An Ungodly Hour

I was up at about 4am this morning. Too many things on my mind at the moment I reckon. It occurred to me, "Gee Michael, you are up at an ungodly hour."

Then I began wondering about the origin of the term. Obviously, Pagans were getting up in the early mornings to perform their disgusting rituals or something like this.

6-1/2 hours of googling later and still no wiser.

Top 5 reasons why the bus is better than the train

5. You get a seat. Always.
4. If the bus is late, you can generally see the reason, ie, the traffic is bad.
3. It takes the same amount of time to go to and from work, yet the walking is less.
2. You can actually see the Opera House and Harbour on the way over the bridge. Beautiful.
1. When York St is clogged with traffic, the driver will turn to the bus and say, "If you're in a rush to get to Wynyard, I suggest you get off here."

It's free, man

My ISP has this concept they call "uncounted period". It is a period of time during the day where downloads do not count against your monthly allowance. This is part of the email I have received from them regarding this:

...the allowance for the period 12 midnight to 12 noon each day will be increased to 40 gb from the current allowance of 40 gb.

Generous, aren't they?

Justin, milk drinker

This is a (dodgy phone-camera) shot of the side of the Coles Lite Milk carton.



For those with horrid eyesight the caption says:

"Perfect! It's light, refreshing and tasty"

Justin, milk drinker.

Surely I am not the only one who thinks Justin is slightly suspect. So, which do you prefer, the milk or the cow?

Congestion on the pavements of Sydney

When you are rushing to get to work in the morning, I think that the hardest thing to get past is a tiny lady with a golf umbrella walking slowly. The umbrella framework looks awfully scary when it is close to your eyes.

It's particularly annoying when, although it looks a bit wet out, there is not a drop falling.

Bullies

There's a lot of talk about bullying going on at the moment, probably because of this story. I don't know any of the details of the case, so can't comment either way on whether the payout is fair or too high or not justified at all, or whether the judgement is correct or incorrect.

I'm sure that everyone gets bullied at school, some more than others. Even the bullies. The über-bullies get bullied by their drunken fathers and so they bully kids at school, who in turn bully weaker kids, who bully yet weaker kids, all the way down to the bottom of the heap to the kids who get picked on by everyone, and so end up torturing cats or abusing their younger siblings.

In Year 7 I was bullied by this bloke, I can't even remember his name now or what exactly was happening. Eventually I cracked one day and just started hitting him back. He belted me good, but then never touched me again. And in Year 9 a similar thing happened - a bloke was pushing and pushing until I eventually cracked and thumped him good and hard on the nose. In the classroom with the teacher present as well. I'll never forget the satisfying look of surprise on his face. After that incident he copped at lot more bullying from his "mates" as well as never bullying me again. I guess he realised that I was actually bigger than him. Also, getting thumped good and hard by one of the "band nerds" has a way of dropping you down the pecking order somewhat. Heh.

Yesterday I was at Josephine's primary school for her open day. I was sitting with her at recess, chatting and eating some of her cookies. A little boy came up to me, obviously thinking I was a teacher. It has happened before - and Josephine's friends tease me about it.

The little boy said, "He just punched me in the stomach," and pointed to another little boy of about the same size. Without thinking too much I replied, "Well punch him back."

Josephine was horrified, "Dad! Be responsible." Of course she was right -- given moral direction by a 9-year-old! Luckily a teacher came along to take charge of affairs for me and I didn't have to save the situation.

There is no other moral to this story, other than my incredibly poor judgement. I just thought it a topical occurrence.

A Bad Mood

When in an extremely bad mood, the following courses of action hold hope of changing the mood, or, at the very least, of providing some temporary relief.

• Punch out the person attempting to get you to donate to the "Save the Siberian Kitten" fund. Not a little love-tap either, but a full-on, sit-you-on-your-arse belt.
• Snatch the mobile phone off that person who is sharing their annoying conversation with everyone within a 20-metre radius. Throw that same phone down hard. On the concrete. Enjoy seeing all the little shiny plastic pieces scatter randomly.
• Resign on the spot. Walk out. Never return. Not even to retrieve your favourite Dilbert cartoon.
• Go to the pub. Buy the foulest-tasting rum in the largest size beer glass and get very, very dog-earred. Get thrown out at closing time.
• Catch a train to a random destination. Like Antartica.
• Get a permanent tattoo that has a lot of swear words on it.
• Buy something really expensive that you've always wanted. Like a Jack Russell Terrier.
• Go to KFC and order the largest bucket of chicken. Eat it all, discarding the bones OFF the tray and on the table. Belch loudly throughout, and visit the toilet only to vomit.
• Eat an ice-cream. Or possibly two. At 8am.
• Stop on the way home to purchase a 1kg bag of potato chips. Eat them while lying on the lounge watching Men Behaving Badly, all six series, beginning to end.
• Go to a gay bar or gym and pick a fight with the muscliest bloke there.
• Surf for porn movies at work. Play them with the volume turned way up high.

Please note I have purposely removed all those that would cause death or pregnancy to strangers. I suspect perhaps that the difference between myself and someone who is clinically depressed is that I would probably not do any of these. Probably. Not that I actually know anything about clinical depression.

Oh. I left one off the list: Write a morbidly depressing blog entry. There, that's helped, hasn't it?

Someone has messed up

I think it is interesting the way newspapers, and news sites, indicate foul language.

I was reading an article on the Sydney Morning Herald's AFL website about Adam Selwood being cleared for using offensive language on the field. The actual article is here.. Initially, Selwood is quoted in the usual way, with the first letter of the word showing and the rest of the characters replaced with asterisk signs with the exception of letters to indicate tense. So "Bummer" would appear as "B*****". But "pushed" would appear as "p***ed". You get the picture I'm sure.

But someone obviously forgot this rule in the second half of the article. Read down to the paragraph that starts: "Selwood said there was no other conversation..." Strange that not all instances of that particular word are bleeped.

Of course with my luck lately, it is sure to be sanitised by the time someone reads this blog entry.

An opportunity wasted

The English language is missing a word. This word describes the intense feeling of satisfaction felt when you see a segment on a current affairs show that covers a story or situation that you previously thought to be an as-yet-to-be-discovered truth.

Naturally I'll illustrate this with an example.

One day recently, once again stuck in Sydney traffic, I looked across at a driver in the next lane who was sitting dejectedly behind the wheel of his gawdily-marked business car. I began wondering just how much the recent road changes and subsequent traffic jams would be costing businesses.

Sure enough, Thursday night, I was watching A Current Affair on Channel 9, against my will I might add, as I really dislike the show, when an item came on discussing this very thing. It is costing businesses big time. Yes! I was right.

This illustrates to me that the blog is king. If I had've blogged about this when I initially thought about it, then I'd be a rich man now either having sold the idea to Channel 9, or suing the bastards for stealing my idea.

Time to start blogging every single little thought, no matter how fleeting or trivial. Be prepared for an onslaught.

Car signs

For quite a while now I've thought that it'd be great to have a sign, or set of signs, that you could display to other drivers whilst on the road. This would be a more sophisticated aid to communication amongst drivers than the existing horn, blinkers, and hand gestures. If a certain situation arose, you could - "flick" - display the sign, and so communicate your intentions (or other) to other road-users.

I am very much aware of the fact that this tool could lead to the increase of road-rage. Regardless, I press on.

The other day while driving to work, Alison mentioned this to me - it had come to her independently - and we began to discuss the top five signs that we would use. Unfortunately, my drop-off in College St came up too quickly and the conversation was never finished. But two things were clear:

• Most were not printable


• With one or two notable exceptions, they were generally all a variation of the one theme

Regardless, once again, I press on to present our list of top five signs, in no particular order. I should point out that they would, in practice, contain vastly different text that this list.

1. I am terribly sorry, my fellow travellers, for the mistake I have just made.


2. Sir. Your blinkers do not appear to be working, as you have changed lanes many, many times without me seeing them appear. Perhaps I can recommend a mechanic?


3. I was not aware that the law had been changed to allow [for instance] U-turns across six full lanes of traffic moving at speed. Please forgive my ignorance.


4. You are travelling with much haste and abandon. Good luck with your wife's childbirth/fireman's duties.


5. You appear sir, to be travelling quite close, and so obviously wish to be introduced. I apologise for my rudeness in ignoring you.

So what do you reckon?

How light?

Just something to think about the next time you're having breakfast.

Why does the cereal box of Sanitarium Light 'N' Tasty feel so heavy?

Getting Things Halfway Done

I'm reading a book at the moment, "How to Get Things Done" by David Allen. Now that is not it's original name. It's generally known as "Getting Things Done", but for some reason, the title was changed for the Australian, and possibly other, markets. Australia was the only one I noticed on Amazon though. All the references in the book have been changed from Getting Things Done to How to Get Things Done.

I have no idea why they changed it, but if they've gone to all the trouble of doing so because of perceived cultural differences between Australians and American, why didn't they change the spelling of, for instance, "organize" to "organise" throughout?

I have no problem with them renaming this book, but it's like they've stopped short.

How people deal with being "stood up"

Today I did my occasional lunchtime thing, and went to the Sporters Bar at the Menzies Hotel with a magazine. Happily I sat down on my own, with peace and quiet, had a (light) beer and patiently waited for my Vegeburger to turn up.

[Aside: Please don't tell anyone about the Menzies. At lunch it is almost always quiet and unpopulated, smoke-free and friendly staff. Let's just keep it our little secret, shall we.]

Moments after I sat down, a bloke sat down with a glass of white wine and a cola-mixer drink, scotch-and-coke or something like that. It obviously wasn't just straight coke, as it had the tell-tale froth on top. He immediately tucked into the white and put the other drink in front of the seat next to him. Then he took out his phone and rang up someone. I wasn't able (and frankly didn't want) to hear his conversation.

On putting the phone down a short time later, he also put down his wine, picked up the other drink and downed it in three or four quick gulps. He put down the now empty glass and picked the wine up again and similarly finished that in under a minute.

Well, I thought, he obviously was supposed to meet someone, they cancelled at the last minute, and he now has to get on his trap and pony and go. But no, he returned to the bar and bought another white wine and returned, not to the same table, but to a separate table. Once again, he downed his wine in less than a minute, and this time upon finishing, left for good.

My oh my, it must've been an important meeting.

Free Will

I am an avid reader of New Scientist magazine, and they recently did an article or two on Free Will versus Determinism. It's the sort of topic that's guaranteed to drain your zest for life, regardless of whether you believe that life is basically pretty random, or whether it's all fate and pre-determined, or even a scary combination of the two.

Personally, my philosophy of all this is that it is not the sort of question that we are ever likely, or even really want, to solve. Let's just get on with enjoying this gift called life.

The letters to the editor have been flowing thick and fast on this topic. In a recent issue of the magazine, a cartoonist has drawn a person looking at a sign:

"Ministry of Free Will"

Brilliant. Oh come on I shouldn't have to explain it to you.