Thursday, January 29, 2009

Just don't ask where the rest of the gold comes from

It's analogy Friday!

Roger Federer is the rat poison of tennis. You know exactly what's going to happen every single time an opponent is met; rat or top-ten seed. The rat poison wins. It's boring. No one sits around watching rat poison.
What I want to see is the rat who eats the poison for breakfast and walks away laughing.

***

Is anyone else living in Adelaide, quietly, in the back of their minds, barracking for the heat? Come on! Break 46 degrees! Go!
Even on a day with a top of 43, after a 45 degree day, it just seems a bit ... second rate.
Pf. You shoulda been here yesterday. I saw a dog explode.

***
GTH - I haven't forgotten. Oh no. The Other, other Sam wins with his link mightier than his sword.

Thursday, January 22, 2009

Homework? On the weekend? Groan!

Belief in fate is the refuge of the irresponsible.
Discuss.


Hint: Perhaps I shouldn't listen to Tool while waiting for a late bus ...

Sunday, January 11, 2009

And breathe!

Got job, moved house, all airy and bright, reading not much, planted first garden, but stealing internet from friends until the new connection kicks in. Until then ... patience my pretties.

I was looking at the bamboo in my new backyard the other day and pondering how strong it was. How a pile of cells all evolved and grew into this utterly useful material. Then it struck me: all philosophy is useless.

I have decided to lay down some blogging rules for 2009. I'm not sure what they are, or how I shall abuse myself if they are broken, but rule one is:

More non-personal-life
writing.
I'm obviously a person who considers philosophy useless, so I must have something more interesting to report than the purchase of my first video game console. Unless there are my thoughts on the subject.

More stories
Which already breaks my first rule. I've become more obsessed with the proper way to tell a good story as I've studying writing and those who know me and read my blog are probably quite well-acquainted with my impoliteness and impatience with poor story-telling.

Shorter blogs

An explanation of The Joy Division Litmus Test

Although it may now be lost in the mysts of thyme, the poll below is still relevant to this blog. In the winter of 2008, Mele and I went to live in Queensland. In order to survive, I bluffed my way into a job at a Coffee Club.
It was quite a reasonable place to work: the hours were regular, the staff were quite nice, it wasn't particularly taxing on my brain.
There were a few downsides: In the six weeks or so that I worked there, there was about a 90% staff turnover (contributed to by my leaving). This wasn't seen as a result of the low pay, the laughability of staff prices or the practice of not distributing tips to staff, rather it was blamed on the lack of work ethic among Bribie Island's youth.
However, one of the stranger aspects of the cultural isolation that touched our lives during our time "up there" was the fact that nobody at my work had heard of the band Joy Division.
The full explanation is available here.
But please, interact a little further and vote in my ongoing poll. The results are slowly mounting up, proving one thing: people read this blog are more well-informed about Joy Division than anyone who works at the Coffee Club on Bribie Island.

Have you heard of the band Joy Division?

Chinese food, not Chinese Internet!

Champions of Guess The Header

  • What is Guess The Header about? Let’s ask regular “Writing” reader, Shippy: "Anyway, after Franzy's stunning September, and having a crack at 'Guess The Header' for the first time - without truly knowing what I was doing mind you - I think I finally understand what 'GTH' is all about. At first I thought you needed to actually know what it was. Don't get me wrong — if you know what it is, it may help you. I now realise that it's more Franzy's way of invoking thought around an image or, more often than not, part of an image. If you dissect slightly the GTH explanatory sentence at the bottom of his blog you come up with this: “The photo is always taken by me and always connects in some way to the topic of the blog entry it heads up.” When the header is put up, the blog below it will in some obscure way have something to do with it. “Interesting comments are judged and scored arbitrarily and the process is open to corruption and bribery with all correspondence being entered into after the fact and on into eternity, ad infinitum amen.” Franzy judges it, but it's not always the GTH that describes the place perfectly that gets it. “The frequent commenters, the wits, the wags and the outright smartarses who, each entry, engage to both guess the origin and relevance of the strip of photo at the top (or “head”) of each new blog and also who leave what I deem the most interesting comment.” It generally helps if you're a complete smartarse and can twist things to mean whatever you feel they should mean - exactly the way Franzy would like things to be twisted." - Shippy Blogger and GTH point scorer.
  • Nai - 1
  • Lion Kinsman - 2
  • Will - 2
  • Brocky - 2
  • Andy Pants - 2
  • The 327th Male - 3
  • Mad Cat Lady - 3
  • Miles McClagen - 4
  • Myninjacockle - 4
  • Asheligh - 5
  • Neil - 5
  • Third Cat - 5
  • Adam Y - 6
  • Squib - 6
  • Mele - 6
  • Moifey - 7
  • Jono - 8
  • The Other, other Sam - 14
  • Kath Lockett - 15
  • Shippy - 19
  • River - 32