Found in Space – Again

Another entry…

By the time a species achieves interstellar flight it has usually developed a sense of aesthetics so refined that exposure to poor design causes nausea, lethargy and (in extreme cases) death. As such the post-humans of Nova Eritrea had long divested their culture of all but the very highest in art and architecture, and had no inkling of the dangers contained in the ancient data device they found in a derelict spacewreck orbiting a nearby star… A year later fourteen billion Nova Eritreans were dead, taken by what the chroniclers would call “The Plague of the Lovely Lady Lumps”.

— Boing Boing 100-word fiction competition

Found in Space

Things I’ll do for a new computer, honestly…

When the joint European probe finally arrived at Lagrange Point four most commentators expected to find at least something. Interplanetary dust. A few rocks. Maybe even some ice – although almost everyone agreed that was a long shot. What we didn’t expect was shoes. Eight of them. Not pairs either – single shoes, floating idly in the gravitational void. Once the initial shock passed, the ESA set it all off again by announcing that they each had a desiccated human foot inside. Well, all apart from one. They said that contained a bear paw, but I mean – come on – that’s just crazy…

— Boing Boing 100-word fiction competition

Can on a String

Bah!

I’d just like to say that Vodafone suck.

Well OK, maybe I suck a bit as well. But the end result is a big ball of suck which is rather pissing me off, and as Vodafone are the bigger target I’m going to blame them.

A while back, after a dinner date with a friend was almost totally screwed up by the fact that I wasn’t contactable, I reluctantly bought a mobile phone. I went with Vodafone for reasons that I can’t quite remember, but seemed sensible at the time, and until recently have had absolutely no problems with them. But a while back my credit card expired, and a couple of weeks after that my phone ran out of prepaid credit…

To use a credit card to top up your Vodafone prepaid credit, the card has to be registered with Vodafone. No problem, except that it’s apparently impossible to register a new credit card when you’re out of credit. Making a call – even one to a Vodafone support number – on a creditless handset diverts you into Vodafone’s recharge system, from which it is completely impossible to get to any option allowing you to register a new credit card. Attempts to do so throw you into an endless loop of account options, the only way to break out of which is to admit defeat and hang up.

After dealing with this nightmare a few times I had the bright idea of calling customer support from my landline. This worked up to a point – the point where I was put through to an operator with an accent so thick I could barely understand a word he said (I think he might have been a Romanian who was taught English by a native Irish Gaelic speaker who learnt the language from Billy Conolly DVDs).

He asked me a series of questions, starting with the basic name, date of birth and address. Then he asked me for my PIN number. Now, sure, this is something I really should know, but I don’t – which is the reason I was calling up customer support rather than going online to register my credit card number in the first place.

This wasn’t a problem, because there were a bunch of other questions he could ask to confirm that I’m who I said I was. For instance what “fodo-eyed” did I use to register the sim card? After some backing and forthing I figured out he meant “photo id” and told him I used my passport.

He checked his computer and said sorry but I didn’t use my passport – which came as quite a surprise to me since it’s the only photo id I possess.

But that was OK, because there were other questions he could ask. Like what were the last three numbers I called? I checked my handset and discovered they were to my parents, and to Vodafone’s support number. He checked his computer.

No, apparently those weren’t the last three numbers I called.

But that was OK, because he could instead ask me what plan I was on. I said I had no idea but it was the basic prepaid one. How much did I pay the last time I recharged? I said I thought it was about $30. How much credit did I get from that? I said about $100. And when did I last recharge? I said I thought it was some time in August.

Apparently none of that matched with my account. But that was OK because there was one more question he could ask. He brought it up on his computer…

…and then couldn’t ask it because the computer wouldn’t tell him what it was.

Having exhausted all his options he said the only thing I could do was to take the handset and some photo ID into a Vodafone shop and they could register my new credit card there.

Fantastic. So I now have to drag myself in to a Vodafone store and produce identification just so I can pay them money. Hooray!

Honestly. I’d be better off with a can on a string.

Fly Season, Beetle Season

Biological controls for the win.

The fly season is on us again.

Way back before Europeans screwed things up, Australia didn’t really have a problem with flies. Water being scarce down here, animals didn’t waste it on excrement – kangaroos and other native animals generally produce small, dry pellets unsuitable for flies’ purposes. The only place flies could breed was in animal carcases and while there were enough of these to keep the flies in business, there were never enough to let them breed up to plague proportions.

Then the Europeans turned up and brought with them all those water squandering northern hemisphere animals like cows and horses and sheep – which wandered around the continent dropping big steaming pats everywhere. The flies thought that they’d died and gone to fly heaven and Australia became a place where you couldn’t open your mouth in summer without three or four dozen of the damn things plunging in and trying to claim your lungs in the name of all flykind.

After decades of this kind of thing the government finally decided to do something about it. They engaged in years of trials and careful testing (we at least learnt a lesson from the cane toad fiasco) and eventually a species of small, inoffensive dung beetle was imported from Africa and distributed across the country. Confronted with massive piles of excrement that the ecosystem was totally failing to deal with the beetles thought they’d died and gone to beetle heaven and got on with what they do best – rolling it up into balls and burying it.

Result? Fly numbers plummeted and summer became bearable again.

Except for October.

You see the flies start breeding in late September. The dung beetles don’t start breeding until late October. This means that for one month of the year the flies are back in force and we all suffer.

But hey, at least we can comfort ourselves remembering that all of summer used to be like that.

Blast from the Past

Like sands through the hourglass…

Dingalings do stupid things, they don’t think of others at all,
They’re dopes and bullies, see the trouble they bring? That’s what we call dingalings!

If you’re now wondering about my sanity then you obviously didn’t grow up in Perth in the 80’s…

Dingalings
Vitamins
Nutrition
Dirt and Germs

I stumbled across a Livejournal page linking to these while searching for info on the old Ascot Water Playground. This was a favourite summer destination when I was a kid and I only just discovered that it’s all shut down and derelict. I cycled over today and scouted it out for Abandoned in Perth. I’ll probably get a proper expedition together later on.

It was a great place Ascot Water Playground. You had a big pool at the bottom, a sort of concrete bunker halfway up with fountains and slippery metal ladders (which were a death trap waiting to happen frankly) and two smaller pools at the top linked with locks. Locks! Like on a canal! A paddling stream ran from the top pools all the way down the hill to the bottom pool and one year (oh the excitement!) they opened a new pool with water slides. And admission was whatever you decided to put into the tins at the gates!

One of the defining moments of my childhood was at Ascot, the day when I finally summoned the courage to climb the deathtrap ladders all the way to the top. All the other kids (including my younger brother) who’d been clambering up and down them with abandon for years kept mocking me mercilessly about my cowardice, and on this particular day I decided I was going to conquer them even if it meant I fell to my death on the concrete below. I waited until there was no one in the bunker (both so the other kids wouldn’t figure out how badly their mockery hurt me, and so that if I chickened out at the last minute there’d be no one to see) and hauled myself up the slippery bars and over the top onto the roof. Then I clambered back down and wandered off, quite happy with myself.

(I only ever climbed the ladders once again – the next time the other kids started mocking me. I climbed up and down once to shut them up, and then never risked it again. Honestly, I’m amazed no one was ever killed on those things.)

But – back to the modern day – run off from the park into the river was apparently getting out of control (the site is right on the riverfront) and there were all kinds of liability issues (those ladders I bet), so the playground had to shut down about five or six years back. Another irreplaceable childhood memory gone – although at least it’s gone in a way that provides me with something to clamber around and take eerie photos of.

The Livejournal page I stumbled across has a bunch of other musings about Perth in the 80s, including a reminder of the plastic tugboats and space shuttles you used to get Red Rooster in. How could I forget those!? They were made of extremely thin and brittle plastic (that crumbled after only a few hours exposure to Perth’s harsh summer sunshine) and you got a sheet of stickers to personalise them with. Great days!

I’ll have to write about my memories of Atlantis Marine Park and Dizzy Lamb sometime I suppose…

So, any plans for the weekend?

BAH!!!

I planned to take things nice and easy this weekend. Work has been extremely stressful for the last few weeks (for various reasons) and I was looking forwards to a couple of days of sitting in my cave watching DVDs and laughing at stupid cat pictures on the internet, before catching the train down to Mandurah on Monday and photographing what (if anything) is left of the old Castle Fun Park for Abandoned in Perth.

In fact I was so exhausted when I got home from the office last night that I had a light dinner and went to bed at the ridiculously early time of 7:45. I was just drifting off to sleep, snuggling up to a pillow and imagining it was Miranda from Mysterious Ways, when I was startled back to full wakefulness by a loud, BZZZZZZZTTTTTTTT!! sound that seemed to come out of nowhere.

I started up in shock, but when there was no repeat I wrote it off as some bogan stripping his gearbox in the carpark and got back to the business of sleep. However a few minutes later – BZZZZZZZTTTTTTTT!! again. And this time it definately seemed to come from within the apartment.

I got up and started looking around. I could think of nothing in my possession that could create such a sound. But as I stood in the loungeroom, puzzling over the phenomenon, it happened again – a loud BZZZZZZZTTTTTTTT!!, quite clearly emanating from the kitchen.

I investigated. Was there a a giant wasp from the carboniferous period trapped under the sink? No. I was trying to come up with an alternate explanation when the noise came again, and this time I was able to identify it as coming from the fridge.

A couple of minutes experimentation found the answer. Any time the fridge tried to power up its compressor it would shudder to a halt with a loud, electronic BZZZZZZZTTTTTTTT!!. Crap.

Given that there was no way I could sleep with random buzzing noises I switched it off at the plug and went back to bed.

Close investigations this morning have revealed that there’s really no point trying to get it repaired (I bought it second hand about eight years ago, so it’s had a good run). I’m about to head off to buy a new one, which probably won’t be able to be delivered until Monday. So my nice quiet weekend is now filled with stress and warm food (this would happen on the first really hot weekend of spring wouldn’t it?) and I can’t possibly head down to Mandurah on Monday because I need to be here to accept delivery.

Wonderful.

Later:

I’ve just got back from the city where I’ve bought a slightly dented yet perfectly functional fridge for only $700 (gotta love factory seconds). The downside? They can’t deliver until Thursday. Thursday! What is this!? The middle ages!?

Anyway my frozen stuff has been shipped off to the folks to look after (or eat) and some essentials are being kept cool in the freezer compartment along with 5kg of ice. I’ve tipped the entire fridge onto its back to help (hey, if you can’t figure out why then go learn some physics). So it looks like I’ve got my Monday back. If I’m in any mood to do anything that is.

I think I’ll listen to some music.

Things you don’t want to hear…

It’s things like this that make you ashamed of your entire gender…

So I go to bed last night at a reasonable hour and (I must admit for the first time in ages) am kept awake by the guy in the apartment downstairs. Rather than his usual schick of wandering around his yard yelling into his mobile phone about building cupboards, this time he and a friend sat around loudly discussing their venereal diseases.

Yes, that’s what I said. Venereal diseases.

Specifically genital warts (although herpes was also mentioned). The main gist seemed to be that the friend had recently developed a very large wart in a particularly prominent position, and his new girlfriend was asking him questions about it.

My neighbour’s advice about this situation was to slather the offending growth with over-the-counter wart medication to burn it off. In the meantime he should tell his girlfriend that it was a birthmark and that he’d had it for years. This way he would not only avoid any awkward situations, but when she dumped him (I presume on discovering that he’s a deceptive, self serving bastard…) he’d have the satisfaction of knowing that she’d pass the infection on to her new boyfriend, which would serve them both right.

(Presumably if she developed cervical cancer later down the line it would also serve her right…)

They carried on discussing the subject for about an hour before heading back inside and letting me get to sleep.

I am seriously considering cutting out a stencil and spraying “DANGER! GENITAL WARTS!” in large red letters on his door in the middle of the night. Or maybe doing a letter drop on the same subject across the whole complex…

Hey Hey it’s Bigotry!

We’re not all ignorant rednecks you know…

I thought I’d better weigh in on the whole Hey Hey it’s Saturday blackface incident since it seems to be getting a lot of international attention and I don’t particularly want to be tarred with the same brush (oh man, that sounds like a really bad pun, sorry) that so many of my fellow Australians seem to be being tarred with.

(If you don’t know what it’s all about, just Google it)

The important facts that a lot of commentators seem ignorant of are as follow…

1: Blackface doesn’t have the same notoriety here in Australia as it does overseas. We have a different culture here to the United States and don’t have the long and shameful history of blackface on the stage and cinema. Sadly a lot of Australians are completely ignorant of this history and are hence unaware of the pain and offence it can cause.

2: The performance on Hey Hey was a recreation of an act originally staged 20 years ago. Idiotic football celebrities aside it’s a rare and notable thing to see anyone done up in blackface in modern Australia for any reason (and if it does occur it’s met with disapproval and severe criticism).

3: The performers are of various racial backgrounds, including Indians and Asians. It’s not a simple case of a bunch of white Anglo Saxons blacking up.

4: Hey Hey is (God knows why) a treasured and well loved piece of Australian culture, attacks on which by ‘foreigners’ seems to trigger a strange and disproportionate form of ‘my country right or wrong’ defence from some sectors of the community.

Basically the act was not intended to cause offence, or reference the blackface stereotype. It was just a bit of really badly thought out idiocy that never should have gone to air if anyone at Channel Nine had actually stopped and used their brains for a few seconds. The fact that it did go to air, and that it did cause offence is something that should be unreservedly apologised for.

Now, onto the reactions. While the innocent (albeit thoroughly stupid) intent of the performers can be defended, the resulting act and the offence caused cannot. There seems to be a certain sector of the Australian population (many of them members of the anti ‘political correctness’ brigade) who are leaping up and down over some perceived right to slather boot polish on their faces and go around loudly eating watermelon on the basis that “it’s just a joke” and “people shouldn’t be so sensitive”. A lot of these people are hitting on two particular points in their arguments, which I shall now address.

1: Harry Connick Junior once took part in a sketch parodying a black preacher, and used makeup to darken his skin. Hence he’s a hypocrite.

2: Robert Downey Junior was made up as an African American man in Tropic Thunder and no one complained.

Neither of these points is particularly valid. Yes, Harry Connick Junior was made up with darkened skin for that sketch, but there’s a difference between the slight darkening employed there, and the wholesale boot polish job employed on Hey Hey. Similarly in Tropic Thunder the make up and prosthetics employed actually make Robert Downey Junior look African American – as opposed to a white man painted black – and much of the humour in the movie is based around the inappropriateness of using make up (and plastic surgery) to make a white actor look black. This subtlety seems to be lost of a lot of people defending the Hey Hey act.

So that’s my two cents. I guess what I’m trying to say is that there’s plenty of Australians – such as myself – who were outraged, disgusted and embarrassed by the fact that such a performance should be put to air in modern day Australia, and who are just as outraged, disgusted and embarrassed by the ignorant loudmouths trying to defend it. Insomuch as I can personally apologise for the actions of my fellow Australians I do so, completely and unreservedly. Sorry.

What a lucky man he was!

This is your whale. This is your whale on drugs.

Hmmm, well I haven’t done much posting recently have I? I’ll put it down to getting back into the swing of work and spending much of my time uploading and annotating photos from my UK trip. I’ve almost finished the first day’s worth!

I’ve also got caught up in a writing challenge on Whitechapel. It’s the first time I’ve tried writing anything but mindless blog drivel and role playing material in ages, so we’ll see how it goes. The deadline is November 1st – with luck it’ll actually be readable by then.

Kraft has come to it’s senses and realised that “iSnack 2.0” is one of the worst marketing decisions in history. They’ve posted a bunch of more popular names to their website for the public to vote on and will be announcing the replacement name this week. I didn’t bother to vote – I’m just happy that clueless tech-speech abomination is being banished. Anyway, the only name I would have voted for is ‘Voldemite’ and that wasn’t on the list.

Before I go I’ll direct everyone’s attention to this song, which I discovered over the weekend – “Lucky Man” by Emerson Lake and Palmer. The song itself is (in my opinion) nothing special, a fairly dreary rock-folk dirge about a guy who goes off to war and gets shot. What makes it remarkable is the play out, the only explanation for which I can come up with is that they got a humpbacked whale in to do guest vocals and dosed it up on LSD.

Listen to the first 20 seconds or so to get the scope of the piece (it’s all like that), then jump to 3.20 to be astounded by the assorted wails, shrieks, groans and howls you get when you pump twenty litres of hallucinogens into a giant sea-going mammal!

That’s all I’ve got to say.

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