careless whispers

Unnecessary blood pressure raising inducement of the day was to see that the illogical and (again) unnecessary introduction of the American neologism "I could care less" to Australia. Saw this in a newspaper article.

Why and how does it happen. I used to have a theory that most of these fad sayings came in via FM radio, but I'm not so sure. Why do people do it? Does it really make you look hip to say "I spent a couple hundred dollars today?"

It would be supremely ironic were I now to comment, "meh."

So I won't.

Have started travelling for work again and needing to pass a couple (of) hours in airports and on planes last week, I bought myself a copy of Australian Guitar magazine, mainly for the article on Matt Bellamy from Muse, a band in which I've become quite interested, not least for their thematic obsession with aliens but mainly for their stage shows.

The song structures are nothing to write home about but oh man, the staging! Go to youtube and look at some of their Wembley concert from a couple (of) years back, and other concerts.

Imagining the sensation of being in the crowd puts me in mind of something I've read many years ago, but not sure what. Maybe taking a gram of soma and going to the feelies in Brave New World? Wasn't it Brave New World that had some type of super-saxophones playing music? That Wembley concert looks downright amazing in the number of senses it would assault.

Muse is coming to Australia shortly but I doubt I'll be able to get to a concert. In any case I kind of think I'd be a fish out of water, with or without soma.

Whinge of the day: I don't know what's happened with Blogger but now I can only move pictures within the post one paragraph at a time. And for the two photos in this post where I want jump the first photo further down the story, I can't do it. Like, bummer.

more than words

I like words, what I like even better is people who can use words well.

And what I like even betterer is people wot use words to make me larf.

Like this:

(links deleted for reasons that will become apparent later in the post...sorry)

'course it's all a little bit like shooting fish in a barrel (do people actually do that? and if so, what calibre gun do they use?), but a punchy turn of phrase is a damn good thing.

Speaking of calibre, did you read about the bloke who shot a doctor, then his own mother and then himself after the doctor presumably pronounced a suboptimal prognosis for the mother? With a handgun he just happened to have in his belt?

This, to me, is indeed a fish in a barrel. Tell me again about the right to bear arms? Of course you'd pack heat if you were visiting mum (or, as I overheard two little boys in Woolies today, "mom" - yes, I do live in Australia), you never know when you might need to protect yourself. Against germs, let's say.

Yes, intolerably sad, but they seem to be slow learners, these Yanks.

Wasn't the Colt 45 called the "peacemaker"?

Because you always create peace by shooting people quicker, harder, and faster.

Note: I drafted this a couple of days ago and then had problems with my little bits of html. I can't remember what the links were meant to be and can't be bothered going back to check now. But I've posted it all the same. Caveat lector.

Note note note - I drafted the note above several nights ago and then went to check whether I had remembered caveat lector correctly. That caused the pooter to keep hanging so I went away and completely forgot about what I was doing. Until tonight.

The question now will be whether it'll post.

Also I found a wonderful online comic - here. I read all 7 years' worth of it over a period of about a week, thereby rendering it more of a graphic novel in my eyes I guess. The writer always puts little noted at the foot of the panels which often illustrate the dilemmas he faces in constructing the story arcs as well as longer term character and plot development. It's a real insight into something I certainly had never given any thought to.

lifter puller

You don't often read this sort of thing in a newspaper report:

"... not all agreed with some of her pronouncements on issues such as masturbation."


Although later on we read:

"I think O'Donnell can pull it off against the Democrats,"
she said.

As they say, only in America.

I'd like to see a Tea Party candidate gain the Presidency.

From a distance, though.

working for the man

As someone just coming off a roughly 14 hour day on top of a number of others of similar length, and having allowed myself some 'free' reading time, I was underwhelmed to read this. In fact only earlier Mrs VVB and I remarked, en passant to each, our own pooters, why has work got this insane?

I'm sure you'll understand.

roundabout

So we have a minority government, you'd think it was either the end of the world or something never seen before (like what happens in Kitchen Stadium).

Just think of what the energy that's going into writing about what Julie Gillard, or Tony Abbott, or Tony Windsor, or thingo Oakeshott might or might not be thinking was actually directed at doing something positive?

No, it all just goes around and around and around and around and

Anyway it's a bore. Let's just see how it all works out. If I have to make another trip to teh local primary school this side of Christmas 2011 I'm going to be mightily peeved.

Meanwhile, in a parallel universe, I'm so freakin' busy I ain't got time to scratch meself.

addicted to loveseriously weird

From who knows where, some extremely addictive viewing fer yer pleasure.

I guarantee you'll be clicking madly for the next three days.

I know I was :-)

one

two

See y'all in a little while, y'all hear now?

cat power

Far be it from me to add to the squillions of words being writ, even as we speak I do likewise, about the election.


Well no, maybe not too far. Being of a recently improved, more optimistic, mind I hope that this campaign just past marks a low point in how these things are conducted in Oz. The relentless negative attack ads and fear-mongering, single focus on the leaders thereby distracting from pretty thin talent pools on all sides, and lack of a policy framework - call it a narrative if you will - all combine to have dumbed down what should be the most informed decision we all make.


Not to mention the role of parties' organisational wings, not to single any particular one out (ha!). The phrase 'out of touch' is one used with rare abandon to criticise leaders, but it should be aimed at the back room boys - and I guess they are mainly boys - who by their very definition cannot ever be in touch.


The instability of what we will be left with at Federal level might just start to get the 'players' thinking that maybe the political process needs some renewal. From what I read, the general public certainly thinks so.


What we do about the MSM and its corrosive influence, of course, is another thing.



Personally, I think it is more important to spend time with old cars and kittens.

only one woman

I blog
You blog
He, she or it blogs.

Not so much turning Japanese as turning Latin.

I love life, I love it a lot better after a few sherbets.



Ah, Graeme Bonnet. What a voice. My evening is complete.

No it's not, does anyone - I mean anyone - have a copy of Linda Sue Dixon by Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels? Genuine blue-eyed soul? It's seared into my memory, but nonetheless my memory would be improved by hearing that song again.

around and around redux (*)

So I'm sitting in this meeting and someone drops a paper in front of me, titled (roughly) "Options for solutions to issues around etc etc..." so I immediately cross out "around" and substitute "of".

Then the person comes back and picks up the paper, apologises for having given it to me and drops it in front of a person about 3 chairs down.

So I get up and go down there and point out my vandalism to both of them. Then the person for whom the paper was actually intended and I have a discussion about vandalism of language, in which I explain my distaste for this trend of misusing "around.

Then the person tells me about her hatred of apostrophe misuse and how she has educated her children to be on the lookout for such misuse.

Then we both punch the air and yell "pedants rule OK!" and I return to my chair.

I do so like meetings.

(*) Had you ever heard or read the word "redux" before blogs were invented?

la mer

Having been lolling about Villa VVB by the sea for a couple (*of) weeks now, I could have written an equivalent to War and Peace (by weight, if not content), but all I've mustered is one short post saying "we're back" with a picture. Well, here's another picture.



The little red car is hors de combat, it got considerably horser as soon as I starting trying to fix it. So I am denied the pleasure of farting around in it.

Mid-winter here is glorious, the sea is a metallic kind of azure with the odd spotless white sail swanning in the background.

I scan with the binoculars (one thing we noticed when house-hunting here was that every house with a sea view had binoculars to hand or a big fuck-off telescope in the corner of the lounge room). This arvo my naked (ooh-er, Bishop!) eye spotted...well, that's what it was, a spot. With the binocs, it was a bloke in a tinny that couldn't have been more than 3 and a bit metres. So flat was the sea, no swell, no waves, and he's standing up, fishing.

All of which is not conducive to blogging. I have been reading the sites (Grog has come into his own magnificently in the last few weeks) but even with some quickening in the pace of events within the election period, it still looks and sounds too scripted and focus-group driven. Then there's the meta-commentary, for example on the role of the media, and the meta-meta commentary on the role of the blogosphere in commenting on the role of the media, and...

The endless tea-leaf reading is unbelievably tiresome. There are far too many readers and far too few leaves - when you take into account statistical margins of error, electoral boundary changes and countless other unknown unknowns...

Yeah you get the point.

Been playing a few concert DVDs which started to get me thinking about an even bigger TV. For a little while I was kind of third guitar to Phil Manzanera and Chris Spedding in Roxy Music, I needed a bigger screen so I could in there. Fortunately for me, they're deaf. Or at least they were on this DVD.

Anyway, this all sounds like ennui which means it's a good thing I'm back at work next week.

Not really. But I've already started easing back in by reviewing a few documents I'll need to be familiar with when I return. And only 330 e-mails to deleteread.


* Maybe I should also adopt the recent US craze for not saying "of?"


**And while we're on pedantry, the misuse of "versus", from the Latin and meaning "against", seems to have also taken off. Listening to a lot of radio commentary while on hols, the usual pronunciation was "verse." Yes, really. But the other day I read a newspaper article in which it was spelt "verses."


I kid you not.


We're doomed, fucking doomed, I tell you.

The other thing is this being thrown offline every time I hit a function key. Is seriously pissing me off.

holiday

"Ooh you're a holiday,

Every day such a holiday.

Now it's my turn to say,

And I say you're a holiday."

Back when the Bee Gees were a proper band.

Anyway we've been on holiday and I have 345 photos (bows before the great god Digital, in film days that would have cost me about $180 to get developed and printed). This is one of them. A lot more are very similar. It was a very therapeutic holiday.

you raise me up

So I go into this office block and the single (and solitary) lift has a sign in front saying, "Under repair. For your safety and convenience please do not use."

So for my inconvenience I had to use the stairs, for my safety I went up on all fours. The wheelchair bound and Daleks would have been in strife.

When I grow up I want a job where I get to write signs that really piss people off. It must be so gratifying.

roadhouse blues

Hello there

Been away on a big road trip to all - well, a lot of - points west. Lots of fun, lots of driving, sufficient work to keep the brian active, and so on.

Here's a picture of part of where I went. There was a lot more of that around, too.

No time for even following blogs and I have to say it wasn't long before I wasn't missing it at all.

So I come back and there's a new Prime Minister and there's thousands of words been writ about the new Prime Minister, and the old Prime Minister, and the manner in which the new became the new and the old became the old and I was like meh.

I know I shouldn't have been like meh but I was, rooly.

Of course on road trips it means you're eating out all the time and I have to say I have sampled, and in some cases actually eaten, a highly variable quality of food.

I can say with assurance, though, that I had the best thickshake I have EVAH had in this place. I recommend it highly if you happen to be in the neighbourhood. Although it may be some way away from your neighbourhood.

And at one place I went for lunch I hit the jackpot. All I wanted was the lunch time special and I got the meaning of life.

For real - see here.

We have a fault with this computer where it keeps going off line. And for some reason Blogger makes it it do that all the time, which pisses me off. It's taken me four goes at finalising this post. Along with the great dollops of meh, just another excuse not to blog, I guess.

the nice

Every now and again you run across a comment in a thread that just makes you exhale - or inhale, if you're different to most folks(*) - and go (ie say to yourself), "yeah, that's really cool."

Here is an example from tonight's meanderings (and I'm only meandering because my work e-mail is gestufft, thereby rendering me unreachable, irrelevant and incompetent).

Oh yes, here it is:

I have a TV, but it's not actually hooked up to anything
useful. (%)

(*) Or the other way around (#).

(#) But most definitely not "coffee/screen interface moment" which just wants to make me change sites.

(%) You can click through if you like but it's far from mandatory, I think I've clipped the best bit.

little white bull

What with it being Friday an' all, you need some light ennertainment.

Here it is:

Goya, Picasso, García Lorca, Hemingway, Orson Welles and recently Pierce Brosnan and Greg Kinnear have handled bulls in such a way as to prove their artistic
importance.

Do have a lovely weekend.

Oh, NB: this isn't about bullfighting.

limbo rock

How low can you go?

Not much lower than me, I'm afraid. Overworked by whelm, and vice versa, I'm going to give up even trying to do the occasional post.

Maybe when the next election comes around there may be some unique...or possibly individual...VBB views, but until then... Mind you, someone's going to have to learn how to implement but shit, it's Canberra, implementation is what other people do. So maybe people in Canberra should stop trying.

When I say people in Canberra I don't mean all the people in Canberra, but you know who I mean.

prejudice

I really shouldn't be amazed at people's prejudices, but I am. Some classic comments from this story about dirty works in England's bid for the 2018 soccer world cup:

I wonder what the aide got out of disclosing such private information, dont say another vengeful money grabbing female?

Do the editors of the Mail on Sunday not want to see us host the World Cup? These comments were made in private and should have remained so. It would not surprise me to find out that the journalist who broke this story was Scottish...

eat to the beat

Tonight in the study chez VVBSea, a small exercise in David Attenboroughosity. I have to admit that I wasn't in the room when the seemingly inevitable happened. However, nor can I see the moth anywhere.

Meanwhile, what has happened to chocolate? All of a sudden you go into Woolies and (a) all the chocolate is in flat cardboard boxes, and (b) all the names are different. I can't keep up with life, people (well, I assume they are people) keep changing reality.

Which raises the question, are marketing people really people? I mean, inasmuch as you and I are people? Well, me anyway, I can't see out from here because of all the geckos.

happy days are here again

Someone's not happy about the UK election:


Myles Munro wrote:

This result makes it clear that the indigenous people of this English constituency are quite happy with their culturally, socially and racially "enriched" future, in which sharia law will soon gain the same status of English common law, multilingualism will be the norm, polygamous marriage will not only be acceptable but common, the ritual killing of animals widespread, women disenfranchised and homosexuals face losing their recently won freedoms. That's fine. But don't start whingeing when the reality kicks in - you voted for it!

Bring on the ritual slaughter, tourists are tired of the Changing of the Guard.

horse with no name

As I keep saying, you get much better comments in the UK papers. The election this week has whipped up a storm of tired old cliches.....oh, sorry, no, that was me. No, the sub themes apparent in the comments are just fascinating. The hatred of Gordon Brown not because of anything he may or may not have done, but because he's a Scot. Anything that's not absolute laissez faire is labelled as socialism or communism. And, of course, the whole disillusion with manufactured, tightly controlled political campaigns. Which the Poms don't have to themselves, of course.

.. The whole comments string here is a cracker, but here are two I liked, for different reasons:

When I was in the UK it seemed to me that the virulent marxist types were the ones who tended to live in squalor, he was usually dressed in old dirty ex army stuff , had a bag of roll up baccy in his pocket, didn't understand the complexities of shaving and tended towards habits such as picking his nose and eating it. left school at 14 and never worked a day in his life but was adept at finding others of the same ilk to bond with. Often has strong homosexual tendencies when drunk.The women similarly left secondary modern without a o level to their name and usually because they were pregnant, tends to live in council flats with giant TV in every room but otherwise also in filthy squalor with up to 8 children who's fathers names were either on the local constabulary roster or in prison for importuning or some such offense, Either way the mother of these unfortunate children had no recollection due to the long hours spend drinking during school hours.Is it starting to ring any bells san toi, stefanie jameson, or is it still a blur.whatever you are , that's the ideology you support and that's what broon has made the standard rather than eliminating these scum from society.That's why he is such a LOSER

I like Socialists, but I couldn't afford a whole one.