Sadly, that's about all I've got to say. I know this blog has been suffering from neglect lately, but I'm still in the predicament where I've got nothing to say and a million other things to do.
I had a list of about fifty small jobs to do this weekend. I think I got through about thirty-five.
I haven't listened to any news, so I don't know what's going on in the world. I've been listening to my "high-productivity" music; not sure how well it's working though. No profound thought or observations. I could do a piece on why I love the Emacs text editor, but who the fuck wants to read that?
If anyone's got any topic they want to discuss ... anything at all ... go nuts. I promise I'll respond in between doing fiddly, tedious, little jobs.
Edit!
I'm getting to the point of hating Google. Not the services, the services are fine. It's more the company. They're like the Coles and Woolies of the internet.
And sure, there's a lot of alternatives out there, but I don't think there's any other free blogging platforms that give you as much as what Blogger does.
*Grumble*fuckin*Grumble*
How are you finding Wordpress, Melba?
Edit!
Melba, I'm relying on you to tell me when the good TV shows start. It's in the next couple of weeks, right?
Edit!
Here's a video I got sent. Best laugh I've had in ages. By the way, Glyphosate is another name for the weed killer better known as Roundup.
This last week, I've been flying on auto-pilot. I don't know where my head's been. Off in the clouds somewhere. I dunno. It's been rubbish. Anyway, a couple of days ago, I started craving biscuits. You know, those old Arnott's assorted creams? The kind you'd get when you visited certain rellies when you were a kid?
Now, I don't usually buy junk food. In fact, I don't think I ever buy junk food. Nor do I ever usually want to.
So I ignored it.
But the cravings got worse and worse, and today, I went to the shops and bought 2 packets of biscuits and 2 bottles of milk. It should've raised alarm bells that I was buying 2 packets of biscuits. TWO BIG FAMILY-SIZED PACKETS. Cravings or not, there's no reason that I should've ever been buying that many biscuits for myself. But I really, REALLY wanted them.
Then I came home and gorged myself on biscuits and milk until I was sick.
Wow, it certainly snapped me out of the daze I was in. But it still leaves me with a few unanswered questions:
What the fuck just happened?
Do I need to worry about it happening again?
Should I throw out the biscuits that are left over?
Last time I posted, I lamented not having any news to talk about. I guess you really should be careful what you ask for. Looking at the time stamps, I guess it's been about ten days or so since I was last here. It feels like a lot longer. There is news. Stuff has happened.
The weekend before last, one of my cousin's sons got into a fight and got his head kicked in. Their local hospital was able to give him the all-clear on brain-injuries, but they weren't able to put the bones in his face back together, so they shipped him down here, stuck him on a drip and let him stew for a week, waiting for a spot in the waiting-list to open up, before finally patching him up and sending him home. What that means for me is that any time I haven't spent at work in the past week, I've been hosting distraught rellies or going back and forth from the hospital.
Now, before anyone offers any condolences, I'd just like to say that I'm not particularly upset about the whole ordeal. I'm not happy about it either, but, well, I know my family, and I know the town, and let's just say it was difficult for me to sound shocked when I got the news. It's hard to explain, but I guess it's the same feeling you get when you find out a long-time alcoholic you know has been in a drink-driving accident. It seems so tragic and random, and yet, it also seems like it was kind of unavoidable. On the one hand, there used to be this sweet little bub that I would feed and cuddle and play with, and it seemed like he could grow up to be anything; and on the other hand, well, like I said, I know that town and I know my family, and he hasn't been that sweet little bub for a lotta years now, and in a sick way I pretty much feel like, "Well, of course it turned out like this".
I don't really know how that last paragraph reads to an outsider, but I hope it paints an appropriate picture.
Actually, that's kind of it for news. Two paragraphs filled up an entire week. There aren't really any funny anecdotes that came out of it, or anything like that. No philosophical questions that come to mind. Just a rejuvenated appreciation for private health coverage and the fact that I may not be able to afford it for too much longer. Now that Medibank Private's been sold off, I expect premiums to rise quick smart.
Yesterday afternoon was the first free time I've had in a week, and I basically spent it clicking on Youtube videos in a zombified stupor. For some strange reason (which probably had to do with the previous week), I found myself cycling through a bunch of vlog type clips from people living with severe disabilities. I found it both interesting and informative, and it made me reflect on how wonderful a tool the internet can be for helping people to understand each other. One thing I noticed, is that many people with disabilities are keen to educate "the normals" on their sex-lives. I saw videos about props and aids and sex-enabling wheelchairs, and many many women doing variations on the theme "10 things you should never ever say to a woman in a wheelchair if you want her to have sex with you". I also noticed that absolutely nobody, including people with physical disabilities, wants to touch on the topic of sexual desires in people with mental disabilities. I literally heard one person say they wouldn't touch the issue with a ten foot pole.
Maybe this is a big enough topic that it deserves its own post, but what do you all think?
Also, people keep asking me if I've seen the 50 Shades Of Grey movie. First of all, it's a fucking movie now? Second, why would people assume it's the kind of movie I'd want to see? I think the last movie I saw in a cinema was the (fantastic) Judge Dredd flick back in 2012. Thirdly, it's a fucking movie now? Don't tell me, it's selling out box-offices all over the world, isn't it? See, this is why we can't have nice movies anymore.
And speaking of shit movies, I came across the preview for the upcoming Mad Max movie; and how fucked does this look?
Then I came across this Traffic Accident Commission 20th anniversary video (which is 5 years old now). Does everyone remember these? Do they still make them (I don't watch commercial telly)? How effective do you reckon they are/were?
Anyway, the main reason I mention it is because then I found the same video set to TISM's Greg! The Stop Sign!
... which is just magic, the way they go together. And then it struck me, that if you just watch the bit from around 1 minute 58, to about 2 minutes 50, you get what almost looks like a trailer for a Mad Max movie that I might actually want to see. Tell me that this little clip doesn't look far more exciting and engaging than the load of bollocks up above (remember to stop at 2:50).
And then I found out that there's a petition to get TISM to compete for Australia at this year's Eurovision Song Contest (Which means Australia's competing at this year's Eurovision Song Contest?). And it has 14,000 signatures.
And then I found out one of the blokes from TISM has a new album out. And it's pretty good.
And speaking of things that are pretty good, and movies that I actually want to see, I also discovered this preview for an upcoming Iron Sky sequel:
If you haven't seen the first Iron Sky, this may not seem clever, or even make a lot of sense. Also, you should hunt up a copy and watch it, sharpish. It's a fantastic little low-budget sci-fi parody. Slightly dark, slightly absurd, and just dry enough to appeal to my sense of humour. It's made by Finnish director Timo Vuorensola who also directed the no-budget amateur flick, Star Wrek.
Star Wreck is a labour of love that took 7 years to make. Which makes it at least 60% as good as that Boyhood bullshit. And it was released under creative commons, so it's free to share. It's also probably my favourite amateur movie.
And speaking of things I find funny, I also watched Insiders, and it looks like Abbott's prime-minister-ship is terminal. The animal is feeding on itself, the story has become the story, and everything he cultivated in opposition is coming home to roost.
But also, they played a clip from this:
... which comes from here. And, I dunno. It's not spot on comedy, as far as I'm concerned, but it's probably as good as anything I've seen come out of Australia since Fast Forward, which was back in what, 1992?
And since I've now been rabbiting on for several dozen paragraphs about shit I found on Youtube Sunday evening, I may as well chuck in every other bit of bullshit I can think of as well...
The big story in tech news last week was some low-end Lenovo laptops come with a very nasty piece of software on them that's supposed to inject extra ads into web pages, but inadvertently cracks web-browser security, leaving users wide open to all manner of scams and attacks.
The moral of this story is that, if you're buying a new computer, and you have the option to get one of those Windows Signature machines that comes without all the extra crap on it, it might well be worth it, even if it costs a few extra bob. Even better is installing your own software once you get it home, though I understand this might not be possible for most people.
Finally, I'm introducing a new, optional segment, that I'm tentatively calling Crackpot Corner; which is where I'm going to ask questions, and try to make sense of shit I see in the media which may look correct at first, but then kind of seems like bullshit the more I think about it.
Today's Crackpot Corner: Vladamir Putin suspected of assassinating leader of the Russian opposition party!?
That's exactly how it was presented on telly when the story broke Saturday. As I heard one of my rellies explain it to another, "It's like if Tony Abbott had Bill Shorten killed". And I can't say I blame them for coming away with that understanding; that's what I heard as well. And it seems reasonable, right? Putin's a pretty nasty piece of work. We've heard continually over the last few months that he's a crazy Stalin wannabe who wants to reform the USSR; and he's had people killed in the past*. Why, just two days before, there was headline news about a spy that he had poisoned 9 years ago. (... Hey, wait a minute ...)
*Let's put aside the fact that American drones have killed thousands of innocent people, and there was an internal report released just the other day that showed the CIA routinely tortured innocent people (some of whom turned out to be their own informants), sometimes to death. Anyone who's been to the movies knows the Ruskies are the baddies and the Yanks are the goodies.
Anyway, the point is that if Putin felt threatened by this bloke, of course he's going to have him killed ... So, who was this Boris Nemtsov, and what's the political situation like in Russia? Well, the news told us he was the leader of the opposition and he was supposed to lead a huge anti-Putin demonstration two days after he was killed. Also, the Russian economy is in the toilet since the Saudis dropped the price of oil. Yes, Putin should really be shaking in his boots.
... Except, a little bit of poking around the web seems to suggest that Putin has an approval rating over 80% at the moment. And that when the Russian economy dipped, his popularity actually went UP. And that his party holds an outright majority in the Duma (parliament), with more seats than all the other parties put together. And that they're on track to retain that majority at next year's elections. And, hey, wait a minute, Nemtsov hasn't had a seat in federal politics since 2003. And the party he's now affiliated with doesn't hold a single seat - even at the regional level. And the big anti-Putin demonstration ended up being quite a bit smaller than the anti-Putin demonstrations in 2011/12. So this seems less like if Tony Abbott had Bill Shorten killed, and more like if Tony Abbott was the most popular prime minister in Australian history and decided to have the leader of The Australian Democrats killed ... for some reason.
... Hey, wait another minute, if you blatantly murder someone days before a big angry protest, don't you run the risk of making it bigger and angrier? Why not murder the guy at a later date? And why do it in this fashion? Why not poison him like he poisoned Litvinenko and Yushchenko? Or arrange a traffic accident? Or a fake terrorist attack? Or a suicide? And why not manufacture some sort of scandal, to drag his name through the mud before you do it? That way, you hobble his impact as a martyr as well.
Maybe Putin is so drunk with popularity and power that he feels like he can just do whatever he wants with utter impunity now. Except, he can't really, can he? Because Russia's economy depends on trade, and he's kind of under the pump on the world stage at the moment. He's already involved in two proxy wars with the Yanks (Syria & Ukraine), and the importance of this monetary system he's trying to kick off with China, India & Brazil (half the world's population) shouldn't be underestimated. The Yanks are hard at work building a narrative about him being a brutal, tyrannical, oppressive, militaristic, cold-war throwback (kind of like they did with Saddam, despite the fact he probably wasn't any worse than the Saudis). They've already pushed Europe into slapping him with sanctions, and they're pushing for more. And as to whether or not they had a hand in the oil-price drop ... I can't really say.
So, my question is this: If you were the most popular man in the country, facing no internal political threat whatsoever, but the international community that you needed to trade with, had you under a microscope and was building up an idea of you being a monster; why would you brutally and obviously murder a man of questionable political relevancy, right in front of the Kremlin, two days before people who hated you were going to march in the streets, and two days after a nine-year-old story about you murdering people made international headlines?
Anyone who wants to tell me this line of questioning is batshit insane is more than welcome.
