick up some of the foul, potty-mouthed language that is used in their charming everyday conversation.

I imagine it was never too far from the surface.  I'm sure my patients will love my new edgy take on the old, outdated pleasant-style of bedside manner.  I don't see how anything at all can go wrong with that approach.

As far as I can tell, GPs simply allow you to be in their ethereal presence for ten minutes for a sum of $72.00 and diagnose you with an illness that may or may not be correct but seems to be a fit with the majority of annoying symptoms from one of the vast and disgusting diseases featured in their boring medical textbooks.

I already attribute psychological disorders to my ungrateful work colleagues, sometimes against their wishes but generally without their knowledge, so I'm pretty sure I can handle a little GP practice on the side.

I don't want to compare myself with a medical professional who has a medical degree and spent eight years at medical school and another 150 years in practice, but I'm going to.  In my first year of psychology at uni I aced my differential diagnosis, so how hard can it be working with the rest of the body, from the brain stem down? 

The only difference I can see between my rather successful career at diagnosis as an annoying know-it-all student psychologist wanna-be and my recent visit to an actual doctor is that I carried out a differential diagnosis, which meant I ruled out all other underlying conditions before I gave the patient their prognosis. 

Apparently my doctor doesn't feel the need to go to such nutty extremes.  After five visits to the doctor due to the massively annoying and inconvenient Pariah Cough, I could have hip cancer for all he knows.

Airhead

I've been thinking about the atmosphere of the earth quite a bit today.  You know - air.  Let me explain.  I think we've all been caught in the tricky situation were we've woken in the middle of the night with the strange sensation that something was missing from our lives; something fairly important in the grand scheme of things, like being able to breathe.

I don't ask for much, but I do prefer to be able to breathe.  It's just one of those weird little ideosyncrasies that my brainstem demands of me, along with other basic, vital life functions.  Breathe now, regulate blood pressure, do this, do that. 

I think one only realises how useful the old oxygen can be when one is struggling to get any of it.  On the off-chance that anyone cares, I didn't die; I just have a mild head cold, but combined with my current laboured breathing through my treachea due to the indestructable Pariah Cough, it was like hiking in the Himalayas without an oxygen mask.

The quality of my air intake was so bad today that it was like I lived in Mexico or something, which gasps through the day with a bulging population of 130 billion Mexicans.  All breathing, at the same time.  The best time of the day to breathe in Mexico City is early afternoon, when everyone is in siesta freefall.  Semi true story. 

The poor air quality might also have something to do with their lack of concern for spewing out fossil fuels, but whatever; it works for them.  Or not.

Patient Zero in Coughmania

Guess what? Just for something refreshing and unusual, I am going to post about my elephant seal cough. I figure people exhaust and astound me every damn day with their often ludicrous medical counsel that it was time I gave back to the people.

I have had coughmania for six months now. Six fucking months. I reckon it would have a red hot chance at surviving a nuclear holocaust, along with all the cockroaches and Kevin Rudd. And it is not particularly pleasurable, with the most annoying part being that it annoys other people. The fact that it annoys others doesn't annoy me in the slightest, but when other people are annoyed with my cough they pester me and this is fucking annoying.

Every day is cough groundhog day. You know when it rains constantly and everyone rabbits on about the rainfall and the traffic and the dams and the grey sky and the ducks everywhere? This is how people have been banging on - all day, every day - about me and my cough, for six fucking months. It's like my cough was invented to give boring people something to talk about when it's not raining, which fortunately it is.

I went to the doctor a few weeks ago - the same doctor I have accused in the past of being not the brightest antibiotic in the medicine cabinet - and he gave me a course of bright yellow, daffodil-scented cough killers, that did nothing but mask the seal effect until they ran out.

So yesterday I went back the the doc for the fourth time, given that all the drugs and cough mixtures and totally stupid alternative fake-medicine concotions have failed me so far. I'm starting to think I am patient zero in a new infectious disease outbreak. Prove that I'm not, medical fraternity. 

Or maybe I am actually an elephant seal. I do like tuna and I think Antarctica is real pretty and homely.  Perhaps I should think about starting my own reality television show or, in the very least, I should try and get a gig on one of those medical marvel programs they show at midnight on free-to-air.

Despite evidence that the cough - I really should give it a name - is not stemming from my chest or throat, my doc is sending me for a chest x-ray and then to a chest expert specialist person to suss it out. At least things are progressing.

He thinks it is triggered by talking and that it is largely unproductive. I didn’t think the doctor knew me well enough to make assessments on my interest level and functioning capacity in the public service, but perhaps he is smarter than I give him credit for.  My dad reckons that I should ask for my money back if they can't figure out the problem.  Despite the fact my dad's solution to most problems involve shooting the bastards, I think perhaps I should heed his advice this time.

Hospital admins and medical f***-ups

The Canberra Times has reported that the ACT Coroner is investigating the death of a Canberra Hospital patient who died after an operation was performed on the wrong body part.

What sort of monumental fuck up must have occurred at Canberra Hospital that resulted in someone being operated on the wrong side of their body? That is nuts. That is one mistake that doctors and nurses, who are human, are not allowed to make. I'm going to blame the hospital administrators, because pulling a long stream of paperwork from their arse is what public servants do, and screwing up said paperwork is, coincidentally, what public servants also do.

I think we can all agree that doctors and nurses (the medical professionals, not the "kids" game) are pretty friggin' amazing.  Pay them whatever they want, I say.  And stop bashing on them, because they do an incredible job.  They save lives.  When was the last time I saved a life?  The closest I get to a medical emergency in my workplace is when I whimper for hours from a unsutured papercut from a particularly vicious piece of A4 (ah, geez, touchwood!!). 

Doctors and nurses have to deal with the public when they are at their sickest, crankiest and most unconscious, and that alone warrants a hefty pay rise.

Surgeons are already well paid, which is probably why we don't see many living on the streets or at the Occupy protests with the dole-bludging losers.  I suspect the latter is because they work for a living.  But surgeons creep me out a little bit, given that they are basically knife-wielding maniacs who are allowed to wear masks when performing their wallet-ectomies.  We happily entrust these people to make sure we wake up on the other side.  Creepy when you think about it.  But, yes indeed, they deserve more money too, because they save lives. 

While on the subject of hospitals, how tops are their emergency rooms?  At Canberra Hospital, you are generally just grateful for any medical care you receive, because after sitting in the waiting room next to some kid coughing their contagions directly into your face for five hours, you wish you were dead anyway.  And I love how you are never far from a toxic waste bin.  Because they just scream healing to me.  

It's fascinating that the public get all persnickety when they have to wait a few hours at hospital for medical attention, yet some of the most popular televisions shows revolve around hospitals and police stations where the workers are forever involved in personal dramas rathere than doing actual work.  It's a mad, mad world.

Hear yee, hear yee

The other day I was sitting at my desk at work when the ground began to rock, as if I was on a boat in the middle of the ocean.  Some of the peaks of the swells were so high that I had to hold onto my desk until they passed.  It was like a free P&O cruise.

When the swells went away, I was simply bobbing up and down.  It was really quite exciting, but evidently not particularly healthy.  Apparently I was suffering from unsteadiness brought about my vertigo, as a complication of Eustachian Tube Dysfunction. 

By the time I went to the doc that afternoon, I had lost some of my hearing and everything sounded quite tinny.  The doc told me to expect more deafness and spinning and dizziness, which fortunately didn't eventuate.  This Eustachian Tube connects the ears to the throat and mine was stuck open when it should have been closed, or vice versa.

All external sounds are a bit muffled and internal sounds are sort of amplified. But when I hear a loud noise it bounces between my ear drums and is amplified 10 fold. It is so very strange.  The first night I could hear my heartbeat when I was trying to go to sleep which was very disconcerting.

You can imagine all the jokes at work - evidently there are many many songs related to sailing and shipping and oceans.  It feels like the sensation that you get just before your ears pop on a plane - except it is constant.  And there seems to be a droning air conditioner in my head.  Apparently my condition is caused by flying on a plane, which I did last week, on a five-hour flight.  My ears didn't pop when I landed on Sunday so that might be related too.  This build of pressure in my ears is a new probem and might explain my new claustrophobia on flights. 

Anyway, my 'earing is mostly good as new now, but I guess I'll be wearing ear plugs for future flying adventures.

Mt Everestesque, Exercise and Excuses

I am trying to get fit at the moment and it sucks a great deal.

Excuses and denial come in very handy when one is trying to get off one's arse and go for a jog in the early evening twilight after work.  And there's nothing like a bit of panting and asthma wheezing to attract the annoyed stares and whispers from the local magpies and other wildlife trying to have a quiet evening in.

"I've torn an abdominal muscle" was a very effective excuse for a few weeks, in so much that I knew I wasn't lying to myself because the doctor told me not to exercise for a minimum of three weeks. Bummer, I said; but I was secretly pleased with my temporary muscle damage. But unfortunately that excuse has lost its legitimacy, given that I saw the doc four weeks ago.  You do the math.

"It might rain" was also a reasonable justification to get out of exercising, given that it held an element of truth when Canberra went through a period of sunshinelessness, which affixed itself to the tale end of winter, just so you knew who was responsible for our weather oppression. Alas, this excuse doesn’t carry much weight when the sky is blue.

Ditto for "it's getting dark"; an excuse with great legitimacy in the depths of winter, when you have to start your working day at 6am to get home in time to go for a run. Only shift worker carry out this fanatical ritual, and most of them go to the pub at 3pm anyway. They sure as shit don't go for a run up a mountainous peak, in any case.

"I hate people" is generally an effective excuse to get out of exercising; given that the mount where I torture myself has become more popular in the last few years thanks to society's interest in not becoming obese. I don't like communicating with people at the best of times, and I definitely don't like acknowledging unfamiliar folk on mountains. It's not because I'm in the zone, or that I’m being Zen; I just don't like people a great deal.

"My exercise tool is too far away" has never been a strong contender as an excuse not to exercise for me, especially since I've opted to utilise the little mount near where I live. I literally have to walk out the front of the house and I am there; right at the foothills of a dangerous rocky cliff face.

And with this diminutive Everest being introduced into my "intensive training program", my old faithful excuse of "I have dodgy knees" has been getting a bit of a resurgence. It's actually the only valid excuse that I have, but is not really justified when this mini-me Himalayan range is about 10 metres above sea level,  Or ten metres above the rest of the ground, I can’t remember which.  It's whichever one that makes it sound like I run up mountain ranges.

So last night I recognised that I was probably all out of excuses, so I did ten - yes, TEN! - up and downs of my Everestesque mount. Apparently I have to do this again and again if I want to get fit. This sucks.

Torn muscle issues

I have managed to tear one of my abdominal muscles through a complex and technical process involving a shitload of coughing.  Shitload being the layman's understanding for doing a lot of anything.  The doctor says I have torn a muscle but I believe that he is WRONG, and that I have actually busted every one of the bones in my right rib cage.  I think this is so because it hurts a SHITLOAD.  The genesis of my cough can be found here.

I reluctantly went to the doctor last week after the relentless pestering of my coworkers, which may or may not have had something to do with my relentless whinging and whining about my PAIN and that NO-ONE UNDERSTANDS MY BURDEN.  Well, someone on my floor at work brought in this coughing disease that must have been distributed by their germ-ridden offspring, so it stands to reason that everyone in hearing range should suffer for my burden by having their auditory sense somewhat inhibited by my coughing.

The other reason I went to the doc was because I am a responsible adult and I wanted to make sure that my life wasn't under direct threat from an exploding gall bladder or an imploding rib bone puncturing one of my lungs.  Because that would have really sucked.  So the doc told me that I need to rest, rest and rest so it can get better, better and betterer, or some advice of equal ridiculosity.

I'm sorry - rest?  Is that the thing where people sit still for hours and hours while keeping their hands busy with some type of remote control or needlepoint embroidery?  Yeah, I don't do that.  I am more than happy to do dencorub and nurofen and heat packs, but I'm not very good at sitting still, even if my attention is distracted by a DVD box set of Bones.


Mr Pelican being awesome

I am very much not one of those people who sit on the couch on a rainy Saturday afternoon and watches twelve DVDs in a row.  That is my idea of suffering and punishment.  By the end of the day my cabin fever would rival Norman Bates'.  I can sit around for about an hour and a half on the weekend while reading the newspapers but then I must go and do stuff that involves movement or I am prone to self destruct.

So my first weekend with my new condition was spent resting at Broulee on the South Coast; following doctors orders.  My resting involved climbing over rocks, going out on a boat without a warm jacket in sea-salt scented gale force winds, and walking on loose sand along a hurricane-infested beach.  You know; resting. 

I don't feel so good right now. 

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.

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.

NASA and nutrition

NASA, the world leader in space exploration, aerospace and aeronautics research and technology, and kids nutrition. Huh? Yes, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration has a program to encourage fats kids to stop eating so much and start exercising a lot more. Man, why hasn't anyone thought of that before? Thank god we have those NASA researchers to come up with this ground-breaking stuff.

Yesterday NASA launched a health and nutrition competition called "Mission X: Train Like an Astronaut." Nearly 4,000 kids in 25 cities worldwide will participate in the six week pilot. At first glance this seems a little out of NASA's gamut, what with their focus on outer space and all. And then I thought about it again and I said to myself, who the fuck came up with this idea? Well, I don’t know, but it has Michelle Obama’s spacefood bar-free fingerprints all over it.

Only Michelle could produce a kids health awareness campaign out of a department that has absolutely nothing to do with health or nutrition. If anyone could link two things so distinctly different, it’s the First Lady. I’d be pretty pissed if I got a job at NASA and had to spend my time working on obesity programs.

During the program, the kiddies will no doubt learn that the astronauts that have sucked up enough to actually venture into the great unknown must choose their meals about five months before lift-off. NASA convenes a “special taste panel” so these space cowboys can taste the food and spit it out in a safe, controlled environment. The idea is to pick the meals that they find the least repulsive, as they will need to stomach it for days or months at a time. I know, I wish that I had paid more attention in aerospace class as well, and then I too would be living the dream.

Personally I think astronauts are excellent role models for kids. How often do you see them groping cosmonautic women in dark corridors at the international space station, sniffing a line of cocaine through the air on a night out orbiting, or doing anything controversial or inappropriate that requires discipline or fines at the hands of NASA? Discounting the fact that their hygiene practices may not be the most sanitary in the universe, they are ideal role models. Perhaps a little time spent in the outer space sin-bin would be useful for the entire stable of NRL players, where there is no-one around to care about their lack of law-abiding behaviour.