Day 212: Shit

You'd think that after the big 4-Corners expose, retirement homes would be falling over themselves not to seem like giant cunts. Nope. I just got a phone call from my parents, telling me that one of my aunties has died, and the home she was in is giving them 24hrs to collect her belongings before they chuck everything. So, guess what I'll be doing tomorrow?

Day 211: You wouldn't think a robot could sound condescending

I listened to Bill Shorten give a speech today. Not in person, but I still sat and listened to him speak. Remember when Julia Gillard became Prime Minister, and went from being a vibrant and engaging speaker to a condescending, robotic, preschool teacher, with lethargic kung-fu-chop hand-actions? Yeah, well it seems Shorten has caught the same disease. Also, he spent ages waffling on with all this twaddle about fixed terms and becoming a republic when the only thing people around me are talking about is the cost of living (ie: electricity prices, stagnant wages and underemployment). What the fuck happens to people when they become leader of the Labor Party?

Day 210: Did I say it was nice weather for working outside?

What I actually meant to say was, "The sun can suck my flaps!".* Nasty bastard burned me today.

*I heard my oldest** niece say this the other day and thought, "Wow, there's a blast from the past". Did anybody else use this turn of phrase when they were young?

**Oldest non-adult niece

Day 209: Back to working in the great outdoors

Looks like it's going to be a long weekend, week, and possibly fortnight. At least it's the right weather for it.

Day 208: I'm not the only one

Remember when I said I thought the Brisbane "Cross River Rail" project was a stupid waste of QLD taxpayer's money? Well, apparently Infrastructure Australia agrees with me. Of course, the QLD govt have vowed to push ahead anyway. Surprise, surprise.

Day 207: Centaur?

I guess that's what you'd call it.

Day 206: Something, something …

… or something.

Day 205: Minimum Effort

I thought it was about time I did a "proper" sketch.

Day 204: auntyalex.wordpress.com

There's nothing there at the moment, but I've just had another round of "log-in tag" with Google; so this is a precautionary measure.

Day 203: Lock-Out

Just in case you don't know, Blogger is a Google product. When I set up this Google account, it wanted me to verify my identity with a phone number, but I used a non-Google email account instead. Obviously I got in eventually, but Google log-in has just spent the last two hours telling me I need to give it a phone number. I think it's about time I took another look at WordPress. … or maybe Weebly.

Day 202: Aussies Out

So, India knocked Australia out of the tournament in a game that had to be shortened due to rain. Despite all that, there were some really good bits, including Harmonpreet Kaur (spelling probably off) nearly making 200, and Alex Blackwell's attempt to claw the Aussies back into the match after everyone else gave up hope (it just goes to show why every team needs an Alex). There's nothing left to do now but cheer for the Curry-Munchers in the finals. … What? I'm certainly not gonna cheer for the bloody Poms.

Day 201: Rained out again

I dunno why they even bother trying to play sport in England.

Day 200: Shots Fired

Late last night there were two shotgun blasts followed by police sirens. Reminds you you're living in the real world, doesn't it.

Day 199: Sorry Folks

I got nothing tonight.

Day 198: Called it!

Well, not really, but I did ask if there was any reason why there couldn't be a sheila as The Doctor. And I do know somebody who is over the moon about this news. Now, when is K9 coming back?

Day 197: Playing with Inkscape's "Gradient Mesh" tool

While watching the cricket, I've noticed that a lot of the games have a little soft-serve stand, and a lot of the audience shots are of people eating ice-cream. I've also noticed that it's very very yellow. Can anybody confirm that this is true for vanilla in the UK?

Day 196: Progress

This is about how it's going.

Day 195: Technical Difficulties

Completely up shit creek at the moment.

Day 194: Fuuuuuck!

When software installation goes wrong.

Day 193: Just put your lips together and blow

Today I walked past a young bloke who was doing the most beautiful whistling I've ever heard. Seriously, it sounded like it'd been professionally recorded and mixed, with just a touch of reverb. Amazing the shit you run across in your own backyard.

Day 192: Where to draw the line on trannies

I don't think this needs a caption

You might remember that a couple of years ago I wrote a post about the movement to abolish gender-segregated toilets and changing rooms in Scandinavia and California. You might also remember my take on it was that I could see where they were coming from, but I'm too set in my ways to want to change. Well, things have evolved a little bit since then. The battle against the gender binary has now reached into places where I can no longer put my opposition down to my own age and intransigence, and I just have to say, "no, this is fucked in the head".

The first issue involves sex re-assignment for children, and for the life of me, I can't work out why this is even on the table. Look, you can dress your kids up however you want, and you can push them to play sport or dolls or whatever takes your fancy; but pumping them full of hormones to try to change their sex is fuckin' child-abuse. End of story.

The second issue is—thankfully—far less serious. Apparently, it is becoming common for male-to-female transexuals to be allowed to compete in women's sport, and there is even a push to let in people who merely "identify" as women, but haven't been through any sort of transition. At this point, most of the controversy involves combat sports, like wrestling, kick-boxing, & MMA, but there's also trans-gender people competing in women's weight-lifting and cricket—and, surprise, surprise—they're doing really REALLY fuckin' well … and the women they're beating aren't too happy about it … and understandably so.

Look, let's be brutally fuckin' honest about this; letting men—and even people who used to be men—compete in women's sport, is like letting able-bodied people compete in para-sports*. When it comes to sport, being a woman is a distinct disability. If it wasn't, we could just abolish women's sport and have everybody compete together. But we can't. And that's the reason why.

* Can I also point out that there is now a trans-ablist movement, for people who "identify" as disabled (but aren't); as well as a trans-racial movement. If you want to know more about that second one, look up a woman called Rachael Dolezol (spelling?), a white woman who has apparently spent most of her adult life pretending she's African American.

What the fuck is wrong with people.

Day 191: Great Match

Australia needed a six off the last ball and almost got it. I love it when they're close.

Day 190: Nothing to say

Doodling with one eye on the cricket. AUS v ENG. Big match.

Day 189: Late Night Coding Session

Sometimes it's hard to stop when you're on a roll.

Day 188: Techno-woo

Just a friendly reminder that anti-virus software for your phone is useless at best and actively harmful at worst. Keep well clear.

Day 187: Where to draw the line on child pornography

Yes, that's a naked four-year-old. I expect to hear the police knocking on my door any minute now.

A few weeks (months?) ago, I talked about a thing I'd heard on companies trying to manufacture lifelike sex robots. Today, I heard a short interview with a woman who was from some group that are trying to outlaw sex-dolls/robots that look like children. Apparently, there are already companies that manufacture them in Japan. The woman said that they (the group she represented) had already got a man gaolled in the United States for importing one (under child pornography laws) and they were in the process of trying to get a man gaolled in Canada.

I remember about ten years ago, there was a case in Australia (NSW, I believe) where a man on parole was put back into gaol for having pornographic Simpsons cartoons on his computer. Last year, while I was driving between towns out in the middle of nowhere, I heard a report on the news about an Australian man who was facing charges for selling an ultrasound of his unborn child to an undercover detective (the child wasn't being molested, but it was technically "naked"). I intended to look the story up when I got back to civilisation, but I forgot about it until now.

Y'know, I hate being put in a position where I have to defend people like this, but at the end of the day, so long as they're not trading images of actual real children actually really being harmed, I don't particularly like the law going after these people. Essentially, what they're doing is taking a law that's supposed to protect people from abuse and turning it into a glorified obscenity charge. Is it as bad as cops who go after 15-year-olds who take photos of themselves in the buff? No, but it's not a million miles away either.

And speaking of abuse that's not a million miles away; do you think that trading images of adult abuse should also be illegal? Like, it's illegal to have pictures of a 17-year-old being sexually molested, because that's child pornography; but as far as I know, it's not illegal to have pictures of an 18-year-old being sexually molested. Also, it's not illegal to have pictures of either of them being molested in a non-sexual manner. Should it be?

Day 186: Where there's smoke

I heard a little snippet on the BBC today about an inquiry that's uncovered systemic child abuse on the isle of Jersey. It reminds me that decades ago I heard stories that the channel islands were a hotbed for slave-traffickers and well-connected paedophiles. Makes you wonder.

Day 185: A bit of fun

You might have noticed how shitty the sketches have been lately. Tonight was the first time in a while that I've felt like putting more than 2 minutes into it. I actually enjoyed this.

Day 184: Time for some more Logicked.

I always thought ABC News 24 should have a show—they could run it from 12-6am, or just put it up on iView—where a group of experts deconstruct Australian laws and proposed legislation. Y'know, something for the armchair solicitors.

Day 183: InnoSense

From the latest 2000AD; this is the kind of sci-fi I like (click to enlarge).

It's a pity the art's nowhere near as good as it was in th '80s.

Day 182: Sex, Lies, and the Fatal Female Instinct That Rocks the Single Basic Attraction.

It's interesting that the subject of free-to-air television has recently cropped up here. Today, I had to spend some time rooting around with a laptop, because the owner couldn't get it to stream video off the Ch7 website. Whilst the shows I saw on offer looked pretty abysmal in general, I'd like to pay special attention to the "movies" page. If the screenshot below is too small, you should be able to click on it for a larger version.

Points Of Interest

1. I can't believe Seven are still joined at the hip with Yahoo. It even looks like you need a Yahoo account to use certain features on the Seven website. Jesus Christ Seven, if there's one company you shouldn't be relying on for the responsible management of customer accounts …
2. There's only two ads on this page and they're both for LottoLand.
3. Like a lot of modern websites, they've opted for a colour scheme of light-grey text on a lighter-grey background. In the screenshot above, I've actually darkened the text considerably, in order to make it legible
4. Take a look at the film selection! Now, keep in mind I haven't watched any of these pictures (hell, I've never even heard of any of them), but look at the thumbnails/title/descriptions. It seems to be comprised entirely of straight-to-video/tv erotic thrillers. It looks like a service-station's "weekly rentals" rack from 1991. And no, this wasn't "one page" of movies, this was the entire friggin' catalogue. Bloody hell; do people actually watch this rubbish, or is this why television stations are struggling?

Do you remember how big of a deal it was when Basic Instinct came out? I remember when I saw it for the first time; I was braced for something truly scandalous; and all I got was half a second of blurry, shadowy nothing. Of course, there were no big-screen high-definition tellies in those days, and I don't know what people got in the theatre. Can't imagine it was anything that mind blowing though.