unfinsihed sympony

derarm deodorant or something. And then it hung completely and so I ahve gone back to the old interface and I like don;t care anmd all and they can do what they want. I don't even care about typos and like I can't be boteherd running spellcheck becaue it's just anoytjer way they try to mcircomanage you and all.

So therte.

Mr Denmore, I posted a comment about how "leadership" is the 'in' word for this year but no-one knows what it actually means in practical terms in any given circumstance, but everybody knows how to say it. Also, I spellchecked this bit out of deference to your insightful and erudite blog.

unfinished symphony

Bluuudddy blogggger, I just wanted to post a comment at Mr Denmore's blog but my gooooogle account doesn't have the privilege or the right code or un

my happiness

"The secret to happiness is low expectations."  It's http://www.ted.com/talks/barry_schwartz_on_the_paradox_of_choice.htmltrue.

Also, is 600 refugees a month a http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/immigration/julia-gillard-enlists-tony-abbott-on-offshore-processing-of-asylum-seekers/story-fn9hm1gu-1226131459089"flood"?  I ask you.

I have 'upgraded' to 'new' blogger.  It's like yuk mum.

listen like thieves

It's now a settled component of the political process that pollies - mainly oppositions - have to embark on "listening tours". Media reports usually show them in staged situations "listening" to everyday folk who, amazingly, have the same beliefs. This subseqently enables them to confidently state that the "government has lost its way" or is "out of touch" or possbly "has turned into a menagerie of ibises."

I made that last one up, just a little bit.

Anyway, listening. It's happening everywhere:

And, oh, the "listening". Which genius of political grammar – Coulson? Hilton? Someone else with a name like a motorway services stop? – hit on the brilliant idea of "listening" as a synonym for "shutting you up"?

PS: God, something's gone awry with bluuudddyy bblllooggger again, the pade doesn't loook lie it should, no buttons for spellcheck or font and it's all dammmmmnnneeed wwwrrrroooong. And all my tags are gone.

i've been everywhere

If I am getting these annoying hyperlinks telling me about a Brisbane 'mom' (sic) on virtually every website - including Aunty as you can see - have I got a virus? Or are they indeed everywhere?

Have screenshot, can't upload it.

back on the chain gang

To respond to Gerry's question on the last post, yes I've been away and only with access to a work computer that I don't like to use to post blog pieces, even in my own time. Could have gone to an internet cafe I guess...but I didn't.

Any way it was a good break to go and do some other work and cacth up with a lot of people I haven't seen for a long time.

freestyler wokka mokka phone

Are you blogging more and enjoying it less?

Or blogging less and enjoying it more?

Do you love Freeview?

Kelloggs, anyone?

Thought so.

all the leaves are

Although I first read about them some years ago, I have just discovered the Decemberists. Calloo callay.

smokie

I had an idea for a TV advertisement. The purpose of the advertisement would be to inform people about the costs to the healthcare system of people who get sick - and when I say sick, I mean fixin' to die sick - from smoking. Maybe if people realised the impost on their taxes through the healthcare system, there would be more of a mass movement to reduce the incidence of smoking throughout the population.

I would use the notion of an old fashioned nanny. That is to say, an older, larger, warmer, in a dress and pinafore nanny, the style of nanny you think of when you maybe think about the upbringing of the privileged scions of earlier generations. I believe there is an alternate image of nannies based on some recent, populist notion of them being strict and harsh. Probably a short term ratings winner but no resonance, you know what I mean?

The nanny would be all soft and comforting, you know, and would say that if you really understood the social and financial burden that your smoking brought on the whole population, including your city, your neighbourhood, your workmates, your friends, your family, yourself, you'd reconsider the habit.

The language would be as one would use to a child to get him or her to modify behaviour that they know is unhelpful, but just need a push. The tone would be uplifting and hopeful to insinuate that, with your help, we'll all be better off.

What do you reckon?

bad moon rising

Actually, I think this is quite an excellent moon rising over Villa VVB.

ub (bs) 40

So I'm browsing one of my favourite time-wasters, Listopia, and I run across this.

"WTF?" I think to myself because, as you know, most thinking is mainly internal or, as some would have it, mental.

So I'm mentally thinking to myself about wtf is this so I have to google it and I get there. For reasons that are usually described as "unaccountable", which is in fact a euphemism for "wtf?", I decide to look at the one which "explains" the strip, rather than the strip itself.

Here is a random selection of one, I now bid you bye-bye for some two to three months.

I just love the deadpan reconstruction of the strip which is mimicked totally by the commenters. One can only marvel in the fact that there are squillions of people out there doing this sort of stuff, when in point of fact most of them should be heavily sedated and kept in lion cages.

With lions.

Anyway, I now know about ubbs.

complicated

Appropos of absolutely nothing at all, I had a random thought about quite common phrase. So I looked it up on Wikipedia and this is what I found:

The form without the hyphen is also commonly seen, but can be
construed as a "wild chase", but not an inevitably fruitless one, after a
possibly domesticated and flightless goose, rather than after a wild
goose.

Who'd have thought it was so complicated?

Lovers of 60s and 70s pop and rcok might like this one. Even though youtube shows other songs, I think they were pretty much one-hit wonders with this one.

deja vu

Sometime back in late 2007, I wrote this:

"they might turn out to be incompetent but at least they won't be bastards"

I do believe I deserve a pat on the back for prescience.

And a boot up the clacker for smartarsery.

But it's a shame that it turned out to be so close.

drop bears

Seriously. If you downvoted this you're no better than a
panda who won't screw to save it's species.

This is the "this" referred to above (NB: safe link, esp. if you likez de musickz.

I agree. Fuck dem pandaz, this is the duck's guts.

Also, as quote lifted verbatim, the superfluous apostrophe is not mine. But I felt it needed a reincarnation in case it could find a place to hide.

the french lieutenant's route

...to continue with gnawing things to death, which is what our slogan says we are going to do...

What is it with adopting the American pronunciation of "route" as "rowt"? Now everybody does it. Everywhere. Except me, that is.

I was at a meeting this morning, it's a bunch of dinkum Aussies talking about local Aussie issues and we get "rowt".

I mean, it can't be because if we say it the way we have for the last 200 years, people are going to think we are talking about a bit of the old hide the sausage, even if the subject du jour happens to be a bloody road, for crying out loud?

What is wrong with people?

Although for 200 odd years we pronounced it "leftenant", whereas the Yanks' "lootenant" is somewhat closer to the original French, for those who can't do anything other than front-of-mouth voicings that is.

I mean, what is wrong with people?

Also, I can't be bothered trying to think of an appropriate musical title, so I thought of another that tickled my tickle. Hope you like it. There's another 'tradition' down the gurgler.

who's going to drive you home tonight?

In lieu of several thousand words (ha! as if that was in any way likely...) here are some pictures. They appeal to me for all sorts of reasons.

Today was a day out.

the american songbook

I think I read some time ago that to have a popular blog, one must post regularly. So on that basis either I actually don't want a popular blog, or else I simply ain't gonna get one on account of aforesaid lack of regularity, etc etc. I see my posts number in the 950s so some time soon - provided you define soon in periods of decades or more - I will hit the big 1000, at which time I will lay myself down and have a really long sleep, on account of all the energy, etc etc.

In the meantime, I note that a recent Americanism, namely dropping the word "of" after "couple", as in "I got a couple things to tell ya", has hit the Australian MSM (provided you categorise a Murdoch Sunday scandal rag as MSM) and no doubt will thereafter infiltrate its way into ordinary everyday conversation in much the same way that "get-go" did a couple years ago. See, I told you it wouldn't take long. No one ever listens to me. Because I'm not regular, I suppose. Damnably frustrating, it is.

In the other meantime, people have woken up to the fact that all politics is sheeet, man, and have switched off. I heard this straight from the mouth of a well-known sportsman only recently and I tell you, if you want an opinion on contemporary politics, a sportsman is your first stop. The good oil, I tells ya.

I really wish I had some more things with which to enlighten youse but, right from the get-go, I never have. Had.

In yet another meantime in a galaxy not too distant from my current position, a sheeeet-load of work awaits so I'd better get to it. See you in a few years.

jacob's ladder

Jacob Jester Pastor Poster

You wouldn't read about it.

Unless, of course, you just did.

I'll say it again: Jacob Jester Pastor Poster

Quite tickled my fancy, that did.

As you were.

fox on the run

"I'm actually shocked that no fact-checking was done on the
lyrics," Way wrote. "I mean Fox is a major news channel, covering factual topics in an unbiased and intelligent – oh wait – to quote the man himself – 'You don't have to live by the standards that society has set'. I couldn't agree more."

Personally, I'm not into critical analysis - or unhinged ranting for that matter - about US media personalities, Fox News and so on. To my (admittedly tiny) mind, it's a bit too much 'left wing talking points' in character. And if we want to criticise, dog knows we have enough of similar ilk here. But I do find much of that online discourse mind-numbingly repetitive and singularly unable to add to the sum of human knowledge. Yes, they're awful. Fortunately, they're over there.

However, this article - from which the above excerpt originated - quite tickled me.

sunshine superman

See if you can guess what this article is about from the following comment:

Quick, get Carlton to sign him up. This would fix the weakness in our backline.

Probably the best of them all and a cut above the repetition for sure.