Like flipping 16 heads in a row

Do you ever experience a coincidence that makes you question (not seriously, but, … well, half-seriously, I guess) whether the universe has more direction behind it than you think?

Just the other week, we were talking about keto dieting on here, and then I get a phone call from my mum, telling me about my morbidly obese cousin. Then, the other day, we were talking about mental illness, and today, I have two encounters (well, one and a bit) with obvious head cases. I dunno what the odds are, but suffice to say, I don't plan on talking about people dying on here any time soon.

So, anyway, I was walking past the train station today, when a woman with some sort of mild retardation came racing out and grabbed hold of me

Please! I'm scared!

What the fuck … ? Oi, let go.

Please! Please! I'm scared!

Okay, okay, what's the matter?

I'm scared!

Alright, I got that, what are you actually scared of?

Please! Please!

Look, I can't help you if you don't actually tell me what it is you're scared of.

There's nobody there.

There's nobody where?

Over there.

… there's nobody on the platform?

No! Please! I'm scared!

Yeah … look, you're scared because there's nobody on the platform? Is that right? Are you supposed to be meeting somebody here?

No. There! There's supposed to be somebody THERE! Please. I'm scared.

What, the ticket booth? You're scared because there's nobody at the ticket booth?

There's supposed to be somebody there. Please. I'm scared.

Yeah, the booths are only manned for a few hours in the morning now. It's been like that for a while. Do you need help with the ticket machine?

No. I'm scared. I can't be here alone. Something might happen.

Something? Like what?

Please! Please! I'm scared! Please!

… fuck … Look, do you want me to wait with you?

Yes! Please! I'm scared. Please!

… oh fuckity fuckin' fuck

And so, I spent the next twelve minutes standing on a railway platform, listening to this woman ramble incoherently, before waving goodbye to her, and quietly hoping that our paths would never cross again.

I was going to title this post "Is it just me, or does this shit happen to everybody?" but then, about two hours later, I walked past a busker who was being sexually assaulted by another woman with mental issues. She had him hooked with one arm, so that he couldn't move away, and with the other arm she was alternately pulling his head down so that she could kiss him and groping at the front of his pants, all the while telling him how beautiful and talented she thought he was. The young man was calmly but firmly asking her over and over again to please let him go. At that point, he wasn't asking passers-by for help, and none was being offered. I briefly considered stopping to see if he needed a hand, but decided my karma could afford to take a hit, since I'd already done one good deed for the day.

My conscience has been bugging me ever since.

*sigh*

So, how's it going with you lot? Experienced any weird coincidences lately? Had any recent run-ins with anyone who was intellectually impaired? Got anything weighing on your mind that you wished you'd done differently? Feel free to unload.

The Dickhead From Dickson

Does anybody else remember when Peter Dutton ran for pre-selection in a seat on the Gold Coast—while he was still a sitting member—because he thought he was going to lose his seat in Brisbane. Then, when his pre-selection bid failed, he chucked a hissy-fit and demanded the Liberal party parachute him into a safe seat where he wouldn't have to face pre-selection. Old Alex remembers. I remember seeing it and thinking, "this dickhead has just fucked his entire political career". And now it looks like he's going to be our next prime minister. Goes to show good I am at making political predictions, eh? Just keep that in mind as you read the rest of this post.

Come what may, it looks like we're definitely going to have a new PM by the end of the day. Rudd, Gillard, (Rudd), Rabbit, Turnbull, and now another one. That's going to be five in ten years. And if you've ever read the list of entitlements that former PMs get for the rest of their lives, you'll know why I'm worried that this trend is going to bankrupt the country if it continues. I've heard a lot of pundits putting forth their opinions of what's going on that's caused this so-called "revolving door", but so far I haven't heard any of them mention a factor that seems like it should be considered the prime suspect. Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube all began their rise to popularity in 2006. Coincidence? Maybe, but I wouldn't underestimate the effect that social media has had on society. We all know how driven by polls politics is in this country, and giving a world-wide publishing platform to every cunt with internet access completely blows that off the scale.

So, what do I reckon about the top contender for the top job? I reckon that if he gets it, you should prepare yourself for the most bitter and divisive election we've had since "Vinegar Tits" faced off against "The Mad Monk". My suspicion is that Dutton will pull hard to the right, pledging to build a number of coal-fired power stations, and attempting to whip up enough emotional sentiment on immigration that he can ride into office on some sort of Trumpian wave of nationalistic populism. This will of course start the Greens shrieking about racism, islamophobia, and climate-induced armageddon. Labor will be caught in the middle, with members pulling in different directions, depending on the general sentiment in their own electorate.

Personally, I wouldn't mind seeing Bishop get the job. Not because I think she'd be any good, but, well, look at the other options.

What's your thoughts on the matter?

There but for the grace of god …

I got a call from my mum this evening. My parents are travelling again at the moment, visiting all the 'lations, doing the grey nomad thing. So anyway, after the usual pleasantries, this came up:

We dropped in on cousin Joan today.

Oh yeah, how'd that go?

… Hmmm, well, if you wanna see her again, I suggest you visit in the near future, 'cause I dunno how long she's gonna be around for.

Jesus, I didn't even know she was sick. What's wrong with her?

You remember how big she was?

Yeah …

Well, she's twice that size now, maybe more.

Bloody hell.

Yeah, it's not good. We were talking to Shirley—apparently all she does is sit on the lounge and eat. She has a walker that she uses to get to the toilet, but she's gotten to the point where she's too big to clean herself properly.

Fuckin' hell. So, is Shirley doin' that for her then?

Yeah.

So, where's all this food comin' from that she's eatin'? Is Shirley buyin' it?

No, see, apparently Joan has an arrangement with the taxi driver. She rings him up and tells him what she wants and he goes and gets it and brings it around for her. Shirley reckons that she and Dave have talked about taking her phone off her, but they haven't been able to bring themselves to do it yet.

Understandable. I imagine that wouldn't be an easy thing ta do ta ya mum.

Yeah, plus they don't wanna leave her without any way to contact anyone if there's an emergency.

Right, right, yeah. Have they got any other plans then?

Doesn't sound like it. I think they're waiting for her to have a heart-attack or a stroke or something, so they can bung her into hospital.

Would that make a difference? The way the hospitals are these days, they'd be sendin' her back home as soon as she was stable, wouldn't they? I mean, it's not like they'd keep her around, tyin' up a bed while she lost weight, I wouldn't think.

No, that's true. I dunno what they're gonna do. But anyway, that's the situation, so if you wanna see her again …

Don't waste too much time doin' it. Right.

If you're wondering about the taxi thing, it's actually a long standing tradition in rural communities that are big enough to have a taxi service. Taxi drivers will deliver groceries to old people who are too infirm to leave the house, and they will also frequently deliver grog to parties where everybody is too pissed to drive (much to the annoyance of many community elders). In fact, in some towns—especially those that you can walk across in under twenty minutes—this is the bulk of what taxi drivers do.

My family has its fair share of big women, and I know myself, how quickly and easily your weight can creep up on you. But even still, I can't imagine being in a state of mind where you were that far gone and still weren't concerned with turning things around. Even when I was massive, I always had a limit in my head. I was always determined that I would never get so big that there would be parts of my body that I couldn't wash. If you've never been big, that might be a strange thing to hear someone say, but that's how it was; and thankfully, I did manage to turn things around. So when I hear about cousin Joan, I dunno how to feel. "Fortunate", maybe.

Here's a question: At what stage do you categorise it as a mental illness? It seems everything else is a mental illness these days.

Freindly Reminder

I'm sure I've covered this before, but the problem seems to be getting worse (at least overseas), so I thought I'd give everybody a friendly little reminder on this one.

Okay, so you know how some online services will let you authenticate your identity by sending you a pin number via sms (yeah, even some banks do this)? Well, it turns out that mobile phone service providers aren't super-duper strict on security. So if somebody finds out your phone number, your address, and your date of birth (either through social media, or some company's database leak*) there's a good chance that they'll be able to go to your tel-co, pretend to be you, say they lost their phone, and get your telephone number diverted to a new sim card. Now, they will be able to go to any online service where sms authentication is set up, and go through the automated process required to reset your password.

Okay, so at this point, you may be wondering why being able to reset your passwords via sms is worse than being able to reset them via email. In principle it's not. However, in practice, it's just much much easier to hijack someone's phone number than it is to hijack their email account. Hopefully, that might change if this becomes a big enough issue.

Until then, it might be best to disable these kinds of services wherever you can.

*Oh, and yes, I'm opting out of the "My Health Record" database. I figure I've survived this long without it, and I carry a slip of paper with my important medical details (blood group, allergies, etc) in a wallet that I carry everywhere (it's also got my keys in it).

One less Alex to worry about.

I dunno to what degree this has made it into the regular news, but in the tech sphere everybody's talking about Alex Jones.

If you dunno who Alex Jones is … well, lucky you. *BOOM-TISH*

Erm, I mean, he's an internet shock-jock, and living embodiment of the paranoid right-wing conspiracy-nut stereotype. Imagine Alan Jones or John Laws, if they spent 70% of their time raving about the Labor party being infested by paedophilic devil-worshippers who practice cannibalism and human-sacrifice. FUN FACT: During a child-custody battle with his ex-wife, Jones once argued in court that his whole schtick was performance art, and he didn't believe any of it.

So anyway, this week, in what many people are speculating was a coordinated effort, every social media site under the sun (including one email service) terminated Jones' accounts. Naturally, there has been a wide range of opinions put forward on the matter. I would like to focus on two:

1. Online services should be allowed to say what they do and don't allow on their platforms, and nobody should be forced to do business with someone they find morally reprehensible.

… and on the flip side …

2. Imagine what it would be like if your phone, power, and gas company could get together and cut you off overnight because they don't like your political views.

One thing I have enjoyed about this whole drama is watching the reaction of a number of libertarians I follow. Cunts who oppose all government regulation on principle, and have staunchly argued that private enterprise should be able to refuse service to anyone they want—now that they realise a handful of Silicon Valley progressives can effectively demolish their livelihoods by disappearing them from the internet—are calling for the social media giants to either be regulated as public utilities, or at the very least, broken up. It's fucking glorious.

It might also be worth noting that this comes mere months after white-supremacist site "The Daily Stormer" was booted by their hosting provider.

So, what's your take on the matter? Do you have a principled or a pragmatic point of view? Have any of the libertarians you know had a sudden change of heart? And do you have to share your name with any colossal fuckwits?

Overspecialisation

So, my place is about 90% fixed. It wasn't a painless process though. In an ideal world, you'd think that when an insurance company paid for something to be replaced, the insurance company would do the paying, and somebody would do the replacing, right? Yeah, well, not so fast there lady …

In reality, what happens, is that the insurance company assigns someone to your case, that person then contacts the office at an assessors firm, who organises for an assessor to be put on the case. The assessor comes and has a look, and then they consult with the person from the insurance company, before contacting the office at a third company, that specialises in drying out buildings that have been water-damaged. That company then hires some contractors to come and dry out the building. Then the assessor consults with the person from the insurance company, before contacting the office of a company that specialises in removing water-damaged building materials. That company then hires some contractors to come and remove any water-damaged building materials. Then, the assessor consults with the person from the insurance company, before contacting a company that specialises in putting in new building materials. That company then hires some contractors to come and put the new building materials in.

The end result? Even if everything goes completely smoothly—in the sense that the insurance company says "yes" to everything—you still end up feeling like you're in the middle of a big game of Chinese whispers. Especially when the insurance rep calls and tells you "the workmen will be there at 9am on Tuesday", the assessor calls you and tells you "the workmen will be there at 11am on Tuesday", the company employing the workmen calls and tells you "the workmen will be there at 2pm on Tuesday", and the workmen themselves call you and tell you "we'll be there at 8am on Wednesday". Then when nobody shows up on either Tuesday or Wednesday, you ring everybody, and everybody points the finger at everybody else, saying shit like "this person didn't give proper authorisation" or "that person didn't fill out their paperwork properly".

According to legend, this kind of overly-bureaucratic division of labour was one of the things that wrecked the soviet union, and our lean mean capitalist system was supposed to self regulate against it. So what the fuck happened?

Oh, and can I also point out that during this whole process, people will constantly be asking you for your keys. "Just leave your keys with us, and we can let ourselves in, and do the job while you're at work". Yeah, fuck off you will, buddy. I'm going to be there watching your workmen the whole fucking time, thank you very much. And the fewer people who get the chance to copy my keys the better, as far as I'm concerned.

*sigh* Remember how robust society was when you were a kid, and most people had a fairly broad range of practical skills? Of course, we didn't have blind faith and an over-reliance on needlessly complex technology in those days, either. I mean, just look at what we've done to commerce. Remember when the power would go out and it was nothing more than a slight inconvenience? Then they brought out these electronic cash registers, and all of a sudden, a power outage was a gigantic pain in the arse. And now they want to get rid of cash altogether, so that everything's done by swiping your card or waving your phone at some wanky little sensor. Right, so now when the power goes down, or the internet, or the payment provider, or any other of a dozen things goes wrong, commerce simply grinds to a halt. Wow, brilliant improvement, you mob of short-sighted cunts.

Oh, and don't even get me started on the utter bullshit that's surrounding "artificial intelligence" and "self-driving cars" …

But in any case, how have youse mob been?