Flashback

Here's an example of when I was right:

I think this is a cathartic experience for Mr West. Next year he'll be back with his swaggalicious fifth album, and he'll be back to being Mr Arrogant.

And

Kanye will return to rapping. I think this is a diversion into pop that will influence his next work, not define it.

I said that in 2008 about 808s and Heartbreaks. My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy was his next album, and I believe it fulfilled my prediction.

Here was a fun post I did about celebrities I like. I'm still there with them, although Ryan Reynolds has weirded me out with the whole "was that a real marriage to Scarlett?" thing.

And here is my ode to the importance of a thick skin. I believe a thick skin is one of the most useful mental attributes you can develop if you want to succeed.

Grammar things that annoy me

Grammar things that annoy me

"It was an historic day..."
ARGH! Do you say "I wore an hat"? Or "I picked up an history book"??? It should be "It was A historic day...". Unless you're a Cockney flowerseller who happens to moonlight as a television presenter. "It woz an 'istoric' day, 'ullo guvna!"

"This is the reason that we wanted to do this."
Spot a completely unnecessary word in there? Yup, that one. It's "that". "That" is almost always unnecessary in a sentence. Seriously, try it. Read a sentence with "that" in the middle of it, take it out, and see if it reads better. (It will). People constantly put "that" into sentences that don't need them.

"John got the book which he picked up at the library."
MISSING COMMA! If you're using "which" in the middle, it almost certainly comes after a comma. Missing commas are about as annoying as unnecessary commas.

"John picked up the book, from the library, where it was in the history section, on a shelf."
First comma doesn't need to be there, and the second half of the sentence should be rearranged to say "...where it was on a shelf in the history section." (I would remove the shelf bit completely, but hey, whatever).

I don't I need to address possessive apostrophes, do I? And mixed tenses annoy me no end, but they are very complicated to explain because the rules around tenses conflict with the driving principle of simple writing.

Back in the day

Things younger me was better at than I am now:

Basketball. My 14-year-old self, only an inch or two shorter but a fair bit skinnier, would kick my ass at the moment. He was a good basketballer, could control the ball well and was creative approaching the basket. Could also hit a jump shot, which I today found out I can't really do anymore.

Risk. My 20-year-old self was a super sharp Risk player. I'd like to think I'd get back into it pretty quickly, but the younger me was pretty good at the strategies. I won more often than not.

Soccer. This is a bit different because I probably have a better understanding of the game now, but my skill level and fitness were higher when I was about 22. That was also the year I did my knee.

Guitar. When I was about 16 I played guitar heaps. I wasn't that great, but I got on okay. I haven't played in a long time and my fingers do not remember the fretboard quite as well.


Now, of course, I'm a better writer than I was. And a better organiser. I'm not entirely sure what 27-year-old me will do better than future me. Hopefully not too much because I would like to keep improving.

Heartbeat

I have not abandoned thee. I have mountains of links piled up in my Gmail account, waiting to be linked to. Unfortunately I have neither the time nor the energy to extract them. It is sad, yes.

But luckily for me, that blogging time is being taken up with fun and important social activities, like weddings and bucks nights and Christmas drinks with politicians.

So yes, this will probably be my least productive month on this blog. And the next posts will probably come in an avalanche, close together. Just go with it!

A post you should avoid...

....if you dislike Kim Kardashian.

She was trying out Halloween costumes and posted the results on Twitter.

She ended up with Little Red Riding Hood

Speaking of Twitter, here is Dane Swan and St Kilda's Sam Gilbert in their Halloween costumes

Back to Kim. She has form for Halloween. Like Wonder Woman

And I'm a big fan of Aladdin, so this...

...is two thumbs up.

Okay, back to your regularly scheduled blogging! Actually, about that, I've been struggling to maintain my posting rate (you may have noticed). This is because I've been working pretty hard. I just had a week off and barely had any motivation to write. So yeah. I'll keep doing what I can, because I enjoy it still. But I enjoy it less. That said, this blog is a useful creative outlet for me.

My favourite palindromes

Palindromes are fun.

My all time favourite is "civic". It just sounds so rounded and complete. Say it. "Civic". Fun.

I don't mind "level". I prefer "Hannah" over "Anna". "Racecar" is pretty cool!

If you're super nerdy, enjoy Demetri Martin's poem: "Dammit I'm mad"

“Dammit I’m mad.
Evil is a deed as I live.
God, am I reviled? I rise, my bed on a sun, I melt.
To be not one man emanating is sad. I piss.
Alas, it is so late. Who stops to help?
Man, it is hot. I’m in it. I tell.
I am not a devil. I level “Mad Dog”.
Ah, say burning is, as a deified gulp,
 In my halo of a mired rum tin.
I erase many men. Oh, to be man, a sin.
Is evil in a clam? In a trap?
No. It is open. On it I was stuck.
Rats peed on hope. Elsewhere dips a web.
Be still if I fill its ebb.
Ew, a spider… eh?
We sleep. Oh no!
Deep, stark cuts saw it in one position.
Part animal, can I live? Sin is a name.
Both, one… my names are in it.
Murder? I’m a fool.
A hymn I plug, deified as a sign in ruby ash.
A Goddam level I lived at.
On mail let it in. I’m it.
Oh, sit in ample hot spots. Oh wet!
A loss it is alas (sip). I’d assign it a name.N
ame not one bottle minus an ode by me:
“Sir, I deliver. I’m a dog”
Evil is a deed as I live.
Dammit I’m mad.

Shooting

A 16 year old Dutch girl shoots a target at fair in 1936. Hitting the target takes a picture. She goes back and hits the target every year from then on.

Cool stuff.

I'm rewaching season 3 of The Wire. It's my favourite season. So much goodness.

Things!

How pretty are all the women on Eurovision this year??? They're all tall supermodels with long, gorgeous hair and beautiful voices. Well played, Europe.

In other news, I thought this article was classic.

Serbia’s World Cup preparations have been hit by a shock 46-3 loss to unfancied minnows New Zealand, after the highly-rated Balkan outfit accidentally agreed to play the All Whites at rugby union rather than the expected association football.

I remember meeting a NATO soldier from France in my town when I was a child’, recalled playmaker Milos Krasic. ‘He told me about this sport where the ball is not round and passing it forwards gets you a punishment gouging and the teams spend most of the match in interlocked, grunting packs, like homoerotic sardines.
“It is definitely my eleventh or twelfth most horrifying memory from this time.”

This article was interesting about how AFL players are chased after by women, especially in Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth. I never really got the appeal of footy players or musicians. Why do women go for them all the time?

The Big Caption adds clever captions to pics from The Big Picture blog. Like this one.

I wrote a while back about Jennifer Knapp, a Christian music singer who recently came out as gay. Anyway, she spent most of her time off in Australia... becoming a cricket tragic! Awesome.

Things to miss

Things I miss about Launceston

1) Burger Got Soul.
2) The $20 haircut from the snooker supply store/barbershop on York St.
3) Going home/nextdoor to watch NBA during my lunch break.
4) Living an 80-second walk from the cinema - and 60 seconds from my front door to my desk at work.
5) Burger Got Soul (sooooooo good, it had to be here twice. I miss it that much.)

Things I WON'T miss about the Midland Hwy.

1) Spending money on petrol all the damn time.
2) The fact that BP stopped selling Lemon V, so I always had to make an extra stop to get a Red Eye Platinum (a big issue, I know).
3) Listening to the same old music again and again.
4) Drivers who cannot maintain a consistent speed. If you're doing 80km/h in a 110km/h zone - that's fine. Just don't speed up to 125km/h when an overtaking lane approaches. If you can't maintain a consistent speed, I question your suitability for highway driving.
5) The freaking road works near Brighton.

I want to start a Facebook page - Bring Burger Got Soul to Hobart. If you ever go to Launceston, you have to visit BGS. Get the Ali G on Turkish bread. Pan-fried chicken with sun-dried tomato, pesto, lettuce, tomato and soul mayo... Or get one of the awesome beef burgers, like Original Sin or the Tassie Tempter. If you're a vegetarian, try the Salsa Burger. And get the chips with relish on the side. But make sure you're hungry. Otherwise you will not be able to finish your burger. I'm serious.

It really is the biz. It's on Charles Street, just down from the hospital.

Things

This Friday night's game between Collingwood and Geelong is huge. Garry Lyon just said it means more to the Pies than it does the Cats. I think he's right. But if Collingwood can get a win it will bring them huge confidence going into the finals.

Players Collingwood is getting improvement from:
1) Dayne Beams. Only in his second year, he is playing with the consistency of a senior player.
2) Sharrod Wellingham. Nice to see a young player wearing the long sleeves occasionally, like a new Gavin Croscisa!
3) Harry O'Brien. Already a good player, Harry has stepped up to "top defender" status this year.
4) Steele Sidebottom. Another second year player who is stepping up, Steele is learning quickly every game.
5) Brent Macaffer. Big-bodied player who is learning the game at both ends of the ground.

In other random news, is this the first Aboriginal super model? Samantha Harris:

I don't like the drugs

Moving house etc has made blogging difficult. And my new job might make it even more difficult. But that's okay.

I thought this article was interesting.

As for the tragic case of Cassandra Vaicekonis, I wonder whether the anti-drug message is currently too focussed on individual choice, and not focussed enough on a sense of collective responsibility. Instead of urging young people to say no to drugs, or to think about how they can most safely say yes to drugs, taking a much stronger message to their friends might be a handy new addition to combating this scourge.

The only people somebody like Cassandra would really have listened to on this issue were her own circle of friends – the same people who (you would hope) are now looking into their souls and wondering whether they could have actually done something to avert her death on May 23 last year.

Her death will haunt their conscience forever more. It is something which no sane person would ever want to grapple with as they go through life. Getting that message out to other young people, and urging them to act when they see that a friend is screwing themself up on drugs, would do more to change a young person’s behaviour than any amount of Nancy Reagan-style lecturing that it’s as easy as saying no.

An interesting idea. Because the War on Drugs is not being won. Sometimes there are wins and high points, but the War on Drugs is a Long Defeat. I like the point that it comes down to friends taking a stand, rather than relying on people to make good decisions individually. Because people make dumb decisions. But if you have good friends, they can help you out.

If you want an example of amazing levels of reporting in detail of a huge issue, check this LA Times page out. In Mexico, 22,700 people have died since the start of 2007 as a result of drug violence. Imagine if, in the last three years, every resident of Kingston or Burnie was beheaded, shot, stabbed or burned alive. The woman who runs the grocery shop found without a head. The young men who work at the childcare centre shot to death in their homes. The journalists who report on the issue never seen again.

David Penberthy at The Punch wrote this article last year in which he said the clubbers in Melbourne and Sydney should take some blame for those Mexican deaths.

Australia’s sizeable cokehead community - even the casual users who had a discreet line in the loo last night at some groovy Sydney wine bar - should give themselves a quiet pat on the back for the role they’ve played in the deaths of these people. 

The market demand is so great that the risks are worth it. And the profits are so huge that it's worth killing people to maintain or win market dominance.

Do I have a solution? No. Is legalisation an option? I don't think so. I think that would open the floodgates to even more abuse, as well as the costs to society with mental health, domestic violence, street violence, and a still-thriving black market. But is the Long Defeat worth it?

Super tired

About to finish day nine of nine days on in a row. Been super busy. My schedule is: six on, two off, nine on, two off, five on.

If you need something to read, check out Dr Harry's blog. He has some good posts and links to a great article about how gangsta rap doesn't represent the reality of living on "the streets".

Also, Kick Ass was good. Very violent and crude, yes, but a lot of fun. And with a bit of an emotional heart, surprisingly.

Things to do when you can't sleep

1. Check Facebook for totally important information.

2. Watch Charlie's Angels on Go!, although this episode is pretty poor.

3. Catch up on the unread blog posts in Google Reader.

4. Why are Charlie's Angels skiing?

5. Wish I could sleep.

6. Consider watching Friday Night Lights, but worry it might wake me up a bit more. Too much emotion in that show.

7. Seriously, I have no idea what is going on in this Charlie's Angels episode. Some guys are doing some really pretty skiing, which is actually really impressive. It's like Figure Skiing or something. And for some reason, someone got shot out on the snow. But the Angels are barely involved. I don't understand it. Their hair does look amazing though, so that's something.

50c bag of mixed bloggies, please

Thing
Simon Amstell is hilarious. He's a well gay public school boy from Britain and he used to host Popworld from 2000-2006 and Never Mind The Buzzcocks from 2007-2009. This article talks about his time on Popworld, where he used to get bland popstars in and bag the crap out of them. On NMTB he was hilarious - some quotes here. Anyway, if you get a chance to watch him, check him out.

Another thing
Goal 3 was incredibly annoying. For some unknown reason they stopped following the story of young Mexican-American player Santiago Munez and made him a bit-part character while two English players goofed around onscreen at the World Cup. It was very disappointing. We'd seen Santi make it in England, win a transfer to Real Madrid and make it big there, but at the cost of his relationship. I would have liked to see some resolution on that storyline. Instead, he gets "injured" in a car crash at the start of the film, and spends the rest cheering on his English friends. It was a complete waste of the story they built up over the first two films. Same writer, apparently, which makes it even more perplexing. To add to it all, the actual football scenes in the first two movies were top notch. They looked real - more real than any movie soccer I've seen before. For some reason they decided to poorly greenscreen the players into the games this time. It looked atrocious. Major disappointment from a fan who actually liked the first two (slightly cheesy) films.

Third thing
If you're not watching Friday Night Lights, you are doing yourself no favours. I'm a few episodes into the third season and still in love with it. I hope they show it in Teen Drama School for writers and showrunners who want to know how to give characters realistic conflicts and motivations to drive the story. Other shows often rely on characters changing completely from one episode to the next, or coincidences or misunderstandings to drive the story. But not this one. When something happens, you know instantly how someone is going to react. There is a sense of trust between the show and its audience. It's great.

Things I now say thanks to Friday Night Lights
"Damnit Riggins!"
"It'sa Smash, baybee!"
"Mrs Coach."
"Oh you know I looooove Panther Futbul."

Final thing
Today might be the last indoor soccer game I play for a while. I think the new team is disbanding after this weekend. It's sad because I love playing indoor at Kingborough. We used to dominate the Friday night league, with a physical, skillful and mentally strong team. It's different now. I fill in for this team, and while the quality is there, we haven't played enough together to really understand each other. We keep losing to teams who stack their defence and hit us on the break. It's annoying, but understandable. Anyway, hopefully we can go out with a win.

Your culture is wrong

All Men Are Liars had an interesting post this week. It's based on this feminist essay which lists the way white men are privileged."White privilege is like an invisible weightless knapsack of special provisions, maps, passports, codebooks, visas, clothes, tools and blank checks."

The list includes things like:

4. I can go shopping alone most of the time, pretty well assured that I will not be followed or harassed.
5. I can turn on the television or open to the front page of the paper and see people of my race widely represented.
15. I am never asked to speak for all the people of my racial group.

19. If a traffic cop pulls me over or if the IRS audits my tax return, I can be sure I haven’t been singled out because of my race.

21. I can go home from most meetings of organizations I belong to feeling somewhat tied in, rather than isolated, out-of-place, outnumbered, unheard, held at a distance, or feared.

It goes on. It was an interesting piece, but one I found flawed in a key way. She restricted it to white men. I really think it should have been men of the dominant culture. Because I would feel pretty out of place in Japan. or Brazil. Or Nigeria. Or China. And I would feel like I would be singled out for my race occasionally in those countries too.

The one I found more interesting was the one All Men Are Liars quoted. The checklist of male benefits as opposed to female ones:

I can be pretty sure that when I walk down the street, nobody will yell at me about my body or tell me what they want to do to me sexually.
If I choose not to have children, nobody will question my masculinity.
No one will think I'm selfish if I have children and a career.
At work I can be fairly sure I won't be sexually harassed.

Etc. And YET, then there's this from All Men Are Liars again:

I argue that men do not enjoy a life of privilege. Far from it – a look at the life of the average man is a fairly depressing sight. What kind of privilege it that bestows on men a 10-year-shorter life span than women, and a higher incidence of disease, crime, alcoholism and drug addiction? What kind of privilege is it that blesses men with a frequently self-destructive need to achieve? What kind of privilege is it that honours a man with the duty to spend a lifetime supporting others, more often than not in an unsatisfying job?" That quote is taken from a 1979 article written by the men's movement pioneer Richard Haddad.

And again:

Haddad continues: "I am angry over the hypocrisy of too many women I know – their assertion of strength and independence except when it is convenient to be weak and dependent; their insistence that I and other men change, but only in ways and to a point that will please them."

All this long build up got me thinking about men's and women's roles. About women who want it both ways, and men who feel like they either have to conform or break out.

Men and women are not the same. So why do we act like they are? Why do we try to make women achieve like men and men feel like women? Where is that push coming from? Some thoughts.

And as for the stuff on being white, I think she's missed the mark. White people aren't the problem. The culture they've built might be.

I am not racist.
I am culturist.

What does that mean? It means some cultures are objectively better than others. It means some cultures need to change or die, because they damage their citizens. A lot of damaging cultures have died (cannibal cultures, incest cultures, death cults etc). Others that promote damaging behaviour (female genital mutilation, forced marriage, systemic corruption) need to change - or die. I don't necessarily think my own culture is the best. It has some great elements, and some issues. But I think we at least have the openness for a conversation about the issues. And that's a start. A lot of other cultures do not.

I know it's a bit haphazard, but I haven't got it all straight in my head yet. This is mainly just me typing, trying to see what sticks.

And wealth for toil...

Australia Day traditions:
- BBQ and beer
- Triple J's Hottest 100
- Whinging like a bitch about how crap Australia is/yelling like crazy about how awesome Australia is

I'm down with two of those three. And even though my comments on Triple J in the past have been less than complimentary, I'm happy to jump on the bandwagon on their best day of the year. Also, BBQs are awesome.

No, I'm not down with the excessive grumbling/yelling about Australia. I think it's stupid. I want a more tempered approach. Australia is awesome, and we should celebrate that fact. BUT we should celebrate WHY it's awesome, not just... that it's awesome. Which is I think what a lot of people do. Worse than that? The sniping from random drongos each year that says Australia has nothing to be proud of. That we're a country of racists and idiots who did bad things in the past we should all be ashamed of.

GTFO. Yes, that's an acronym, and no, it's not 'Get The Foot Out'. What other country spends the leadup to its national day dredging up old wrongs?? Does Independence Day in America mean "Oh no, isn't it terrible how a bunch of Indians died"? Does Bastille Day in France mean "Zoot alors! Zis eez terrible zat all zee people died in zee Fronch Revolution!"?

Who knows, maybe it does.

But I have a plan - a cunning one, you might say. A plan to make Australia Day actually good and shizz.

Here goes:

We are still a relatively young country. We gained independence in 1901. Our national anthem is all about how great it is that we live in a new country, with lots of potential, and the chance to make something of yourself if you have a go. Very Australian, I'm sure you'd agree.

The Australia Day I would like to see is one where we look to the future, not the past. We look at the potential we have, and the opportunities available to us.

I'd like to make Australia Day a day of setting vision. Where our leaders at all levels reveal plans and ideas they'd like the country to work towards. They might be concrete. They might be concepts. Whatever they are, they are positive visions for our country.

That's what I'd like to see. Rather than the shemozzle we currently have (I'm bagging something out! See how Australian I am!).

I've got too many links to deal with

Seriously, so many links. I'm running out of time to link them all up.
- First up, a really interesting piece by a British bloke named Patrick Muirhead. Well gay for 20 years, he's realised he's now attracted to women. Particularly, he wants the family life. It raises questions about what it means to be gay, and how much personal choice comes into it. Definitely a bit controversial in the gay community.

I want a wife to love and a child to protect. And I want to look at them both and know that they are mine and I am needed by both and I can be like the workman’s fist, clutched tightly by the little pink fingers in the barber shop. The rock of the family.

Does this mean that I no longer like men? No, of course not, and I won’t pretend. But in the streets and avenues of this country there must be many husbands whose interests are divided but whose choices are determined not by sexuality but emotionality.

- An all-female construction crew in Queensland!

- Can I just say that I've been slightly in love with this actress for a number of years?

Alicja Bachleda was in a really cute movie called Herz im Kopf, about a German boy who falls in love with a Polish girl (Alicja). She was also a love interest in Summerstorm, a German coming-of-gayge film, where she went for the guy who turned out to be gay. Anyway, I thought she was gorgeous. So imagine my surprise when she turned up on Go Fug Yourself the other day! As Colin Farrell's partner! And I have since discovered that they have a son together!

A couple of things:
1) Yay, she's moved up in the world!
2) Well played Colin Farrell, she's lovely.
3) ...and well played Alicja, Colin Farrell can be ridiculously hot.
4) That was a terrible choice of dress. She was showing more cleavage at the Golden Globes than Mariah Carey and Christina Hendricks... and they kinda took it as far as it needed to go.

This guy is living for a year entirely on what he can find from Craigslist. Dangerous!

And a big interview about Mass Effect 2!!! It's going to be so much the biz.

Things I'd like to see in 2010

A list!

- A Collingwood premiership
- A Kanye West rap album. Please do the biz Kanye. We all know you can.
- Ricky Ponting to get some of the respect he deserves.
- Lost to have an amazing final season.
- Australia to make the second round of the World Cup.
- Liverpool to miss out on the Champions League places in England.
- Osama Bin Laden to be captured.
- A brutal, close, tight, fun, hilarious Federal Election that leaves both houses finely poised.
- A State Election that actually sees some changes (unlike 2006, when every sitting member was returned, except those who retired... and they were replaced by people of the same party).
- Something from the Star Wars live action TV show that excites me.
- Iron Man 2

Anything you'd like to see in 2010?

Some really great reading

Great writing expands your perspective. Here are some I really enjoyed.

The Angriest Man In Television by Marc Bowden. It's about David Simon and The Wire, and gave me a new perspective on the show. It starts as a tribute and ends as a rebuke, and it's very powerful. Written before the fifth season aired, it is a pre-emptive defence of a couple of the characters Bowden expected to see in season five. And he makes sense. He doesn't take anything away from the brilliance of the show, but does provide a tempering view that conflicts with Simon's unerringly bleak vision of reality.

George Clooney Saved My Novel by Walter Kirn. A happy story of a book that was never going to be a film until Jason Reitman and George Clooney got behind it.

Mr Murdoch Goes To War by Marc Bowden. In this one he looks at Murdoch's takeover of the Wall Street Journal. It helps if you've read The Man Who Owns The News, the profile of Murdoch, but even still you'll get an idea of the power of the man. Bowden presents a negative view of Murdoch in this piece, but I tend to think the truth is somewhat different. Anyway, good article.

My President is black, my Lambo's blue...

Been a very, very busy week.

You know you've driven the Midland Hwy too much when:
1) You get to Kempton and feel like you're only a short jump from home.
2) The staff at Launceston BP on Wellington St recognise you as you stock up on petrol and energy drinks.
3) The back seat of your car clinks with empty drink bottles.
4) Your car has done 440km in the last week - and you've only driven it twice.
5) You're prepared to compromise on quality and drink a Lemon V rather than a Red Eye Platinum (the connoisseur's choice) if your preferred choice isn't available. Don't ever get a regular V (rookie mistake).
6) You've used the toilet at St Peter's Pass. Bonus points for chatting to the wallabies.
7) You've stopped at Bridgewater McDonalds.
8) You've even learned to like the crap songs on the CDs in your car.
9) Your favourite song on an album has changed at least once. At the moment it is Jay-Z and Young Jeezy with As Real As It Gets.
10) You get to an overtaking lane with no cars in front of you and feel like you're wasting an opportunity.
*EDIT*
11) You know it is called the Midland Hwy, not Midlands. I forgot to include that one.

So much driving. A bit more to go next week.

In the meantime, here are some links.

- Want to live longer? Follow this simple list.

2. Never get on a 4-wheeler ATV. These are the most dangerous vehicle that I know of. ATV’s have produced more quadriplegics than anything else I have seen.
10. If anyone tries to force you into your car or car trunk at gun point, don’t cooperate. Fight and scream all you can even if you risk getting shot in the parking lot. If you get in the car, you will most likely die (or worse).

- Interesting article on how to deal with criminal regimes from one of the men who helped write Ronald Reagan's "Tear down this wall" speech 20 years ago.
- Miranda Devine makes the point: what is the ratio of human life to environmental protection? About 40 deaths and 600 injuries a year, according to people working on the Pacific Hwy.
- Why NBC is dying, and who is to blame. Also, I love this quote from 30 Rock's Jack Donaghy:

“I’ll have you know,” he snarled at a rival a few weeks ago, “that Barry Diller and I are working on a whole new approach to media … combining all … the … digital … God, just let me drink!”

Nose + grindstone = great success.