May 2009 – Wyrmlog

The Herd – 2020

Some more lyrics for y’all

Among doing other things today I tried to look up the lyrics to the Herd’s song 2020. As is often the case in this degenerate age, the versions of the lyrics I found were awful – seemingly transcribed by hearing impaired meth addicts. I was faced with no option but to transcribe them myself.

So here is a semi-decent version of 2020. Words and phrases I’m unsure of have been placed in brackets, and I’ve written out all numbers to make it clear how they’re pronounced. Enjoy!

(Oh, there’s a bit of adult language in there, so be warned)

The Herd – 2020

It’s not as if you didn’t get the warning,
You got the transcripts and recordings,
History has a way of signing us up in the morning,
If you’re a late starter make it easy to ignore it,
Later not recall it,

Yeah, you had unfettered access to the facts,
But the fact is your back is turned to the Atlas,
Looking like (jumping) in the grass,
Just to help you make your mind up,
Unknowingly the young sign up,

The enemy of our enemy is still our enemy,
So why were you (harming and resisting) insanity,
That’s how the Taliban began,
(But you’ve mostly) turn around,
And aim their weapons at Americans,

How’s it feel to be a widow-maker,
Taker of the father of the family,
Your tragedy is (playing),
That’s the stakes that scoff at the Saigon link,
Flash those pearlies, take us way past the brink,

And we you knew you were frauds,
Onwards we went to war,
Nothing could be said to promise you,
We’d already seen it before,

Someone could’a told you it’d end like this,
They did, you didn’t listen, you can take a trip,
Lookin’ back twenty-twenty, mistakes I got many,
And the truth is that I’d probably do it again,

No-one could have ever half sway your mind,
We’ve been there before but it’s not that time,
Lookin’ back twenty-twenty, mistakes I got many,
And the truth is that I’d probably do it again

There’s something familiar,
’bout that story you told me,
The way that you mouthed it,
It’s not what you sold me,

Well yes I’m one of many,
Yet you ignored the signs,
You made it personal,
Don’t spin me them lies,

Sir, you can’t relax,
’cause it occurred on your watch,
History will judge you,
’cause you’re all that we’ve got,

Is anyone listening?
Are you f**king insane?
Am I twisted, watching as it plays out again?

And the truth is we knew this,
People aren’t stupid,
You play the innocent because you think we let you do it,
If we think you’re too ruthless,
Show you where the point of the boot is,
It’s all about where the f**king proof is,

You’ll keep an eye on that new kid,
He’s liable to do sh*t,
If you don’t keep a check on it, beyond your electorate,
Peace in Iraq man, stay in Afghanistan,
Lookin’ for Osama, getting killed by the Taliban,

War on drugs, war on terror, nine-eleven,
We knew where Johnny stood, where’s Kevin?
Don’t get me wrong, alarm clocks from heaven,
Going off when the country woke up in o-seven,

But there’s no letting up, no we’re just getting up,
Off the canvas, that very fact demands that,
We stay as vigilant as can be,
Transparency, Another AWB,
But we’ll see,

Even as we applaud,
And we show them the door,
Thought we’d warn you that we’re wary,
Cause we’ve already seen it before,

Someone could’a told you it’d end like this,
They did, you didn’t listen, you can take a trip,
Lookin’ back twenty-twenty, mistakes I got many,
And the truth is that I’d probably do it again,

No-one could have ever half sway your mind,
We’ve been there before but it’s not that time,
Lookin’ back twenty-twenty mistakes I got many,
And the truth is that I’d probably do it again,

That Terrible Tune from the Butterfly Ball

I hear he also reads to children at the hospital…

Damnit! I miss Towel Day every year! 🙁

It’s funny the things you discover as you get older. For instance, years ago the ABC would fill in holes in it’s schedule with the video clip for Love is All. As kids my brother and I loved this (it’s got a gosh-darned singing frog, what’s not to love?) but I hadn’t seen it in years until I stumbled across it on YouTube today.

As I’m a curious fellow I did a quick bit of research. I knew that it had something to do with Alan Aldridge’s wonderful picture book The Butterfly Ball but was surprised to discover that there was a whole concept album. I was even more surprised to discover that Aldridge based the picture book on a poem published in 1802. But what blew me away completely was the identity of the vocalist in the aforelinked video…

Go on, guess who it is…

Go on…

Bet you can’t…

Well – hold on to your hats – it’s Ronnie James Dio! Dio! From Black Sabbath! That’s right, in between biting the heads off bats (yes, I know that was Ozzy, just go with it) and making devils horns he was singing hippy songs about frogs and butterflies and moles! Fantastic!

If it wasn’t for the fact that I’d be beaten to death and my corpse fed to the Devil I’d go to a Dio concert and start shouting “Butterfly Ball! Butterfly Ball!” in between every song 😀

Fun Fun Fun

In which our hero is accused of crimes and opinions most vile…

Well yesterday was a fun day. I’m sitting happily (well, sitting at least) at work when I get a phonecall from a woman in some distress who launches into an emotional tirade about how I’m trying to destroy her business, drive her out of town and ruin the livelihoods of numerous indigenous artists. After some confusion I discover that she’s objecting to a photograph I took of her store and posted to my Flickr account along with a wry comment about the pun in her business name (something along the lines that such puns should be outlawed).

(I’m not going to link to the image or name her business, if you’re really interested you can go poking around my Flickr account until you find it yourself).

She also posted a lengthy and similarly enraged comment to said photograph (and sent a very similar email) alleging that I’m some kind of racist who hates Aboriginies and Aboriginal culture.

After getting over the shock of this accusation I carefully wrote a reply explaining my viewpoint on the matter – that a humorously intended comment about puns in store names does not equate to an attack on the store involved, and that race had nothing to do with my comment at all. I also altered the name and description on the photograph to make it less likely to come up in connection with her business and to remove any criticism about the pun – not because I think I was in the wrong, but as a general gesture of good will.

I’m happy to report that she followed this up with an apologetic reply implying that she (or someone at the store) misread my comment and thought that I was saying that stores selling Aboriginal artefacts should be illegal, as opposed to groan-inducing puns (which really shouldn’t be illegal anyway as they give people like me something to complain about, and where would be without that? :). So the whole issue now seems to be laid to rest and everything is good.

It was an interesting few hours though, wondering if my website and personal details were going to end up on some kind of racism watch list. But hey, all’s well that ends well.

Polony

Attacking perfectly good authors for fun and profit.

I’m currently re-reading Bill Bryson’s Mother Tongue. It’s very entertaining, but if the rest of the book is as bad as his information about Australian English, well, I wouldn’t put much store in any of it.

(Disclaimer: It was published in 1990, so some of the inaccuracy can be attributed to the passage of time. But still.)

Bill confidently asserts that Australians use “labor” rather than “labour”. Well, if he’s talking about the Australian Labor Party then he’s quite correct. But if he’s talking about any other instance of the word, well, sorry Bill, it’s “labour” all the way.

He also brings up that hoary old chestnut “Cobber”. Well, I don’t know, maybe people still call each other “Cobber” deep in the hills of Tasmania (cue albinos plucking at banjos) but the rest of the country abandoned the word in about 1955. The only place you ever hear it is from tourists trying to show how “Aussie” they are, or from comedians being ironic. “Cobber” no. “Mate” yes.

Along with “Cobber”, Bill also mentions “dinky-di”. No one has used this phrase since 1982.

He also misses one of the most important and defining characteristics of regional Australian language – luncheon-meat. It’s possible to determine with reasonable accuracy where an Australian comes from based on what they call a sausage of highly processed pork. I for instance call it ‘polony’. If I was from Queensland however it would be ‘luncheon’. In Tasmania it’s ‘belgium’. In South Australia it’s ‘fritz’ and in Victoria it’s ‘devon’. This distinction is axiomic in any discussion of Australian English, but Bill makes no mention of it.

So yeah. I think that’s enough savaging of a highly entertaining book for today 🙂

PS: How could I forget one of his worst offences against the Australian tongue? We eat biscuits here not f’ing cookies!! Bah!! 🙂

Wrong!

Just do some goddamed research!

2007 – Chinese year of the Chicken – Bird Flu Pandemic devastates parts of Asia

2008 – Chinese year of the Horse – Equine Influenza decimates Australian racing

2009 – Chinese year of the Pig – Swine Flu Pandemic kills hundreds of pigs around the globe.

Has any one else noticed this?

It gets worse………next year……

2010 – Chinese year of the Cock – what could possibly go wrong?

For those who don’t realise that this much circulated meme is a joke, I would like to point out the following…

2007 was actually the Chinese year of the Boar

2008 was the Chinese year of the Rat

2009 is the Chinese year of the Ox

2010 will be the Chinese year of the Tiger

So unless you happen to be a tiger and your oxen are suddenly coughing up a lung, I wouldn’t worry too much.

Just Some General Ramblings

Exactly what it says on the box

What a week.

Katie’s dad’s funeral was on Tuesday, which was… well funerals are never really fun or anything, by definition they’re pretty awful, but as funerals go it was fairly good. Even though we had to hurry off quickly afterwards which made me feel like a right bastard 🙁

We had a big meeting/conference at work on Thursday with a consultant on how to overcome some of the ‘challenges’ the company is facing. It was a good exercise, mostly he just asked us a bunch of questions and wrote down the answers – he’ll be getting back to us with some recommendations shortly. Should be interesting.

Veteran actor Charles ‘Bud’ Tingwell passed away. My generation are most familiar with him as ‘Gramps’ in the Late Show’s Charlie the Wonder Dog, but he appeared in over a hundred different productions including Catweazle and Thunderbirds. He’s apparently getting a state funeral, which is richly deserved.

Yesterday we all went to the polls to vote on Daylight Savings. Once again it was roundly defeated, which is a nice kick in the face to the politicians who forced a three year trial on us with the assurance that once we’d experienced it, we’d love it. D’Orazio has commented that he’s very disappointed and that it would have been better if the Government had just brought it in without a referendum – but then he’s always had problems with the concept of ‘Democracy’.

After voting I cycled over to the Belmont Brickworks because I’d heard that a housing estate was being built around them. As it turned out the rumours were somewhat exaggerated – the housing estate is in fact merely being built near them and the works remain in splendid isolation. I took a bunch of photos, which can be seen on my Flickr account, then went on to explore the artificial island at Ascot Waters. Despite it being a mild, sunny day I had the entire place to myself – with the exception of a couple of stray dogs.

Then it was dinner at the Phi Yen with the family and my aunt who’s over from England. The food was excellent as usual but I swear every time we go there it gets louder and louder. We were also visited by a cat that apparently slipped through the door unnoticed when someone when in or out, and wandered from table to table until the staff noticed and evicted it 🙂

So yeah, a busy week all up. Hopefully the one ahead will be a bit more sedate.

The Octopus!

Medical Cephalopods. What?!

Once again there’s a remake/remodel thread over at Whitechapel, which I’d take part in if…

a) I wasn’t an anti-social weirdo with an aversion to message boards
b) I could draw

As neither of these conditions apply I shall instead dabble in the black arts of pen-portraiture to inflict my idea upon the world.

The brief from Warren, such as it is, is as follows… (as it is is as?)

One of the more outré of the pulp characters—and given the genre, that’s quite saying something, believe me—the Octopus was actually the villain of the piece in his single issue, The Octopus v1 #4, 1939, written by…well, it’s not exactly clear. It might be Norvel Page, or it might be Ejler and Edith Jacobsen. A rather over-the-top mad scientist, the Octopus worked from a big city hospital and plotted world conquest. His appearance might explain his desire to dominate the world; he’s sea-green, with four “suction-cupped weaving tentacles” set above “hideously malformed” legs. He wears a small mask, and behind it can be seen two enormous, luminous, purple eyes. He was the leader of the Purple Eyes, a cult bent on world domination and mass destruction. The Octopus’ chosen method was an “ultra-violet ray” which devolved men and women and turned them into deformed, life-hating monsters hungry for human flesh and glowing with “ultraviolet purple.” Against the Octopus was set Jeffrey Fairchild, a young millionaire philanthropist (he eventually stopped the Octopus, of course). He had three identities. The first was Jeffrey Fairchild, hospital administrator. The second was was kindly Dr. Skull, the old man who made a practice of helping the poor in the slums. (His good works didn’t help him when everyone thought that he was the Octopus, however) In his other identity he was the “Skull Killer,” who fought crime and left a skull-imprint, ala the Spider, on his enemies. Fairchild was assisted by Carol Endicott, Dr. Skull’s nurse.

My idea is to turn this all on its head…

Observe if you will St Brendan’s Hospital, a run down and poorly funded medical facility on the waterfront close to where the river rolls it’s tribute of chemicals, fertilisers, PET bottles and dead dogs into the open sea. Twenty-five years ago a young octopus polyp was inadvertently sucked into the hospital’s cooling system. Against the odds it survived, feeding on biological waste, cafeteria remnants and bathing in the drug-residue soaked waters of the hospital drains – a lifestyle that caused it to change, developing super-human intelligence and a photographic memory…

Today the Octopus lurks in the hospital’s walls, pipes and air conditioning system. After a quarter century of observation (not to mention late night study in the medical library) it is a better diagnostician and surgeon than most of the hospital’s poorly paid staff. In the early hours it sneaks unseen from it’s bolt holes and performs life saving procedures on misdiagnosed patients, earning the hospital an increasing reputation for ‘miracle’ cures.

Posed against the Octopus is the dastardly Chief of Medicine, Doctor Jeffrey Fairchild. More than happy to pose for the press with the latest miracle recovery, he desperately searches the Hospital for the phantom that cures the patients he would rather let die. For Doctor Fairchild is embezzling the Hospital’s funding into his own personal accounts and every cure draws more attention, endangering his nefarious schemes…

So yeah, that’s my crazy idea. A medical octopus and an embezzling doctor. Surely that’d sell comics! 😀

Firefox Boosts World Population by Factor of Thousands

Your daily dose of Pedantry

I had reason to visit the Firefox download site the other day (http://www.getfirefox.net/) and was most impressed at their current usage statistics…

Firefox the award winning Web browser is absolutely free and easy to use. Join the over 500,000,000 million people worldwide enjoying a better and faster web browsing.

500,000,000 million people? If my maths is correct that’s about 77,000 times the entire population of the planet. I knew Firefox market penetration was good, but I didn’t realise it was that good!

Also, what the heck is a “web browsing”, and how can it be better and faster? 🙂

(Once I pointed out these issues my colleague Bevan sent Mozilla an email, so they’ll probably be fixed up soon. Probably.)

Late 2010

Actually it turns out that getfirefox.net has nothing to do with Mozilla at all and (as discussed by New Scientist’s “Feedback” section when I alerted them to it) they were/are actually collecting data on people visiting the page. Interesting….

A Poor Attempt at Mimicry

An attempt at channelling the style and spirit of Warren Ellis

In reference to this monstrosity…

Fabes: I am surprised they could afford the materials for this project, after getting ripped off $15/month for playing WoW to begin with….

Me: Well it looks like they’re university students so their government is probably paying them all sorts of grants to get up late, play Warcraft into the early hours of the morning then occasionally stumble into class where their lecturer asks “What are you doing for your big design project?” and they mutter out “… uh.. design… project… raid… caverns of num-yabisc… Warcraft….” and they then have no choice but to build some crappy hut with $12.50 worth of plywood claiming that the shitty design and finishing is so it resembles structures in the game and isn’t because they had zero time to work on it between carrying out mass raids and shovelling microwaved mac and cheese into their drooping maws while ogling at 3D models of elf maidens in armour so skimpy that it wouldn’t stop a mosquito let alone the axe of an orc on wolfback who probably carries mosquitoes with him anyway as a consequence of bad hygiene and all the blood he wears as war paint the bastard.

(This is an attempt at sounding like Warren Ellis. If he ever finds out about it he may well hunt me down and kill me 🙂

(Oh, and the guys who built the thing obviously put a great deal of thought and effort into it – I’m just being evil for humourous effect)

Sensory Impressions of Six Perth Rail Lines…

Your weekly dose of art nonsense

Midland Line: The muttering of commuters, the smell of stale beer and the soft snoring of drunks.

Clarkson Line: The whoosh of automatic doors and the yells of people trying to be heard over the traffic.

Fremantle Line: The clinking of wine-glasses, the smell of sea air and the tangled dreadlocks of surfers.

Mandurah Line: The whoosh of automatic doors, that new car smell and cries of “We have to take a bus the rest of the way?!”

Thornlie Line: The muttering of commuters and the grey hopelessness of the pre-dawn.

Armadale Line: Jungle drums and muffled screaming.