Pondering: the "thoughts" of Barnaby Joyce

What kind of thoughts are we talking about here exactly Senator?



(Yes I know this is a little childish, but he said it on Lateline the other night and I couldn't let it slip by)

Asking: for your Movember support

I mentioned earlier in the month that I'm growing a moustache to raise money for Men's Health during Movember and I'd like to take the opportunity to ask for your donations/sponsorship/cash now.



As you can see, it's coming along - I look slightly more dodgy every day and I've apparently been providing no small degree of amusement to those who know me. (Which I'm fine with).

Anyways, it is a worthy cause - it focuses largely on research into mental health and prostate cancer as well as generally just encouraging men to be more involved in their well-being.

If you're in the neighbourhood, I'm happy to take money off you directly or you can just click on this button to do it online.



cheers and thanks

LOLing: webstuff

Len pointed me towards a LOLcats and PostSecret mashup kind of site, obviously known as lolsecretz. If you were wondering, LOLcats are the cat pictures with cute, semi-literate (because we all know cats can't spell very well in spite of their general sense of superiority) and PostSecret is a sort of public confessional.

This was a fave image from the site



Something else that I found online today was a comment about the whole Jackie Kelly Muslim pamphlet thing (which I'm loving, I might add - as soon as I heard her on the radio this morning trying to claim it was a Chaser style prank, I knew it would be a good day).

It was an observation really, that if you take the term Liberals and Nationals, you get an anagram of "Lies and no brains at all"

2 more sleeps.

Watching: Election videos on YouTube

These are variously funny, over the top, clever and slightly off - often all in the one. Still, I like the fact that people are able to creatively express themselves about these issues and publish it to the world - ideas-wise, this is a good time.

I found these all via the Unleashed section of the ABC website, which is a very interesting collection of rants and raves about election issues. (Check out anything by the resident Colonel Blimp-esque right wing ranter and Howard biographer David Barnett if you get the chance - unintentional comedy gold)

(Update: Barnett's latest column on Unleashed includes this pearler of a line, which I assume is unintentional -

But he doesn't need to worry about the challenge of the holders of temporary visas working in the sex industry. The Minister for Immigration Kevin Andrews, if he gets time before Saturday will root out the holders of temporary visas from the sex industry, including those working in legal brothels.

This first one has become a bit of a favourite target for parody, the video piracy message they stick on the start of all those dvds you pay good money for, only to be made to feel like a common thief.



We move into the longest string of cricket terms as sex puns I've ever seen. Throw in John and Janette getting down for some wrinkly sex and The Don and it's everything you wish you had never thought of before.



Noisy spruiker style message which runs slightly too long about our obsession with the economy and materialism. Tiny bit preachy but a strong underlying idea.

Writing: gags for radio

Well I said I was considering it last week and I actually pulled out the pen and had a go at writing some fake (and hopefully funny) news stories last night while I was doing the show. (Monday Sunset on 2XX, 98.3fm Canberra 4-6pm)

I'd been toying with one of the ideas during the week but the rest was pretty well made up on the spot in response to news stories on the Yahoo7 website (the only local news source that isn't blocked on the studio computer.)

Unlike last week, delivery came out fairly well, very straight down the line and hopefully a few people got a giggle or two.

I wasn't organised enough to arrange a recording but maybe next time. The stories were generally prefaced with - "turning now to Monday Sunset news"

Workplace Relations minister Joe Hockey today announced that 70% of all trade union officials are in fact evil killer robots sent back in time from the future to harvest our organs. When asked if this was just a desperate attempt to scare voters, he replied "You're one of them,aren't you - everybody run"

(In the initial, read-out version, the robots planned to "steal our kittens" but I think this reads better. I also toyed with "kill Bindi Irwin" in there as well but I thought it would need someone cuter and more universally loved.)

Greens Senator Bob Brown last night announced on Rove Live that he would turn straight for Missy Higgins. Missy Higgins announced that she was gay and she likes Bob "as a friend"

A report from the Department of Prime Miniature and Cabinet today confirmed that the government spent nearly $200 million dollars on advertising in the last financial year. Opposition spokeswoman for public administration and accountability, Penny Wong, said that the government would have benefited more from buying 200 million gags for Tony Abbott and Alexander Downer.

Labor I.T spokesman Stephen Conroy today announced that a Rudd government will censor the internet to fight cyberbullying using a sophisticated filtering system. Terms that will be automatically blocked include beep, beep, beep and earwax.

The Liberal Party has been asked to "please explain" why they are giving preferences to One Nation in a number of NSW seats in spite of a 2001 pledge to put that party last. Fresh from a weekend bonding with the Korean and Chinese communities of Bennelong, John Howard said - I'm not a racist, but...

Joe Hockey quickly interjected, asking journalists if they were aware that 70% of trade union officials are actually killer robots sent back in time from the future...

Two of the finalists of Australian Idol have backed away from claims
that the song they will release as Idol winner is... no, wait, my apologies, that's not news, that's trivia.

(Actually, in the back of my mind I'm wondering if I just unconsciously borrowed that from Newstopia)

Buying: a mattress

While it may appear from the title that I've bottomed out in the blogging topic stakes, this is hopefully a little more interesting than you might think.

The PC and I have had some bedding issues for a little while now - I'm a futon man, liking the firmness whereas she much prefers a softer bed. This has meant that neither of us has ever slept really well in the other's bed and well then you get the tiredness and then the crankiness and so on and so forth.

It struck me that if they can put the internet on your fridge (never quite figured out why though) then there must be a technological solution to this issue as well. (As much as a bed might be considered technology)

Working out how to search for it was the main problem - "different sided bed"? Fortunately, just trying the mattress makers directly brought up the solution - I'm not so much the corporate shill so I'm not going to name names (well not without some kind of financial inducement) but suffice to say after a little more research and a trip out to Canberra's bedding heart (for a number of reasons) - Fyshwick and a fair bit of lying down, a solution has been found.

The mattress in question comes in four firmnesses (as in the top image) and there were 3 options for what it's made off. Standard innerspring (cheaper, cooler and firmer), latex (better for allergies and more form-fitting) and this funky air-inflated thing that you can change settings on with a little individual remote control (see, there is a technological solution). So now my half is a 4 and the PC has a 2.



One of their promotional images on the website interested me on a few levels. The cat looks a lot like a very friendly cat that lives in the neighbourhood and comes to visit from time to time (we know him as the Ginger Ninja) and the other part is the questionable use of a Godfather reference in the horses head in the bed thing. (I'm sure it's meant to represent a whole horse but still... :)

Anyways, having decided to lash out on the mattress, we've also decided to supersize it to a kingsize, which means that a new base and sheets etc are also in order. Hmm, it's all starting to feel rather grown-up.

Looking for: omens

About 200 metres from The Lodge (official but generally unused residence of the Prime Miniature of Australia) there is a stench that will "outlast religion" (thanks to Kenny for that one)

It's the smell of death - in particular a road-killed kangaroo that's been there for a few weeks now - and even though it's a rancid thing to ride past every day at my 15 or 16kmh (it's on a slope), I've been able to spin the experience by taking it as a sign of the last days of the Howard government.

So okay, we've got the smell of death between John Howard's house and Parliament but beyond that, isn't it a bit of a stretch? Well maybe but hear me out.

A couple of years ago, in a bid to make sure that noone ever made the mistake of not knowing where every last little porkbarrelled government service came from, our Johnny rebadged (at no small expense) every government department with the very prominent Australian coat of arms featuring an emu and a kangaroo.

Interestingly the kangaroo appears on the left of the coat of arms and in a last ditch bid to make himself appealing to "all Australians" (a.k.a the people he promised to govern for in 1996), Howard has been trying to drag his tired old frame to the left - discovering a magic new support for Aboriginal reconciliation, embracing the socialised health system Medicare that he'd previously pledged to "sink the knife into and destroy it for once and for all" and promising to dole out welfare payments (to the middle-class and rich at least) like there's no tomorrow.

Now let me draw a slightly longer bow here just to enhance my point - John Howard is a self-described cricket tragic and you get the feeling that given the chance, he'd probably jump the decaying bones of former Australian cricket captain Don Bradman. Captain is also sometimes known as the skipper and Skippy was a popular 1960's tv show about - you guessed it - a kangaroo.



Given that Howard has managed to drag Labor leader Kevin Rudd to the right, presumably that makes him the emu (if this whole thing is going to work.)

Spooky huh?

(I really have a lot of time to think about crap on my morning bike ride :)

Exploring: My bookcase (Part 3)

It's been a little while between drinks but here's the latest installment of exploring my bookcase. (Ta daaaa)

Talking about drinks, Last Drinks is a cracker of a read from one of Oz's most interesting authors of recent years, Andrew McGahan. He kicked off with Praise, the epitome of northern slackerdom, in 1992 which was made into a beautifully bleak film in 2000 with a soundtrack by Dirty 3. Moved on to an equally impressive followup in 1995 with the book 1988, a tale of two lads manning an isolated weather station in the Top End.

He's also written a historical saga type thing set on a crumbling Queensland farm (White Earth) and a crackingly funny and biting action satire of Australia in The War Against Terror in Underground. (Download a sample chapter here - it's well worth it)


Last Drinks is in another category again - much more the old-school crime/detective type novel. This is the cover blurb

It's a decade since the infamous Inquiry into corruption tore the state of Queensland apart. But for George Verney, disgraced journalist and bit-player in the great scandals of his day, the Inquiry has never quite finished. After ten years of self-imposed exile, drawn by the terrible death of a man who was his friend, he reluctantly returns to Brisbane, the city of his downfall. In a town he no longer recognises and through an underworld that has forgotten him, George must seek out the other hidden survivors of his times, to confront the truth about their common past, and to find a way to let the dead rest in peace.

There's not really much to say about this book - I really enjoyed it - I enjoyed it's use of language, the vibe it set, learning more about the sleazier parts of Brisbane and just generally getting drawn in to a cracking story.





The next two books, I have to admit, I haven't gotten around to reading yet. I'm not even 100% sure where they came from - probably borrowed though I have a recollection of gathering up a few books from a pile left on a nature strip in one of the "nice" suburbs of Sydney which is where I think the Kate Grenville might have come from.

I haven't read anything by these authors either, though I did see a half-decent stalker/relationship movie based on an Ian McEwan book (Enduring Love) which was interesting enough.

The next four books are parts 3-6 of the Harry Potter series (septilogy?). You may have heard of these books, I'm not sure - they're about a boy wizard, his wand and his relationship with his gay headmaster. :)



On top of these books is the manual for my Samsung Z140 mobile phone - a very generous gift from my friend Buj - who preferred to keep her current phone when she changed plans and they threw in a freeby upgrade.

I like a good manual when I get a new toy - uh, device. I'll go through it cover to cover and play with every feature and function and then promptly forget about 90% of them.



To the right of this is the travel scrabble - I love a good word game, particularly one with tiny tiny pieces that stick together magnetically

Finally, we have the badminton shuttlecocks. Badminton is a great game (generally a bit crap outside if there's more than a skerrick of wind) - it's fast, requires a certain finesse and involves things flying about.

It's just a little unfortunate that the equipment has such an odd name (which appeals to my slightly juvenile side). Wikipedia (I suspect I came across it in between better edits) doesn't really help here -

The name shuttlecock is frequently shortened to shuttle. The abbreviation cock is rarely used except in a jocular sense, due to its vulgar connotations. The "shuttle" part of the name was probably derived from its back-and-forth motion during the game, resembling the shuttle of a loom; the "cock" part of the name was probably derived from the resemblance of the feathers to a bird's cock.

Listening: Muyngarnbi - Songs from Walking with Spirits

My friend Jerry put me on to this fairly unusual cd when he came back from one of his many trips to the top end a couple of weeks back - it's a kind of fusion thing featuring "western" instrumentals with Aboriginal singing.

The blurb on the Skinnyfish music website (where you can also listen to one of the tracks) has this to say:

Producers Tom E. Lewis and Michael Hohnen have brought together the songs senior songmen in a ground breaking stylistic development, in which the songmen have relinquished their didjeridu to work with gypsy, rhumba, jazz and rock influences that provide a dynamic contemporary platform for traditional formats.

I'm not sure exactly what the relationship is but it appears to have something to do with the Walking with Spirits arts festival, which is held in June up at the Mulkgulumbu (Beswick) Falls






Looks like a pretty cool event.

As for the music, I have to say that it's some of the most intriguing stuff I've ever heard. The vocals have a kind of alien (yet familiar), primal quality that's a little hypnotic at times. Sometimes it meshes perfectly with the more familiar instrumental sounds, sometimes it completely overwhelms it - and can be hard to take in. There's a wide range of instrumental styles on the album - my knowledge of the vocal styles is a little more scant but these seem to shift from track to track as well.

Definitely a grower - but engaging right from the beginning.

If you're in Canberra, I'll play a fair few tracks on Lost Highway (2XXfm - 98.3) on Thursday night (9.30 to 11pm)

Considering: fake news comedy for the radio show

The routine of doing the radio show has been getting to me a little of late - play a few tracks, read a few community announcements, play the same promo packages week in & out, do the weather , cross to the BBC world news and so on - it's all a little same same to be honest.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not thinking about packing it in, I've just been getting a little stale.

So last night I tossed in my own news story at the end of the news break - it didn't come out exactly as well as I'd planned it in my head and so I backtracked almost as soon as I'd finished (according to the PC), basically saying that it hadn't gone as well as I'd meant (which really is something that I need to stop doing - people can make up their own minds as to how good something like that is).

It went something like this:

And turning to local news, Prime Minister John Howard today announced that if re-elected, he will give every little girl in Australia a pony.

Just a little throwaway line for amusement's sake but I'm thinking that this could be a good way to bring a little more fun to the show - maybe one of these or a fake community announcement (always read deadpan) in each talking break.

I had been thinking that I'd like to get a serialised radio play going but that's a much bigger endeavour.

Anyways, if there's anyone out there who fancies their wit, feel free to leave any suggestions for "stories" in here and I'll read it out. (legal stuff allowing, of course)

Considering: learning to type Dvorak

Dvorak is a layout for keyboard keys that was devised in the 1930s by Dr Augustus Dvorak as an alternative to the traditional Qwerty layout. (Look at your keyboard now, see how the top row spells out qwerty)



I came across this really nifty webcomic the other day at dvzine.org that tells the whole story of the Dvorak layout and how the original Qwerty one came about and all the good reasons for making the switch. (Unfortunately, the dvzine site appears to have exceeded their bandwidth allowance for the moment after being mentioned in Boing Boing but I'm sure if you check in a little while it'll be back up)

Anyway, in essence, the Dvorak layout came about as a more efficient way of typing.
(Apparently the top row of the Qwerty layout was designed to have all the letters of the word "typewriter" to make life easier for typewriter salesmen in the 19th century)

These are just a few of the advantages (thanks Wikipedia):

* Letters should be typed by alternating between hands.
* For maximum speed and efficiency, the most common letters and digraphs should be the easiest to type. This means that they should be on the home row, which is where the fingers rest, and under the strongest fingers.
* The least common letters should be on the bottom row, which is the hardest row to reach.
* The right hand should do more of the typing, because most people are right-handed.
* digraphs should not be typed with adjacent fingers.
* Stroking should generally move from the edges of the board to the middle. An observation of this principle is that, for many people, when tapping fingers on a table, it is easier going from little finger to index than vice versa. This motion on a keyboard is called inboard stroke flow.

Evidently as it makes your typing more efficient, you can become faster and cut down on RSI as well. Still, it's a whole new system to learn, so I'm a little undecided right now.

There are settings in Windows, Mac OS and Linux that allow you to change the keyboard layout (which, come to think of it would just be a good prank generally - if you were of such a mischievous nature) but you'd still want to do something about the physical letters on the keyboard if you aren't a super touch-typist.

Maybe I'll see how easy it is to swap the keys around and what kind of online tutorials are available.

Enjoying: Frank Hurley penguin picture

This is a great picture taken on a Mawson expedition to the South Pole between 1911 and 1913 by the legendary Australian photographer Frank Hurley.

The title - and they really went to town on titles back in the day - is:

This Camera Caricature Shows Some Moulting Adelies Which Have Become Cluttered Up With Snow during a Blizzard

LOLing: Newstopia clip - politicians and body language

There's - uh - quite a bit of swearing in this clip - but it's piss funny :)

Enjoying: old Planet of the Apes action figure ads

These are just slightly before my time but growing up with action figures (not dolls :) , I can relate. The Planet of the Apes series of films - particularly as you get further into the series and they just get weirder and darker - are well worth a look too. (Start out with the first film - Planet of the Apes - for context and make sure you see Conquest of the Planet of the Apes, which has this whole apes as slaves in the 1990s thing going on. )

Making: a game about how to play games

Getting very meta with this one but as part of the previously mentioned game, I realised that there are a lot of people out there who have never played 3D games before and who could use a bit of detailed instruction.

This is the first part of the "how to play 3D games" game. (As ever, made in FPS Creator and recorded using Fraps)

Updating: the second lamest FPS ever

Been putting in a little work on a game that I mentioned earlier - to be honest though, a lot of the work has involved learning how tricky it is to use the no-doubt practical but confusing FPS Creator software. There are thousands of forum posts in the community with handy advice but searching is tricky as when you put in a query that gets more than 100 results, it says that there are too many results to display.

Anyways, this update adds more game elements to it - rules, challenges, goals and competition. Gotta press on now, still need to put something more substantial together for the how-to-play-the-game game.

Growing: A moustache for Movember

This is perhaps one of my slacker posts, it's largely about me not shaving a portion of my face and cutting and pasting some content from the Movember website because they tell it better than I do. Anyways, here goes.

During Movember (the month formerly known as November) I'll be growin a Mo. That's right I'm bringing the Mo back because I'm passionate about changing men's health and the fight against male depression and prostate cancer. Why...

* Depression affects 1 in 6 men...Most don't seek help. Untreated depression is a leading risk factor for suicide.
* Last year in Australia 18,700 men were diagnosed with prostate cancer and more than 2,900 died of prostate cancer - equivalent to the number of women who die from breast cancer annually.
* Men are far less healthy than women. The average life expectancy of males is 5 years less than females.

To sponsor my Mo please go to http://www.movember.com/au/donate, enter my registration number which is 139517 and your credit card details. Or you can sponsor me by cheque made payable to the "Movember Foundation" clearly marking the donation as being for my Registration Number: 139517. Please mail cheques to: PO Box 292, Prahran VIC 3181. All donations over $2 are tax deductible. I'm also more than happy to take cash off your hands directly and sort out the paperwork guff for you

The money raised by Movember is donated to the Prostate Cancer Foundation of Australia and beyondblue - the national depression initiative, which will use the funds to create awareness, fund research and increase support networks for those men who suffer from prostate cancer and male depression.

For those that have supported Movember in previous years you can be very proud of the impact it has had and can check out the detail at: Fundraising Outcomes.

So far the mo is coming along fairly nicely, only five days and it's pretty apparent already.

Looking forward to: Dollhouse (from Joss Whedon)

Joss Whedon has done a lot a great things for pop culture in the last 15 or so years - from Buffy the Vampire Slayer to Toy Story to Angel to Firefly and a bunch of other geekosphere stuff.

Good news is that he has a new show coming up called Dollhouse, starring Eliza Dushku - Faith from Buffy (you know, the hotter, bad-girl slayer).

This is the gist of it.

In Dollhouse, Dushku plays a young woman named Echo; one of a group of men and women who can be neurally imprinted with "personality packages"; encompassing things such as memory, muscle memory, skills, and language. Sheltered in a secret futuristic dormitory/laboratory named the "Dollhouse"; these individuals are imprinted with customized personas for performing any of a wide variety of assignments—that can be romantic, adventurous, outlandish, illegal, etc.—and mind-wiped into a child-like state with no memories after completing an assignment. The series follows Echo as she begins to develop a persistent memory and self-awareness across imprints and wipes.

hurrah.

Reserving judgment on: The Librarians

The first episode of any tv comedy is always the hardest - you need to make an impression straight away but you also have to establish all of your characters, your underlying storylines and hopefully throw in a few killer gags as well. A good part of the humour in many shows comes from character traits (though preferably not catch-phrases, which are generally lazy comic short-cuts in my book) that need to be establised over a number of weeks.

For this reason, it's hard to make a call on last nights opening episode of The Librarians. (You can watch the whole thing online here)

The main word that comes to mind is low-key, which I guess works thematically with the whole library thing but I got the sense that it was only a step or two away from timid.

Which is interesting as one of the key themes that emerged was the head librarian's darkly cheery anti-Muslim racism. The fact that this was largely accepted by the other library staff I think was meant to suggest that they are all cowed by her and afraid to speak up but there really wasn't anything to suggest why they might find her scary (other than the fact that they're all, well, rather timid).

A few of the characters veered pretty close to 2D stereotype - now I think that an essential part of good comedy is exaggeration but this is something to be careful with too. The tarty good-time girl with the gangster boyfriend is one to watch here.

The main point of the episode was - as you would expect - establishing the characters and their relationships and setting up the introduction of a new character. Not much going on in terms of story though there was a hint that things might be building. To be honest, few of the characters really stood out - though not surprisingly, Bob Franklin did well with his moments on screen and Wayne Hope enjoyed a flashback cameo having an American Beauty shower moment. There were actually a lot of flashbacks now that I think about it - being the first ep this makes a certain amount of sense.

Stylistically, it has promise and will hopefully hit it's stride by the 2nd or 3rd.

Looking forward to: The Librarians

The new show tonight taking the slot from the highly overrated Summer Heights High on the ABC looks like a beauty.

It's called The Librarians and the website is well worth a look - rather schmick and full of nice book related gags. I'm leaning towards "Nothing can so easily transport you to a far away land as a book or a mental imbalance" - which appears to come from the character played by Bob Franklin, one of Oz's best comedy imports ever.



It kicks off tonight at 9.30 on the ABC