![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Hey I am still here....
Nov. 4th, 2022 10:33 pmI am still here, and I do mean to do teh BloGgiNg more often. In my copious "spare time"...
Why yes, there was an earthquake!
Sep. 25th, 2021 10:34 pmAs if 2020 and 2021 couldn't get any weirder... On Wednesday (22nd Sept. 2021) there was a sizable earthquake here in Melbourne.
Oh, there was one other amusing event at my place. I have a lovely old antique clock, a biggish thing from the 1930's, belonged to my grandfather. I usually don't run it because it rings chimes on the quarter hour, and on the hour performs a beautiful little solo for bells... all of which is bloody loud. About fifteen minutes after the quake, I heard it chiming from my study where it hangs on the wall. The quake had given just enough momentum to the pendulum to set the clock going!
And that was it. We chatted about it in a few meetings I had that day, there were meme's doing the rounds almost from the second the shaking stopped. And we go on with the latest... Lockdown...
There have been noticeable quakes here before. About 10 or 11 years ago there was a cluster of quakes, about three of them as I recall. At the time I worked on the 9th floor of a building down on St. KIlda road. One morning, the building shuddered just slightly, just long enough for one of my co-workers to say "Oh, is that an earthquake?". And that was it. I remember another when I was in a cinema at ACMI, which is semi-underground. The light fittings rattled for a few seconds. I just assumed it was a particularly heavy tram going by outside, except a number of folks quite a distance from me mentioned it on Facebook. But that's about it, they were trivial at best. They're incredibly rare in here geologically stable Australia. In my lifetime there has been exactly one quake that's actually caused deaths, and they were confined to two partly collapsed buildings. It's not like New Zealand where quakes that size are almost weekly.
This one was a proper quake. I was in the kitchen having a very late breakfast, when the whole house started shaking in a way that looked exactly like the videos that get posted online from New Zealand and Japan, where these are regular events. A security camera somewhere will catch a whole office shaking, although of course this was way less powerful. The house felt for about 30 seconds like it was being shaken from side to side like it was on ice or jelly. I stood there going "What the fuck is going on?"
Poor Pip (Mr 8 years old) was freaked out. He was swearing for a few minutes, wide eyed, and frankly I couldn't blame him. He wandered around going "What the fucking shit was that? What the fucking shit was that? Was that an earthquake?", which, to be honest, was what I was thinking. I looked outside, everything seemed to be normal. I got on facebook, and everyone I know who lives on the east coast of Australia was posting "Earthquake! Earthquake!". Which confirmed that it wasn't something weirdly localised to my place - so I relaxed after that. Pip needed a lot of reassurance but calmed down after a few minutes. And now he can say he's been in a real earthquake.
The sum total of the damage? One of my Lego minecraft bigfigs took a flying leap off a bookshelf, and now I can't find one of the pieces! It's probably under the bookshelf....
There were some wild reports of structural damage to buildings, but it turned out that all the footage being shared was one building in Pahran that lost part of it's veranda.
Possibly the best video was from the Collins Street Peregrine Falcons, who are currently sitting on four eggs. The male was on the nest at the time, and he pulls the best "WTF was that?" face, and dives off the ledge with a screech!
Oh, there was one other amusing event at my place. I have a lovely old antique clock, a biggish thing from the 1930's, belonged to my grandfather. I usually don't run it because it rings chimes on the quarter hour, and on the hour performs a beautiful little solo for bells... all of which is bloody loud. About fifteen minutes after the quake, I heard it chiming from my study where it hangs on the wall. The quake had given just enough momentum to the pendulum to set the clock going!
And that was it. We chatted about it in a few meetings I had that day, there were meme's doing the rounds almost from the second the shaking stopped. And we go on with the latest... Lockdown...
Twenty years since September 11th 2001
Sep. 9th, 2021 09:21 pmI note that In a few days it'll be 20 years since the horrible events of September 11th 2001. In a previous generation, people would ask each other "Where were you when Kennedy was assassinated?", or for another generation "Where were you John Lennon was assassinated?" People my age can ask each other "Where were you on 9/11?"
For the record, let me tell you where I was.
It was September 12th in my timezone. On the evening of our Tuesday September 11th, I called it a night and turned off broadcast television about 10.15PM. Had I stayed awake some 15 more minutes, I might have witnessed the events in real time - every channel in Australia cut to coverage almost immediately. As it was, I got up on the the morning of Sept 12th, and my housemate turned on the television. The first images I saw was a loop of two people being interviewed in front of the burning north town of the World Trade Center, just as the second plane hit the south tower. I can still remember how they ducked in shock.
I said "What film is this from?"
Rebecca (my housemate) said "It's not a film, this happened last night."
"What's happened to the World Trade Center?"
"It's gone, they've collapsed."
I paused and said "There's going to be a war."
I also assumed immediately that it was Al-Qaeda, because they had tried before, back in 1993. That time they only managed to damage the basement, and were only caught because one of the stupider plotters tried to claim his deposit back on the rented van they'd packed the explosives into.
At the time, my sister, who works in international aid, was based in Indonesia. I made at least one panicked phone call to her to check she was alright, in part because unfounded reports from around the world suggested all sorts of related events were taking place. Including air raids in Afghanistan.
Happily, despite knowing a lot of keen travellers and ex-pats, no one I know was caught up directly in the destruction. But a friend of a friend died when the towers collapsed. Because just about every city has at least a handful of Australian's in it.
For more than a week, everything stopped. The FAA ordered every plane in the air in the US or approaching the US to land at the nearest airport. Sporting events and any event of any size were cancelled. We watched as many of the other towers at the World Trade Center collapsed, and then watched as they combed the extraordinarily mangled piles of debris looking for survivors. US Air Force fighter jets patrolled the skies over New York. I still remember a photograph of an African-American man, in a suit and carrying a briefcase, walking through a swirling cloud of dusk and sheets of paper, covered from head to foot in grey dust. For about ten days every television channel in Australia was rebroadcasting American news services. Remember, these are days when we still got news largely from the radio, TV and newspapers. Indeed, somewhere I have a copy of The Age reporting the attacks.
Across the world, there was an extraordinary wave of sympathy towards the United States.
And then what happened... the United States, being the United States and at the time run by neo-cons and cold war warriors, lashed out at the nations it felt were responsible. Within a month they were bombing Afghanistan, and flying in troops, starting a war that was ill-advised and ended in defeat, at least from the US's point of view, only a few weeks ago. It could be argued that Afghanistan was a haven for terrorists, being in turmoil and almost ungoverned. But the US didn't learn from the Soviet Union's pointless war there in the 80's, and thought that if it they just used enough planes and bombs they'd succeed...
The world's empathy was strained to put it mildly.
And then they blundered into another war of choice by invading Iraq.
To quote Senator Robert Byrd at the time:
"Anti-Americanism based on mistrust, misinformation, suspicion, and alarming rhetoric from U.S. leaders is fracturing the once solid alliance against global terrorism which existed after September 11."
and:
"This Administration has turned the patient art of diplomacy into threats, labelling, and name calling of the sort that reflects quite poorly on the intelligence and sensitivity of our leaders, and which will have consequences for years to come."
And indeed here were are, years later, long after Byrd was laid in his grave, suffering the consequences...
I didn't make it to New York until 2009, by which time the World Trade Center site was cleaned up and was largely a construction site.
I loved New York, what an amazing city. Vibrant, multicultural, fascinating. But also a centre of world finance - I was there for the galleries, but it's also the home of Wall Street. If you had to think of a symbolic heart of a nation you hated, the twin towers make sense as a target. But I was retrospectively furious. How dare anyone kill innocent people from all over the world - including many Muslims - in this amazing city? You could argue that the Pentagon and the White house are military targets (in fact the British burned the White House in 1814), but not New York. Not the city which houses the headquarters of the United Nations. Not the birthplace of Rap, Abstract Expressionism and so so many bands. Not the home town of Lou Reed, Basquiat, and thousands of other amazing people. Not the de-facto capital of the world. How dare anyone attack a city like that.
I guess the dust is still settling....
For the record, let me tell you where I was.
It was September 12th in my timezone. On the evening of our Tuesday September 11th, I called it a night and turned off broadcast television about 10.15PM. Had I stayed awake some 15 more minutes, I might have witnessed the events in real time - every channel in Australia cut to coverage almost immediately. As it was, I got up on the the morning of Sept 12th, and my housemate turned on the television. The first images I saw was a loop of two people being interviewed in front of the burning north town of the World Trade Center, just as the second plane hit the south tower. I can still remember how they ducked in shock.
I said "What film is this from?"
Rebecca (my housemate) said "It's not a film, this happened last night."
"What's happened to the World Trade Center?"
"It's gone, they've collapsed."
I paused and said "There's going to be a war."
I also assumed immediately that it was Al-Qaeda, because they had tried before, back in 1993. That time they only managed to damage the basement, and were only caught because one of the stupider plotters tried to claim his deposit back on the rented van they'd packed the explosives into.
At the time, my sister, who works in international aid, was based in Indonesia. I made at least one panicked phone call to her to check she was alright, in part because unfounded reports from around the world suggested all sorts of related events were taking place. Including air raids in Afghanistan.
Happily, despite knowing a lot of keen travellers and ex-pats, no one I know was caught up directly in the destruction. But a friend of a friend died when the towers collapsed. Because just about every city has at least a handful of Australian's in it.
For more than a week, everything stopped. The FAA ordered every plane in the air in the US or approaching the US to land at the nearest airport. Sporting events and any event of any size were cancelled. We watched as many of the other towers at the World Trade Center collapsed, and then watched as they combed the extraordinarily mangled piles of debris looking for survivors. US Air Force fighter jets patrolled the skies over New York. I still remember a photograph of an African-American man, in a suit and carrying a briefcase, walking through a swirling cloud of dusk and sheets of paper, covered from head to foot in grey dust. For about ten days every television channel in Australia was rebroadcasting American news services. Remember, these are days when we still got news largely from the radio, TV and newspapers. Indeed, somewhere I have a copy of The Age reporting the attacks.
Across the world, there was an extraordinary wave of sympathy towards the United States.
And then what happened... the United States, being the United States and at the time run by neo-cons and cold war warriors, lashed out at the nations it felt were responsible. Within a month they were bombing Afghanistan, and flying in troops, starting a war that was ill-advised and ended in defeat, at least from the US's point of view, only a few weeks ago. It could be argued that Afghanistan was a haven for terrorists, being in turmoil and almost ungoverned. But the US didn't learn from the Soviet Union's pointless war there in the 80's, and thought that if it they just used enough planes and bombs they'd succeed...
The world's empathy was strained to put it mildly.
And then they blundered into another war of choice by invading Iraq.
To quote Senator Robert Byrd at the time:
"Anti-Americanism based on mistrust, misinformation, suspicion, and alarming rhetoric from U.S. leaders is fracturing the once solid alliance against global terrorism which existed after September 11."
and:
"This Administration has turned the patient art of diplomacy into threats, labelling, and name calling of the sort that reflects quite poorly on the intelligence and sensitivity of our leaders, and which will have consequences for years to come."
And indeed here were are, years later, long after Byrd was laid in his grave, suffering the consequences...
I didn't make it to New York until 2009, by which time the World Trade Center site was cleaned up and was largely a construction site.
I loved New York, what an amazing city. Vibrant, multicultural, fascinating. But also a centre of world finance - I was there for the galleries, but it's also the home of Wall Street. If you had to think of a symbolic heart of a nation you hated, the twin towers make sense as a target. But I was retrospectively furious. How dare anyone kill innocent people from all over the world - including many Muslims - in this amazing city? You could argue that the Pentagon and the White house are military targets (in fact the British burned the White House in 1814), but not New York. Not the city which houses the headquarters of the United Nations. Not the birthplace of Rap, Abstract Expressionism and so so many bands. Not the home town of Lou Reed, Basquiat, and thousands of other amazing people. Not the de-facto capital of the world. How dare anyone attack a city like that.
I guess the dust is still settling....
One o' my favourite films (used to be) Bad Santa. For a while it was something of a christmas tradition for me to watch it on christmas day.
For those not familiar, Billy Bob Thornton plays an alcoholic Santa and safe cracker, because that's plausable. Every year, he and his accomplice, having spent the shopping season as a mall Santa and helper, rob the mall of all it's cash takings. There are lots of other sub-plots, somehow Santa gets involved with a bullied kid who appears to have no parents, but lives in a huge house with his vague grandmother. And hooking up with a woman who works behind a bar because she has a Santa fetish.
I've watched this film a lot of times, at least six times over the years. And during this here pandemic, I've been re-watching familiar films because that's all my mind can really cope with. So after about a decade, I fished out Bad Santa. And... something's changed. I found it really distressing. Santa clearly has delirium tremens, his shaking hands are presented mockingly often in the film. The bullied kid is largely left to his own devices, having no responsible adults in his life, and befriends... what the fuck is his name in the film? Willie, of course. The kid befriends him because he thinks he's really Santa, and eventually Willie moves into his house - without ever bothering to learn his name.
Somehow it felt slightly exploitative. Most of the characters are shown as degraded losers, in fact that's the basis of most of the film's humour. I actually found myself feeling sorry for them.
I'm not sure what's changed. Maybe the film hasn't aged well. Maybe it's me. Maybe I'm becoming more sensitive as I get older. I am also a father now, although I'm never going to be that "Speaking as a father..." kind of man. Parenthood does, however, radically alter how I respond the stories involving children in distress or simply not being cared for. I got about five minutes into the file Grave of the Fireflies before I had to turn it off when a child dies unwanted in a train station. I find myself desperately concerned for, say, refugee children I see on the television.
Or maybe I've been spoiled by more and better films and indeed television shows. When you know what a medium can do, when you've seen some amazing stories, maybe it makes you a harder judge of older material...
For those not familiar, Billy Bob Thornton plays an alcoholic Santa and safe cracker, because that's plausable. Every year, he and his accomplice, having spent the shopping season as a mall Santa and helper, rob the mall of all it's cash takings. There are lots of other sub-plots, somehow Santa gets involved with a bullied kid who appears to have no parents, but lives in a huge house with his vague grandmother. And hooking up with a woman who works behind a bar because she has a Santa fetish.
I've watched this film a lot of times, at least six times over the years. And during this here pandemic, I've been re-watching familiar films because that's all my mind can really cope with. So after about a decade, I fished out Bad Santa. And... something's changed. I found it really distressing. Santa clearly has delirium tremens, his shaking hands are presented mockingly often in the film. The bullied kid is largely left to his own devices, having no responsible adults in his life, and befriends... what the fuck is his name in the film? Willie, of course. The kid befriends him because he thinks he's really Santa, and eventually Willie moves into his house - without ever bothering to learn his name.
Somehow it felt slightly exploitative. Most of the characters are shown as degraded losers, in fact that's the basis of most of the film's humour. I actually found myself feeling sorry for them.
I'm not sure what's changed. Maybe the film hasn't aged well. Maybe it's me. Maybe I'm becoming more sensitive as I get older. I am also a father now, although I'm never going to be that "Speaking as a father..." kind of man. Parenthood does, however, radically alter how I respond the stories involving children in distress or simply not being cared for. I got about five minutes into the file Grave of the Fireflies before I had to turn it off when a child dies unwanted in a train station. I find myself desperately concerned for, say, refugee children I see on the television.
Or maybe I've been spoiled by more and better films and indeed television shows. When you know what a medium can do, when you've seen some amazing stories, maybe it makes you a harder judge of older material...
Boy did I get stuck in a Wikihole....
Aug. 14th, 2021 10:28 pmHigh time I did some more blogging.
So I went from a song I quite liked to the death of RFK on the Wikipedia. Let me tell you what happened.
I quite like the song "The Silent Boatman" by Parliament, which is relatively out of character for them, being better known as a Funk band. It's themes are a little too christian for an atheist like myself, but I still quite like it. What is it that Tim Minchin said? "Some of the hymns that they sing have nice chords but the lyrics are dodgy." As one sometimes does, I decided I wanted to learn more about the song, so I started on the Wikipedia entry for the album Osmiun. And it turns out the song was actually written by a young British woman called Ruth Copeland! She indeed recorded a version of the song for one of her few albums.
In fact, this was the first song she write entirely by herself. Sadly, she left the music industry entirely in 1976 after her singles failed to sell...
And this is where I started to get lost into a Wikihole. Ruth was briefly married to the NFL player Karl Sweeten. Which lead me to read about a film he appeared in, called Paper Lion, which is based on a book and articles written by George Plimpton. The film, and the book, tell the story of Plimpton attempting to actually play as a member of an NFL team, despite being 36 and by no means an athlete. As an aside, I dimly recall reading one of the original stories in a collection of New Journalism writings - a genre that Hunter Thomson was also known for.
Plimpton, it seems, was good friends with Robert F . Kennedy, and was not only present when RFK was assassinated, but was one of the people who tackled the assassin and disarmed him! Which of course led me to read up on Sirham Sirham, who at the time of writing is still in prison. And that lead to me reading about other people with duplicated names. And the notable inmates of California State Prison, Corcoran - currently including the Golden State Killer. Also took diversions off to read about the assassination of Heuy Long, all the members of the US congress who have almost been assassinated and... well, I went on, but can't remember where after that. I would have read up on Gabby Giffords, except I already know how she was nearly killed in a shooting in 2011...
So apparently this how I'm spending this lockdown. I will try and find the film Paper Lion, it sounds interesting, and perhaps will keep me away from what I now realise is a fairly morbid series of clicks...
So I went from a song I quite liked to the death of RFK on the Wikipedia. Let me tell you what happened.
I quite like the song "The Silent Boatman" by Parliament, which is relatively out of character for them, being better known as a Funk band. It's themes are a little too christian for an atheist like myself, but I still quite like it. What is it that Tim Minchin said? "Some of the hymns that they sing have nice chords but the lyrics are dodgy." As one sometimes does, I decided I wanted to learn more about the song, so I started on the Wikipedia entry for the album Osmiun. And it turns out the song was actually written by a young British woman called Ruth Copeland! She indeed recorded a version of the song for one of her few albums.
In fact, this was the first song she write entirely by herself. Sadly, she left the music industry entirely in 1976 after her singles failed to sell...
And this is where I started to get lost into a Wikihole. Ruth was briefly married to the NFL player Karl Sweeten. Which lead me to read about a film he appeared in, called Paper Lion, which is based on a book and articles written by George Plimpton. The film, and the book, tell the story of Plimpton attempting to actually play as a member of an NFL team, despite being 36 and by no means an athlete. As an aside, I dimly recall reading one of the original stories in a collection of New Journalism writings - a genre that Hunter Thomson was also known for.
Plimpton, it seems, was good friends with Robert F . Kennedy, and was not only present when RFK was assassinated, but was one of the people who tackled the assassin and disarmed him! Which of course led me to read up on Sirham Sirham, who at the time of writing is still in prison. And that lead to me reading about other people with duplicated names. And the notable inmates of California State Prison, Corcoran - currently including the Golden State Killer. Also took diversions off to read about the assassination of Heuy Long, all the members of the US congress who have almost been assassinated and... well, I went on, but can't remember where after that. I would have read up on Gabby Giffords, except I already know how she was nearly killed in a shooting in 2011...
So apparently this how I'm spending this lockdown. I will try and find the film Paper Lion, it sounds interesting, and perhaps will keep me away from what I now realise is a fairly morbid series of clicks...
New Gym Program.... I kicked my own butt!
Oct. 14th, 2018 10:28 pmSo I've been working out for just over twenty years now, for which I should get some kind of award - so many people join and then drop out after a couple of months.
I write my own programs these days, because in fact there's really not much to them. Your body has, what, five or so muscle groups, so as long as you're working them you're doing OK.
I do about twelve sessions for a given program, so it came time today to create a new one. I thought rather than more pyramid training I'd try something else. So I re-arranged my program, and started with working my biceps and triceps, rather than doing them last, and then rather than doing an arbitrary number of sets I'd just keep doing sets until I could go no more.
Turns out I'm stronger than I thought, but damn actually training to failure is tiring! By the time I'd done five sets of preacher curls (a type of Bicep exercise) of 50 pounds, I was genuinely fatigued. It all worked, but by the end of my session my body had pretty much decided it was done. I went to do the leg press, where I can usually do three sets of 420 pounds (that's about 190 kilos), my legs just went "yeah no we're done" and I barely managed to do ten repeats.
But it's good, my body now has that pleasant ache you get from getting decent exercise.
I write my own programs these days, because in fact there's really not much to them. Your body has, what, five or so muscle groups, so as long as you're working them you're doing OK.
I do about twelve sessions for a given program, so it came time today to create a new one. I thought rather than more pyramid training I'd try something else. So I re-arranged my program, and started with working my biceps and triceps, rather than doing them last, and then rather than doing an arbitrary number of sets I'd just keep doing sets until I could go no more.
Turns out I'm stronger than I thought, but damn actually training to failure is tiring! By the time I'd done five sets of preacher curls (a type of Bicep exercise) of 50 pounds, I was genuinely fatigued. It all worked, but by the end of my session my body had pretty much decided it was done. I went to do the leg press, where I can usually do three sets of 420 pounds (that's about 190 kilos), my legs just went "yeah no we're done" and I barely managed to do ten repeats.
But it's good, my body now has that pleasant ache you get from getting decent exercise.
Cross-posted from maxcelcat.com
Recently I became aware of an Australian film which I'd never previously heard of. Which is not that unusual, many of them fall through the cracks or are so awful they deserve to be forgotten, and I'm by no means the film aficionado I once was.
The film was 2000 Weeks. I was interested in it because of the unusual title and because when I looked it up, it appeared to be the first of a wave of Australian films after literally decades in which none had been produced. The title refers to how much time the lead character has left in his life in which to achieve his goals.
Actually getting to see it proved difficult. It had never been issued on video let alone DVD, and appears to have not been shown since it's first run nearly fifty years ago. It had made a loss when first shown, and had been savaged by critics and audiences, hence the lack of later releases. I searched the usual locations, and could only find a few clips on something called Australian Screen. But the clips fascinated me, if only because of the what they showed of Melbourne and it's people back in the very late sixties. Here were some people of my parents generation in the city they lived in. In fact I bet if I did some digging I could find some connection between my parents and at least an extra from the film.
Eventually I made contact with the National Film and Sound Archive, who had at least six copies in various formats. I thought it woulkd be a struggle to see a print, since the NFSA is based in Canberra. But to my delight they have a small office in Melbourne, crammed into the back of something called ACMI X. If you ask nicely, they'll let you view any item in their collection at their shoebox office.
The print I saw was a washed-out VHS copy complete with timecode. And... I can see why it was not a huge success. It's a very interesting film mostly for the time it documents, the way people dress and talk, and the views of Melbourne. But it's almost like it's three or films or plots mashed into one. There's a story there about the lead character's father being on deaths door. He was, by the way, the one who utters the phrase "two thousand weeks". The lead character also having an affair, which seems to at most trouble his wife. Meanwhile an old friend returns from the UK and there is some quite interesting arguments with him about what we'd call the "cultural cringe". Oh, and the lead character is also busy writing for a major newspaper, which appears to the The Age.
The film is full of details that interested me. There are a number of locations that were probably accurate for the time, but seemed odd to my eyes. For example the protagonists house, which he shares with his wife and two young children, is large, spacious and well furnished, which seemed at odds with his apparent struggle with his job and ambitions. There's a long party scene in the middle which takes place in a house that looks like what would have been a modern home on the fringe of Melbourne at the time, and is decorated with paintings by Boyd, Tucker and other Australian artists. Works that these days would fetch hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not millions.
The film is all over the place. The plot, such as it is, revolves around Will Gardiner, a frustrated journalist who wishes to be something more - a play write or screen writer, telling uniquely Australian stories. But he's also having an affair with another young woman, openly it seems. And is father is in hospital, dying. And finally, and probably most interestingly, old friend has returned from the UK, where he appears to have evolved into an arrogant elitist prat who looks down on the art and culture of his home country.
The print I saw was so washed out - it's black and white - that in a few scenes I wasn't too sure if it was his wife and or his girlfriend whom he was interacting with. And the film jumps about with no real structure. In one scene Will is talking to his boss in his office. In the next scene he's suddenly on a beach with a woman who turns out to be his wife. The next he's on a ship saying goodbye to his girlfriend who is, of course, heading to London like everyone from Australia does. And his children seem to feature in only one or two scenes, and then are not mentioned nor is their welfare of any concern to any of the characters. This was confusing to me as a parent, and added to an air of unreality for me. And in there Will is visiting a hospital room where his father is dying, but somehow manages to terribly over-act. Or Will is driving or drinking or often drinking then driving with his old friend, arguing about Australian culture or lack thereof.
There's one particularly stupid flashback, where Will catches his wife cheating on him. His response is to strip off her dress and burn it in a fireplace. This was accompanied by an overwrought voice-over by Will talking about Love and it's meaning. The voice-over is present in most of the film, when Will is not actually talking at one of the female characters. Both of whom would have been well advised to give him the arse.
This should have been two or three films really. At most it's a very interesting document of the times, the attitudes and even just the cars, clothes, buildings and the endless cigarettes. These were young people at the time, but look today like that group of baby-boomers whom are now the establishment. I envied their enormous houses filled with great art, and their relatively untroubled lives, and their lack of concern for anything like money or having spare time. This film made today would have been set in some much smaller spaces, and paying the rent would have been a plot element. The one theme that particularly interested me, the lack of an Austrlian cultural voice, is well and truly not an issue. At least in part because of films like this, it must be said.
A footnote: In response to the commercial and critical failure of 2000 Weeks, the director Tim Burstall, whose previous work included Sebastian the Fox, helping found La Mama Theatre, and documentaries about Australian artists, went on to make the cringeworthy "sex romp" Alvin Purple. Which, by contrast, was a huge financial success... can't beat boobs...
Long story short, my kid ended up in hospital for six days a in October. I won't go into details, but he's fine after IV antibiotics and very minor surgery.
I learned a few things being around the Royal Children's Hospital.
Firstly, it's a really good hospital. It's never good to have to stay in hospital, but when your kid does it's great to have a place as good at this. They even gave him a certificate when he got out of surgery for being so brave.
Secondly, I can now report that my kid is not allergic to CT contrast fluid, like his mother is. Nor does he have an negative reactions to anesthetic. There's no good way to find this out, although this was the least bad way.
Also turns out my kid is a very good patient. He did what was asked of him, he lay still when he had to lay still, he opened his mouth when he was asked so his throat could be examined. He didn't complain when he needed to get a new IV put into his hand. He was well behaved when he had to have a CT scan. I put on a lead vest to keep him company while they scanned him, but he didn't need me to keep him calm. In fact he was quite excited because it had a large spinning thing in it.
He did get grumpy and bored with being in bed all day, which is understandable!
Other minor discoveries:
I learned a few things being around the Royal Children's Hospital.
Firstly, it's a really good hospital. It's never good to have to stay in hospital, but when your kid does it's great to have a place as good at this. They even gave him a certificate when he got out of surgery for being so brave.
Secondly, I can now report that my kid is not allergic to CT contrast fluid, like his mother is. Nor does he have an negative reactions to anesthetic. There's no good way to find this out, although this was the least bad way.
Also turns out my kid is a very good patient. He did what was asked of him, he lay still when he had to lay still, he opened his mouth when he was asked so his throat could be examined. He didn't complain when he needed to get a new IV put into his hand. He was well behaved when he had to have a CT scan. I put on a lead vest to keep him company while they scanned him, but he didn't need me to keep him calm. In fact he was quite excited because it had a large spinning thing in it.
He did get grumpy and bored with being in bed all day, which is understandable!
Other minor discoveries:
- Driving from our place in Lalor to the RCH via the ring-road during non-peak periods takes only about 25 minutes
- A sandwich purchased at 11PM from a roadhouse restaurant attached to a petrol station on the way home tastes fucking delicious
- If you're at the RCH for more than two days you can get cheaper parking.
- A child watching YouTube on an iPad will get through 1Gb of mobile data every 90 minutes or so!
- It is possible sleep on a seat that folds out flat, but a hospital is an inherently noisy place.
Weird Dream with Subarus
Jun. 5th, 2017 02:31 pmSo I dreamed I was driving around Brunswick in my white Subaru Forester, looking for a marriage celebrant. For reasons unknown, the celebrant had changed their name to "Jar Jar Smith" or something like that.
I ended up driving down Royal Parade, but while I was at it apparently I was also controlling, remotely, another Subaru Forester in front of me. I kinda lost track of the other car and pulled over somewhere. Then I realised the remotely controlled car had wound up in someone's swimming pool!
I ended up driving down Royal Parade, but while I was at it apparently I was also controlling, remotely, another Subaru Forester in front of me. I kinda lost track of the other car and pulled over somewhere. Then I realised the remotely controlled car had wound up in someone's swimming pool!
Goodbye Livejournal......
Apr. 29th, 2017 11:46 pmSo, it's been a while. Looks like my first entry on was on July 26th of 2005. (Which I can barely look at - it's entirely about my then-girlfriend, a very unsuitable lass some 11 years my junior...)
But... The time has come to leave.
Livejournal's gotten quiet of late. When I say "of late" I mean since about 2010. LJ pre-dates such notable sites as Facebook and Twitter, and they have largely usurped all the things that made livejournal interesting, and pretty much killed blogging.
LJ was the one of the first sites that encouraged connections between people and encouraged updates on what you were up to. Now I can do that ten times a minute with Twitter. And slowly all the people I knew on here either stopped blogging, or moved to different blogging sites, or simply disappeared from the online world entirely. I can't even remember their usernames now, let alone their real names.
And I'm to blame too. I used to blog here every few days, now it's maybe a few times a year. I tried starting several other blogs, but between working full time, having a four year old son and trying to get some exercise, I don't have a whole lot of spare time.
But I resisted moving from LJ for many years, as people migrated to wordpress and Dreamwidth. Mostly because I'm actually something of a software and platform Luddite (which is funny because I'm a software engineer), I still use Winamp for example. If I find a think I like, I tend to stick to it till well after it is no longer supported.
I stuck to Livejournal even when it was bought out by Russians - which made sense as a business deal since there was a lot of Russians on here. I stuck around even as Livejournal became something of a wasteland.
But then.... There were stories that the site's servers had been moved to Russia, which doesn't bode well if you don't want people going through all your data. And then... There was the TOS. Russia has imposed some draconian laws on it's bloggers and online sites, banning discussion of politics and all things LBGTI. I can't in good conscience support or use a site that does that....
So from here on, I'll be on Dreamwidth. You can also find me on Facebook and Twitter.
Goodbye Livejournal, it's been an interesting ride.
But... The time has come to leave.
Livejournal's gotten quiet of late. When I say "of late" I mean since about 2010. LJ pre-dates such notable sites as Facebook and Twitter, and they have largely usurped all the things that made livejournal interesting, and pretty much killed blogging.
LJ was the one of the first sites that encouraged connections between people and encouraged updates on what you were up to. Now I can do that ten times a minute with Twitter. And slowly all the people I knew on here either stopped blogging, or moved to different blogging sites, or simply disappeared from the online world entirely. I can't even remember their usernames now, let alone their real names.
And I'm to blame too. I used to blog here every few days, now it's maybe a few times a year. I tried starting several other blogs, but between working full time, having a four year old son and trying to get some exercise, I don't have a whole lot of spare time.
But I resisted moving from LJ for many years, as people migrated to wordpress and Dreamwidth. Mostly because I'm actually something of a software and platform Luddite (which is funny because I'm a software engineer), I still use Winamp for example. If I find a think I like, I tend to stick to it till well after it is no longer supported.
I stuck to Livejournal even when it was bought out by Russians - which made sense as a business deal since there was a lot of Russians on here. I stuck around even as Livejournal became something of a wasteland.
But then.... There were stories that the site's servers had been moved to Russia, which doesn't bode well if you don't want people going through all your data. And then... There was the TOS. Russia has imposed some draconian laws on it's bloggers and online sites, banning discussion of politics and all things LBGTI. I can't in good conscience support or use a site that does that....
So from here on, I'll be on Dreamwidth. You can also find me on Facebook and Twitter.
Goodbye Livejournal, it's been an interesting ride.
LJ 18th anniversary
Apr. 26th, 2017 08:52 pm#mylivejournal #lj18 #happybirthday
Of course.... I'm about to leave....
Once again I find myself blogging about events that happened nigh on a year ago. I know it was nigh on a year ago because it was the day after I got my EN logo tattoo, and that was... getting on for a year ago.
The loudest band in the world is Sunn O))). The O))) is of course silent, so their name is pronounced "Sun". The origin of their nameis lost in the mists of time is because they're fond of a brand of amplifiers called Sunn, whose logo was placed next to the name and looked a bit like an O witht three brackets.
I digress.
Sunn O))) are the loudest band in the world. And not just in a the way The Who once had 50,000 watts of amplification. Or The Grateful Dead's Wall Of Sound.
Crikey that's a lot of speakers...
No, all the above bands are rock bands who happen to play very fucking loud. For Sunn O))), loud is their modus operandi, it's the reason they play, it's an essential part of the band. They're more like the band Disaster Area from the Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
They're so loud they don't need to turn on the PA at they venues they play at. They're so loud they hand out free ear plugs to audience members.
On top of which, they usually pump enormous quantities of smoke into the venue, and dress in druid outfits... Then play songs that go for upwards of twenty five minutes each.
An actual shot of the band playing.
I saw them in March of 2016, in a basement venue called Max Watts. I was unfamiliar with the venue until I realised it was the HiFi Bar, renamed. I spent a lot of time in that dive, mostly seeing TISM.
The building shook. Dust and old confetti worked loose from the ceiling and drifted down on the crowd.
They're the kind of band whose songs you can feel in your chest cavity. I swear a number of audience members had some kind of spiritual experience.
Lift me, Stephen O'Malley!
Sunn O))) are like music boiled down to its essence. No attempts at rhythm, no drums and few vocals. And those only screamed. Except for one notable, very strange song with Julian Cope. I enjoyed them from well at the back with industrial earplugs in my ears!
Anyway, here's a concert to give it a listen, turn it up loud:
This almost melted my laptop...
The loudest band in the world is Sunn O))). The O))) is of course silent, so their name is pronounced "Sun". The origin of their name
I digress.
Sunn O))) are the loudest band in the world. And not just in a the way The Who once had 50,000 watts of amplification. Or The Grateful Dead's Wall Of Sound.
Crikey that's a lot of speakers...
No, all the above bands are rock bands who happen to play very fucking loud. For Sunn O))), loud is their modus operandi, it's the reason they play, it's an essential part of the band. They're more like the band Disaster Area from the Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
They're so loud they don't need to turn on the PA at they venues they play at. They're so loud they hand out free ear plugs to audience members.
On top of which, they usually pump enormous quantities of smoke into the venue, and dress in druid outfits... Then play songs that go for upwards of twenty five minutes each.
An actual shot of the band playing.
I saw them in March of 2016, in a basement venue called Max Watts. I was unfamiliar with the venue until I realised it was the HiFi Bar, renamed. I spent a lot of time in that dive, mostly seeing TISM.
The building shook. Dust and old confetti worked loose from the ceiling and drifted down on the crowd.
They're the kind of band whose songs you can feel in your chest cavity. I swear a number of audience members had some kind of spiritual experience.
Lift me, Stephen O'Malley!
Sunn O))) are like music boiled down to its essence. No attempts at rhythm, no drums and few vocals. And those only screamed. Except for one notable, very strange song with Julian Cope. I enjoyed them from well at the back with industrial earplugs in my ears!
Anyway, here's a concert to give it a listen, turn it up loud:
This almost melted my laptop...
Belated Blogging: Getting a new Tattoo
Mar. 13th, 2017 10:59 pmSeems I failed for just on a year to blog about the tattoo I got. That'll tell you how much spare time I have of late. Oh, it doesn't help that the last tattoo I blogged about was an April fool's joke.
Of course, no tatt I get is ever quite going to top the fame my last tattoo achieved. Here it is on on the Science Tattoo blog, which later became a book. My leg it on page 154 or so!
When I get a tattoo, I like to really be sure about what I'm getting inked on my skin, since it's going to be there forever. Which is probably why I've only gotten three tattoos over the space of twenty-three years. Which averages out at, what, one every seven years? I figure if the design still takes me after a year or so of thinking about it, then it's the correct design. Unlike some folks - while I was getting this done several folks walked into the tattoo studio, seemingly on a whim, and looked for designs from their design books. Folks, this is going to be forever remember!
In this case, it took a lot longer to get needle applied to flesh. I first had the idea around 2011 or so, and vaguely planned to get it done around the time I got "married" in November 2012. I even did a design, which I eventually used. Then life took over - we had a kid, moved house, my partner broke her leg. I was broke. But the biggest impediment was actually finding a tattooist.
Something about the design will help you see why.
I wanted to get this:
But done as if it had been stencilled. That's the logo of the band Einstrende Neubauten, a pioneering German industrial band I happen to be a fan of. But more than that, it's a fantastical simple symbol that makes for a great tattoo. And indeed it been tattooed so many times it's not funny. Here are a few hundred examples, including on on the shoulder of a certain Henry Rollins. And indeed at least two people I know.
It also says something to me about being into music, the owners of said tattoos all being super enthused about music.
Now I like to get unique tattoos - not for me the heart with a dagger through it, with a scroll and someone's name. So I thought how can I join the community of EN tattooed folks, but in a way that's unique? That's where the stencil idea came in. Because I'm also from Melbourne, which is rather known for its stencilled art.
I took the design back to the place I got my previous tattoo, Robot Shogun in the now defunct Peril Underground record store, and they said it couldn't be done. So I left it be for a few years (see also aforementioned child, wedding, moving house, lack 'o cash and broken leg) until I found I had a small stash of cash that I'd forgotten about. The I went looking online for tattooists, starting with the websites for tattoo expos, because they're full of galleries of work by local tattooists. I narrowed it down to a couple, fired them off a scan of my design, and lo I got a positive response from a guy called Spud in a studio up the road from where I work! I went in in person and showed them my designs, they said "Sure we can do it Tuesday". So after some five years of planning it was happening in a few days.
Here is the design on my leg before inking:
And here's the finished product:
The whole album is on flickr, including some shots of Spud hard at work.
The whole thing took the better part of four hours, in one sitting. This is by a fair margin the biggest tattoo I've gotten, although the sample size is small! I was a bit spacey afterwards, a bit like I was in shock. For the record, tattoos hurt. I think Spud got the spray effect with a wide brush needle, which gives a faint layer of colour rather than solid one.
You know you're getting a good tattoo when other tattooist in the parlour come and admire it. You know you've got a good tattoo when random people come up and ask about it. Also, and this is odd, because I planned it for so long, now that I have it it feels right, like my leg was always meant to be that way. And also it goes against tattoo convention, it already looks old and a bit rough around the edges because it's meant to.
The very next evening, I celebrated my new music-related ink, by seeing the loudest band in the world, Sunn O)))
Finally, I can recommend the work of East Brunswick Tattooing.
Of course, no tatt I get is ever quite going to top the fame my last tattoo achieved. Here it is on on the Science Tattoo blog, which later became a book. My leg it on page 154 or so!
When I get a tattoo, I like to really be sure about what I'm getting inked on my skin, since it's going to be there forever. Which is probably why I've only gotten three tattoos over the space of twenty-three years. Which averages out at, what, one every seven years? I figure if the design still takes me after a year or so of thinking about it, then it's the correct design. Unlike some folks - while I was getting this done several folks walked into the tattoo studio, seemingly on a whim, and looked for designs from their design books. Folks, this is going to be forever remember!
In this case, it took a lot longer to get needle applied to flesh. I first had the idea around 2011 or so, and vaguely planned to get it done around the time I got "married" in November 2012. I even did a design, which I eventually used. Then life took over - we had a kid, moved house, my partner broke her leg. I was broke. But the biggest impediment was actually finding a tattooist.
Something about the design will help you see why.
I wanted to get this:
But done as if it had been stencilled. That's the logo of the band Einstrende Neubauten, a pioneering German industrial band I happen to be a fan of. But more than that, it's a fantastical simple symbol that makes for a great tattoo. And indeed it been tattooed so many times it's not funny. Here are a few hundred examples, including on on the shoulder of a certain Henry Rollins. And indeed at least two people I know.
It also says something to me about being into music, the owners of said tattoos all being super enthused about music.
Now I like to get unique tattoos - not for me the heart with a dagger through it, with a scroll and someone's name. So I thought how can I join the community of EN tattooed folks, but in a way that's unique? That's where the stencil idea came in. Because I'm also from Melbourne, which is rather known for its stencilled art.
I took the design back to the place I got my previous tattoo, Robot Shogun in the now defunct Peril Underground record store, and they said it couldn't be done. So I left it be for a few years (see also aforementioned child, wedding, moving house, lack 'o cash and broken leg) until I found I had a small stash of cash that I'd forgotten about. The I went looking online for tattooists, starting with the websites for tattoo expos, because they're full of galleries of work by local tattooists. I narrowed it down to a couple, fired them off a scan of my design, and lo I got a positive response from a guy called Spud in a studio up the road from where I work! I went in in person and showed them my designs, they said "Sure we can do it Tuesday". So after some five years of planning it was happening in a few days.
Here is the design on my leg before inking:
And here's the finished product:
The whole album is on flickr, including some shots of Spud hard at work.
The whole thing took the better part of four hours, in one sitting. This is by a fair margin the biggest tattoo I've gotten, although the sample size is small! I was a bit spacey afterwards, a bit like I was in shock. For the record, tattoos hurt. I think Spud got the spray effect with a wide brush needle, which gives a faint layer of colour rather than solid one.
You know you're getting a good tattoo when other tattooist in the parlour come and admire it. You know you've got a good tattoo when random people come up and ask about it. Also, and this is odd, because I planned it for so long, now that I have it it feels right, like my leg was always meant to be that way. And also it goes against tattoo convention, it already looks old and a bit rough around the edges because it's meant to.
The very next evening, I celebrated my new music-related ink, by seeing the loudest band in the world, Sunn O)))
Finally, I can recommend the work of East Brunswick Tattooing.
No more music stores...
Oct. 31st, 2016 04:56 pmSpent the day in the centre on Melbourne.
( Read more... )Not a huge fan of sports, however....
Sep. 5th, 2016 10:40 pmSo I'm not a huge fan of sports in general. At school I was more your nerdish booky type - which in retrospect is odd given I'm quite strongly built. The one exception is, oddly, American Football, also known as Gridiron or, less charitably, Hand Egg.
A game with rules so complex that one needs to watch for three or seasons just to figure out what is going on. A game where an important part of the action is the two teams lining up either side of a ball on the ground, and just staring at the each other. A game where each team brings something like forty three players to a game when at any one time there are only eleven on the field. A game where if the ball is in fact kicked, there are two different team members who specialise in certain kinds of kicking.
I digress.
Needless to say, the Olympics usually pass me by. I'm not filled with the Olympic spirit, I'm not interested in watching a sport as dull as rowing just because I share a home nation with some of the competitors.
But there was one athlete, or more specifically one athlete and her story, that caught my attention. Not least because she is a she, and women's sport is both poorly reported and poorly resourced.
I first heard about Claressa Shields in the lead up to the 2016 Olympics, I think from an article in the Guardian. Long story short, Claressa comes from the very tough town of Flint, Michigan, started boxing when she was eleven and insisted that her dad - who spent a lot of her childhood in jail - teach her. And at the 2012 games, at the age of just seventeen, while still in school, she fought her way to become the first women's Olympic gold medallist. Women's boxing was only added to the Olympics for the 2012 games because, hey, women you know, shouldn't be allowed to do certain things just because.
Oh, they also reported she'd had trouble getting sponsors because she wasn't ladylike(!) enough and said things like "I like hitting people".
One problem with my continued disinterest in sport is that when I do watch it I often have no idea what is going on, nor what differentiates a good athlete from a mediocre one. For example all I really know about boxing is from watching When We Were Kings. Highly recommended by the way. But I decided to watch Claressa fight at the Olympics anyway. In 2016, aged now only 21, she was defending her title.
And damn, she hadn't even stepped into the ring and I could tell she was good.
Most of the boxers would wander out behind someone holding a banner for their country, jump around and stretch a bit. Claressa come out with a look on her face like she wanted to kill someone.
In the three bouts I watched she was amazing. Again, I don't know much about boxing, but it quickly became apparent that she was very very good at it. She had no wasted motion. She stand almost still till her opponent took a few swings at her. Then she'd dart out of the way so none of them connected. Then she'd take her time and land a whole lot of brutal punches, punches that would have sent me reeling, even if I was a lot fitter and stronger than I am. In one bout her poor opponent was left gasping on the ropes, wondering what had hit her!
This was the only vid I could find of a full boxing match, from the Olympic qualifications:
Needless to say, she won the gold medal, again. First American to win back-to-back Olympic boxing medals. She's only 21 so she might well be back for two more Olympic games. I might just have to follow her career now.
A game with rules so complex that one needs to watch for three or seasons just to figure out what is going on. A game where an important part of the action is the two teams lining up either side of a ball on the ground, and just staring at the each other. A game where each team brings something like forty three players to a game when at any one time there are only eleven on the field. A game where if the ball is in fact kicked, there are two different team members who specialise in certain kinds of kicking.
I digress.
Needless to say, the Olympics usually pass me by. I'm not filled with the Olympic spirit, I'm not interested in watching a sport as dull as rowing just because I share a home nation with some of the competitors.
But there was one athlete, or more specifically one athlete and her story, that caught my attention. Not least because she is a she, and women's sport is both poorly reported and poorly resourced.
I first heard about Claressa Shields in the lead up to the 2016 Olympics, I think from an article in the Guardian. Long story short, Claressa comes from the very tough town of Flint, Michigan, started boxing when she was eleven and insisted that her dad - who spent a lot of her childhood in jail - teach her. And at the 2012 games, at the age of just seventeen, while still in school, she fought her way to become the first women's Olympic gold medallist. Women's boxing was only added to the Olympics for the 2012 games because, hey, women you know, shouldn't be allowed to do certain things just because.
Oh, they also reported she'd had trouble getting sponsors because she wasn't ladylike(!) enough and said things like "I like hitting people".
One problem with my continued disinterest in sport is that when I do watch it I often have no idea what is going on, nor what differentiates a good athlete from a mediocre one. For example all I really know about boxing is from watching When We Were Kings. Highly recommended by the way. But I decided to watch Claressa fight at the Olympics anyway. In 2016, aged now only 21, she was defending her title.
And damn, she hadn't even stepped into the ring and I could tell she was good.
Most of the boxers would wander out behind someone holding a banner for their country, jump around and stretch a bit. Claressa come out with a look on her face like she wanted to kill someone.
In the three bouts I watched she was amazing. Again, I don't know much about boxing, but it quickly became apparent that she was very very good at it. She had no wasted motion. She stand almost still till her opponent took a few swings at her. Then she'd dart out of the way so none of them connected. Then she'd take her time and land a whole lot of brutal punches, punches that would have sent me reeling, even if I was a lot fitter and stronger than I am. In one bout her poor opponent was left gasping on the ropes, wondering what had hit her!
This was the only vid I could find of a full boxing match, from the Olympic qualifications:
Needless to say, she won the gold medal, again. First American to win back-to-back Olympic boxing medals. She's only 21 so she might well be back for two more Olympic games. I might just have to follow her career now.
Election Day was a depressing experience
Jul. 3rd, 2016 11:04 pmCross-posted from www.maxcelcat.com
For political junkies like myself, election day is supposed to be something of a highlight. Actually living through a very long election campaign when you've made up your mind some years ago how you're going to vote is not that much of a spectator sport. I just wanted it to end and for there to be a result - hopefully one that I liked.
But the actual process on election day was depressing, not just because I missed out entirely on a Democracy Sausage. For the first time ever I was handing out how-to-vote cards for a party other than the ALP. Following my decision to leave the party after more than twenty years as a member, I threw my lot in with the Greens. Particularly in the seat of Batman because of a particular dislike of the sitting member, David Feeney, a waste of oxygen from the ALP who was gifted the seat after being dumped from the senate. And a particular liking for for Greens candidate Alex Bhathal.
I was also roped into helping in the seat of Scullin, where I now live. And which is a very safe Labor seat. So for three hours in the afternoon I was handing out how to vote cards at a high school in Lalor. On the plus side, it was a fantastically diverse group of people there voting - I handed fliers to Kooris, folks of African extraction, retired migrants of a Mediterranean background, women in Hijabs, including a large number of feisty young woman, and a few in Niqabs. Lots of folks coming from works in the paint-cover clothes.
But then there was a fair percentage of folks who were completely confused by the whole process. Some were first time voters, tall teens who had never done this before. But a fair number were just perplexed, and were asking us, the how-to-vote folks how to fill in the ballot papers. I've always thought the voting process here in Australia was relatively straightforward, consistent between elections and explained a fair bit. But apparently not... We found ourselves explaining the two ballot papers, about how you had to number all the boxes on the green ballot, and who all the parties were. People were saying they'd only ever heard of Labor and Liberal, and were perplexed by all the other parties. I'm not sure what the percentage of informal votes where at the booth, but I suspect it was quite high. Which makes me sad that some folks didn't get to express their preference.
The more depressing event was the two other how-to-vote folks there whom I ended up having a conversation with. The first was a chap from the ALP, who quite readily told me he was a member of the Labor right. The thing that impressed him the most while we were there was a Mercedes that pulled up. He was telling me how much it was worth. A lot, it would seem, the kind of money I would use if I had to have, say, half a dozen sponsor children.
Then I got into a heated discussion with a women from something called the Australian Christian Party. Her sole concern was her strenuous opposition to the Safe Schools Program. She told me an extraordinary stream of misunderstandings and lies about same-sex couples in general and the Safe Schools program. According to her one of the main creators of the program was a pedophile enabler. I asked her what on earth she was talking about, and she quoted me something from a paper this person had published. To me it sounded like the gist was "Teenagers who are same sex attracted, queer etc. need same-sex adult role models" - a perfectly obvious thing to say. But no, according to this mob that meant they were meant to sleep with adults. Other aspects of the program that made her angry: Role playing as Gay or Lesbians as a learning experience - this was teaching kids it was normal to be that way and no doubt converting them. That being LGBTI was being normalised, while claiming at the same time that there was nothing wrong with being gay so long as she could prevent anyone under twenty from ever hearing about it ever. Because of course no teen has ever been bullied for being out.
As you can imagine, she was vehemently opposed to same-sex marriage. Because, I kid you now, marriage is defined by god and science! She could not explain what that meant. I told that she was denigrating the relationships of some of my good friends, and that marriage was a social construct - which she didn't understand.
And then the guy from the ALP chipped in that he too opposed same-sex marriage. Apparently all the religions he was familiar with opposed it. Which I would have disputed but I run out of breath and time. It seems words in a two thousand year old book, and indeed a 1300 year old book hold more import than the diversity of the modern world. Here I was reminded again why I left that political party... Which was confirmed firmly when I discovered they'd preferenced Derryn Hinch in the senate!!
I thought of my friends who are in same-sex relationships, or who a cross-dressing or indeed just not gender-bound. And I felt sorry for them, if this is the kind of frankly irrational opposition they face. I don't have a problem with people being conservative, but I have a strong objection to people holding completely incoherent views that have no solid basis. I'm going to teach my kid how normal this stuff is in a fairly simple way - in fact I largely won't need to, since he'll be surrounded by gay and lesbian couples.
I upped sticks from that booth and headed over to a primary school in the seat of Batman. Happily the mood was different there. I stayed after the polls closed to scrutineer. In this seat the contest was been the Green, my candidate, Alex, the ALP and in distant third at Liberal candidate. There as a total of eleven candidates, but in the booth I was at some of them attracted all of eight to twenty five votes each.
They sort the lower house ballots into piles by first preference votes. There was three notably piles - ALP, Green and Liberal. And one other pile of note - the informal votes. This grew depressingly large. I watched the ballots that went into that pile. A number of them were people who clearly didn't give a stuff, they'd left the ballot blank or crossed the whole thing out. But a large number of them really had tried, but they'd messed it up. Putting a tick or a cross in one box. Numbering only six of the eleven boxes, probably confused by the new Senate voting rules. The informal pile grew till it numbered nearly 10% of the total votes cast. Which depressed the hell out of me. Batman is likely to be decided by a margin of less than 1%, and here was a huge number of people who wanted to vote a certain way and failed.
The next step of the process is to distribute preferences. The three piles were roughly 1000 votes for the ALP, 450 for the Greens and 415 for the Liberals. The Libs were distributed between Green and ALP, because across the whole seat the contest would be between the other two parties. And so I got to watch still more votes head towards the ALP... The Liberal how to vote card had preferenced the ALP tenth and the Greens eleventh. So some 70% of them went in the ALP pile. There I was watching a party I intensely dislike deliberately sabotaging the chances of a party they intensely dislike. I know it's not sabotage but it certainly felt that they hated the Greens more than they hated their traditional rivals the ALP.
I eventually headed home, despondent, and watched the results come in on ABC. And here I was bummed out yet again. I've spent that last three years watching in horror as the conservative government in Canberra has demonized minorities for their own gain, in the process enabling a number of racists to rear their ugly heads. And trying to destroy fabled institutions like Medicare and the ABC and the union movement, repealing working carbon reduction legislation, lying about their being a refugee crisis, nobbling the NBN and... Well, it felt to me like every day there was something new they were doing to get angry about. And here they were on election night in with a fighting chance. Rather than being dumped out office by an outraged nation, there they were sitting almost neck-and-neck with the opposition. Rather than having a prime minster having to make a humiliating speech of defeat, we had smug blue-tie wearing Liberals saying they were hoping to form government again in a few days. I'm not sure what the combination of rage and despair is called but that is what I felt. And to find that the senate is going to be worse than the last term. Pauline Hansen, the prototype racist nutjob is back. Derryn Hinch, a loud angry white man may be in there. Jackie Lambie will be back possibly with a friend. The next three years are going to be grotesque.
I had a fitful nights sleep. I'm going to be spending the next few days refreshing the AEC's website for results.
For political junkies like myself, election day is supposed to be something of a highlight. Actually living through a very long election campaign when you've made up your mind some years ago how you're going to vote is not that much of a spectator sport. I just wanted it to end and for there to be a result - hopefully one that I liked.
But the actual process on election day was depressing, not just because I missed out entirely on a Democracy Sausage. For the first time ever I was handing out how-to-vote cards for a party other than the ALP. Following my decision to leave the party after more than twenty years as a member, I threw my lot in with the Greens. Particularly in the seat of Batman because of a particular dislike of the sitting member, David Feeney, a waste of oxygen from the ALP who was gifted the seat after being dumped from the senate. And a particular liking for for Greens candidate Alex Bhathal.
I was also roped into helping in the seat of Scullin, where I now live. And which is a very safe Labor seat. So for three hours in the afternoon I was handing out how to vote cards at a high school in Lalor. On the plus side, it was a fantastically diverse group of people there voting - I handed fliers to Kooris, folks of African extraction, retired migrants of a Mediterranean background, women in Hijabs, including a large number of feisty young woman, and a few in Niqabs. Lots of folks coming from works in the paint-cover clothes.
But then there was a fair percentage of folks who were completely confused by the whole process. Some were first time voters, tall teens who had never done this before. But a fair number were just perplexed, and were asking us, the how-to-vote folks how to fill in the ballot papers. I've always thought the voting process here in Australia was relatively straightforward, consistent between elections and explained a fair bit. But apparently not... We found ourselves explaining the two ballot papers, about how you had to number all the boxes on the green ballot, and who all the parties were. People were saying they'd only ever heard of Labor and Liberal, and were perplexed by all the other parties. I'm not sure what the percentage of informal votes where at the booth, but I suspect it was quite high. Which makes me sad that some folks didn't get to express their preference.
The more depressing event was the two other how-to-vote folks there whom I ended up having a conversation with. The first was a chap from the ALP, who quite readily told me he was a member of the Labor right. The thing that impressed him the most while we were there was a Mercedes that pulled up. He was telling me how much it was worth. A lot, it would seem, the kind of money I would use if I had to have, say, half a dozen sponsor children.
Then I got into a heated discussion with a women from something called the Australian Christian Party. Her sole concern was her strenuous opposition to the Safe Schools Program. She told me an extraordinary stream of misunderstandings and lies about same-sex couples in general and the Safe Schools program. According to her one of the main creators of the program was a pedophile enabler. I asked her what on earth she was talking about, and she quoted me something from a paper this person had published. To me it sounded like the gist was "Teenagers who are same sex attracted, queer etc. need same-sex adult role models" - a perfectly obvious thing to say. But no, according to this mob that meant they were meant to sleep with adults. Other aspects of the program that made her angry: Role playing as Gay or Lesbians as a learning experience - this was teaching kids it was normal to be that way and no doubt converting them. That being LGBTI was being normalised, while claiming at the same time that there was nothing wrong with being gay so long as she could prevent anyone under twenty from ever hearing about it ever. Because of course no teen has ever been bullied for being out.
As you can imagine, she was vehemently opposed to same-sex marriage. Because, I kid you now, marriage is defined by god and science! She could not explain what that meant. I told that she was denigrating the relationships of some of my good friends, and that marriage was a social construct - which she didn't understand.
And then the guy from the ALP chipped in that he too opposed same-sex marriage. Apparently all the religions he was familiar with opposed it. Which I would have disputed but I run out of breath and time. It seems words in a two thousand year old book, and indeed a 1300 year old book hold more import than the diversity of the modern world. Here I was reminded again why I left that political party... Which was confirmed firmly when I discovered they'd preferenced Derryn Hinch in the senate!!
I thought of my friends who are in same-sex relationships, or who a cross-dressing or indeed just not gender-bound. And I felt sorry for them, if this is the kind of frankly irrational opposition they face. I don't have a problem with people being conservative, but I have a strong objection to people holding completely incoherent views that have no solid basis. I'm going to teach my kid how normal this stuff is in a fairly simple way - in fact I largely won't need to, since he'll be surrounded by gay and lesbian couples.
I upped sticks from that booth and headed over to a primary school in the seat of Batman. Happily the mood was different there. I stayed after the polls closed to scrutineer. In this seat the contest was been the Green, my candidate, Alex, the ALP and in distant third at Liberal candidate. There as a total of eleven candidates, but in the booth I was at some of them attracted all of eight to twenty five votes each.
They sort the lower house ballots into piles by first preference votes. There was three notably piles - ALP, Green and Liberal. And one other pile of note - the informal votes. This grew depressingly large. I watched the ballots that went into that pile. A number of them were people who clearly didn't give a stuff, they'd left the ballot blank or crossed the whole thing out. But a large number of them really had tried, but they'd messed it up. Putting a tick or a cross in one box. Numbering only six of the eleven boxes, probably confused by the new Senate voting rules. The informal pile grew till it numbered nearly 10% of the total votes cast. Which depressed the hell out of me. Batman is likely to be decided by a margin of less than 1%, and here was a huge number of people who wanted to vote a certain way and failed.
The next step of the process is to distribute preferences. The three piles were roughly 1000 votes for the ALP, 450 for the Greens and 415 for the Liberals. The Libs were distributed between Green and ALP, because across the whole seat the contest would be between the other two parties. And so I got to watch still more votes head towards the ALP... The Liberal how to vote card had preferenced the ALP tenth and the Greens eleventh. So some 70% of them went in the ALP pile. There I was watching a party I intensely dislike deliberately sabotaging the chances of a party they intensely dislike. I know it's not sabotage but it certainly felt that they hated the Greens more than they hated their traditional rivals the ALP.
I eventually headed home, despondent, and watched the results come in on ABC. And here I was bummed out yet again. I've spent that last three years watching in horror as the conservative government in Canberra has demonized minorities for their own gain, in the process enabling a number of racists to rear their ugly heads. And trying to destroy fabled institutions like Medicare and the ABC and the union movement, repealing working carbon reduction legislation, lying about their being a refugee crisis, nobbling the NBN and... Well, it felt to me like every day there was something new they were doing to get angry about. And here they were on election night in with a fighting chance. Rather than being dumped out office by an outraged nation, there they were sitting almost neck-and-neck with the opposition. Rather than having a prime minster having to make a humiliating speech of defeat, we had smug blue-tie wearing Liberals saying they were hoping to form government again in a few days. I'm not sure what the combination of rage and despair is called but that is what I felt. And to find that the senate is going to be worse than the last term. Pauline Hansen, the prototype racist nutjob is back. Derryn Hinch, a loud angry white man may be in there. Jackie Lambie will be back possibly with a friend. The next three years are going to be grotesque.
I had a fitful nights sleep. I'm going to be spending the next few days refreshing the AEC's website for results.
New Tattoo!
Apr. 1st, 2016 07:24 amWell, it's taken me another eight years since my second tattoo, but I've finally got myself another tat!
Inspired largely by Mike Tyson, but all by that "Alien Doctor" from Dr Who, who it turns out is of the species Kahler, I decided the best way to make a statement with this tattoo was to get it on my face.
It's still under wraps, obviously, because it's fresh. They cover them with glad wrap for the first few days to help them heal.
Deb was none too pleased:
It was a surprise to her. I mean, she knew I was getting a tat, but not one like this!
I can't tell you who did the work, since it's still (I believe) technically illegal in Victoria to get tattoos on your face. Tattooist will do it, but you have to be careful. It was a safe and clean place, and anyway, I've been immunised against Hep A and Hep B.
I took the covers off briefly to get a picture. Sorry about the shitty quality, I'll get a better one in a week or so when it's healed properly:
What do you think? Makes a statement doesn't it!
Inspired largely by Mike Tyson, but all by that "Alien Doctor" from Dr Who, who it turns out is of the species Kahler, I decided the best way to make a statement with this tattoo was to get it on my face.
It's still under wraps, obviously, because it's fresh. They cover them with glad wrap for the first few days to help them heal.
Deb was none too pleased:
It was a surprise to her. I mean, she knew I was getting a tat, but not one like this!
I can't tell you who did the work, since it's still (I believe) technically illegal in Victoria to get tattoos on your face. Tattooist will do it, but you have to be careful. It was a safe and clean place, and anyway, I've been immunised against Hep A and Hep B.
I took the covers off briefly to get a picture. Sorry about the shitty quality, I'll get a better one in a week or so when it's healed properly:
What do you think? Makes a statement doesn't it!
The Sad Deminse of Many A Blog
Feb. 17th, 2016 10:57 pmOK, so I'm late to the party on this one.
(Ha. Just found![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
xkcd's LJ. It's got one entry from 2006...)
I've been bloggin' on and off since about 2003, and I still dislike the neologism "blogging". Been on Livejournal for a significant amount of that time. And I've heard often times about how Livejournal is not what it was, thanks largely to the rise of Facebook and Twitter. Sometimes in a one-for-one fashion, for example![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
overheardinmelb became Overheard in Melbourne.
My friends feed on here has become fairly anaemic of late, aside from a few die hards.... And George RR Martin!grrm. I'm guilty too of course. I posted four times in 2015.
The dumb thing is I have two other blogs. One of them I've posted to less often than I've renewed it's domain name.
But the demise of Blogging on here and in general, and amongst my friends, was brought home to my by my bookmarks. I've had the same set of Firefox bookmarks since, well, I suspect that some of them actually date from when I used Netscape. Of late out of morbid curiosity I've started looking up some of my old bookmarks to see how many of them are still there. Long story short - not many. Entire domains have disappeared, URLs are dead, there's basically a lot of link rot going on.
Last night I started going through all my bookmarks in my "blogs" folder. Oh, what a tale of woe... About 50% were missing entirely, either directing to a Blogger or Wordpress page saying "This ain't here sorry" or again the domain itself had vanished entirely. And of those that were there, all bar a couple of them hadn't been updated in years, some not since 2010. I think we can declare the age of blogging is over.... Yet I will post here more, and will revive my other blogs. This time I mean it!
(Ha. Just found
xkcd's LJ. It's got one entry from 2006...)I've been bloggin' on and off since about 2003, and I still dislike the neologism "blogging". Been on Livejournal for a significant amount of that time. And I've heard often times about how Livejournal is not what it was, thanks largely to the rise of Facebook and Twitter. Sometimes in a one-for-one fashion, for example
overheardinmelb became Overheard in Melbourne.My friends feed on here has become fairly anaemic of late, aside from a few die hards.... And George RR Martin!
grrm. I'm guilty too of course. I posted four times in 2015. The dumb thing is I have two other blogs. One of them I've posted to less often than I've renewed it's domain name.
But the demise of Blogging on here and in general, and amongst my friends, was brought home to my by my bookmarks. I've had the same set of Firefox bookmarks since, well, I suspect that some of them actually date from when I used Netscape. Of late out of morbid curiosity I've started looking up some of my old bookmarks to see how many of them are still there. Long story short - not many. Entire domains have disappeared, URLs are dead, there's basically a lot of link rot going on.
Last night I started going through all my bookmarks in my "blogs" folder. Oh, what a tale of woe... About 50% were missing entirely, either directing to a Blogger or Wordpress page saying "This ain't here sorry" or again the domain itself had vanished entirely. And of those that were there, all bar a couple of them hadn't been updated in years, some not since 2010. I think we can declare the age of blogging is over.... Yet I will post here more, and will revive my other blogs. This time I mean it!
How is this for a dream?
Feb. 15th, 2016 09:55 pmA dream I had this morning....
I was in the US, waiting for a bus to take me to the NFL Tryouts. I had some big bags with me, and I was wearing a fair bit of the body armour NFL players wear. It was early in the morning. Finally the bus showed up, and it was being driven by.... Malcolm Turnbull.
He was being a dick, and announced that because they weren't ready to run the try outs, he was going to take us to an alternative location, and leave us there to find our own way home. The "alternative location" turned out to be deep inside an almost finished underground parking garage. I started walking off, lugging all my stuff, quite annoyed.
Eventually I was wandering through the countryside of Kentucky (don't ask me how I knew this, it was a dream, I just knew. I've never been in Kentucky and would struggle to find it on a map). I pulled out my phone and was trying to compose an angry email to Crikey about how rude Turnbull had been. But my iPhone had been overtaken by some kind of Chinese virus, and it was full of brightly coloured icons and small birds flapping.
This latter part, about my iPhone not working, is now a common feature of my anxiety dreams. Rather than being anxious about being lost or not being able to walk or any of those traditional things that go wrong in a dream, I worry about my iPhone. So much so that in my dreams I'm aware that I've dreamed this has happened before, and I think to myself "Oh no, it's happened fro real this time". And it's never about my iPhone being broken, but me trying to use it and finding it having been taken over by a Chinese virus that instead of letting me make calls or look thinks up keeps presenting me with bright ads and games with virtual birds in them!
I was in the US, waiting for a bus to take me to the NFL Tryouts. I had some big bags with me, and I was wearing a fair bit of the body armour NFL players wear. It was early in the morning. Finally the bus showed up, and it was being driven by.... Malcolm Turnbull.
He was being a dick, and announced that because they weren't ready to run the try outs, he was going to take us to an alternative location, and leave us there to find our own way home. The "alternative location" turned out to be deep inside an almost finished underground parking garage. I started walking off, lugging all my stuff, quite annoyed.
Eventually I was wandering through the countryside of Kentucky (don't ask me how I knew this, it was a dream, I just knew. I've never been in Kentucky and would struggle to find it on a map). I pulled out my phone and was trying to compose an angry email to Crikey about how rude Turnbull had been. But my iPhone had been overtaken by some kind of Chinese virus, and it was full of brightly coloured icons and small birds flapping.
This latter part, about my iPhone not working, is now a common feature of my anxiety dreams. Rather than being anxious about being lost or not being able to walk or any of those traditional things that go wrong in a dream, I worry about my iPhone. So much so that in my dreams I'm aware that I've dreamed this has happened before, and I think to myself "Oh no, it's happened fro real this time". And it's never about my iPhone being broken, but me trying to use it and finding it having been taken over by a Chinese virus that instead of letting me make calls or look thinks up keeps presenting me with bright ads and games with virtual birds in them!
Thursday night I was at the gym for one of my two regular weekly visits. I'm a diligent gym goer, but not a body builder. And I log everything I do on those gym program cards they give you, partly so I can keep track because otherwise I forget where I'm up to or what I've done, and partly because I must be a bit OCD! I log all my weights and reps and so forth.
(For the record my current program is a sort-of pyramid program. I do two sets of a medium weight, then one set of the heaviest weight I can budge. It's also the program I created after taking two months off after getting my appendix out (I really should blog about that) and is heavy on machines rather than free weights.)
I write my own programs these days, without consulting the staff. And I've been stapling my new cards to my old cards so now I have a wad of about six of them, going back probably a couple of years. Partly out of laziness - I really should take them home, or recycle them, I don't really need to know what exercises I was doing this time last year.
The process at my gym is to fill in the card, then leave it in a tray so the staff can sign off that you actually did the work - I think that's the point.
The other night I was one of the last to leave, and the gym guy was putting the programs away and said he'd file mine for me. Then he said "Oooo, you're Paul Johanson."
Turns out I'm slightly famous at the Northcote Aquatic and Recreation Centre.
I'm one of very few people who actually diligently fills in my gym card, and then files them away and keeps them. I'm also one of few people who is there consistently for years at a time - most people join and work out for a few weeks or a few months, then disappear. And I thought about it, and he was right. In the years I've been going to that gym there are maybe two or three people at most whom I've seen consistently. The rest, for whatever reason, come and then go. Maybe they move house, maybe they lose interest. It's always busier at the start of the year, I assume because lots of people make new years resolutions.
For the record, I first joined a gym, the RMIT gym, in early June of 1998. Since some time in 2000, I've been working out twice a week, with a few gaps whilst traveling or because of the aforementioned surgery. I've been a member of the NAARC gym for two stints, from 2000 till 2003 and then again from 2005 till now (wow that's a decade, I should get a prize). I've only belonged to four gyms in 17 years - RMIT, Brunswick, Southport in Port Melbourne and NAARC, although I have worked out in others, notably Gold's Gym in New York. Once I found a form of exercise that suited me, I've stuck at it!
Hooray for dogged persistence.
(For the record my current program is a sort-of pyramid program. I do two sets of a medium weight, then one set of the heaviest weight I can budge. It's also the program I created after taking two months off after getting my appendix out (I really should blog about that) and is heavy on machines rather than free weights.)
I write my own programs these days, without consulting the staff. And I've been stapling my new cards to my old cards so now I have a wad of about six of them, going back probably a couple of years. Partly out of laziness - I really should take them home, or recycle them, I don't really need to know what exercises I was doing this time last year.
The process at my gym is to fill in the card, then leave it in a tray so the staff can sign off that you actually did the work - I think that's the point.
The other night I was one of the last to leave, and the gym guy was putting the programs away and said he'd file mine for me. Then he said "Oooo, you're Paul Johanson."
Turns out I'm slightly famous at the Northcote Aquatic and Recreation Centre.
I'm one of very few people who actually diligently fills in my gym card, and then files them away and keeps them. I'm also one of few people who is there consistently for years at a time - most people join and work out for a few weeks or a few months, then disappear. And I thought about it, and he was right. In the years I've been going to that gym there are maybe two or three people at most whom I've seen consistently. The rest, for whatever reason, come and then go. Maybe they move house, maybe they lose interest. It's always busier at the start of the year, I assume because lots of people make new years resolutions.
For the record, I first joined a gym, the RMIT gym, in early June of 1998. Since some time in 2000, I've been working out twice a week, with a few gaps whilst traveling or because of the aforementioned surgery. I've been a member of the NAARC gym for two stints, from 2000 till 2003 and then again from 2005 till now (wow that's a decade, I should get a prize). I've only belonged to four gyms in 17 years - RMIT, Brunswick, Southport in Port Melbourne and NAARC, although I have worked out in others, notably Gold's Gym in New York. Once I found a form of exercise that suited me, I've stuck at it!
Hooray for dogged persistence.
