Month: August 2003

Sic semper tyrannus! 🙂

A while back now there was a movie out. It’s not a movie I actually saw, I just caught the adds for it, played incessantly during prime time. It was some kind of chick flick featuring an ensemble cast playing a mother and her daughters or a bunch of sisters or a group of childhood friends or an exclusively female cult or something all coming to terms with their complex lives and relations with each other. You know the kind of thing, it usually stars either Sandra Bullock or Michelle Pfieffer.

Anyway, a recurrent theme in this movie (to judge by the adds) was one or other of the cast talking on the telephone, getting annoyed with the person on the other end, then repeatedly and viciously smashing the earpiece against a convenient table or benchtop. BASH! BASH! BASH! BASH!

The reason I mention this is that I’ve had the kind of week where screaming down the phone then smashing it against the desk until it broke into tiny little pieces would be a wonderful stress reliever. Regardless of whether there was someone on the other end or not.

I won’t go into details, all I really want to do is go to sleep and not wake up for… two or three months would probably do it. But suffice to say I’ve been working on one of those projects that’s so insanely massive that no matter how much effort you put in it never seems to get any smaller. And to make matters even worse, it’s got a completely non-negotiable deadline swooping down on me – talons extended – like a harpy eagle, and I’m an overworked keyboard monkey on an exposed branch.

As if this isn’t enough the client keeps adding minor changes – that is to say changes that appear minor (like changing the background colour of a page, or moving a heading by a few pixels) but in fact require hours of re-working. They’re so fiendishly devised to require the maximum amount of effort for minimum effect that I’m starting to suspect he’s in league with some sort of diabolical cadre of evil web designers committed to my ultimate downfall. Thoughts like this seem perfectly rational when you’re working ten hour days and drinking way to much Red Bull (ie: any at all).

Things really came to a head when I arrived at the office this morning at 8:00am. Someone usually turns up to disable the alarm system at about 8:15, but not today! I had to sit around outside until 9:02 before one of the sluggards we rent a room from decided to turn up. And I’d already had a Red Bull, so my usual casual and relaxed demeanor was coming under severe attack from frenzied legions of caffeine, taurine and glucuranolactone molecules. Needless to say, I was not a happy web designer.

So, if you haven’t heard from me for a while, and don’t hear from me before mid October, I’m not dead. I’m just horribly horribly overworked and strung out on cattle-urine derived amino acids. What a world! What a world!….

PS: I’m sure many people will have seen these rather unfortunate URLs by now, but hey, who am I to refuse a ride on the latest pop-cultural bandwagon?

http://www.powergenitalia.com
http://www.gotahoe.com
http://www.classicalbums.co.uk
http://www.ringtoneshits.com
http://www.expertsexchange.com

Oh what a difference a hyphen could make! 🙂

All right! I’m the number three listing on MSN search for “rose mcgowan navel pictures“!! ;-D

I had a pretty active day yesterday. Surprising isn’t it?

I went down to Freo. I had a vague idea of getting off the train at Fremantle station, having a bit of a wander around, then walking back to North Fremantle. You see I walked along the coast from North Fremantle to Cottesloe a few months back, and I quite like the idea of having walked the entire length from Fremantle up to Cottesloe. I also had vague plans of catching the train from North Fremantle to Cottesloe, getting off, and walking up to Swanbourne, then cutting inland to Claremont.

All of this of course was in aid of getting some exercise, so it’s highly ironic that I didn’t get any of it done at all and went to the new Maritime Museum instead 🙂

First of all though I headed down to the Esplanande and Fishing Boat Harbour. My usual route from the train station down to the Esplanade is via Henry Street. However this posed something of a problem, since the Moores Building is on Henry Street, and the Moores building is currently being managed by Lyndah (you know, her). And if there was an exhibition on, there was a chance she might be there, supervising things. And if she was there then she might conceivably see me going past. And she might then step out to say hi. Which would of course be insanely awkward.

So, I decided the sensible thing to do would be walk down Mouat Street instead. Then I decided that that was ridiculous, and I would walk down Henry Street. Then I panicked and headed down Mouat Street anyway. Then I decided that I was being stupid, and cut down High Street onto Henry Street. I triumphantly scuttled past the Moores Building on the opposite side of the road, and dashed out onto the Esplanade in a cold sweat.

So, Me – one: Crippling neuroses – about two hundred and fifty *g*.

After so successfully stuffing up something as simple as walking down a street I needed a drink. So, I cut across the rail lines to Fishing Boat Harbour and bought an apple and cranberry juice. Then I wandered around the Bather’s Beach/Rouse Head precinct reading historical plaques and things. I thought about heading up to the Round House, but there’s nothing there I haven’t seen a hundred times before, so I headed over towards the new Maritime Museum to have another look at the HMAS Ovens, the big-ass submarine they have sitting outside.

Unfortunately this plan was stymied by the fact that they’ve fenced it off. So I wandered arund to the front of the museum, and up a set of stairs to a large balcony they’ve got overlooking the harbour. There’s some pretty nice views up there, so I took some photos, particularly of the RAN ship a bit down the docks in the hopes that someone would arrest me as a terrorist. No luck though, so I came down again.

Then I checked out the admission price for the museum. It was only $10, and since any plan to walk up to North Fremantle was looking increasingly shaky I decided what the heck and went in.

It’s not bad overall. A lot of ships hanging in the air (including Australia II, which is surprisingly small really) and a whole bunch of historic artifacts. Particularly interesting is the Whaling gallery and WWII gallery up on the top floor, which includes a window looking out onto the Ovens. I spent about an hour and a half wandering around before deciding I’d seen everything I wanted to see, and heading back to Fishing Boat Harbour for lunch.

I went to Kailis Brothers, because there was a queue at Cicerellos. They’ve made some major changes since the last time I was there (which isn’t surprising since I haven’t been there in a good ten years). Now when you order and pay they give you a little electronic pager, which lights up and beeps when your food is ready. I did consider running away with it, but then I wouldn’t have had anything to eat *g*. Instead I just spent my time glaring at a man who grabbed one of the two vinegar bottles (clearly marked “please do not remove”) and took it back to his table. Bastard!

Eventually my chips and crab sticks were ready (I presume they probably contained some crab *g*) so I grabbed a seat and dug in. Then, my hunger satisfied, I wandered back to the train station (down Mouat Street since I no longer had anything to prove 😉 and came home, all thought of walking along the coast abandoned. Then I ironed some clothes for the week.

So, that was my Sunday. Apple and cranberry juice, domestic chores, maritime history, fish and chips and incipient paranoid psychosis. Not bad at all I think 😉

PS: I happened to catch the clip for Watch Out Boys by Magic Dirt on Rage the other day, and have one question. Adalita, will you please marry me? *g*

The Justin Timberlake poster I mean of course. In the scanner. Look, do you read this blog at all or what!?

So, yes I said I’d blog about something today, so I’d better follow through. For once 🙂 So I’m going to blog about Woolworths in Subiaco, and how evil they are.

Why are they evil? Because they short changed me $6.00, that’s why!

On Tuesday evening I stopped into Woolworths to do a bit of grocery shopping, as is often my wont as there’s a 15 minute gap between my bus arriving and train departing. I purchased two 3 litre bottles of orange juice, some Don’s English ham (Is Don. Is Good.), a loaf of bread, a bag of jelly babies (which I didn’t intend to buy, they just lept into my basket), a set of coloured pencils (because I need to colour in some photocopied maps) and a pencil sharpener (for the pencils naturally). Grand total $23.26.

At the checkout (the first 12 items or less line to the right of the cigarette counter) I was served by a short brunette girl named (according to her badge anyway) Leah. She scanned and packed all my goods extremely effaciously, and I gave her one ten dollar note, and one twenty. She gave me 75c change.

Lets just run that over shall we? Ten dollars plus twenty dollars is thirty dollars, minus twenty three dollars and twenty five cents (rounded down from twenty six because the government won’t let us use one and two cent coins anymore because of the general copper shortage*) is six dollars and seventy five cents. So what the heck happened to my 6 dollars?!?!?

When Leah poured the change into my hand I thought it seemed a little light, but my inate social awkwardness provoked me to get away as soon as possible. So it wasn’t until I made it outside and double checked the docket that I realised there were three small gold coins missing from the pile. What a gyp!

I suppose I should have marched straight back in and demanded my money, but that would have taken time, and effort, and all sorts of messing around and demanding to speak to the manager and so forth, so I decided to chalk it up to karma and let it slide. Either that or shoplift $6.00 worth of items next time I’m in there *g*.

But if anyone would like to phone up the manager (P. Nahas – 9388 3199 local, 08 9388 3199 interstate, 61 8 9388 3199 international 😉 and either abuse or bewilder him on my behalf, please feel free! 🙂

So, what else can I blog about? Well, I found this page quite amusing. It’s a review of the game Blood Rayne by some Bulgarian guy. I stumbled across it tracking down some of my search engine rankings, zero points for spotting the similarity between his review and the Wyrmlog *g*.

(OK, it starts with the line “Mom made me a….pervert” but stick with it 🙂

I was also amused by this. I mean who wouldn’t willingly race into battle backed up by the theme from Match of the Day? 🙂

Ah, what else? Oh, the trains. Apparently some idiot decided to cross the tracks at West Leederville and (predictably) got totally cleaned up by an oncoming commuter train. Or at least that’s what I overheard on the 7:15 Fremantle service this morning. I don’t see any reason to doubt it, people are stupid.

That’ll do for now 🙂

PS: Criminal Intent is back. Yey! (It’s the poor man’s CSI you know)

Well, that was fun. Turns out that the trains aren’t running for some reason (I don’tknow what that reason may be yet, but I’m going to watch the ABC news to find out – thephrase ‘commuter chaos’ is almost certain to be used). So I had to get a bus home.

Happily though it turned out that I could get a bus from Subiaco train station straight toMercy (that is Mercy Hospital which is just round the corner – I like to call it ‘Mercy’because it makes me feel like I’m living in an episode of ER :). And I was only 15minutes late home, not too shoddy!

Anyway, I’ve got a fair bit of stuff to blather on about tonight, so I might as well getstarted. I’m going to rant on about a somewhat controversial issue here, so anyone whomight be upset or offended should probably skip on to the bit about my referrer logs(although I would prefer people to read what I have to say, I wrote it after all).

It’s about the Prime Minister. He’s annoying me again. He pretty much annoys me on adaily basis, but from time to time he does something particularly annoying and I have norecourse but to get absolutely p’d off. Like his statement yesterday on gay marriages. Iquote…

OK, I’m not going to mount an argument here in defence of legalising gay marriage. Forthe record I’m in favour of it. I can see no reason why committed gay and lesbian couplesshouldn’t have the same rights and protections available to heterosexual couples. Somepeople may agree with me, some may not, that’s not what this is about. What this is aboutis our Prime Minister being either terminally stupid, or blatantly deceptive.

Why do I say this? Because his so called ‘argument’ is completely and utterly flawed.

Let’s have a look at it logically. According to the PM, the purpose of marriage is theproduction of children, the perpetuation of the species – therefore since gay couples can’tproduce offspring, they shouldn’t be allowed to marry. Fair enough.

Except that if the only reason gay couples shouldn’t be allowed to marry is that they can’tproduce offspring, then a whole lot of other people shouldn’t be able to get married either.A whole lot of straight people.

Let’s see. Post-menopausal women for a start. Men with a low sperm count. People – ofeither sex – who’ve come down with a variety of cancers either directly affecting thereproductive organs or that have required aggressive radiation therapy. People born withcongenital defects of the reproduction system. People with other fertility problems. Peoplewho choose – for whatever reasons – not to have children. If these people can’t orwon’t reproduce, why should they be allowed to get married?

Now, you may say that that’s taking things to a ridiculous extent. But the point is that thatkind of thing has happened in the past, and it continues to happen.Typically in particularly Catholic countries in south and central America. There have beennumerous cases in recent years of couples being refused marriage licenses because one ofthe partners (nine times out of ten the woman of course) is judged physically incapable ofproducing offspring. So, they can’t get married. And what makes it worse is that the kindof societies in which this kind of thing happens are innately conservative – living togetherwithout being married is out of the question – so there’s no way for these people (peoplewho care about each other enough to want to get married) to be together. If you ask me, that’s completely monsterous, and it’s all because of precisely the line of reasoning put forth by our PM.

Would John Howard support implementation of that sort of policy here I wonder? It’s onlylogical.

The point is, that if we allow people, any people, who can’t have children to get married, then marriage cannot by reason of simple example be about about popping out kids. And indeed it’s not. It’s about two people – people who care about each other – making a commitment to each other, and having that commitment accepted, recognised and celebrated by their community. If they have kids, great. If they don’t, then that should in no way invalidate their feelings for each other or affect their status in society.

If Mr Howard has a logically defensible objection to gay marriage, I’d be willing to hearhim out (I seriously doubt he could convince me to change my mind, but it would at least be polite to listen). But I am not willing to accept such a clearly flawed, faulty and downrightridiculous argument. I mean even Peter Costello’s (the Treasurer) comment (that marriage is defined as a relationship between a man and a woman and therefore gay or lesbianrelationships cannot constitute marriages) makes more sense from a logical perspective.

There are only two reasonable conclusions from Mr Howard’s comments. The first is thatthe leader of our nation is incapable of following through the simple logical consequencesof his own arguments. The second is that he’s lying about his reasons for opposing gaymarriages. I leave it up to the reader to decide which.

(By the way, once logical arguments are exhausted, one may fall back on moral or religiousreasoning. I’m not going to argue that. If a particular religion wants to prohibit certainbehaviors or withhold certain of its services from certain groups of people, that’s its right. You can’t stop people from believing stupid things, and no one has to belong to a religion after all. But no one’s talking about making any changes to any religions. The issue is civil ceremonies.)

Now, if the PM has a religious objection, then he should come out and say it – and acceptany consequences – not hide behind a screen of blatantly false logic. But after all he’s apolitician, so why should we expect any better from him? 🙁

OK, rant over, on to my referrer logs 🙂

My favourite over the last few weeks has been “animated floating grain elevator”. Ihonestly cannot even begin to comprehend why someone might search for such a thing. Ican’t even begin to comprehend what such a thing might even be. But much moresurprising is three separate queries that seem to follow a common theme. Specifically”vigo mortenson email address”, “phone number of Liv Tyler” and “Jorja Fox’s house”.Well, quite clearly the Wyrmlog has somehow become the number one destination foronline celebrity stalking.

Now I don’t object to this, any traffic is good traffic, but c’mon people! If I had Liv Tyler’sphone number do you think I’d be posting it on my weblog? And do you think she’d bekeeping that phone number for very long? Honestly! 🙂

(And more seriously, what kind of idiot thinks they’d be able to find that kind of infoonline anyway? Sheeze!)

Hmmmm, I’m sure I had more to talk about. Just all ranted out I guess. Oh well, maybe I’llwrite something tomorrow then 🙂

Over and out!

PS: Damn ABC news – no mention of the trains at all! Useless!

THE SCANNER!!!!! 🙂

Why I didn’t look there in the first place is completely beyond me 🙂

Well, once again it’s been a while between entries. This is down to me being sick, depressed, and busy at work trying to make up for the time I’ve spent being sick and or depressed. Worked ten hours yesterday, just plain brutal it was. And I’ve got a GURPS campaign to run *sigh*.

But anyway I’m back, with lots to write about. And lots of emails to write to people, which I should get done tomorrow. I hope 🙂

So, to start off with, the season finale of Charmed. Concerning which I have only one question…

WHAT!?!?!!?

They broke up Leo and Piper? Then KILLED Leo? What kind of drugs are the writers on? I mean the whole second half of the episode was like a bad fanfic! Even down to the dialogue! I dunno, maybe they’ve started raiding fanfic for plot ideas. It’s a real shame too, because up to that point things were going pretty well for a late series episode. Cataclysmic end-of-the-world stuff, lots of references to classical mythology, and a villain played by…. whatsisname, Eddie Fiori/Alien Bounty Hunter/Stupid Terminator Street Punk number Three – yeah him, Yahoots Magoondi. And then they go and do that to us. Bastards!

Mind you there was one slightly off note in part one, the name of that female Titan. Anyone who knows even a little Latin does not want to watch some guy snogging a girl and then calling her “Mater”*At least outside of a David Lynch film 😉. I mean, urrgh! OK, the ancient Greeks had some weird approaches (by our standards) to family relationships, but that’s no excuse. That character definitely should have had a different name! Urrgh!

But yeah. They killed Leo. Boo!!!!

In other TV news though I happened to discover that Stargate is back on. Hooray!*It’s best if you imagine this in the voice of the little man driving the multi-axeled car in the Whacking Day episode of The Simpsons

Yeah, like that 😉. Of course, Channel 7 (in their infinite wisdom) have put it on at 9:30 on Thursday night, meaning that I can either watch it, or be sufficiently awake to go to work on Friday. So, obviously I’m taping it. I watched it last night after work, completely forgetting that there were new episodes of Jonathan Creek on the ABC – I was rather annoyed about that 😐

Anyway, after Stargate it turned out that there was an episode of Angel -you know, the Buffy spin off? Since I didn’t feel particularly like going to bed once Stargate was over I decided to watch a bit of it. Needless to say (never having seen an episode before in my life) I had no idea who anyone was or what was going on (some previously decapitated woman had come back from hell to inform Angel and his associates that they were inheriting an evil law firm as a reward for inadvertently destroying world peace, huh?) so got bored and turned off after about 15 minutes. But I was struck by two things.

Firstly – Does that theme music rock or what? I mean, this eerily moaning gothic violin (with cello backbeat in the best tradition of Bach) followed up by a semi-techno remix and finished up with a desolate, fading piano scale. It’s as good as the theme from Kindred.

Secondly – One of the guys Angel hangs around with appears to be some kind of demon. Green, scaly skin, little horns, bad eighties suits, the works (there was a shot of him in the credits performing on a stage – an obvious rip-off of Blake’s Ghost of a Flea ;-). Now I don’t have a problem with that (you see stranger things on Charmed each week), but this guy seems to be wandering around in broad daylight with no-one noticing. C’mon, what would your reaction be if you say a scaly green demon in a Tom Cruise Cocktail style combo walking down the street? You’d run off screaming, or at least grab for the holy water. I presume there’s some kind of magical explanation, but still.

Anyway, speaking of denizens of the underworld it turns out that my ten year high school reunion is tonight. I would have written about this sooner, except I only found out on Monday when Fabian called to say he’d been given the invites for our group. He would have had them earlier, except the girl responsible had delivered them to the wrong address. Hmmmmm.

I have to admit that I’m suspicious about this. The Geeks only get their invitations a week out from the event? Sounds almost like some kind of deliberate plot… 😉

But seriously. I don’t really mind the possibly of missing the reunion. I can honestly say that at no point in the last ten years have I actually thought about it without either snorting in derision or shuddering with horror. No, what I’m annoyed about is missing the opportunity to send an RSVP.

Call it symptomatic of an unhealthy obsession with high school*C’mon, you show me a geek who hasn’t got an unhealthy obsession with highschool 🙂, but for the last few years I’ve been entertaining myself (from time to time) with thoughts of exactly how I’d reply when the invitation to the ten year reunion plonked down on my doorstep. I could ignore it of course, but I figured it would be much more fun to send back some kind of bitter diatribe. You know, really confuse and freak out the person responsible for compiling the guest list. Something like this…

Now that would be classic! 🙂 But once again cruel fate has denied me the opportunity to wreak havoc on the unsuspecting minds of my former associates. Oh well, I’ll just have to wait until the 20 year reunion. Roll on 2013!

Who knows, I might have a life then and actually attend 😉

So, tonight I’ll be playing around with my brand new Raster 250k CD (the entire Australian 1:250000 scale topographic map series on CD – hey, I don’t give you grief about your weird interests 🙂 and reading my brand new signed copy of Terry Dowling’s Rynosseros (thanks for the tipoff Ryan).

Geek Central over and out!