...I gotta wear shades.

So, a lot of people in the public service seem to be stressed a lot of the time. I’m really not sure why. You know how something happens and you think you might have missed something? I’ve been here for about three months now, and I can’t really see what there is to be stressed about. Have I not been here long enough, or have I missed that meeting?

It reminds of a time I was in Melbourne on holidays and went shopping at a supermarket near the city. I looked around and saw that each of the people in front of me had a packet of toilet paper – you know the ones with 9 rolls? Then I looked further around. Every person I saw had toilet paper…everyone! It was freaking me out! Had I missed something? Was there some news story only I hadn’t seen? Was the world ending? And if so, what use would lots of toilet paper be?...
Anyway, that’s what working in the public service is like so far. It’s actually a lot of fun.


And I can hear the career public servants in the next cubicle talking about how the new IR laws are a good thing. “If you do a good days work for a good days pay, what have you got to worry about?” they say. “My husband negotiates his contract now”.
And “I don’t think small business people will just find someone who will accept worse pay and conditions, they’re not like that”

Holy shit, Batman! What kind of a fantasy world are these people living in! And how does working in a place for the last twenty years (where, incidentally, the new laws don’t apply – lucky them) give you a perspective on casual, low paid workers?

Anyway, that’s enough soapboxing for one day. Time to flex off and have a long lunch. Suckers…;)

...so stop whingeing and do something positive.

So i got an email the other day, as one is wont to do when one sits at a computer all day reading emails. It was one that asks you to forward to x amount of people and so on. Generally, I don't like doing what people ask, and am even less likely when I think it's crap. I never even forward those anti-loggingtheendangeredwhalepandagreenearedmarmothabitat emails, so this is what I sent for this one:


So, I've decided not to do what this piece of vigilante vitriol has asked. I wasn't on the jury, I'm not a judge and I hesitate to condemn two 10 year old boys if the law considers that they were too young to know what they were doing. I'm sure that if I knew the little boy, I would feel different...but I don’t.
Where's the petition about the leaders of the free world looking the other way while a quarter of Africa dies of AIDS, while indigenous and minority groups in their own countries are shat on, while bands like Destiny's Child are still allowed to pollute our ears with their sh*te?
And those bloody bike riders with their stupid spandex pants dinging me on the path!!
Phew...(is shat a real word?)
-----Original Message-----
From:
Sent: Monday, 27 March 2006 2:20 PM
To:
Subject:

Something to think about.
Do you remember February 1993 when a young 3 yr old was taken from Liverpool, United Kingdom, by two 10-year-old boys?
Jamie Bulger walked away from his mother for only a second and Jon Venables took his hand and led him out of the mall with his friend Robert Thompson.
They took Jamie on a walk for over 2 and a half miles, along the way stopping every now and again to torture the poor little boy who was crying constantly for his mummy.
Finally they stopped at a railway track where they brutally kicked him, threw stones at him, rubbed paint in his eyes and pushed batteries up his anus. It was actually worse than this. What these two boys did was so horrendous that Jamie's mother was forbidden to identify his body.
They then left his beaten small body on the tracks so a train could run him over to hide the mess they had created. These two boys, even being boys, understood what they did was wrong, hence trying to make it look like an accident.
This week Lady Justice Butler-Slosshas awarded the two boys anonymity for the rest of their lives when they leave custody with new identities.
They will also leave early this year only serving just over half of their sentence. They are being relocated to Australia to live out the rest of their lives. (didn't think we were a convict settlement anymore) They disgustingly and violently took Jamie's life away - in return they each get a new life.
Please .. if you feel as strongly as we do, that this is a gravemiscarriage of justice .. copy entire email and paste into new email...then add your name at the end, and send it to everyone you can!
If you are the 500th person to sign, please forward this e-mail to:
cust.ser.cs@gtnet.gov.uk <mailto:cust.ser.cs@gtnet.gov.uk> and attention it to Lady Justice Butler-Sloss.
Then start the list over again and send to your friends and family.
The Love-Bug virus took less than 72 hours to reach the world. I hope this one does as well. We need to protect our family and friends from creatures like Robert and Jon. One day they may be living next door to you and your small children or your grandchildren, without your knowledge.
THANK-YOU!!!




I know it was a bit wanky, mangoman, but who can be bothered thinking at the uncivilised hour of 9 am?

...but not as fast as I can walk!

He considered himself fairly fit. Obviously, walking everywhere and taking the stairs in preference to the escalator meant that, if necessary, he could walk to the other side of the country.
The sheer speed at which this walking took place, the weaving in and out of the slower pedestrian traffic – old people, lost tourists, women with prams – was a clear demonstration of his walking prowess.
It was only logical, then, that this would translate to other fields of endeavour, (logical, perhaps, if one had no concept whatsoever of the body’s athletic behaviour).

So he got out his pushbike which had not been ridden for a number of years. Pumped up the tyres, oiled the chain, and way he went…until the first hill.
Death came slowly, painfully. It started in the chest as the very air seemed to thicken, the oxygen flow to the body reduced to a trickle. Then the legs went, becoming columns of molten lava (an aside: I’ve noticed ‘lava’ is often referred to as molten, but isn’t this redundant?) as they began to disintegrate…. And so on.

Point is, I’m clearly ridiculously unfit. So I’ll need to focus on riding everyday or something to fix that. Or have a full organ transplant. All of them.

...so get off your arse and do something except watch TV.

No one came to the poker night at Casa de los Pescados Musicales. Everyone called in sick. The first poker night was a great success. The blokes gambled, a few drinks were had, and the one person who could play before the night began eventually ended up winning everything. All of it. The whole $20. In five cent pieces.
This boded well for subsequent nights. Of course, we did not reckon with the modern tendency of people to feign illness to avoid obligations. Well, not so new maybe, but, really, who calls in sick to avoid a social gathering? Actually, I suppose a lot of people.
All had stories of one sort or another, but they were watching the OC. As did I.
And, during first whole episode I've watched, I made a decision. I've decided to register my support of Ryan, mainly because no one else seems to like him and I tend to disagree with everyone in the room regardless of their position, just because I like to argue.
Works fine most of the time - I know enough about random stuff to bluff my way through.

My family tends to gang up on me, though.

But I still think there aren't that many hours available in life to waste them watching TV.

Of course, as you get older, I guess the amount of time you have available increases, brought about both by retirement and the fact that old people don't sleep. They're like dolphins who never sleep - apparently they can make one half of their brain sleep at a time so they can keep swimming. Handy. I know it's true because Dr Karl said so (dolphins, not old people, that is, who only seem to sleep in public - on buses, trains, while behind the wheel).
This is offset by the knowledge that the change in the amount of time you have left is inversely proportional to the time you've had. Which doesn't explain why old people walk slowly when I'm trying to get to the record shop, meet people at the station, have lunch, all in one hour. There's barely even time for a beer.

It's a hard life.

...and I missed it

So, I hit enter right after I put the title in. It's all far too efficient, this internet thing. Blog, with a capital B. I'm starting one, albeit sans a ready made rent-a-crowd like Sherdie's. In fact, I'm not even going to tell anyone about it, at least to begin with. I suspect that after a period of time with no interest, I'll spam it to the world.

I have previously made comments about this being a pointless exercise in lookatmeism - and I stand by earlier comments.

Don't know if I can be bothered talking about my day etc, as I was there and don't really care if you know what went on, but that may change. Also, I will probably lose interest in this thing in short order.

Mainly I'm doing this because I like to argue, or discuss, and I have a lot of half formed, baseless theories about everything which need testing. That, and I'm now a public servant with access to the net and time to waste. (and taxpayers money, I hear you say - but I figure I pay tax too, so I'm using my own money).

Also, at the moment I google myself and find that I'm a top player in the NCAA (American college football). Would be cool to have something from the real me floating around out there.

Look at me.

..if you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.