Hi Uncle Benny!

Rawf rawf rawf

As I made my first coffee for 48 hours I could literally feel my neurons barking at the fence like starving, rabid dogs. They even followed the scoop of ground coffee from side to side, pulsing first on the right lobe as I scooped the coffee from the tin and then across to the left and then down as I dropped it into the plunger. Scrabbling paws and manic keening were all I was as I filled the plunger with water and waited the itchy, yelping 3 minutes for the brew.

Addicted?
I can stop any time I want to.
I just don't want to.

And speaking of which

I promised myself that I wouldn't post about work, but some things are just too, too sweet. For clarity, I work in a university department which helps students with learning techniques like essay writing, referencing, research and time management. I returned today to a message on my answering machine from a student:

"Hello. Can you tell me how to use Endnote?* Oh, but how are you going to call me back? Hmm. This is a perplexing concept ..."
*hangs up*

Me (to answering machine message): "Madam, if the concept of the telephone is beyond your ken, then you haven't a hope with Endnote."


*bibliography software

Get it while it's incredibly stupid

I know editors are being downsized in the mainstream media, but I didn't realise that it actually meant hiring 7-year-olds.
Read the tag-line for this video, before someone changes it.

Minimal posts due to completely exciting hospital trip this weekend! We're all better now!

When that girl came out of the traffic I thought she wanted to hit that man. He had just powered straight past me in a big hurry to skip the growing snake in the right hand lane. The big lazy one that drapes from the turning lane and makes all the straight ahead people nervous, like they're going to miss their house being there. So bam, out she skips in her little Hyundai and they come together like two fists full of spare parts. She didn't even look before she skipped out. Lucky she was in a car. They were both okay, walking and I powered on through, winning the race to the lights and I made it home first.

Dissatisfaction

trying to pick up a heavy bag which sitting on its own strap
sinking into the couch only to realise that the controller is over ..................................there
boring
ad
ad
ad
subtitles are too fuzzy
this coffee is burnt
so's the milk
three precious hours in which to study, half an hour reading internet comics, half an hour installing some bloody update
sunnies aren't dirty, that's a scratch
headphone cord gets caught and pulls at my ears
all this poetry is pretty much unreadably tedious
shin + bedpost
either no one's listening to me or I'm talking across the top of everyone
the more comfortable the pillow, the more likely it is to be bin night
the unblogworthy drollery of the suburban 9 to 5
blowfly + oriface
i'm just trying to eat my lunch and read my book I'm not really interested in donating five minutes of that to chit-chat
why won't Australian Top Gear read my blogs and hire me as a writer

Satisfaction

his weight in my arms and in my lap when he falls asleep
the gravelly rattle of various cruds rocketing up the vacuum cleaner hose
tilting the rear vision mirror a fraction lower on the way home because I'm slumped in that big comfy cross-country seat
the fanged French kiss of the morning coffee
paying a bill with my own grown up money that I earned

I hate all racists. And the Dutch.*

What do you do when, in your professional capacity working in a university, you come across someone who needs help, but somehow blames that need on "cashed-up Asians"? Not literally, but in that roundabout way that ingrained, casual racism has which makes it seem more thought out and considered to the user, but just proves how circuitous a route your racist is willing to travel in order to shift blame and retain their ideological laziness.

To sum up: her lecturer is unhelpful because universities care so much about attracting internationals with the folding stuff that they forget about "Australians". A guy doing a Phd studying Australian states is unsuitable because he's being paid to do so by a foreign government, the implication being that he will return home, taking that knowledge with him. Which is apparently a bad thing. All these foreign students have money and laptops and broadband.
"And many don't."
"Oh yeah, yeah! Heaps of us (note the familiar "us") are doing it tough."

It might seem unusual, but I'm actually pretty dry and straight forward when I'm at work. I take a little bit of pride in my direct, professional manner. I'll slip in the odd dick joke, but by and large I'm not "on". It means that I relax. I don't have to think of my own interesting little chit chats and opinions, it's just the company line, straight up and let's move on. I have a small reputation for efficiency and proficiency. It's comfortable; easy.
This doesn't really help when university policy has neglected to include tearing the retched flappy ears from pug-nosed racists who repeatedly identify themselves as being victims of equity issues.

So I went and wrote a blog.
That'll show 'em.

*Oven.

Friday Arvo Age Quiz

These are for points:

Question 1: Am too much an Arnie fan that even when an Arnie-less remake of The Predator is slated for 2010, I get excited and begin planning taking my Dad to it?

Question 2: Are anyone else's eyes dry as bones?

You should be thanking them!

And in the Channel Nine news this morning: Channel Nine show Hey Hey It's Saturday offends with a racist sketch on eternal Aussie favourite, Red Faces.

Cut to extended clip of five podgy white guys in afro wigs in blackface dancing and miming to a Jackson Five song. Stern commentary by our morning news reader informing us that these men had painted their faces black. More blackface dancing. They're mostly in sync.
Enter another white man, dressed as Michael Jackson circa HIStory, with his face painted white. (get it?!) More stern commentary pointing out that the newest member of the Jackson Six has his face painted white.
Cut to Red Faces celebrity judge (white) American, Harry Connick Jr, looking dumbfounded and drawing a shaky zero on his scorecard.
'If you had done that in the US,' pronounces the singer 'It'd be "Hey Hey Show's Over" - off the air.'
Cut to chubby little Daryl formally apologising to Connick Jr for offending him (no one else, just him), in that semi-fake TV apology tone where light-entertainment types have to eat humble pie and pull it off with all the sincerity of a group email.
Connick Jr says that he wouldn't have come on the show if he knew that Grown Up Golliwogs were going to be part of the deal.

Guess he underestimated the moronic desperation of insulated aging white guys ...
The man who played Michael Jackson now reckons that he wasn't being racist, because he's a) Indian (and of course no Indians are capable of racism because they get racismed themselves!), b) a doctor (and doctors are immune to racist behaviour, just like parking tickets) and c) don't forget, he was just trying to be funny! (Oh I get it ...)
When asked if he would perform the skit in the US? "Absolutely not."
Because racism is only okay when its subjects can't lynch you. And because no Australian Aboriginals (or anyone else who thinks that they're "black") should be offended because they should know that they were being Americans.
Not Australians - Americans. See? It's different.
No Aboriginals have the right to be offended and no way do they get an apology.
Only the white American guy gets an apology.
And noneof those black Americans get an apology either, because they didn't see it and didn't complain at the time.
And anyway, what has a bunch of wealthy doctors from "different racial backgrounds" painted in black face got to do with a couple of centuries of racism that's been over for decades?

And remember: they were just trying to be funny!

A stifling review

Tim Winton's Breath

**spoiler alert**

Is just like Lockie Leonard, Human Torpedo, but with Michael Hutchence swinging from a wardrobe door in the background.
No, not really an addition I would have made either.