Thursday, October 11, 2012

Except without the blue Camaro

Long-time readers might remember when I got excited and started posting about an old school-mate of mine who grew-up to become one of the state's most wanted criminals. Anthony John Smith, or Tony as I knew him, found fame when he ran away from the cops and hid in the sewers for three days, evading capture.
Just kidding.
He ran away from the cops and evaded capture by staying at an extremely expensive hotel in the city centre. For a month.

You can read the story in 6 parts, starting here.

The reason I'm posting again is because the comments section of the final chapter in the story has become a bit like the holiday house you forgot to lock. People got in. Interesting people. People who leave comments like:

"... the gaol workshops ... [are] a breach of the geneva convention, the poor conditions and low pay that the government capitalises on and exploits these disadvantaged people. the things they produce are then sold at an enormous profit by companies such as west coast cooler and freedom furniture."

and
"Brett Mcfarlane is evil to the core and needs to be eradicated from the face of the earth. I would gladly flick the switch on any electric chair.
.....and how am I qualified to make this statement ??
It was my throat he slit many years ago in Adelaide and burried me alive in the adelaide hills."

My personal favourite, arriving a few days ago was this one!
"if you hadn't had given him drugs and fucked him off he wouldnt have tryed to kill you fucking tranny."

8 comments:

  1. these may be the people, or friends of the people who heisted that pic of you (superman) and Mel in fancy dress! Here's your chance to give them a verbal caning (or even a tongue lashing)without fear of retribution. Go for it man, king hit em with ya blog!!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'm not falling for that, Anonymous. I ain't king-hitting no-one, see?

      Delete
  2. That last link is broke. Feel free to delete this comment after you fix it.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Fixed.
      But I'm not deleting this comment so it looks like I've got lots of comments and a heaps popular blog.

      Delete
  3. Crikey - are they the 'Underbelly' writers on holiday?

    My 'Clerk is Jerk' regularly gets similar things but the threats are always directed at me. Hence the 'will be published after approval' now on the blog.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yeah - on holiday on my blog?

      What is Clerk is Jerk and why doesn't it rhyme?

      Delete
  4. You're getting comments from dead people now?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Jeez, River!
      Don't talk like that - you'll antagonise everyone!

      Delete

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