Thursday, April 23, 2009

1. 2.

I don't often plug blogs for people I don't personally know, but this spark from The Age website's bloke blogger, Sam de Brito, is a real inspiration.

For those too lazy to click, the premise is "For every subject, there are really only two things you need to know. Everything else is the application of those two things, or just not important."

My own suggestions are:

Writing:
1. Keep it interesting.
2. Rewrite.

Customer Service:
1. The customer is always wrong.
2. The customer who aren't wrong are morons.

Designing TheAge.com.au frontpage:
1. Keep it busy.
2. There must be at least one visible bikini at all times.

Doing a beer-can shotgun:
1. Eat the beer, don't drink it.
2. Crush can and throw.

Making coffee:
1. Make it fast.
2. Serve it hot.

Working in a university:
1. Complete what you start.
2. Know more about computers than your boss.

Cooking:
1. Use fresh ingredients.
2. Clean up as you go.

Buying a used car
1. The dealer is lying to you.
2. You don't have to buy it.

Reviewing a book
1. Read the entire book, no matter how bad.
2. Give reasons for your opinion.

Music Appreciation
1. No one else's taste is as good as yours.
2. Your taste sucks.

8 comments:

  1. Perfect my dear Franzy. Except for finishing every book; sometimes they're just that bad.

    Grocery Shopping
    1. Run the aisles - Fast!
    2. Anything you forget, you probably didn't need anyway.

    ReplyDelete
  2. The customer is always wrong. YES. Unless I am the customer, then I'm right.
    Make the coffee fast and serve it hot. Darn tootin'!! Lukewarm coffee is only good for pouring down the sink. Burn the tongue temperature is just right.
    When cooking clean as you go. Saves a lot of time later, that's for sure. And when you have a tiny kitchen with no bench space as I do now it's absolutely imperative.
    Your taste in music may be perfectly fine, but mine is better. Ha Ha. Country music rocks!!
    Some books weren't meant to be read....

    ReplyDelete
  3. DON'T DO IT
    DON'T READ HIM!!!
    he slowly siphons your brain cells away until ... until ...

    actually i sometimes read him too and then i go and read citykat and then i start feeling in adequate cause i don't go get facials or have a brazilian or swallow etc

    I like John Birmingham - he has interesting funny commentors.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Using the internet:
    1. Google
    2. Enter

    or

    1. Google
    2. Porn Pop Ups

    ReplyDelete
  5. Book Editing

    1. Follow house style according to publisher.

    2. Ignore crazy aspects of said house style: i.e. no page numbers for references in academic texts. (A true story is behind this one...)

    Gardening

    1. Plant something
    2. Water it illegally

    ReplyDelete
  6. Shippy - I like how 1. encompasses my favourite grocery activity: Charge down people who don't realise that there are other people around and stop in the middle of the aisle. BANG! Sorry! You didn't see me behind you? Maybe you should think about getting the fuck out of the way.

    River - Au contrare, mon Rivere! My taste is better than yours! Live French electro rocks!

    Samantha - Your last name isn't 'Brett' is it? I think JB is getting long in the tooth. He ain't writing Dopeland no more. He's writing grumpy old man right-on-isms and gettin grumpier.

    River - Bup-bow.

    Shippy - Sure. "Pop ups". Sure.

    ReplyDelete

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