Letter to the editor (Saturday 14 Oct.)

For the record, what I sent to them was:

While everybody is debating the merits (or lack) of the government’s new workplace reforms, I’d just like to ask what would have been wrong in putting a space between the words, ie. “Work Choices”?

Floriade

I’ve put up a photo album with pictures of our recent trip to Canberra. My bro was in town for some training and wanted to catch up with one of his mates in Canberra, and it just so happened that we wanted to go to the Floraide. So while Eddie was off doing whatever it was he ended up doing, we spent the day at the show and took a whole bunch of cool photos.

During the drive up and back, we were playing this game where we took the letters of the alphabet and tried to name as many famous people as possible, whose (first) names started with that letter. For example, for “A” you could say Angelina Jolie, Arthur Conan Doyle, Angie Hart, etc. The last person to be able to name a name was declared the winner of the round. Naturally, I was kicking ass. So anyway we were going on for a while, and then we got to “J”, and we went through the usual (Jennifer Lopez, Jacques Cousteau, etc.) and then Jenny let rip most emphatically with “Jack Migger!” Hehe… yeah, she suffers a mild case of spoonerisms.

Back to Floriade then. The weather was fantastic, and they had free entertainment. One of the performances was this weirdo troupe who balanced on wobbly sticks and swayed to and fro to old style music while doing pantomime-type stuff. It was pretty cool to watch, ‘coz they were interacting with the audience quite a lot too, plus the music was cool.

Enjoy the photos.

Can't blame a guy for trying

Ah yes, in the grand old tradition of capitalism (read: greed) I have finally succumbed to the menace of banner advertisements. My excuse is that the ads are being provided by Google, a company that includes “don’t be evil” as part of its madate, and that the proceeds are going towards f2o, the guys who are providing me with free hosting. Whatever helps me sleep at night, right?

(update: seems like this change will end up being good for a bit of amusement as well, seeing what kind of strange ads Google will serve up based on what I write. As I post this, the first ad in the column is “Edible insects”. Hahahaha…)

Closure

I was just reading my previous post about the laptop and I realised that if you’re actually bothering to follow my blog-life, I haven’t really provided any closure about that whole laptop affair, and closure is important to people with melancholic dispositions and the like. Without it they go crazy and get depressed and do silly things like listen to heavy metal music (or Celine Dion… I can’t decide which is worse).

Well since it’s getting a bit late and I have an early start tomorrow, I’ll keep it brief.

There was a whole debacle involving my debit card being billed twice, and then they took down my address wrong, so it was almost mis-delivered but for the vigilant actions of our most excellent mail staff. It’s a pity that none of them will be reading this blog, and also that none of them are in any position to help me boost my social, financial or any other status. Suffice to say I need not dwell too much longer on how great they are, ‘coz I’m not getting anything out of it.

Right. Ahem.

So yeah, at the time of writing, my dear Jenny is now the proud new owner of what must be the most sexy little black laptop ever, and I’m still awaiting the outcome of an escalation/complaint into why the heck my order was so stuffed up.

So there. Closure. (Well except for the bit about the escalation, but that’s what’s known in the industry as a cliffhanger, in order to trap you into coming back to find out what happens next. Mwahahahaha…)

Ugly food

I hate insects.

You can argue all you like about all kinds of interesting roles that these creepy buggers play in the ecosystem, but at the end of the day, all I care about is that they’re vile, disgusting things that do nothing but cause me grief (ok… with the exception of the army of ants that clean my kitchen of food scraps. I, for one, welcome our new ant overlords…)

Yesterday morning, I opened a pack of pasta that had been stored in my pantry only to find out that it had been infiltrated by a bunch of dead insects that were keen on a bit of Italian food. My yes, it was disgusting. Fortunately, I made the discovery by tipping the pasta into a pot of BOILING HOT WATER! Which brings us to today’s topic: ugly food.

Now you’re probably thinking "pasta isn’t ugly!" Oh my dear friends, how naive and innocent your puny little minds. I was talking about the insects. Yes, that’s right. Boiled insect. Nah, just kidding. Sort of. Ladies and gentlemen, what I’m talking about today is seafood.

Have you actually taken a look at your nearest lobster lately? I mean, what are crustaceans, if not just great bloody huge insects? If you thought pulling the wings off flies was bad, what about tearing off the leg of your friendly neighbourhood spider crab and having a bit of a munch? One of my workmates was just telling me about his recent experiences with drunken prawns: take 1 batch live prawns, 1 x cooking pot filled with alcohol and combine. Leave for a few minutes until the little suckers get shit-faced, and then rend their heads from their bodies while they are still in their inebriated stupor, and eat of their juicy, alcohol soaked flesh. Yum.

…NOT!

Don’t even get me started on shellfish.