A Cursory Glance...

A Cursory Glance... has moved!

2010-03-18T00:52:00.002+11:00

After almost two years it's time for a change here at A Cursory Glance... So, I bought me some webspace, got the removalists in and moved into http://acursoryglance.net I would be most grateful if you would join me over there!

As our way of saying thank you for your loyal support, ACG article #50 is now online at the new site. Well, to be honest, it's not really to say thank you, I just couldn't be bothered uploading the piece to both sites. Check out the new site though - it's like, swanky or something.

You can also become a 'fan' of A Cursory Glance... over at Facebook or follow us on twitter. Or you can do both - that would be super awesome...

One week at a time...

2010-03-11T12:53:00.003+11:00

Once upon a time it was possible for professional athletes to ply their trade without having to deal with the stress of the modern media. It’s hard to imagine the ancient Olympians facing public scrutiny about their personal lives, for example. But nowadays, with the rise of the global media and a collective devotion to celebrity culture, being a professional athlete entails far more than simply being good at the sport in question. Just ask Michael Clark.

As attention on professional athletes has increased, so has an awareness that athletes need to be savvy when it comes to interacting with and participating in the media. Rather than allowing athletes to speak their minds, great care is now taken to promote good sportsmanship and maintain the reputation of the game in question. While a fight may well break out during an AFL match, for example, it is highly unlikely that the confrontation will continue off the ground, such is the desire to uphold the reputation of the game.

To this end sportsmen and –women are taught skills that will help them act appropriately when interacting with the media. For example, they are taught to be humble and not big-note themselves; they are taught to have respect for their opposition and for the game’s officials; and they are taught to take responsibility for their off-field actions.

While all this might sound fairly reasonable the reality is that it makes the whole process rather dull and predictable for the public. In his address at the conclusion of last year’s AFL grand final Geelong coach Mark ‘Bomber’ Thompson said the following;

‘Firstly to the St. Kilda footy club, footy sucks sometimes and you guys have had a fantastic year. You’ve done so much right and you’re one of the hardest teams to play against’.

An undoubtedly noble gesture, but also a rather predicable and unoriginal one. If only he had said something along these lines;

‘Firstly to the St. Kilda footy club, you only lost two games for the season and you finished two games clear on top of the ladder. You also outscored us in three quarters of today’s match and yet you still managed to lose the game. Good effort.’

Sure, it wouldn’t have made Mr. Thompson the most popular man in footy but at least he would have been the most original.

But more than making the whole process extremely predictable it would seem that the regulation of media interaction in the sporting world has reduced such interaction to a series of clichés.

An example of this can be seen when an AFL player is asked to assess his team’s finals chances. Rather than answering the question honestly the player will almost certainly revert to one of the great sporting clichés – ‘we’re just taking it one week at a time.’

Similarly, after a match-winning performance a player might well be asked to comment on his or her contribution. Rather than taking the opportunity to provide an accurate account of proceedings, the modern sportsperson will often reply ‘it was a great team effort’.

If the same player was on the losing side he might well be asked to explain why it was that his team lost. In this situation it is unlikely that he would call the opposition a pack of cheats, even if he had wanted to. The preferred response seems to be something along the lines of ‘we had our chances but let them slip away.’

There seems to be a cliché for every situation in sport and it’s not just the players that are getting in on the action. Sports commentators also seem to revel in language that is saturated with repetition and recurrence. Cricket commentators seem to be quite partial to the phrase ‘good line and length’, for example, while AFL commentators will often mention a courageous player’s ability to put his ‘body on the line’.

The final word today goes to The Australian columnist Chip Le Grand and his brilliant piece about clichés, jargon and the AFL. Hopefully someday I can write like this but until then I’ll just keep giving it 110% and taking it one week at a time...

The language of prejudice...

2010-02-26T13:29:00.009+11:00

Critiquing those who peddle tabloid journalism is kind of like using barrel-bound aquatic vertebrates for target practice. That said, it's also a lot of fun and has the added bonus of making one feel like one's journalism training is not going to waste.

Depending on your daily newspaper of choice you might or might not have heard about the case of Sudanese refugee Liep Gony. On February 17 Supreme Court judge Elizabeth Curtain overturned a ruling she had made in December, deciding to release the names of Gony's killers, Clinton Rintoull and Dylan Sabatino.
The following day The Age ran the story several pages from the front of the paper, while the Herald Sun, in all its sensationalist glory, deemed the story worthy of the front page.

It would seem that the editorial staff at the Herald Sun write headlines like Year 12 students are taught to write exam responses. That is, 'have a clear idea of the "buzzwords" that the examiners are looking for and ensure that you work them in wherever possible'. In the case of the Herald Sun, examiners are substituted for dedicated readers who seem to appreciate the frequent use of decidedly emotive words such as 'hero', 'horror', 'evil' and 'miracle. In the case of the February 18 edition of the Herald Sun it was decided that 'FACES OF EVIL' would be an appropriate headline for the Liep Gony story.

Now don't make the mistake of thinking that I find the actions of Gony's killers anything less than abhorrent. But, again, I was under the distinct impression that a news journalist's job was to inform the public of recent happenings so as to facilitate a considered decision on the public's behalf. I would like to think that people are smart enough to realise that bashing and ultimately killing someone, not least of all due to their skin colour, doesn't exactly constitute exemplary behaviour.

And while we're on the issue of skin colour let's turn out attention to the "FACES OF EVIL" story as it spilled to pages four and five. While the word 'fuck' was censored four times across the two pages, the word 'nigger' somehow made it through the Herald Sun's censorship department not once, but seven times.

Whether 'the N-word' should have been censored or not is a separate issue but by deciding to censor 'fuck' and not 'nigger', a rather loaded value judgment has been made. Are we to believe that a common expletive, used frequently in everyday speech, has the potential to cause greater offense than a term that arguably epitomizes an ongoing history of racial vilification and intolerance?

But it would seem that the Herald Sun is not alone in it's decisions regarding censorship. The same reasoning was evidently applied over at The Age with the following being an extract from the story run in The Age.

'Before he left home armed with a metal pole to bash and kill Sudanese teenage Liep Gony, Clinton Rintoull spray painted "f--- da niggas" on the wall of his rented Noble Park house.'

Again, one could argue that the word 'nigger' should not be censored as the newspaper in question is merely providing an objective report of what was said and written by Gony's killers. But, by the same token, shouldn't the word 'fuck' also be left in an unedited form as it too is an accurate representation of what was said by the youths in question?

In leaving this issue behind somewhat prematurely, it is to the wisdom of the wonderful Tim Minchin that I once again turn. His undeniably clever song 'Prejudice' - formally known as 'Taboo' - deals with the power of language when it comes to issues of skin colour and racial intolerance. Five minutes of your time s'il vous plaît...?

Only the best...

2010-02-16T23:41:00.006+11:00

In the world of five-star hotels the serving of breakfast seems to be inextricably linked with the serving of breakfast television. Until a few weeks ago our news-tainment provider of choice was Channel Seven's Sunrise, hosted by dynamic duo Kochie and Mel. Nowadays, at the behest of "the man", we fill our restaurant with the sounds of Karl Stefanovic and Lisa Wilkinson of Channel Nine's Today. According to the powers that be within our reputable establishment, Nine's breakfast offering is "better" than Seven's. It isn't exactly clear what "better" means in this context but I'm willing to hazard a few guesses.

Perhaps the celebrity gossip on Today is "better" than the gossip featured on Sunrise. Perhaps the advertising spots on Today are of far greater quality than those seen on Sunrise. Or maybe it's Today's ability to sensationalise recent news stories better than Sunrise that makes it the pick of the breakfast viewing.

On yesterday morning's edition of Today the team ran a story about the recent stabbing death of 12 year old Brisbane boy Elliot Fletcher. The story began with several parents discussing the apparent increase in violence in Australian schools before cutting to host Lisa Wilkinson reading through a list of incidents that demonstrated such an increase. As if Today's angle on this story wasn't clear enough already, they concluded the story by "interviewing" Norm Hart of the Queensland Association of State School Principals.

As a journalism student I have been taught that interviews should consist largely of "open" questions rather than questions which lead the interviewee to a specific answer or force a simple "yes" or "no" answer. In the case of the story in question, something like the following might have been appropriate;

"What does the recent stabbing death of Elliot Fletcher tell us about safety in our schools?"

But no. Apparently that line of questioning is a little too boring for Ms. Wilkinson who decided to go with something a little different;

"Should parents be worried as they send their kids off to school this morning?"

To Mr Hart's credit he participated in the interview as well as could be expected given that he need not have been there at all. I mean, why would you bother inviting someone to give their expert opinion on an issue if, when concluding the interview, you are going to completely disregard everything that they've said thus far?

"Understandably a lot of parents (are) not feeling that's the case today but we do thank you very much for your time this morning".

Sure, you could probably argue that Lisa Wilkinson isn't technically a journalist in her role as co-host of Today but if you are presenting news items and interviewing relevant authority figures related to said items, then surely some minimum standards of journalistic integrity must apply? You know, like presenting information in an rational and objective way rather than trying to sensationalise important issues.
Let's keep things in perspective here - a 12 year old boy getting stabbed to death while at school is truly horrific and of real concern to parents and teachers alike but that doesn't mean that kids around the country are suddenly unsafe at school. There are a lot of kids going to a lot of schools on a lot of days of the year, I hardly think a couple of isolated incidents of school yard violence are cause to keep the kids at home.

But it's all about the kids. The mainstream media loves nothing more than a "kids are at risk" story but most of the time such stories are dependant on deliberate scaremongering in order to provoke emotional responses from concerned parents. That's not to say that the issues at hand aren't important, they should just be dealt with rationally and in a considered fashion.

Speaking of fashion, most people know of Miley "Hannah Montana" Cyrus but far fewer would be aware of her younger sister, Noah. Nor should they be because Noah is a little girl of 10 years old - not that you would know it from her choice of attire.

In October of last year Miley's younger sister "made headlines" when she donned a "dominatrix-inspired" costume for Halloween celebrations and in the last couple months there have been rumours circulating of a lingerie line being released by junior Cyrus and her friend Emily Grace Reaves. Thankfully such rumours appear to be false and the clothing company in question, Ooh! La! La! Couture, seems to make tutus with tanktops rather than girls' lingerie.

Noah Cyrus is only one example of an apparent shift toward the sexualisation of young girls and social commentators like Mia Freedman have written extensively on this issue. To a significant percentage of the community, young girls dressing and acting as if they were far older results in the corruption of childhood and the premature loss of innocence. "They are growing up too fast", the older generations often remark, with advertising, the media and the internet often copping the blame.
Regardless of one's own thoughts on this issue, it's hard to deny that it is an issue that a lot of people feel very strongly about. While the solution to the problem isn't as easy as banning the sale of lingerie for young girls, for example, it's clear that parents have an important role to play. If you are concerned about your little girl growing up too fast then it's probably not a good idea to let them watch Beyonce film clips at six years old.
The mainstream media has an important role to play as well. Rather than the aforementioned scaremongering that the commercial networks love to fill their "current affairs" and breakfast shows with, there should be a greater focus on programs that facilitate meaningful discussion about serious issues. The ABC's Q & A is a perfect example of such a program and it makes for brilliant viewing.
The weekly show features a panel of expert guests who discuss topical issues as directed by the audience and moderated by one of Australia's greatest interviewers, Tony Jones. Of course he isn't "Australia's best interviewer" because that mantle belongs to Tracy Grimshaw of Nine's A Current Affair. Step aside Andrew Denton, stop tryin' Kerry O'Brien, Ms. Grimshaw has you both covered...

Call me un-Australian but...

2010-01-27T00:12:00.004+11:00

Call me un-Australian but I just can't seem to get excited about this whole Australia Day thing. Maybe it's the cringe-worthy expressions of patriotism that "Straya Day" seems to evoke in people or maybe it's the fact that we have a public holiday to celebrate the might of 18th century British colonialism.

For those that need a little reminder, January 26th 1788 was the day that the First Fleet - under the command of Captain Arthur Phillip - landed at Sydney Cove and claimed New South Wales for king and country. The Fleet was sent by King George III in order to establish a new penal colony after things took a turn for the worse in North America.

But of course Australia was already inhabited by the time Captain Phillip et al. rocked up on our shores. Conservative estimates place the number of Indigenous Australians at 300,000 at the time of the First Fleet. By 1901 this number had dropped to around 90,000 due, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, to “new diseases, repressive and often brutal treatment, dispossession and social and cultural disruption and disintegration.” Add to that the monstrosity that resulted in the “Stolen Generations” and you are looking at some pretty questionable treatment of our fellow human beings.

While it’s probably unreasonably for us modern-day Australians to be held responsible for the actions of our ancestors, doesn’t the concept of Australia Day, at best, exclude native land owners from our nationhood and, at worst, celebrate the brutal invasion of an occupied land?
Despite K-Rudd’s much publicised apology to the “Stolen Generations” in February of 2008, it’s clear that there is still much to be done to repair the damage done in the past. As white Australians it must surely be our responsibility to learn from history and treat our claims to this land with a sense of humility.

Unless of course you subscribe to the view that “We Grew Here, You Flew Here" is justification enough for racial vilification and violence. Take this status update from one of my Facebook “friends”, for example;

“(I’m) so happy da indians r gettin bashed dnt come here be we dnt want u........stealin our jobs and shit and wear fukin deodorant u fukin ferels!!!”

I’d like to think that this sort of sentiment is fairly rare but the recent spate of racially motivated violence - as mentioned by my "friend" - would seem to suggest otherwise. Not to mention the fact that the subtly-titled anti-immigration Facebook group “Fuck Off, We’re Full” managed to accrue 65,000 members before it was eventually shut down.

To adhere to this xenophobic nonsense is to make a rather questionable claim of ownership, namely that Australia belongs to white Australians and no-one else. Is it really that easy to forget that white Australians are nothing more than immigrants as well? Sure, we might have "owned" this country since 1788 but if 222 years of occupation is enough justification to say who comes and who goes, what privileges does 40,000 years of occupation entitle you to? Not much apparently.

On a similar but somewhat lighter note, it was with great delight that I watched Channel Nine's 6pm news bulletin this evening. The broadcast's opening story was about Van Thanh Rudd, the nephew of our Prime Minister, and, according to reporter Tony Jones, "our new serial pest". Mr. Rudd and a fellow member of the Revolutionary Socialist Party found themselves on the receiving end of a fine for "riotous behaviour" after dressing up in Ku Klux Klan outfits for an anti-racism protest.

Of course Channel Nine completely missed the ironic symbolism used by the pair, labeling the protest "insensitive" and declaring the "infamous" Van Thanh Rudd to be an "embarrassment" to his "famous" uncle. And here I was thinking that journalism was about presenting information as objectively as possible so that the audience can make up their own mind. Silly me...

Living the iLife...

2010-01-14T01:19:00.007+11:00

Catching the train home from work at around 11pm is always an experience. If it isn't boozed up teens sharing stories of their sexual conquests it's drug fuelled maniacs trying to start fights with ticket inspectors. Tonight was a little less extreme, but no less fascinating.

As I boarded the 10:41pm Hurstbridge train I became aware of a younger gentleman sitting a couple of metres away from me. As we started our slow journey into the 'burbs this gentleman started making eye contact with people as they boarded the train. After a few stations he struck up conversation with one particularly attractive young female who happened to be fiddling with her mobile phone; "How much do you pay for that per month?"

A rather unusual choice of pick-up line, I thought to myself, as I waited to see how quickly she could deflect his advances. To her credit though, she played along, answering his questions generously for a few moments before deciding it necessary to make a phone call.
After the lady had left the train, receiving a friendly smile and a wave in the process, the charismatic gentleman set about searching for another person to befriend. Turning to a female backpacker who had sat beside him he indicated to her large pack and asked "Have you got a dead body in there?"
Whether or not this woman didn't speak English, didn't understand the joke or just didn't want to talk to strange men late at night on public transport, I don't know. Either way she uttered some non-commital response before turning to face the other way.
As the backpacker left the train and Mr. Charisma began to scan the carriage again, I thought I had it figured it out - he was just some lonely dude trying to make the most of a boring train ride home by chatting up attractive girls, albeit unsuccessfully.

As we pulled out of one of the many stations between the city and home Mr. Charisma turned to a rather portly gentleman and, pointing to his dreadlocks asked; "How long did they take to grow?"
Well there goes the attractive girls idea. But then again, maybe he was just a lonely dude who felt the need for some human contact on his way home. Following discussions about the demise of the Glaswegian shipping industry and the merits of international postage insurance the topic of conversation turned to familiar territory - "Are you on pre-paid?"

That's when it clicked. The lonely gentleman in the corner wasn't lonely at all - he was a phone salesman looking to makes some commission in his downtime. Sure enough, when Mr. Dreadlocks asked what his inquisitor did for a job;

"I'm a door-to-door salesman, I sell mobile phone contracts for Optus. I'm not getting enough sales during the day so I thought I'd get on the trains and try to sell some phones that way."

It made sense. I mean, why else would someone ask a complete stranger how long they had left on their phone contract, out of the blue? It also explained the sales and marketing book that he was reading while he wasn't busy accosting tired commuters.

Don't get me wrong - I don't really care that he was trying to sell his wares at 11:30pm to people who just wanted to get home. After all, it's easy enough to say "no thanks, I'm not interested". However, one of his final comments to Mr. Dreadlocks got me thinking. Namely, "you can never have enough iPhones can you?"
Now I must confess a certain desire to join the iPhone flock but the last couple days have had me questioning the merits of such desires.

In an attempt to escape the hustle and bustle of our busy lives, the lady-friend and I headed up to her family's property in Tolmie, a town 30 kilometres north-east of Mansfield. The property is home to a converted machinery shed that is effectively a house without many of the modern conveniences - electricity, running water and mobile phone coverage, to name but a few.
Sitting down on one of the couches that adorn the shed I faced a crisis of sorts. What is there to do when there is no electricity?

When your whole life is dependant on the constant use of electricity, taking it away does funny things to you. Take this blog entry for example. It's 3:00am, pitch dark outside and without electricity I would be relying on candles to create enough light in order to write these thoughts on a piece of paper. I take it for granted that I can sit here on my couch as late as I like and that the lights, my laptop and the internet will be at my fingertips as long as I need them.
It all sounds a little dumb - of course we need electricity to power our 21st century lifestyles - but a weekend of tank water, longdrops, citronella coils and no Facebook was enough to give me a bit of a wake-up call.
Having said that, the feeling of being completely disconnected from the outside world is an extremely liberating one. I was able to break out of my busy routine and just sit back, smell the fresh country air and appreciate the simpler things in life. Like the fact that daylight is fairly important when you don't have electric lights all through your house. I was certainly less inclined to wake at noon than I am when I'm at home, that's for sure.

So, what does this have to do with iPhones and the selling thereof? I'm not quite sure to be honest. Maybe it's the idea that the iPhone - and the rampant consumption and consumerism that it represents - is somehow at odds with a simple and naturally fulfilling lifestyle. Or maybe someone just needs to invent an iPhone with solar panels on it. The best of both worlds, and all that...

The Christmas spirit...

2009-12-21T12:42:00.012+11:00

Christmas is a confusing time for us non-believers. It's hard to know whether or not to boycott the usual celebrations in protest of the continued influence of ancient religions or rejoice in the fact that the day has lost the greater proportion of its aforementioned influence.
Everyone knows the story of Christmas - some dude called Yeshua was supposedly born in Bethlehem on December 25, the son of God, a virgin mother and a father who allowed his wife to get knocked up by some mysterious entity known as the Holy Spirit. The new born was hailed as the Messiah, the individual prophesied in the Jewish Pentateuch as being responsible for reunifying the tribes of Israel and leading a peaceful world into the "Messianic Age".

Even if we allow the generous assumption that an individual named Jesus actually existed at the time he was supposed to, it is almost certain that such an individual was not actually born on December 25. According to Luke 2:8-12 there were "shepherds living out in the fields" on the day of Jesus' birth but, being in the Northern hemisphere, Palestine is well into winter by December 25 and well out of shepherding season. It is therefore more likely that Jesus' birth, if it even occurred, did so somewhere between March and November. Some Christians believe that he was born on May 14 6BC, others believe he was born in September 5BC and some others believe he was born on August 21 7BC.
For those that find this argument about Jesus' date of birth a little weak, it might be worth pointing out that such reasoning has been appropriated from an article on the accurately-titled website allaboutjesus.org.

Jesus' birthday was not initially set aside as a day worthy of celebration and when it eventually was, it took until the 4th century AD for the powers-that-be to decide that December 25 would be the day in question. But don't make the mistake of thinking that December 25 is just any old day, picked at random.

Much like the tradition known as Easter, Christmas day just happens to coincide with one of the most important days of the solar calendar. While the winter solstice occurs on December 21 or December 22 in the Northern hemisphere these days, 2000 years ago it fell on December 25 and was believed to be the day of the sun's rebirth. It sort of makes sense, in a cute kind of uneducated way - light and darkness are locked in a year-round battle for supremacy and at certain times of the year one of them is stronger than the other. At the summer solstice light is far stronger than darkness and the day is significantly longer than the night but at the winter solstice the tables are turned and the majority of the 24 hour cycle known as the "day" is bathed in darkness.
Indeed many of the "pagan" religions featured such a myth, with a sun god in the role of light.

So what do sun gods have to do with Christmas? Well, it is generally accepted that authorities within the Church appropriated December 25 for Christ's "birthday" in order to make it easier for "pagans" to ditch their primitive ways and jump on the Christian bandwagon. How very thoughtful of them.

Given that I'm in no hurry to board any sort of religious vehicle, how can I make sense of the unavoidable beast that is Christmas? Well perhaps I can embrace the secular meaning of Christmas and rejoice in the giving and receiving of presents.

It's no secret that the "primary gifting period" is the most lucrative time of year for the retail sector. It's also no secret that people are more than happy to contribute to the consumerist machine that kicks into overdrive in the month of December. Sure, the feeling of buying someone a present that they like is quite satisfying, and receiving presents is always good, but feeling obliged to buy presents for anyone remotely important to you seems like a rather unnecessary burden to bear. One of my Facebook "friends" put it most eloquently when he quipped; "most people on Facebook seem more excited about finishing their Christmas shopping than Christmas itself".

And then there's Santa - an overweight, ageing gentleman with abundant facial hair and a penchant for little children. The jolly red and white fellow that we know today has evolved from and been influenced by several historical entities including a 4th century Greek bishop called Saint Nicholas of Myra, the Norse god Odin, the mythical English gentleman Father Christmas and the drawings of the German-American cartoonist Thomas Nast.
Setting aside the assumption that it's ok to lie to children about the existence of fictional characters, do we really want to set children up to expect gifts every year? Do we really want to promote the idea that Christmas is all about receiving presents?

As I am wont to do, I shall close today by defaulting to the wisdom of Tim Minchin and in particular his song "White Wine in the Sun".

Yes I have all of the usual objections to consumerism,
The commercialisation of an ancient religion.
And the westernisation of a dead Palestinian,
Press-ganged into selling Playstations and beer.
But I still really like it.

I'll be seeing my Dad,
My brother and sisters, my gran and my Mum.
They'll be drinking white wine in the sun.
I'll be seeing my Dad,
My sisters and brother, my gran and my Mum.
They'll be drinking white wine in the sun

I wouldn't normally paste such greats slabs of text into an article but I reckon this song sums it up perfectly.
You don't need to believe in Jesus or spend lots of money to have an enjoyable festive season. Christmas should be about spending time with friends and family, celebrating the year that has passed and the year that's to come.

So, from the team here at A Cursory Glance..., thanks for reading, and Merry Christmas...

I'm Sagittarian. Unless I'm not...

2009-12-13T23:31:00.009+11:00

As an employee of a reasonably-professional accommodation provider, I am required to work the occasional breakfast shift. As if the horror of getting up at 4:30am isn't enough, the powers that be insist that we broadcast mindless drivel on the restaurant's television.

Now I don't know anyone that's going to claim that Channel Seven's Sunrise program even vaguely resembles quality programming, but last Sunday's episode was something special. Not half an hour after broadcasting this attempt at balanced journalism the Sunrise crew were throwing to their resident astrologer for the daily horoscopes.

As was explained in the aforementioned video, astrology is the pseudoscience that claims that the positions of the stars and planets can be analysed in order to provide information about human personalities, behaviours and the workings of society in general. In the West this tradition manifests itself most frequently in the form of horoscopes which can be found in trashy magazines and newspapers everywhere. These lovely snippets of "information" claim to provide predictions about the future, based solely on the reader's date of birth.
According to astrologers a person's zodiac sign is determined by the position of the sun relative to the background stars on the date of their birth and that person will have certain character traits determined by their particular zodiac sign. For example, between November 23 and December 22 the sun is said to appear in the constellation of Sagittarius and therefore, with my birthday falling on the 25th of November, I am said to be a Sagittarius. According to Astrology.com.au Sagittarians are extremely confident, prone to bouts of good fortune, are known for their contagious enthusiasm and so on.

But there are some major problems with this theory. Firstly, in order to believe what astrologers tell us, we must convince ourselves that the position of the sun at a particular date, relative to the background stars, can actually affect an individual's personality. Exactly how it does this is a mystery but Astrology.com.au offers this helpful explanation;

"...our luminescent sun apparently moves month by month throughout the year, transceiving the energy of those different constellational signs and thereby transmitting the celestial radiations to our Earth".

Ok, so that makes perfect sense. The sun somehow grabs some sort of mystical personality-building energy from constellations that are millions of kilometres away (the closest star in the Sagittarius constellation is Ross 154 and is located 91,577,915,000,000 kilometres from the sun) and beams it down to earth. Sounds very scientific to me.

Secondly, even if it's true that the position of the sun at the time of my birth imbues me with certain character traits, astrologers would have us believe such traits are common to all Sagittarians. That is, everyone born between November 23 and December 22 is supposed to share a set of common character traits. I find it rather difficult to believe that everyone born between these dates is confident, lucky and enthusiastic as I supposedly am.

Even if we believe all of that, there is still one major hurdle to overcome. When the Babylonians first drafted the Zodiac around 2,500 years ago, the sun was in the constellation of Sagittarius between November 23 and December 22. However, thanks to the efforts of Greek fellows like Aristarchus of Samos, Hipparchus of Rhodes and Ptolemy we now know of the phenomenon known as "axial precession".

While you may know that the Earth spins while in it's orbit around the Sun, you might not know that it spins off-centre. While we are taught to think of the Earth as spinning around a vertical axis, this axis is actually tilted by 23 degrees. In addition to causing the different seasons that we experience on Earth, the tilt of the Earth's rotational axis has a secondary effect. As this short clip demonstrates, by having an axis that is a certain amount away from the vertical, the axis of rotation actually moves over a period of time. This results in a gradual change in our observable "star field".
Imagine you are lying in the dentist's chair at the end of a check-up, focused on a spot on the ceiling. Imagine too that you can't move your eyes at all and that you are forced to look straight ahead. As the dentist changes the angle of the chair to bring you into an upright position, your eyes, unable to look around, will trace a straight line from the ceiling down the wall. Axial precession is kind of like that - as the angle of the Earth's rotational axis changes, so what we can see from our vantage point on the Earth changes.

So, what does this have to do with astrology and the Babylonians? Well, as I mentioned, the signs of the Zodiac were first assigned around 2,500 years ago. Since that time axial precession has changed the apparent location of the background stars. So, the Sun, which once appeared to be in the constellation of Sagittarius on the 25th of November now appears to be in the constellation of Scorpio. Therefore I am no longer "a Sagittarius", instead I am "a Scorpio".
In order to be a Sagittarius now I would need to be born between December 18th and January 19th.

Well that's all pretty clear cut isn't it? Astrology is a pseudoscience that makes claims above and beyond its station without considering the workings of relevant celestial phenomena.
But two days after watching Sunrise at work I stumbled upon a book at my local shopping centre that I couldn't resist flicking through. It was "What Your Birthday Reveals About You" by Phyllis Vega and it claimed to provide "astonishingly accurate revelations about your future, your secrets and your strengths" based, you guessed it, on the individual's zodiac sign. I flicked sceptically to November 25 and read through some of my alleged character traits;

Those born on November 25 are inclined to live "intense lives of crusading ideals"

Although I "give the impression of being a bit of a loner", I'm "actually searching for meaningful ways to connect with other people"

I could "satisfy my creative muse...as a writer, journalist, publisher, artist, musician or actor"

I am "a natural athlete with a genuine love of the outdoors".

I could go on. Scarily, all of these suggestions are quite true and as I read on, more and more of the statements seemed to be accurate. I faced a brief internal struggle - "I know astrology is bogus, but how are these predictions so accurate?"
And then it occured to me. If astrology is an accurate and consistent scientific pursuit then surely these predictions are based on some immutable, objective truth that is directly related to my date of birth. Consequently, if I was to go to another source of birthday-based wisdom, I would find similar, if not exactly the same results. So, does Astrology.com.au say the same things as Phyllis Vega about those of us born on November 25?

Life of crusading ideals? Not mentioned. Loner with intent to communicate at a higher level? Not in so many words. Suited for a creative career like journalism? Not quite. Naturally sporty? Doesn't come up.
However, I am apparently blessed with a colourful imagination and a rare tolerance for others. Are either of these mentioned in Ms. Vega's book? I think you know the answer to that...

Shameless self-promotion...

2009-11-27T13:25:00.003+11:00

I try to avoid using this blog to talk myself up - after all, that's what Facebook is for. However, today I'll make an exception as I engage in a bit of self-congratulatory indulgence.

As part of a university assignment I wrote an article about the lack of an R18+ classification for video games here in Australia. Despite having strong feelings about the issue I restrained myself and managed to, according to the editor of The Age's Livewire, "present a neutral account" of the current debate. The aforementioned editor, Glenn Mulcaster, was good enough to publish the article in yesterday's Livewire, the white pages of the Green Guide. For those that haven't already caved in to the deluge of links on Facebook, the article can be read here.

As a follow up to that story I thought it would be interesting to describe the process of getting published. I pitched the article to Lawrie Zion, the Editor-in-Chief of upstart, "the magazine for emerging Australian journalists", and he was good enough to publish it. You can read it here.

For those that are used to my more sarcasm-laden writing style, the aforementioned articles might feel seem a little dull but time and place and all that.

Shameless self-promotion complete...

Update: My last blog entry, "The Good Lord..." was picked up by Lawrie Zion and re-published on upstart. Check it out here.

The Good Lord...

2009-11-26T03:46:00.006+11:00

You know it's time for bed when those religious programmes come on TV. You know the ones - they start about 3am and invariably feature the effervescent preachings of middle-aged American men. I thought I'd watch a couple such programs after work this morning, you know, for a bit of a laugh.
As I watched I found myself consistently amazed by the strength of conviction possessed by these men. Unfortunately for our overnight-evangelists though, confidence in one's beliefs does not make such beliefs any less wrong.

One of the delightful programmes that I sampled was Life Today, a faith-based lifestyle program that, this morning at least, featured a plea to help Africa's starving multitudes. You can picture the scene - middle-aged American gentleman and his good lady wife, talking into the camera about how viewers must find it in themselves to donate to Life Outreach International, their associated charity. Throw in some footage of hideously malnourished African children and some tears from the hosts and you have compelling viewing.

I mean, they have a point right? Who doesn't feel like they should do something to help out the millions of kids that are far less fortunate than ourselves? I'm pretty sure human compassion will lead us to that feeling everytime without being guilted into it by teary-eyed believers.

Speaking of human compassion, how about this tasteful effort by Life Today's South African missionary who gave up his professional rugby career to spread the word of God. After a teary introduction by the show's hosts, James and Betty Robison, the programme cuts to footage of a child so badly malnourished that he can't muster up the strength to blow the flies off his lips. Perched over the child and dressed in a snappy outfit is the decidedly healthy looking missionary who delivers the following compassionate analysis;

"This child could die any second - I'm literally watching children die before me. Who will be next?"

At this point, the missionary turns to where a throng of not-quite-as-badly-malnourished children are sitting, clearly bemused by the spectacle. He places his hand on the head of one of the smallest children and hypothesises thus;

"Will it be this child?"

There is a very serious challenge that must be put to the Robison's and all of those that believe God has compelled them to aid starving children. If God is all-powerful, all-knowing, benevolent and perfectly good, as the majority of Christians seem to think, why would he let children starve in the first place?
To me that's almost an "I win" button for atheism but, of course, there are those that offer potential explanations. Are we to believe that God rates freedom of choice and freedom of action so highly that he is prepared to sit back and let millions of innocent children suffer every day? Are we to believe that God has given us all the necessary tools to fight poverty and starvation but that any failure to do so is a failure on mankind's behalf?
Well, that last idea isn't so bad, but to paraphrase Pierre-Simon Laplace via Dawkins and Hitchens, it works fine without the idea of God.

Finally, I couldn't help feeling a little sorry for the gracious hosts of Life Today as they recounted, tearfully, the story of a child they met some years back;

"When we were in Africa we visited little Matthew in hospital. As we left his bed the nurses told us that he wouldn't make it through the night. But we went back the next day and Matthew hadn't died during the night. We went back a year later and we were kicking a soccer ball with him. Matthew didn't die, he was a miracle of love".

This sort of reasoning is laughable at best, and at worst, deliberately misleading. Why is it that one child's survival against the odds is put down to divine intervention and yet, when thousands upon thousands of other children are dying through starvation, dehydration and AIDS, God is nowhere to be seen? What did that one child do to deserve life that countless others didn't?

Those who find it within themselves to aid those in need are truly worthy of praise. God, however, is not among them...

The art of sarcasm...

2009-11-18T12:27:00.003+11:00

In my four-and-a-bit years in the hospitality industry I've learnt the importance of building a rapport with one's customers. You know, a question about how the guest's week has been, a comment about the weather or a joke about something relevant. But, depending on the circumstances, such attempts to build a rapport can either heighten the customer's dining/drinking experience or can alternatively ruin what would otherwise have been a pleasant evening. Last night it was the latter, but more on that in a moment.

A Cursory Glance... was created almost entirely as a homage to Marieke Hardy's Reasons You Will Hate Me, a blog that I fell in love with not too long before Ms. Hardy decided to call it quits. I particularly love(d) her uncompromisingly acidic style of writing and tell-it-like-it-is attitude and I find my own writing being influenced considerably by Ms. Hardy's.

In addition to a great fondness for Ms. Fits' writing style, I often identified quite strongly with the stories she would tell. In one particular entry Ms. Hardy recounted how she had been impressed by the dry sarcasm of a waiter she had once encountered, his answer to "can we have some plates for sharing?" being a deadpan, ultra-sarcastic "no, we don't have plates".

To me, that sort of humour is comedy gold - of course we have plates, we're a restaurant - but as a I found out last night with a variation on the "no plates" gag, not everybody is of the same mind.

Allow me to set the scene. I'm standing at the host desk at the entrance to the restaurant. It's an hour and a half after we opened and I haven't served a single customer. Suddenly, finally, a lone gentleman tentatively pokes his head in the door...

Customer: Hi. Do you have a table for one?

I turn my head toward the empty restaurant, survey the scene and then turn back to the customer.

Me, deadpan: I'm sorry sir we are fully booked this evening.

The gentleman shakes his head in disgust and turns to walk out the door. At this point I've started to smile - not only has the customer appreciated the joke but he is playing along by pretending to walk out. As he makes his way out the restaurant door and walks away I can't help being impressed by his commitment to the joke. And then it hits me - he thought I was serious. I run down the hall and call out to him;

Me: Sir! Sorry, I was joking. I was just commenting on the fact that we are empty and have been all night. Sorry sir.

Customer: I'm in no mood for humour.

Ok, so that went well. He eventually made his way back into the restaurant and, rather awkwardly and feeling more than a little embarrassed, I went through the motions of getting him watered and fed.

Is my sarcasm so well honed that I can convince a middle-aged man that, at 7:30pm, an empty restaurant is completely booked? Or is my comedic judgment really that far off the mark?

Actually, come to think of it, it's not the first time a Marieke Hardy-inspired joke has gone awry.

At my previous place of employment I once tried the "no plates" joke to a similar sort of reaction;

Lady: Hi. Can I just get a plate so we can share our meal?

Me, deadpan: Oh, sorry. We actually don't have any plates.

Lady: Oh ok. Can I just get a bowl or something?

Me: *Laughing* It was actually a joke. We are a restaurant, we have plates.

I think I'll stick to comments about the weather from now on...

On feminism and faking it...

2009-11-15T00:13:00.007+11:00

As the Britney Spears Circus rolls out of town, heading north for the Sydney leg of the tour, what better time to turn our attention, once again, to the world of popular music.

For Ms. Spears, the trouble began almost as soon as she touched down in Oz with fans reportedly walking out of her Perth shows. According to the Daily Telegraph it took only three songs before fans got up and left, complaining that they hadn't paid up to $1500 to see her mime, or rather not see her mime, as a result of the big screens not showing Britney at all.
It seems fairly obvious to me that if you are selling yourself as a musician, then your tour should probably involve you, I don't know, performing some music? Actually, let's not be unfair here. She does sing one song live during the show. Interestingly, the intro banter to "Everytime" was apparently the only attempt that Spears made to interact with the Melbourne crowd, eight songs into the show.

It's apparently been known for years that Spears has some sort of aversion to singing her songs live, so fans should have been aware of what they were going to get. But New South Wales' Minister for Fair Trading Virginia Judge told Sydney's Daily Telegraph that the NSW government might consider forcing promoters to inform concert-goers if pre-recorded vocals are used during a show. And why not? If I wanted to see Britney Spears cavort around semi-naked while pretending to sing I would watch one of her film clips on Youtube, saving myself at least $200. You have to wonder, why would she even bother wearing one of those clip-on microphones if people are aware that she isn't using it? And if people aren't aware, isn't that deliberately misleading?
Let's leave the world of lip-synching behind for a moment and turn instead to the world of pitch-correction and would-be feminism.

For those that haven't heard David Guetta and Akon's collaborative effort "Sexy Bitch", spend about three minutes of your time and get up to speed. With a track this awful it's really hard to know where to start.

Well, firstly, the French DJ's "beat" is so prosaic that it makes the Black Eyed Peas' "I Gotta Feeling" (to which he also contributed) seem like a Jim Steinman epic. Secondly, hasn't the T-Pain vocal effect had its fifteen minutes of fame? And thirdly, well, let me explain.

Akon dutifully informs us that he has made a concerted effort to portray the woman in question with the utmost respect. Namely, "I'm trying to find the words to describe this girl without being disrespectful". Nothing wrong with that, in fact Akon's noble intentions could arguably pave the way for more respectful treatment of women in the R&B universe in the future. Until you listen to the chorus. "Damn you's a sexy bitch", coos Akon, drawing, no doubt, on an extensive understanding of gender studies, feminism and sleaze.

This continued "respect" for women isn't all that surprising, I mean, you only have to listen to Dr. Dre's "Bitches Ain't Shit" to fully understand the reverence for women that exists in certain sectors of the music industry. No, Akon's treatment of women would be largely unmentionable were it not for his self-proclaimed attempts to escape from the "woman = bitch" discourse. Having said that, he didn't really try all that hard did he?

To be fair, the song could have been titled "Sexy Whore" but Akon's feminist leanings so wisely prevented that from eventuating. No, for Akon the word "whore" is reserved only for those who might otherwise be considered attractive in their particular "neighbourhood", but who, in comparison to the song's eponymous female, just don't quite make the grade.

But, despite all of the aforementioned shortcomings, the song is still phenomenally popular. It reached #1 on the singles charts in Australia, Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, New Zealand and the UK and was #1 on the U.S's Billboard "Hot Dance Club Songs" chart. I honestly can't explain it. Sure, maybe it's a club song and its impact is lost of outside of that context but since when does consuming eight Jaeger-bombs while surrounded by 100 other sweaty bodies in a fire-trap night-club allow you to objectively measure the merits of a song...?

All people are created equal. Except faggots...

2009-09-26T01:36:00.007+10:00

Do you ever get the feeling that things are going backwards in this country? You know, the feeling that, rather than making progress on important social issues, we are heading back toward the dark ages?
For those that missed it, the Victorian Attorney-General Rob Hulls announced yesterday that a compromise had been reached over the proposed changes to the Equal Opportunity Act, striking a balance between religious freedom and freedom from discrimination. It sounds promising, I mean, we like compromise don't we? The proposed changes to the Act will prevent religious groups from discriminating against an individual "on the grounds of race, disability, age, physical features, political belief or activity and breastfeeding". Again, that all sounds fairly positive to me. But wait, what's this?

"Religious groups would continue to be able to discriminate on other grounds including sexuality or marital status if it was in accordance with their beliefs."

And here I was thinking that we were talking about the Equal Opportunity Act - silly me. Seriously, how does this even happen? I'm all for religious freedom - you can believe whatever you want to believe - but not if it's going to be at the expense of other people's job prospects.
Let's keep things in perspective here - we are sacrificing the modern ideal of equal opportunity for the sake of religious dogma that was written between 4000 and 1500 years ago, depending on your monotheistic doctrine of choice. Isn't the idea of giving everyone a "fair go" one of the foundations of our national cultural identity? 91% of Australians seem to think so, according to a Roy Morgan survey.
Where do we draw the line here? If I am an employer in a "religious group" and it is my opinion that Ephesians 5:24 should be interpreted and adapted for use in my workplace, am I justified in employing women only in the lowest-ranked positions within my company? After all, women are always subordinate to men so how could a woman ever be in a position where she might be in charge of men? I don't wanna hear about Women's Suffrage or anything like that, I can do what I like because my actions are in accordance with my religious beliefs.
Sure, it may be a pithy example but the point should be fairly obvious - if "religious belief" is justification enough for actions that might be contrary to the values of our secular society, hasn't something gone wrong with the system? Let's shift gears a little.

The other night after work I flicked the TV on and switched to SBS. Being after 10pm I was fully aware of the risk I was taking - chances are I was to be greeted by some ultra-weird Swedish arthouse film or some thinly-veiled soft-core pornography. It happened to be the latter, a Spanish film named Cachorro, translated into English as Bear Cub. The film followed a "bear" who assumed responsibility for his young nephew after the nephew's mother was imprisoned for drug smuggling. The film's opening five minutes contained the most graphic gay sex scene I have ever seen on Australian television and the following 90 minutes were littered with many more such scenes.

I'll admit that I found the sex in the film a little confronting - not because of the explicit nature of the scenes and obviously not because of some philosophical or religious objection to homosexuality but because, well, I'm just not used to seeing gay sex scenes. It's probably the same feeling I had when I saw my first heterosexual sex scene in a film.
As I discussed some months ago, it is pretty clear that our society is still not used to seeing displays of affection between gay couples and more often than not, such displays of affection are cause for major controversy. In fact, in spite of the concerted efforts of the last few decades, western society seems intent on forever ostracising members of the gay community.

Having experienced the ins and outs of "working class culture" in a cricket club environment over the last decade I have it on fairly good authority that being a "poofter" or a "faggot" is pretty much the worst thing you can be. You know the sort of guy I mean - the bloke that doesn't smash a slab of VB every weekend after playing footy with his mates. Oh, and the guy that doesn't slap his mate on the arse after kicking a goal? Gay. The guy that won't shower with the boys after a win? Must be a homo. And don't get me started on the guy that won't let his team mates piss on him in the showers after the game - what a faggot.
I wish I was making this stuff up, but if you head to the change rooms of any football or cricket club in the country you will soon see what I mean.

I know I'm being overly idealistic in my attempts to foster a greater sense of respect for the gay community, especially among footy and cricket players - it's a far bigger issue than a semi-informed rant can hope to deal with. On the flip-side I also know that there is not nearly enough positive exposure to gay culture in the modern media and that SBS should be commended for having the balls to run films like Cachorro. Finally, I know that in the struggle toward equal opportunity for all, regardless of sexuality, the decision to prioritise religious freedom over freedom from discrimination is certainly not going to help...

Better than the best...?

2009-09-22T15:29:00.008+10:00

I've been known to spend the odd bit of spare time playing video games. Back in the primary school days I used to spend many an hour turning wizards into cats in Kings Quest III and destroying the Russians in Civilization. I graduated to secondary school and so it was only fitting that I should make the move to Civilization II. Rayman was another massive time-sucker in high school, with its family-friendly "it's ok to punch people" violence and lush atmospheric soundtrack.
More recently I have found myself craving the higher difficulty settings of Bungie's Halo and Halo 2 and a borderline-dangerous addiction to Bethesda Softworks' Morrowind has seen another 100-and-something hours of my life gone.
As great as these games were and still are, there was never one game that stood out. No game that was worthy enough of the honour of being my favourite game. Until last year that is. Enter Grand Theft Auto IV.

Sure, I had played the previous installments in the series - I can remember many an afternoon in my Year 12 Information Systems class engaged in four-way multiplayer deathmatches with mates in the original GTA. When Rockstar Games made the first two installments in the series free to download (which they still are and more than worth a look) I had no hesitation in promptly aquiring GTA2 and playing it through to the end. I have also played GTA3 and GTA: Vice City on Xbox and loved every minute of them.
But nothing that I had seen before prepared me for the epic tour de force that is Grand Theft Auto IV. It is a superb first-person shooter with a truly memorable cover system, it is a top-notch driving simulator with hyperrealistic car modelling and crash physics, it has a rich and detailed storyline that really hooks the gamer and it has well directed and choreographed cut-scenes with fantastic cinematography. The amount of detail that has gone into the production of the game is quite staggering and more than once I found myself shaking my head in amazement and how much care had been taken to create a truly memorable gaming experience. I could go on for hours about how good the game is but why don't we leave it to the experts?
The game cost $100 million to produce, making it the most expensive video game ever made. Luckily for Rockstar Games it also happens to be the greatest game of all time.

So imagine my surprise when I picked up Volition, Inc.'s Saints Row 2 for $40 at JB Hi-Fi earlier this month. On first blush the two games are remarkably similar. They are both massively immersive open-world games about a gangsta making it to the top. Both games feature a multitude of vehicles, weapons, missions and mini-games, truly earning the title "sandbox". After playing Saints Row 2 for a while though, the difference between the games becomes far more clear. Where GTAIV is more focused on gritty life-like realism, Saints Row 2 takes a more over-the-top sort of feel. The driving has more of an arcade-style feel to it, the selection of weapons is almost comical at times and overall the game doesn't take itself too seriously. Here's what the Good Game guys had to say about Saints Row 2.

Having spent a fair bit of time with the lovely folks of Stillwater, I have come to the rather pleasant realisation that Saints Row 2 might just be a better game than GTAIV.
For example, I can't remember anything in GTAIV as hilariously entertaining as Saints Row 2's Insurance Fraud diversion - a mini-game wherein your aim is to injure yourself as much as possible by throwing yourself in front of cars, off bridges and so on.
Sure, SR2 might not be as visually impressive as GTA4 but what it lacks in aesthetics it more than makes up for with its endless ways of keeping the player entertained - check out the character customization options to see what I mean.

But at the end of the day it doesn't matter if Saints Row 2 is a better game than Grand Theft Auto IV. What matters is that I'm utterly addicted and the only way of breaking that addiction is to achieve 100% completion in the game. So, if you'll excuse me, Stillwater awaits...

Animal rights (and wrongs)...

2009-09-17T18:39:00.005+10:00

I don't spend a lot of my time thinking about issues like animal rights but lately there have been some things that have forced the issue into my mind. Take this ongoing news story for example. For those that missed it, the Australian Racing Board announced back in March that as of August this year, a whole swathe of new regulations would be imposed on Australian jockeys. Some of the more controversial changes state that only padded whips are to be used when whipping horses, that a jockey must not raise their arm above shoulder height when whipping a horse and that a horse must not be whipped more than five times in the final straight, before the 200 metre-to-go mark.
Following the announcement in March there has been significant backlash within the horse racing community including a half-day strike by jockeys last week which allegedly cost Tabcorp $2.5 million. Since the strike there have been talks between the Australian Racing Board and the Australian Jockeys' Association resulting in a compromise between the new regulations and the status quo.

To be honest, I couldn't care less about horse racing or about Tabcorp's daily takings. I'm more interested in the fact that there is an issue of potential animal cruelty here that is, for the most part, completely ignored. Who knows, maybe horses don't feel anything when jockeys whip them, but good on the ARB for having the balls to bring the issue out into the open.

It got me thinking - surely there must be other issues of potential animal cruelty that are often overlooked, and then I remembered - Tim Minchin's "Bears Don't Dig On Dancing". The song might be a little silly but the point seems to be pretty clear to me - sure, making bears dance is pretty cruel but what about all those other animals that are used to attend our every need? Coal-mine canaries for example? Or packmules? Or those poor horses that drag tourists up and down Swanston Street in those fancy looking carriages?

I'm not really saying anything new here am I? I mean, animal rights organisations have been preaching to us for years about how animals should have equal rights to those of humans, that we shouldn't eat meat, that animals shouldn't be used for scientific testing and so on. Part of me jumps up with fists in the air and yells "yeah, right on!" while another part of me can't help but recommend this article to all and sundry, Seriously, "better dead than fed"?

I guess the point that I'm trying to pull out of this convoluted mess is that the animal rights/cruelty debate isn't a clear cut one. Sure, I can fully appreciate that testing medicine on animals poses serious ethical considerations. On the other hand, without the knowledge that thousands of years of animal testing has uncovered, our understanding of disciplines such as biology, microbiology, toxicology and a whole lot of other -ologies would be severely restricted.

Something that has never really made sense to me, and something that is particularly relevant when talking about animal rights is the issue of de-sexing. Specifically, how is it that the process of neutering a pet is so widely accepted in our society? I've never met a single person that has decided not to neuter their cat or dog because they thought it would constitute an animal rights abuse.
Does the excuse "we can't afford to have a litter of dogs running around" really justify taking a knife to your pet? As I mentioned earlier the issue of animal rights is a contentious one but surely your desire to only have two dogs rather than eight is outweighed by your dogs' desire not to have their reproductive organs chopped out? What gives us the right to jump in and control the reproductive cycles of our pets? Oh yeah, the same rights that let us breed cats and dogs as domestic animals in the first place, resulting in out-of-proportion monstrosities like the British Bulldog. I'm not convinced that the positive health effects are justification enough for neutering our pets either. As this irrefutable source shows, the negative effects are equal, if not greater in number than the postive effects.

I might be missing something here - maybe there are genuinely good reasons for forcing your beloved pets to part with their reproductive organs. Either way, there is not nearly enough discussion about this issue in our society at the moment and it's a real shame. All we need is for some psycho-parent to crack the shits at their teenage son for banging every chick in site, castrate him in order to prevent the advent of multiple grandchildren and then justify their actions by saying "but it worked on the dog". Now that would generate some discussion...

Keep left, alright...?

2009-09-10T14:05:00.008+10:00

We cyclists are a funny breed. With the amount of animosity that exists between cyclists and drivers, you would think that both parties would be doing everything possible to avoid pissing the other off. Not likely.

Two weekends ago my brother and I attended the Whittlesea Challenge Ride in Melbourne's outer-northern suburbs and for the most part it was a relatively pleasant day. Good company, good scenery and - excluding a serious downpour in the last 10km - good weather. Around a third of the way through the ride, as we came out of the town of Flowerdale, the road started to head upwards slightly after a descent that was the best part of 30km long. As the road tilted up the pace of the riders gradually slowed down until a largish group formed just up the road from us. This group, thinking that because they had paid for the privilege of participating in the group ride, decided to sprawl out all over the one-lane road, forcing traffic behind them to slow to a crawl. Surprisingly, none of the drivers seemed to mind too much despite the fact that these idiots felt that they were too good to ride on the left hand side of the road.

As the convoy of cars edged forward at 20km/h, unable to pass the group ahead, us riders behind the cars were able to jump behind the convoy to get a bit of shelter from the wind. Suddenly, some bloke sped up on the right hand side of us, cut across to the left and then started overtaking the cars on the left. As he rode past the first car in the convoy he looked in the passenger's side window and gave the driver an almighty spray, the gist of which could be summarised by the question "would you mind moving a little closer to the left of the road?"

It was more than a little bit ironic that this idiot was abusing drivers for getting in his way when the entire reason they were in his way was because of other idiots up the road. All of us in the group behind had a good laugh at the idiot in question, but then it just made me angry. Is it any wonder that there is so much animosity between cyclists and drivers when idiots like this are so quick to start abusing drivers?

Recreational rides like the Whittlesea Challenge truly are a haven for riders who think they are better than they really are. I am under no delusions as to how good a cyclist I am, but if I was actually a decent rider, I'd still keep to the left of the road - it's not that hard. Some riders obviously feel like they have the right to wobble all over the road, slowing down traffic, angering drivers. It's a real shame because there are a lot of riders out there who actually do respect the road laws and other road users. As is always the case with these sorts of things, it's the minority that are doing the most damage. Just check out the comment-love that is being shared following the introduction of tough news laws for cyclists earlier in the year. You can pretty much guarantee that this sort of vitriolic discussion will erupt between cyclists and drivers whenever any story related to cycling or cyclists makes the news.

So what's the answer? Well, how about we start having a little bit of respect for each other? Cyclists, stick to the left. I don't care if you think you are Cadel Evans, roads do not get closed for recreational cycling events and there are actually other people using the roads. Weird huh? To the minority of drivers who think that 30cm of clearance between their vehicle and a cyclist is too much, you might wanna just back off a little.

Got all that? Excellent. So when I rock up to the Degani Kinglake Ride this Sunday I won't see any cyclists sprawled all over the road, and every driver will be giving cyclists more than the gravel verge to ride on, right? I'm not holding my breath...

Raps, Covers and Folds...

2009-08-24T22:43:00.005+10:00

It's probably fair to say that I have a man-crush on Ben Folds. There's just something about nerdy-looking white guys playing piano that does it for me. Over the last few weeks I have been buying me some of Folds' solo albums including last week's purchase of the compilation album Supersunnyspeedgraphic, The LP.
Listening to the album for the first time the other day I found myself thinking "I've heard this song before somewhere" and indeed I had. It was Folds' cover of Dr. Dre's "Bitches Ain't Shit", a song that I had discovered some years ago before dismissing it as a disgusting and rather ridiculous choice of cover song. A few years later though and I find myself unable to stop listening to the song.

I can't put my finger on exactly what makes this song so listenable but I think it's all about the context, or lack thereof. The original version of the song - despite being excruciatingly awful - is a true product of the gangsta rap ethos to which the contributing 'artists' subscribe and doesn't strike the listener as weird or out of place. Abhorrently misogynistic but not weird or out of place. However, if you take the lyrics to such a song and have them sung by a nerdy looking white fella over a beautifully lush piano-driven arrangement and something feels very, very wrong. Especially when the aforementioned white fella is dropping the N-bomb.

I'm not quite sure if Mr. Folds was trying to highlight how ridiculously repugnant and/or context dependent the lyrics are or if he is just genuinely a fan of Dr. Dre and wanted to pay tribute to him. Either way the result is the same - Ben Folds' cover version is brilliant. As is this cover of Ben Folds' cover, by a 14-piece A Capella group no less.

All of this talk of songs removed from their original context has reminded me of Andrew Hansen's lounge version of the Cannibal Corpse song "Rancid Amputation" from The Chaser's War on Everything a few years back. Another truly horrific attempt at 'songwriting' turned into something clever and entertaining just by way of a genre change.

You know, we might even be on to something here. Perhaps all a bad song needs is a genre change. Let's see now - Lady Gaga's "Poker Face" as played by Chris Daughtry? Tick. Sir Mix-a-Lot's "Baby Got Back" as performed by Richard Cheese? You betcha. Valeri Glava's version of Britney Spears' "Womaniser"? It couldn't be any worse...

The ranting waiter...

2009-08-04T21:37:00.003+10:00

I'm sure there are difficult careers out there - neurosurgery springs to mind. You know, the whole thing of holding somebody's life in your hands strikes me as rather a large responsibility. Fighting as a member of your country's military could also be conceivably described as a challenging form of employment. Nurses seem to work fairly hard for their money as well but none of these jobs come close to what us waiters must go through on a daily basis.

Let me give you an example of what I'm talking about;

Being a Saturday night it's quite busy in the bar - I'm the only one serving due to my colleague's failure to wake up before his 6pm shift. People (read bogans) are lining up at the bar with the majority having the unusual ability to see that I'm serving as fast as I can. Except for one bloke. He's tapping his coins on the bar trying to get my attention. He's trying to make eye contact each time I walk past. He's clearly getting impatient and I still have three customers to serve before his turn is up.

Eventually (about a minute later) his turn is up. I wander over and ask him what he'll have. He stops tapping his coins on the bar and looks around for a wine list, letting out a pensive 'aaaahh' in the process. I wait patiently, mustering up all possible strength to prevent myself from saying the first thing that comes to mind;

'Here's an idea. Next time you come to the bar, work out what you want to drink before you start trying to intimidate me into serving you next. Fuckwit.'

See what I'm talking about? I'll take a scalpel to someone's brain before this shit any day of the week. Or maybe just his brain.

Seriously though, if I wrote a blog entry about every rude and/or obnoxious customer that came into our reputable establishment I would probably be writing around the clock. I'm not sure that would make for very good reading - unless I was an awesome writer with a massive following like this bloke. Sure, he hasn't been working as a waiter for about a year now but his archive has more than enough customer-hating to keep you amused for hours.

Despite the way that The Waiter tears down shit customers in his blog, you can't help but admire his professionalism when it comes to actually serving them. I know I would have struggled to keep my cool as well as he did in this situation.

And I think that's what it's about. Professionalism and keeping your cool. Sure, there will always be rude and annoying customers but as an employee of the 'hospitality' industry I should always remain calm and polite while providing the best service possible.

In the meantime, here's another tip for you all. If you decide to ignore the sign that says 'Please wait to be seated' - deciding instead to walk through and seat yourselves - don't complain to me when you haven't got any menus on your table...

The customer is always right. Or wrong...

2009-06-01T23:21:00.007+10:00

I just love working in the hospitality industry. I challenge you to think of any other profession in which you can be called a cocksucker for merely doing your job. Ok, you're right, a prostitute might get called that but I'm talking about homophobic terms of abuse not job descriptions.

You see, part of working in a bar is that you have to inform the occasional patron that they are displaying the common signs of intoxication and that any further attempts to purchase alcohol will be politely rebuked. As you can imagine, telling drunken idiots - 95% of which are male - that they have had enough is not a particularly enjoyable task. Sure, you can employ the usual tricks - by using 'I' statements you can put the focus on yourself rather than the behaviour of the drooling neanderthal on the other side of the bar - but even "I can lose my job if I keep serving you" doesn't register with most of the people that we cut off and more often than not abusive language and threats of violence ensue.
So it was last Saturday night when I had the unenviable task of informing one delightful gentleman that the drink I was pouring him would have to be his last for the evening. Needless to say he wasn't too impressed and despite my best attempts to explain my obligations as a holder of a Responsible Service of Alcohol certificate, I soon became aquainted with a dose of vitriol.

Look, I get it. You're a big man and you won't have any young barman tell you when you've had enough to drink. In all seriousness, I don't necessarily disagree with that position - if you wanna declare war on your liver every Saturday night then go for it, I couldn't care less. More importantly, it's not my right or responsibility to stop you from doing so. Unless of course you have entered a venue which follows liquor licensing legislation. You know those posters that you can see in every bar in the state? Well, by entering a venue that displays those posters you agree to follow the rules as set out therein, and guess what, it's my job to ensure that you do so.
Sure, it would be easy for me to turn a blind eye, I mean, what are the chances that liquor licensing police would come to our lowly pub on that particular evening? That is until you realise that the fine for serving liquor to an intoxicated person is in excess of $13000. I'm not sure how many venues would be likely to continue providing you with employment after you have cost them $13k. Furthermore, the fine for the person serving the drink to the intoxicated customer also exceeds $1300. That's not a risk I'm willing to take.

If you were to argue that the term 'intoxication' is open to interpretation you would be right. Liquor Licensing Victoria suggests that a person "is in a state of intoxication if their speech, balance or co-ordination is noticeably affected and there are reasonable grounds for believing this is the result of the consumption of alcohol". That's a sketchy definition if ever I've seen one, I mean, how it could it not be? It's not like we can breath-test every patron as they come up to bar in order to see if they are under a prescribed 'intoxication threshold'. A positive side effect of having intoxication so subjectively defined is that the bar staff get to decide when customers are "noticeably affected" by alcohol, not them. Which is good, because we're sober and they clearly aren't. In fact, the entire Liquor Control Reform Act of 1998 is tailored to protect those who are working behind the bar. If I decide that a patron is 'intoxicated', then I have every right to cut them off. If the patron disagrees with my judgment and becomes 'quarrelsome' then I have every right to ask them to leave the premises. Refusal to do so can land the patron with a $2000 fine.

This might all seem like a bit of power-tripping by a disgruntled hospitality employee and maybe it is. But as I said before, I don't really care if you wanna give yourself alcohol poisoning every weekend - that's your prerogative. Unfortunately for you though I like having a job and getting through my shifts without being abused by drunken fucktards.
So next time you feel like heading down to the local for a few frothies with the boys, don't. It's better for everyone if you get pissed at home...

The circumcision decision...

2009-05-27T17:46:00.005+10:00

I can only imagine how difficult it must be to be the parent of a new-born child - assuming complete responsiblility for the welfare of an otherwise helpless individual. Naturally some decisions that parents must make on behalf of their child are of little or no consequence - like deciding which clothes your baby will wear for the day - but other decisions, like whether or not to get your baby son circumcised, well, that's a different matter entirely.

Many of you folks would no doubt have stumbled upon Channel Seven's creatively titled current affairs programme 'Sunday Night' last weekend where you might have seen Monique Wright's report on the 'new' research that has emerged regarding the potential medical benefits of circumcision. If you didn't get to see the programme or if you are keen to see the segment again, it can be found here - at least until next Sunday.
It's obviously a contentious issue - parents and people in general are hesitant when knives and genitals are mentioned in the same sentence but at the same time if the evidence suggests that our boys are better off circumcised then not then we obviously have an obligation to at least consider the option. Before we get rational and actually look at the science behind circumcision though, let's do some history and some cursory glancin'.

Circumcision has been practiced for thousands of years, the earliest recorded cases coming from the ancient Egyptians. Jewish scripture is replete with the mention of the necessity of circumcision and to this day all Jewish boys are required to participate in brit milah in their eighth day of life in order to welcome them into their covenant with God. While it is not mandated by the Qur'an the majority of Muslim boys undergo Khitan as well, the widespread view in the Muslim world being that circumcision serves to introduce boys to Islam and foster a sense of belonging within the Islamic community.
Of course parents throughout the ages have had their boys circumcised for entirely non-religious reason as well - "we want him to look like his Dad", "it's better for hygene" and "it prevents disease" are all often cited as justification.
Despite the ongoing debate it seems to be a fairly basic issue to me - in order to get your son circumcised the health benefits must outweigh the ethical and moral considerations. "What considerations?" I hear you ask. Thanks for the lead in.

If you put aside the potential health benefits of circumsion for one second and consider in isolation the process of cutting a portion of a baby boy's penis off, how is this tradition any different to the phenomenon known as female genital cutting? Both procedures take place on the assumption that it is morally justified for parent(s) to subject an unconsenting minor to an operation which causes significant pain and discomfort on the grounds that such pain is fleeting and that the procedure is of overall benefit. Sure, it might be a strong comparison to make, but it is a valuable one, if only to ensure that parents don't make lightly the decision to circumcise their sons.
While we are in the business of dissuading parents from cutting chunks off their sons, besides circumcision, since when has preventative surgery been recommended as acceptable medical practice? As one of the doctors in the aforementioned video points out, would we be willing to take a pre-emptive strike against our noses in the fear that we might one day contract a cancer of the nose as a result of over-exposure to UV rays?

If you want the official word on whether or not circumcision is a valuable course of action, the Royal Australasian College of Physicians suggests that there is "no evidence of benefit outweighing harm for circumcision as a routine procedure in the neonate". The American Medical Association similarly reports that "professional societies representing Australian, Canadian and American pediatricians do not recommend circumcision of male newborns".
However in 2007 the World Health Organisation released a report suggesting that "the research evidence that circumcision is efficacious in reducing sexual transmission of HIV from women to men is compelling". That can't be a bad thing, I mean, who's going to argue that we shouldn't be doing everything in our power to stop the spread of HIV around the world?
The reality is that there are other things we can do to prevent the spread of HIV without having to take a knife to new-born boys in developing countries - things like spending more time teaching people about the need to wear condoms - but wait, I don't want to steal the WHO's thunder; "Male circumcision should never replace other known methods of HIV prevention and should always be considered as part of a comprehensive HIV provention package, which includes: prompting delay in the onset of sexual relations, abstinence from penetrative sex and reduction in the number of sexual partners; providing and promoting correct and consistent use of male and female condoms..."

Before we wrap this bad boy up, let's glance cursorily at Dr. Brian Morris' website - he's the guy in the 'Sunday Night' video who is advocating the introduction of mandatory circumcision (good luck with that). In amongst a swathe of generally interesting pro-circumcision propaganda I stumbled upon a provocatively titled brochure - 'Sex and Circumcision - What every woman needs to know'. You see, not only does Dr. Morris advocate the introduction of mandatory circumcision in new-born boys, he also urges women to encourage circumcision in their sexual partners, for the woman's own wellbeing. As far as I can tell, of the seven ways that women benefit from a circumcised partner - according to Dr. Morris - five can be achieved just as well by using a condom, one is a generalisation and over-simplification of the sexual preferences and practices of women and the other is a confusing attempt to justify circumcision as a preventative measure for phimosis. Other than that, I reckon it's a great idea to try to convince your boyfriend to cut part of his dick off, if only for the reaction that would ensue...

Her: Um, baby. You know how I'm always worried about getting diseases and stuff down there?
Him: Down where?
Her: You know...
Him: Oh. Down there.
Her: Yeah, well, there's this doctor who reckons he can stop me from getting all sorts of nasties.
Him: Yeah? Sounds like a good idea. What's involved?
Her: Oh nothing much. They just take you into hospital for the afternoon and cut off a chunk of your junk.
Him: I don't think we should be together...

Lady Blah-Blah ain't no Queen...

2009-05-05T23:48:00.009+10:00

Here's a question for you - what do Madonna, Mariah Carey, The Backstreet Boys, Olivia Newton-John, Britney Spears, Destiny's Child, Kylie Minogue, Shakira and The Spice Girls all have in common? If you answered 'all of their music is spectacularly average' you would of course be correct, but it's not the answer I'm looking for.
Believe it or not, all of the artists listed above have had worldwide album sales in excess of 50 million. I know right - that's a lot of people with seriously misguided musical taste, or is there something bigger at play than that?
See, I reckon I have worked out the secret. You know, the magical recipe that ensures that an artist will sell a truckload of records. In order to best explain myself I would like to invite you all to play a little game with me. It's alright, it won't take long - no longer than it has taken you to read these couple lines of pointless filler - and you can play along in the comfort and safety of your own home. Are you ready to play? Super.

1. Choose any artist or group from the list above.
2. Imagine that the selected artist(s) is/are spectacularly ugly.
3. Decide whether or not your artist(s) of choice would be as successful in their hypothetical state of ugliness as they are in reality.

Do you see what I did there? No? Alright, well put it this way. Would 'I Want It That Way' have reached #1 in 25 countries around the world if the Backstreet Boys were a bunch of overweight, pimply-faced teens with massive glasses and Star Wars T-shirts? Would the film clip for '...Baby One More Time' have been as popular if Britney Spears was a 50 year old Clarissa Dickson Wright look-alike with breasts around her knees and hair sprouting from a 10-cent-piece-size mole above her top lip? Or would Mariah Carey have sold a single album if you weren't able to see at least 90% of her breasts in every single film clip she has ever made? I think you get the idea.

No one in pop music today better exemplifies the cliche 'sex sells' than Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta. Never heard of her? That's because a name like that couldn't sell MSG to a Chinese take-away store. Call yourself 'Lady Gaga' though, and things are already looking up. Sing mediocre dance-pop songs while dressed in the skimpiest, most outlandish costumes you can think of and you will be selling albums faster than you can say 'Oh dear, I seem to have misplaced my integrity'.
But this is the thing I don't understand - as a heterosexual male I should be won over by this sort of shit - you know, attractive girl dancing provocatively in a variety of barely-there outfits while singing lyrics like 'I'll get him hot, show him what I got'. Rather than making me wanna head down to JB Hi-Fi to buy her album so that I can wack off to the cover art, listening to Lady Gaga's songs only illicit a sigh, a roll of the eyes, and a disinterested 'oh really?' from yours truly.
Sure, she's hot in an I'm-going-to-overdress-in-order-to-distract-from-the-fact-that-my-face-is-average-and-my-nose-is-a-little-too-big kinda way, but as it is I like my music to be, well, musical and as an added bonus, interesting.
Do you reckon she is able to create a single film clip that doesn't involve some sort of pelvic thrusting by herself and/or one of her backup dancers? Or do you reckon she has it in her to sing a single song that doesn't contain at least one phallic reference or a boast about her sexual prowess? As far as blatant sexual references go the introductory refrain to 'Love Game' is about as cringeworthy as it gets. For those of you lucky enough not to have heard it yet, it goes something like this - 'Let's have some fun, this beat is sick, I wanna take a ride on your disco stick'. Uh huh. How about you go and put some clothes on and we'll put you in a taxi. Oh, and don't bother coming back until you are ready to try and sell yourself based on your musical ability.
But wait, what's this?! Is this Lady Gaga trying to be musical? Sure, she's got some vocal ability, I'll give her that much, but what's with the stop-time piano? Just 'cause it's arty don't mean it's good. I reckon the song sounded better as an over-produced, vocally-corrected dance-pop number, and that's saying something. I know I've used this joke before, but is it noteworthy that instrumental rearrangements of Lady Gaga's songs sound better than the originals?

Look, maybe I'm being too harsh - some of her tunes are quite catchy, and I guess selling 24,000 copies of your album in its first week isn't too bad an effort. Just don't try to tell me that you took your stage name from a Queen song because you remind everyone of Freddy Mercury. I don't care how ridiculous your outfits are, all the dressing up in the world won't turn 'Just Dance' into 'Bohemian Rhapsody'...

Booze, bongs and big business...

2009-05-01T15:29:00.008+10:00

Every so often working in the hospitality industry gives you a valuable insight into just how irresponsible some parents actually are. Some days it's a mother who leaves her two year old bare-foot child to run around the restaurant unsupervised while she cackles away with her friends over a sixth glass of champagne, other days it might be the mother that disappears to the TAB at the other end of the hotel while her four-year old son supervises himself in the play area. The other night, however, was something truly special. As I headed from the bar to the host stand with a handful of menus, I saw a father pouring beer from his nearly-empty pint glass into the open mouth of his son, who looked no more than two or three years old.
Is it really any surprise that binge drinking among young people - both over and under the legal drinking age - is so prevalent when parents deem this to be acceptable behaviour? After all, if a child's attitude toward alcohol use is determined largely by their parents' attitudes then what kind of message does pouring Carlton Draught down a three-year-old's throat send to that child?

Alcohol use and abuse has been making headlines around the nation a lot recently. Over the last two years alone alcohol-fuelled violence in Melbourne's QBH nightclub has resulted in the deaths of two young patrons, a 70% increase on the tax on so-called 'alcopops' was introduced last year in an attempt to dissuade 'at risk' drinkers from purchasing their alcoholic beverage of choice and various AFL and NRL stars have been caught drink-driving and promptly suspended by their clubs. There seems to be little doubt that some young people are drinking too much and too often. The Australian Bureau of Statistics reports that in 2004 19% of males and 11% of females in the 18-24 age bracket were guilty of 'binge drinking' - defined as seven or more standard drinks for males, five or more for females - at least once a week.
The federal and state governments have an unenviable task in this dilemma. To generalise, the public is looking to the governments to provide a solution to the problem, and perhaps rightly enough, but this isn't a problem that will go away just by throwing tax increases or 2am lock-outs at it. The consumption of alcohol is so deeply embedded in our culture that it is going to take something drastic to alter people's perception of it. You see, there is also a bit of vested interest here. While the government has to be seen to be doing something about the problem, they profit massively from it. In the 1997-8 financial year the federal government pocketed over $4 billion in alcohol and tobacco taxes, and the Australian Medical Association estimates that in 2001 that figure was as high as $7 billion. Similarly, the Australian Football League, while trying to make a stand against the alcohol abuse demonstrated by a handful of its players, is enjoying a lucrative sponsorship provided by none other than Carlton Draught.
But the question is, why do young people feel the need to go out and get on the turps every weekend? Sure, I might be one of the aforementioned 'young people' and I might be guilty of the occasional spot of overindulgence, but I couldn't give you a definitive reason for why I did so. Is it that it allows us to overcome certain inhibitions that might plague us in a state of sobriety? Is it a case of 'well my mates are doing it, so...'? Is it that we like the feeling of losing control? Is it that alcohol provides us with an escape from the monotony and boredom of every day life? Or is it that we are over-privileged first-world kids with too much money to spend?
The reasons really aren't that clear and most likely vary from person to person. What is clear is that alcohol use and abuse is responsible for massive problems, both for individuals and society. Let's have a look at some figures;
Around 40% of the traffic fatalities that occured in the USA in 2004 - 16,694 - were the result of alcohol-related motor-vehicle crashes; In 1998 'hazardous and harmful' alcohol consumption contributed to 3,271 deaths in Australia alone; the annual cost of alcohol-related problems to the Australian community is around $5 billion.
All this scare-mongering isn't to say that I think alcohol should be made illegal, far from it. This is a bigger issue than some dickhead dad pissing-on with his infant son - it's an issue of personal freedom and the ability to decide what we pump into our bodies. Sure, I might be putting myself at greater risk of various cancers and other medical conditions by 'getting on it' of a weekend but that's my choice as an autonomous adult. Similarly, if I wanted to make the undeniably dumb decision to take up smoking tomorrow - incidentally, tobacco usage contributed to over 19,000 deaths in 1998, six times more than alcohol - then that too is my right. Why stop there?
If I woke up tomorrow morning and decided that I wanted to 'go green', if you know what I mean, then I should be allowed to do that. Should the government be allowed to control what I do or don't put into my own body?
Again, it comes back to a double-standard on the government's behalf. While the purchase of alcohol or tobacco are perfectly legal, the possession of marijuana in Australia will land you with a nasty fine, the size of which is dependent on the state in which you live and the quantity you possess. This is in spite of the fact that countless studies have proven that marijuana is far less dangerous than alcohol and tobacco, as demonstrated, for example, by the research done by the USA's National Institute on Drug Abuse which has shown that marijuana is less addictive than both nicotine and alcohol. Furthermore marijuana does not cause or exarcerbate violent tendencies among young people in the same way that alcohol does, and compared with the thousands of deaths attributed to tobacco and alcohol usage, marijuana usage has not been responsible for a single death, ever. Sure, there a major health risks associated with marijuana usage, but then check out the list of stuff you put yourself at risk of by smoking, a perfectly legal activity.

Let's be clear about one thing here - I've never smoked a single joint or taken a single hit from a bong - and I don't intend to - but it's not about me. It's about people having the freedom to decide what they want to do with their bodies without having the government impose restrictions on them.
You see, I reckon the people in the weed legalisation movement have missed out on a great business opportunity here -that is, wouldn't the government be far more willing to legalise marijuana if they could benefit financially from it's distribution? Hmm, I feel a business venture coming on...

Death, resurrection and lots and lots of chocolate...

2009-04-11T23:50:00.004+10:00

Aaah yes, Easter. That confusing time of year when we all benefit from a day off work while trying to remember just what or who we have to thank. But really, it's simple isn't it? Jesus took one for the team on Good Friday, found himself entombed for a couple of nights before deciding on Sunday that the lack of sunlight wasn't doing his tan any good. Well, not quite.
You see, the period that we refer to as Easter is in fact an old pagan celebration that dates back well before the supposed time of Jesus' death and resurrection. In fact, the name 'Easter' is a derivative of the name 'Eostre' - Anglo-Saxon paganism's 'goddess of dawn' - whose existence symbolised the increased fertility of the land at the turn of spring. Ever wondered why the date of Easter Sunday changes every year? Or put a different way, does it seem a little strange that the date of Jesus' death and resurrection varies from year to year?
Easter Sunday is defined as the first Sunday after the first full moon on or after the vernal equinox - the period in March wherein the length of day and night are equal. Long before the advent of Christianity the vernal equinox was seen as the time in which the sun found itself in a fierce battle with darkness to see which would gain ultimate supremacy. After a couple of days the sun would emerge victorious with the days becoming longer in the lead-up to the summer solstice. In Greek mythology this period was symbolised by the plight of Persephone whose abduction by Hades - the God of the Underworld - led to the earth becoming barren of life - winter - and whose rescue by her father Zeus at the time of the vernal equinox led to the Earth's rebirth into prosperity and fertility - spring. In Egyptian mythology this transition was represented by the life of Osiris whose death and consequential rebirth led to the reawakening of life on Earth following the vernal equinox.
In fact history is littered with examples of the death-resurrection myth being used to represent the transition from winter to spring, Christianity's appropriation of earlier customs being the most recent case. That's right, the Jesus resurrection story is a centuries old myth plagiarised and repackaged by early Christians.

That's all very interesting, I hear you say, but where do easter eggs fit into the equation? Well, according to the New International Encyclopaedia, the use of eggs at Easter "is of the highest antiquity, the egg having been considered in widely separated pre-Christian mythologies as a symbol of resurrection". The use of chocolate easter eggs apparently began in Europe in the 1800s following the Industrial Revolution and this practice has continued unabated since then. Cadbury allegedly sells around 240 million chocolate easter eggs in Australia every year - around 12 per person - and with business like that, is it any wonder that ads for Easter eggs come out the week after Christmas?
The prevalent rabbit symbology associated with the Easter period, as demonstrated in the ever popular Easter Bunny, is also a remnant of ancient pagan tradition. Giving birth to huge litters in the early weeks of spring, the rabbit was a symbol of the increased fertility of the earth in the weeks following the vernal equinox. For us Aussies though, the rabbit is revered to a far lesser extent, having been introduced to our great land with the First Fleet in 1788 and subsequently breeding out of control. Hence, the Easter Bilby. How's that for putting an Aussie spin on things?

In all seriousness though, why, as an apparently secular nation, do we still cling to Easter and Christmas so fervently? Is it because the majority of our population truly respects the religious significance of the periods which these holidays cover? I suspect not. Is it because both periods have been so corrupted by commercial interests that we don't have a choice in the matter? Sounds a bit more like it. Whatever though. Just give me my double-time and a half and a truckload of chocolate and I'll celebrate anyone's resurrection...

Homosexuality is a curable disease. Discuss...

2009-04-01T01:07:00.012+11:00

Over the last couple weeks, controversy has been brewing over a much publicised episode of Channel Seven's stalwart soapie 'Home and Away', in which two female characters, Charlie Buckton (Esther Anderson) and Joey Collins (Katie Bell), are seen kissing. When so-called 'conservative groups' got wind of the lesbian storyline the all too familiar cries of disgust and outrage - coupled with the tiresome accusations of moral impropriety - were splashed liberally across the domestic and international media.
However, in spite of the myriad criticisms and complaints that Seven has reportedly received since the lesbian love-plot began some six weeks ago, 'the kiss' was aired on last night's episode of 'Home and Away'. Kinda.

You see, when filming the more intimate moments between Charlie and Joey, two scenes were put to tape. The first being 'a very gentle, loving, sensual, tender kiss' - according to Bevan Lee, the Head of Creative Drama and Development at Seven - and the second being 'a more lusty follow up'. Only the former made it to air.
According to an article in 'The Australian' newspaper, Channel Seven decided to remove the second kiss from the episode in order to appease 'conservative lobby groups' and prevent the further loss of ratings. The aforementioned Mr Lee, however, argues that the lustier kiss was removed purely for artistic reasons and that the article appearing in 'The Australian' was an ill-informed beat-up.
To be honest, I don't think it matters why the second kiss was removed, but it does matter why we are still having this debate at all. Why such outrage over a simple kiss?
Aaah, but of course, it's not just any kiss, it's the most feared of all the small screen kisses - the gay kiss. Seriously, are we still living in the 1950s here? Do we still honestly believe that homosexuality is a disease?

Apparently we do. Feast your vile jellies on this completely unbiased clip from 'Today Tonight' that in no way seeks to defend 'Home and Away' based purely on the fact that the two programmes belong to the same network. More specifically, let's focus on the drivel that spews forth from 'youth minister' Andrew Bynes - he's the annoying little weed that we first see 53 seconds into the clip. The following statement of his seems to be fairly representative of the argument employed by the conservative lobby groups - 'I know my little kids are very impressionable, they believe what they see on TV, most of the time, and this kind of model of relationships and morality is actually undermining what me (sic.) as a parent is trying to do in my own home'. That's right folks, we gotta protect them kids.

I'm being slightly conservative myself when I say that I only have three concerns with Mr Bynes statement. First of all, why is it that 'Home and Away' is able to frequently air plotlines that deal with drug use, murder and rape and no one expresses a concern about the potential effects that such themes might have on children, but yet a simple lesbian kiss - the culmination of a romantic plotline some six weeks in length - has the conservatives up in arms?
Secondly, Mr Bynes, if you have such a problem with the 'model of relationships' being presented to your young children by such television shows, then turn the TV off. Problem solved.
Finally, and far more importantly, isn't it about time that we stopped teaching our kids that homosexuality is undesirable, dangerous and unnatural?
Angela Conway from Pro-Family Perspectives doesn't seem to think so. As seen in the aforementioned clip, she would go so far as to say that 'these kind of ways of presenting sexuality are actually quite damaging to young people'. Yep, apparently showing two women falling in love and expressing that love by way of a single kiss is not only undesirable, but damaging to the young 'uns.

The thing that Ms Conway fails (or refuses) to see is that there actually are gay people out there. Around 10% of the population if you believe some estimates. What kind of environment are we creating when homosexuality is viewed as unnatural, abnormal and damaging? What kind of message are we sending to young homosexual men and women when the most innocuous of lesbian love-scenes is met with derision and disgust from prominent members of the community? Is it any wonder that young men and women - on discovering that they are gay - are so scared to tell their friends and family? Is it any wonder that gay men and women feel like they are so blatantly disciminated against?
I would love to be a fly on the wall the day that one of Andrew Bynes kids comes home from school and says; 'Dad, I think I'm gay'. The irony and hilarity of the situation would only be matched by the anger and sorrow you would feel the moment that you realise that Mr Bynes is probably one of those fuckwits that would ship his kids off to 'Straight Camp' in an attempt to rid them of their 'disease'.
It's about time we stepped out of the dark ages and had a good hard look at ourselves and the way that gay people are treated in this country. It's time to let go of outdated and blatantly discriminatory religious dogma that alienates large portions of our society and causes unecessary anguish and distress for so many people.

I can't think of any better way to end this discussion than by pointing you in the direction of the following article, published on the 'Herald Sun' website some weeks ago. It reveals that Australian actress Melissa George, of 'Alias' fame, is joining the cast of 'Grey's Anatomy' as Sadie Harris, an intern at Seattle Grace Hospital. In choosing a headline for the article authors Erin McWhirter and Darren Devlyn could have made reference to Ms George's previous work with 'Alias', 'Home and Away' or 'In Treatment', or, if they were looking for a racy headline that would be sure to stir up controversy, they could have alluded to the fact that Ms George's character has a propensity for self-mutilation. But oh no, they went one better - 'Melissa George joins Grey's Anatomy as lesbian'.

Sorry kids, no 'Grey's Anatomy' for you tonight. But it's all right, it's for your own good...

Confessions of the rich-teen drama scene...

2009-02-17T20:12:00.006+11:00

I think it's about time that I came clean with you all - I have an addiction. No, it's not illicit substances or barely legal pornography that keeps me up at night - no pun intended - it's far more tragic than that - I just can't get enough of rich-teen comedy/drama TV shows.

I first became aware of my problem some years ago whilst enjoying 'Schoolies Week' with some high school mates. In amongst the beer guzzling, trolley stealing and more beer guzzling there was one particular event that punctuated our week down at a mate's mate's house in Torquay - the insistance by at least half of the group that all activities be ceased at 8:30pm on the night in question so that the season two finale of 'The O.C' might be watched distraction free. At the time I was more than aware of the irony of the situation - a bunch of young blokes swilling beer and watching decidedly un-blokey TV - and I half-watched the episode through a lens of derision and sarcastic comments.
Fast forward a few months and I had picked myself up a nasty little habit. I had purchased the complete first season of 'The O.C' on DVD and was going through the episodes faster than Nadya Suleman will be going through nappies. Before long I had convinced myself that $70 was a more than reasonable price to pay for season two, and I set about getting myself up-to-date with everything that had led up to the second season finale, which I had reluctantly viewed some months previous.
'The O.C' just seemed to have it all - a catchy theme tune, hot young men and women cavorting around on the beach, and the sort of day-to-day dramas that, while seemingly earth-shattering to the characters involved, cause the audience little anguish, safe in the knowledge that everything will return to normal by episode's end. It was the perfect feel-good drug - 41 minutes of sexy, funny and (importantly) commercial-free bliss. And then the episode would end. As the credits rolled I would realise that, rather than sitting next to my amazingly beautiful girlfriend by the swimming pool of my $6 million house in sunny California, I was sprawled all over the couch in my suburban Melbourne lounge room at three o'clock in the morning, decidedly girlfriend free. I would try to convince myself -'surely there is time for one more episode before bed' - just one more hit of the drug, one more hour away from reality.
Amazingly, the season two finale of 'The O.C' saw the end of my infatuation with the lovely folks of Newport Beach. I quit cold-turkey, leaving the sun, sex and $70 box-sets behind me. Until now.

For two months over Christmas the lovely lady friend and I found ourselves backpacking around Europe, having a most wonderful time along the way. As we worked our way around the various non-English speaking countries we found ourselves desperately in search of a TV program that wasn't in Greek, Italian, French or German - even Australia's own 'Neighbours' and 'Home & Away' had been dubbed into various non-English languages. In Santorini our wishes would be answered, but, unknowingly, it would lead me toward the most cruel of relapses. As we flicked between dodgy game shows and unintelligible new bulletins we stumbled upon one solitary program being transmitted in English - 'Gossip Girl'. At first it was just a relief to be able to watch something on TV and understand the dialogue, but it wasn't long before I had laid the foundations for another shocking addiction.

Some weeks after returning to Melbourne I remembered that night in Santorini and set about getting myself back into the rich and beautiful world of 'Gossip Girl'. For all intents and purposes 'The O.C' and 'Gossip Girl' are quite similar - a bunch of teenagers date and sleep with each other while experiencing the highs and lows of having been born to ultra-rich parents - just substitute the beach-front living of Newport with the sexy streets of Manhattan and you are most of the way there. You still have the ultra-slick and snappy production, some pretty cool tunes, witty dialogue by characters that seem to know exactly what to say all the time, and of course, the frequent and often predictable dramas that resolve themselves so neatly and unrealistically by episode's end. But hey, that's why we watch isn't it? Who would wanna watch a TV show where the handsome guy and his beautiful girlfriend get into a screaming match only to not have make-up sex, instead going on to never speak to one another ever again ruining an otherwise completely satisfying story arc?
Speaking of ruining a completely satisfying story arc, you know you are hooked when your day is ruined by the sudden interruption of the episode you are watching by the message; 'You have watched 72 minutes of video today - please wait 55 minutes or subscribe to the MegaVideo premium service'.

So there you have it folks - rich-teen comedy/dramas are my drug of choice, and if you will excuse me, I believe episode 12 has just finished buffering...

On death, destruction and deserving it...

2009-02-11T00:45:00.009+11:00

As bushfires continue to tear through bushland, homes and communities in south-eastern Australia, the national and international communities have rallied behind the Victorian people. The BBC and CNN have both dedicated the front pages of their respective websites to coverage of the crisis, and the leaders of numerous countries have contacted the Australian and Victorian governments offering their condolences and/or assistance in the rebuilding efforts. Amid all the heartbreak and suffering that has erupted from the fires it is truly inspiring to see the extent to which people are banding together in support of those that have been affected. The occasion of tonight's One Day International cricket match between Australia and New Zealand was used to stage a major fundraising effort, with an incredible $6 million raised. In the first two days of the Victorian Bushfire Fund, public donations alone reached $30 million, which didn't include corporate or government donations.
Despite the amazing generosity and goodwill of people around the country and indeed around the world, the disaster has brought out the worst in many people, or so Channel Nine would have us believe. On their late-night news update this evening we saw one reporter interview a guy who was lucky enough not to lose his house but who, Channel Nine were more than eager to tell us, was going to stay home for fear of his personal belongings being taken by looters. In fact, the angle taken by the Channel Nine reporter seemed to be entirely spin, given that the gentleman in question described in some detail how he still had everything he needed at home, so he might as well stay - the bit about the looters seemed more of an afterthought. But of course, a bloke having a bit of a feed in front of the telly with his missus ain't a great story. Blokes comin' onto ya land and stealing shit, well that's real human drama. Unless it isn't actually the case.
And while we are on the topic of Channel Nine, do we really need to be convinced that people are suffering? As a student of the news, journalism and the media in general I've learnt a few things along the way. One of those things is that the news is supposed to be used to inform the masses - keep people updated with the goings-on around the place. You know, news. Channel Nine seem to think that 'news' means creating some slick, over-produced package which is powered by the strength of human emotion. Sure, it's sad that people have lost their lives, no one is doubting that, but you don't need to tell us that it is sad. Using words like 'torment', 'suffering', 'apocalypse', 'battlefield' and constructing your news bulletins from nothing more than interviews with grief-stricken people telling their stories of woe is not news, it is entertainment. Think of it as a movie if you will; you have your beginning - Victoria suffers through an unprecedented heatwave leading to multiple deadly bushfires - you have your middle - hundreds of people die and thousands are left mourning for those they have lost - and you have your as-yet-unrealised happy ending - the fires burn out and, thanks to the unbelievable generosity of people everywhere, the decimated communities are rebuilt. You have your heroes - CFA, DSE, the State and Federal Governments, depending on your opinion - and you have your villains - firebugs, Satan, Mother Nature, the State and Federal governments, depending on your opinion. As the film plays out, the audience is kept enthralled by the unfolding human drama, the shocking images of communities burnt to the ground, and most importantly, the videos of distraught people who have lost loved ones, houses or both.
You see, this isn't news. News doesn't tell people what to think - it doesn't tell people that they should feel sad for those who have suffered, or angry at those who would potentially steal the belongings of others in the ensuing chaos. That's not to say that we shouldn't feel sad for some people and angry at others but we don't need to be told to feel those emotions - the enormity of the situation, the shocking images and videos and the statistics do the job already. That is, good news tells us the facts - what has happened, when, how, why and to whom - it doesn't cast judgement, instead allowing the audience that privelege - and finally, good news is objective - it doesn't put a emotional spin or a slant on a story in order to capture or entertain an audience.

But, as always, there is someone else far more worthy of derision and abuse than the would-be Hollywood film studios/commercial television networks. Meet Pastor Danny Nalliah. This genius, a Pentecostal church leader and the man behind 'Catch the Fire Ministries' has declared that the Victorian bushfire crisis is the direct result of the 'Decriminalisation of Abortion Bill' being passed through State Parliament late last year. Yep, you read it correctly, and if you don't believe me, check it out for yourself. For those of you who can't be arsed reading through the media release I'll give you the condensed version. Mr Nalliah was apparently dreaming his little Pentecostal dreams one night last year when suddenly everything changed and all he could see was 'fire everywhere with flames burning very high and uncontrollably'. His good mate God was good enough to send His Spirit down to interpret the dream, using the following words; '(God's) conditional protection has been removed from the nation of Australia, in particular Victoria, for approving the slaughter of innocent children in the womb'. Therefore, after seeing the widespread fires in Victoria and remembering his dream from last year, Mr Nalliah came out this week and publicly announced that the bushfire crisis is God's way of punishing us for legalising abortion.

Is there anyone out there that actually thinks this is a good thing to say? Hundreds of people are dead, thousands are without homes and this bloke reckons that it's an opportune time to preach bullshit lies about how we should feel guilty for giving women a choice when it comes to what they do or don't do with their own bodies? I've heard of some fairly ordinary people saying some fairly ordinary things but you, Mr Nalliah, are right up there with the best of them. I mean, let's just throw all human decency, rationality and reasoning to the side for a moment and assume that Mr Nalliah is correct in thinking that God exists and is punishing Victoria for adopting measures that decriminalise abortion - what kind of God is he proposing? Are we to believe that God, who loves us oh-so dearly (Deuteronomy 23:5), hates us legalising abortion so much that he would kill hundreds of innocent people and displace thousands more? That doesn't sound like the sort of God that I would want to spend my life idolising, dedicating my time to, or having anything to do with, at all. And what's this about us being 'open for the devil to destroy'? Why is it that God is all powerful, all knowing, and all loving and yet sometimes the devil just manages to sneak past God's watch and, you know, kill hundreds of people? What? God let the devil do it because we deserved it? Oh ok, that makes perfect sense.

Still, it's all good because Mr Nalliah is going to 'spearhead an effort to provide every assistance to devastated communities'. Here's a better idea Mr Nalliah - why don't you spear your own head, shut your fucking mouth, and do as the name of your ministry suggests and 'catch the fire', or was that catch on fire. You know, like those 200 other people did when they 'turned (their) back(s) on Him, (becoming) an open target for the devil to destroy'...

'Horror movie right there on my TV...'

2009-02-08T22:07:00.008+11:00

For those of you who have been living under a rock for the last couple days, there have been a few of the ol' bush fires around. In the days preceding yesterday's extreme weather conditions, the Bureau of Meteorology had been predicting the highest fire danger in the state's history. This is one prediction that they surely wouldn't have minded getting wrong but alas, they were spot on. Temperatures in Melbourne reached 46.4 degrees celcius, with 47.9 degrees apparently recorded in Avalon. You have to feel a certain degree of pity for those Jetstar passengers who, thinking that they were flying to 'Melbourne', arrive at a tiny airstrip an hour's drive from their destination only to be confronted with the highest temperatures in the state's history and 100kph winds. Welcome to Victoria.
All silliness aside, it truly has been a horrific couple of days for all those affected by the bushfires and with the death-toll well on it's way to 100, the events of the last couple days have almost been as deadly as 1939's 'Black Friday' and 'Ash Wednesday' combined.
For those of us sitting in air-conditioned houses far from the many fires burning around the state, it is hard to imagine what it must be like to lose everything you have ever owned in just a matter of minutes. We look on with sadness and anguish as our fellow Victorians suffer. We also look on with great admiration and respect toward the tens of thousands of women and men, mostly volunteers, who have given countless hours to fighting the fires, organising relief efforts and supporting the many that have suffered as a result of the fires.

It is in testing times such as these that the difference in quality between the various media outlets becomes most obvious. Where ABC radio in Victoria dedicated it's entire Saturday to live courage and updates on the fire situation, keeping listeners informed and aware, the commercial television networks' dramatic coverage play like a cheesy horror film. Words like 'inferno', 'nightmare', 'post-apocalyptic', 'war zone' and 'hell on earth' are bandied around like they are going out of fashion. One woman on Channel Nine's coverage this evening even referred to the devestation around her home as being 'like the Holocaust'.
Furthermore, while interviewing people who have lost everything in the fires might be good to give everyone else a bit of perspective on the issue, surely a bit of sensitivity would be the order of the day? I refer to a specific incident during Channel Seven's news bulletin last night in which a reporter was interviewing a gentleman who had lost his home and nearly his life in the fire. Obviously quite distressed,the gentleman told the story of how his home had been lost in the flames, before he promptly broke into tears. The reporter replied with the question 'how are you travelling?' Well, I've got a couple of ideas. The bloke has just lost his house in the worst bushfires in recorded history and has subsequently broken down into a sobbing mess while explaining the obviously painful situation on camera. But no, he's doing great, thanks for asking.
Potentially worse than using distraught people in order to create a compelling news package full of human drama is the sort of parochialism that commercial networks are famous for.
Last night, during Channel Seven's coverage of the bushfires, anchor Jennifer Kyte spent a good ten minutes of the bulletin speaking to a colleague of hers whose house and wife were under threat from the fires, prefaced with the puzzling and almost offensive remark 'the fires do not discriminate, I speak now with my fellow Channel Seven reporter, ...' (So by virtue of being a reporter with Channel Seven this reporter should, by rights, be less susceptible to suffering, a right which the bushfires somehow circumvented?)
The clearly distressed reporter explained to Kyte and those watching that he had no idea if his house would survive the blaze and, in between ferocious sobs, explained that his wife's fate was also unknown. Now I don't mean to sound harsh - I'm sure the reporter was genuinely mortified at the prospect of losing his wife and to a lesser extent his home - but the scenario faced by the gentleman in question was by no means unique and it is only by virtue of his employment with Channel Seven that the aforementioned interview made it to air. Would Channel Seven have aired a ten minute segment for every man who was worried about losing his home and/or wife? I think we know the answer to that one.
The Channel Nine 'family' appears to have suffered to an even greater extent, losing former anchorman Brian Naylor to the fire burning in and around Kinglake. Much like Channel Seven the previous evening, Nine spent the best part of fifteen minutes this evening reporting on the apparent death of Naylor, the two reporters in question remarking how 'he always had his phone on and we had a sick feeling in our stomachs as we called him on our way up the mountain and he didn't answer', how great a bloke he was, and how 'there was no way he would have left his wife's side'. I don't doubt that he will be sorely missed and that Channel Nine felt a responsibility to honour their past champion, but what about the other 83 people who are confirmed dead? How many 'good blokes' are among that lot? Where is their fifteen minutes of fame? How many other people have tried to call family and friends and been confronted with chillingly happy answering machine messenges?

The real vitriol should perhaps be directed at the arsonists who are allegedly responsible for a number of the fires. One of the largest of the fires, the one responsible for Brian Naylor's death, was allegedly lit by an arsonist and has now taken over a dozen lives and around 500 homes. It takes a special kind of person to light a fire in a thickly forested area like that, knowing that extreme temperatures and heavy winds will spread the blaze beyond control. Premier Brumby recently announced a dramatic increase in jail sentences for those that start fires - from two years up to the current sentence of 15 years - and for those that start fires that result in the loss of life, 25 years behind bars can be expected.

To everyone affected by the fires of the last couple days, our thoughts are with you and we hope for a speedy end to your suffering. To the people of Marysville and Kinglake, we wish you all the best during the slow and painful rebuilding process and we look forward to visiting you and your amazing communities again soon...

It's like rai-ee-ain, on your wedding day...

2008-11-20T00:56:00.003+11:00

In the lead up to the recent U.S election, SBS aired a mockumentary written by Charles Firth of the Chaser fame, entitled 'Mr. Firth Goes to Washington'. In the hour-long piece of mostly-funny political observation and boneheaded buffoonery Mr. Firth likens George W. Bush's presidency to a Hollywood screenplay. Like a Hollywood blockbuster Bush's presidency had a main plot and a romantic sub-plot - the 'War or Terror' and a fight against the legalisation of gay marriage - a hero and a villian - George W. Bush and Osama bin Laden - and a so-called 'refrigerator moment' - the point where the film's audience has returned home, opened the fridge in search of a midnight snack only to exclaim 'Hang on! That film made no sense!' For Bush's presidency, the refrigerator moment came when people realised that Iraq's weapons of mass destruction were about as real as Santa Clause, the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny and Michael Jackson's face combined.

Overall it's a whimsical little film which doesn't take itself too seriously and we see plenty of Firth in his element - ambushing everyday Americans, putting them on the spot by asking seemingly simple questions and then editing only the inarticulate and embarassingly stupid responses together in order to make America look like a nation of idiots.
Now I have to admit that I indulged in the obligatory snigger at the 'stupid yanks' until it came to Firth's question of how one would define irony. 'Pfft, easy', I sniggered to myself as I watched most people make reference to a certain Alanis Morrisette song. That was until I realised that I couldn't answer the question myself. Sure, I could head to the bookcase and pick out my tattered high school dictionary or visit Dr. Wiki for a diagnosis, but that would be cheating. In the same way that this clip scares the shit out of me, I knew that if I had been one of Firth's unsuspecting victims I too would have struggled to provide an eloquent and inspired definition for the word 'irony'. I couldn't even have given an example of irony that wasn't listed in the aforementioned song. Until now.

You see, employment at our reputable establishment often includes the occasional reception shift, in which the unlucky employee battles boredom, a sore arse and one's own sanity over a gruelling eight hour period. Earlier this week I made the almost fatal mistake of agreeing to cover a colleague's reception shift but to my surprise there was actually something to keep me occupied, namely posting letters to our 800+ members explaining that the time had arrived to part with $5 and renew their memberships.
Now it might just be me, but if I was going to print out hundreds of copies of a document that was to be posted all over the countryside, I would probably proof-read it to ensure that I hadn't made any errors. Or eight.
Needless to say that I began my shift faced with 450 copies of a letter which needed 'reworking', a huge stack of copies of the revised letter to place in envelopes and mail out to existing members and several hours worth of guillotining to transform the first stack into 'note paper'. Sean Connery wouldn't even need that much note paper at a 'Hitting Women Makes You a Shit Bloke' seminar.

'So where's the irony there?' you ask, having made it patiently to the end of yet another post about very little. Well, seeing as you asked so nicely...

At the bottom of the original copy of the letter, the author - presumably too lazy to type out their contact details - had simply copy-pasted the footer from their company email address. This footer - in a font of different colour, size and type to the main text - contained not only the author's contact details but the following plea; 'Please consider the environment before you print this email'.

Unless you are photocopying it 450 times to be used for 'note paper' of course...

Latter-day aint's...

2008-11-12T00:13:00.009+11:00

Avid readers of this blog would already be familiar with my scepticism when it comes to religious belief but this is not to say that I haven't tried to understand.
Some years ago I added my name to a particular Church's distribution list through which I received a plethora of pamphlets detailing the ins-and-outs of a Christian life. I have had detailed discussions with friends about the possibility of the existence of a divine being and attempted to understand the particular religious convictions of the aforementioned friends. I have taken subjects at Uni in order to broaden my understanding of religious history and of various religious persuasions. I have argued with Christian student evangelists at Uni, having been lured from my studies by their desire to hear what I 'think about God'.
You see, I want to understand what it is that makes people turn to faith. Is it the need to fill a void created by a pointless and fleeting postmodern consumerist existence? A void which can only be filled by appealing to the spirit world? Is it the need for a moral compass by which we can live our lives? Is their faith the result of a religious upbringing, carried on with them into adulthood?
But more than wanting to understand why people believe what they believe, I want to know how to argue with them. Sure, I'm no Dawkins - and a good thing too according to some - but I would like to think that over the years I have learnt a little about what it is that makes people turn their heads skyward, and some of the potential fallacies inherent in the aforementioned action.
I'm not naive. I know that I'm not going to convince anyone to change their mind. People should be free to believe what they wanna believe - freedom of religion and all that. In fact, it's none of my business what people believe in. Unless it is.

For the best part of a year now a certain family member of mine has been dappling in Mormonism - that is, (s)he has joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Now before (s)he joined I must confess that I knew about as much about the LDS Church as Sarah Palin knows about geography. After a year of casual research into the world of the Prophet I still have a limited understanding, but enough that my ears prick up when I hear talk of the baptism of the dead.
Like most flavours of Christianity the LDS Church professes the need for adherents to be baptised if they want to join the Church. Unlike most flavours of Christianity however, the LDS Church advocates baptisms for the dead.
See the Mormons believe that those who haven't been fortunate enough to receive the blessing of Christ during their lifetime will be given the opportunity in the next life. But of course in order to enter the afterlife, the Mormon must receive all of the ordinances that a living Mormon would. Including baptism.
And so it is that a member of the Church may be baptised as a proxy for the deceased, conferring onto them the blessing of the Lord Jesus Christ and an opportunity to accept entry into the afterlife.
By now you are probably starting to see the problem. Where a living person would be able to decide whether or not to be baptised, the decision in the case of the deceased is made by the living Church member. It is entirely possible that a deceased person might be baptised contrary to their desires or even contrary to a previous religious bent that they might have had when they were alive. Indeed since the end of World War II the LDS Church has allegedly been responsible for the posthumous baptism of some 380,000 Holocaust victims as well as Hitler himself.
Now I know that the argument goes that the person is free to choose whether or not to accept the baptism, and that it is all done with the person's best interests at heart, but seriously, what were they thinking? I believe you would call it 'adding insult to injury' - I mean, the Holocaust victims only died as a direct result of their specific religious tendencies, but what the hell, why not give them the opportunity to fundamentally realign their spiritual compasses and join the LDS Church? How many Jews do you reckon there were sitting in the spiritual waiting room thinking 'well, Judaism didn't really turn out how I had planned, so I might as well give this Mormonism gig a bit of a crack'. I can tell you now, if I had died as a result of my religious convictions there is no way I would be 'taking the opportunity' to convert to another religion. It's just a little bit of a kick in the guts to the Jewish community.

Anyway I digress. So what does all this have to do with me? Well do you remember how I told you that a member of my family had joined the Church? Well, the Church also professes a strong desire for their followers to delve into the world of genealogy. You know, family trees and all that sort of thing. Well on the surface this might seem like a fairly innocuous request on the part of the Church. As my now-Mormon family member said 'I am learning stuff about my family that I never knew. My mother was telling me stories about my grandparents that I would never have found out otherwise'. Good for you. Just make sure you don't tell your parents that the reason you have developed a sudden interest in uncovering stories of long-dead relatives is not entirely due to an insatiable thirst for family history, but rather that it is an attempt to fulfil your duties as a member of the LDS Church. That's right people, baptism of the dead.

I must admit I felt sick when this particular family member told me with a proud smile that (s)he had baptised some of her/his ancestors into the Church recently. I felt even sicker when (s)he admitted that (s)he hadn't told her/his parents due to the fact that 'they wouldn't understand'. Mhmm. Damn right they wouldn't. To the best of my knowledge her/his family was devoutly Catholic as well which makes things even worse.

See, if (s)he wants to believe that God's Word was written on a couple of golden plates and buried in a hill near Joseph Smith's house, uncovered four years after the aforementioned gentleman was visited by the angel Moroni on September 22, 1823, then that's fine. If (s)he wants to believe that one shouldn't read the newspaper on a Sunday in order to 'keep the Sabbath holy', then that's fine. Hell, if (s)he wants to believe that black people are so-coloured as a mark of their wickedness and disobedience (2 Nephi 5:21), then (s)he is free to do so. Just don't go baptising dead people, especially if they already had a previous religious alignment, and especially if they are part of your family, the other members of which have not been consulted or even told why you have developed a sudden interest in family history.

Let me finish by saying that if the Orthodox Church decided to condemn the practice of baptising the dead way back in the fourth century then it's fairly clear that you could be doing something a little less morally reprehensible with your time...

On quality journalism and finger-pointing...

2008-10-16T18:58:00.005+11:00

'Hmm, let's flick through the Herald Sun shall we? Aaah yes, let's check out today's opinion poll'.

Yeah well, I won't be doing that again. I should know better than to open the Herald Scum at all anyway, but the quality of this picture-book masquerading as a newspaper never ceases to amaze me.

'Are learner drivers a menace on our roads?'

Is that a serious question? Did the usual opinion poll question writer suddenly drop dead only to be replaced by some primate with little understanding of the workings of human society? Deary me.
I mean, who could possibly think that learner drivers are a menace? Well, I'll answer that myself - 30% of people that took the time to respond to the question. Come on people, think about what you are saying.
Firstly, what do they mean by 'menace'? Because of this learner driver that has been in the news recently suddenly every single driver with L plates is a danger to society? I know, why don't we ban learners from driving! Not only would we be protecting the rest of society by keeping these hooligans off the roads, but in a few decades time when all of the current licensed drivers have stopped driving, there will be no more cars on the road! Safety conscious and environmentally friendly!

Give me a break.

It's like this crazy mess that has erupted after a young lady was knocked off her bike by a tourist bus last month. Except that the story didn't happen like that. The young lady, Carolyn Rawlings, was riding to work down Swanston St when she ventured onto the tram tracks, causing the bike to slip out from under her. At the precise moment that she fell onto the road, a tourist bus drove through and collected her.
Now don't get me wrong, I'm a keen cyclist myself and I'm all for making the roads safe(r) for cyclists but to report the events in such a way as to apportion blame to the bus company is just wrong. Sure, someone died, but this sort of beat up isn't the right reaction. Ms Rawlings was just very unlucky.
Whenever a 'tragic' incident like this happens, the instinctive reaction is to find someone or something to blame, but it isn't fair on the bus companies to turn the blame their way. It wasn't their fault.

All sarcasm and fashionable over-anger aside, it truly is a shame that it takes someone's death in order for change to occur. My sincere condolences to Mr Jeremy Rawlings...

Sun, sand and stretching the truth...

2008-10-07T00:10:00.004+11:00

I was lucky enough to spend last week enjoying the beautiful weather that NSW's Bateman's Bay had to offer. It was a great week of relaxing, swimming, cycling, walking, eating, and generally having a chance to recharge the batteries. Later in the week I happened to be lying on the beach watching Dad and the Bro boogie-boarding when I overheard a nearby conversation;

Daughter: What do you shoot Mummy?
Mother: We shoot all sorts of things. Rabbits, foxes, pheasants, quail, deer...

Now at this point you might be excused for thinking that Sarah Palin had put aside her vice-presidential campaign in order to head to a small coastal town in Eastern Australia for a holiday but alas, it was not the case. To resume;

Daughter: Do you shoot Bambi?
Mother: No we try not to shoot Bambi.
Daughter: Do you shoot Bambi's mummy?
Mother: No we try not to shoot Bambi's mother, but we do shoot Bambi's daddy.
Daughter: Why do you shoot Bambi's daddy?
Mother: When male deers (sic.) get older they grow antlers and try to hurt each other, so its ok to shoot them.

Now I'm no cervine expert, but I'm pretty sure that the fighting of adult male deer is hardcoded into their brains as a sort of 'survival of the fittest' mechanism. Furthermore, the suggestion that by shooting male deer we are somehow helping to control the deer population just makes me angry. I mean, its not like deer have survived all this time without our 'help' is it?
But most worrying about the mother's response is that the children will now believe what she says. Now let me get one thing straight, I don't really care what deluded beliefs you hold, or how you justify your actions to yourself, just don't lie to your children.

In my anger I started thinking about the lies that parents routinely tell their children, in particular the lies that are the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy and Santa. Now don't get me wrong, like any other kid I enjoyed and looked forward to Easter, Christmas and losing teeth but surely there has to be some negative impacts as a result of lying to your children. How can you expect your children to grow up believing that it isn't a great idea to tell lies if the things from which they generate the most happiness are, at their most fundamental level, lies?
Having said all that, what parent is going to deny their children the joys of Easter and Christmas for the sake of morality?

At the end of the day, parents will always act in accordance with what they think is best for their children and I suspect that a couple of lies are always going to be more popular in the long run than adhering to a strict moral code. Just don't try to tell your kids that it's ok to kill male deer just because they fight each other. Unless of course you are willing to kill your own children when they start to fight over who will sit in the front seat...

Arrogance in sport...

2008-09-09T15:51:00.003+10:00

It's a little scary to think that the AFL season is almost over already. It seems like only yesterday that Geelong was making a mockery of Port Adelaide in last year's Grand Final. Last Friday night I happened to watch Hawthorn dispose of the Western Bulldogs, or perhaps more accurately, Lance 'Buddy' Franklin dispose of the Western Bulldogs, a man who became the subject of an argument between Dad and I. See, Dad gets miffed when players celebrate extensively after kicking a good goal - something which Buddy certainly isn't shy of doing - arguing that it shows an unnecessary arrogance.
I can see his point - 'let the footy do the talking' they say - but I dunno. I just reckon that if you are as good as Buddy then you are kinda entitled to a bit of show-off time. His namesake, Lance Armstrong, was never the most modest of blokes, but why would he be? The bloke beat cancer and then won a lazy seven Tours de France in a row. I think he is entitled to a bit of arrogance.

The Olympics saw Dad and I clash over the issue as well, in particular the antics of Usain Bolt. For anyone who happened to be living under a rock while the Olympics was on, Usain Bolt is the Jamaican guy who happened to win gold medals in both the 100m and 200m sprints, while casually picking up two world records in the process. Besides his extraordinary performances, Bolt has made a name for himself for his showboating - before, after and would you believe, during the race - and it is this apparent arrogance that Dad wasn't all that impressed about.
Like I said, I can see his point but I can also see how breaking the 100m and 200m world records in one meet is a fairly impressive effort, worthy of a bit of arrogance self-praise.

But at the end of the day, this post is merely a vehicle for the following YouTube clip - a clever and witty parody of Usain Bolt's efforts in the 100m final and possibly the funniest clip I've ever seen on Youtube...

Seachange it ain't...

2008-08-26T21:47:00.007+10:00

So I made the mistake of checking out the first episode of Channel 7's new comedy/drama series 'Packed to the Rafters' tonight. Suffice to say that I wasn't overly impressed. For an 'all-star Australian cast' the acting and dialogue were decidedly awful and even screen veteran Michael Caton, in the role of the maternal grandfather, looked like he wasn't overly interested.
I should have known better - any TV show that names their characters solely for the purpose of a joke in the show's title is in a bit of trouble. That's right, the family's surname is Rafter, get it, 'Packed to the Rafters' - genius.
So where has all the good Australian drama gone? Where are the likes of Seachange and, well, Seachange? You know, a good, interesting and genuinely funny comedy/drama that doesn't rely on dick jokes in order to sell its pilot episode? For those of you (fortunate people) that missed it, indulge me as I recreate one of tonight's many, many cringeworthy moments;

After taking a cliche-tastic three viagra pills on the night of his 25th wedding anniversary, Dave Rafter finds himself in agony after his 'old fella' won't go down. Concerned, he and his wife head to the emergency department of the local hospital in order for him to get examined by, you guessed it, a hot nurse. Upon informing Dave that she would need to drain the blood from his penis in order to prevent potential gangrene, she utters the unforgettably terrible line - 'for a silver wedding anniversary, that's a whole lot of wood'.

Seriously, is this the best Aussie drama that we can muster up these days? If this show makes it past it's second episode without being axed I will be quite amazed.
Perhaps I'm being a little unfair as the show did have one moment which almost made for compelling viewing. Mind you, it was in the last 30 seconds of the episode and involved the Rafter daughter returning home after being (apparently) beaten to a pulp by her boyfriend. Awesome...

Stalkers of the world unite...

2008-08-11T01:01:00.004+10:00

Another victory for the stalkers of Australia with the recent introduction of Google Maps' Street View feature for Australian roads. If you haven't wandered over to Google Maps lately and seen 'Street View' then it's a half-hour well spent. The potential uses of this technology are quite astounding - from familiarising yourself with an unknown route, to finding a recognisable meeting place for yourself and a friend, or finding the best way to break into that $3million Toorak mansion.
Public outcry has already erupted over the launch with some street views showing women sunbathing, men picking up prostitutes and a bloke takin' a slash, but issues of personal freedom, surveillance and general creepiness aside, there's something pretty cool about searching for your girlfriend's address and seeing her father checking the letter-box...

On play-areas and potentially poor parenting...

2008-07-24T00:45:00.005+10:00

As employees of a hotel with a dedicated play-area my colleagues and I spend a sizeable amount of time side-stepping, reprimanding and generally cursing the multitudes of children who move around the hotel in a dangerously unpredictable fashion and under seemingly little parental supervision. As a result, the parenting abilities of our patrons often come under scrutiny, usually in the customer-free haven that is the kitchen. Two particular incidents over the last month have made me question my stance on the issue. The first incident was a conversation I overheard whilst serving drinks to a couple of older ladies;

Lady 1: 'It was so bad. He was just sitting at the table playing his video game and his parents didn't even say anything!'
Lady 2: 'It's just so anti-social!'
Lady 1: 'I just can't believe his parents didn't stop him. It's terrible parenting'.

Let me say straight up that I don't necessarily disagree with the sentiments expressed by the two ladies, but I would argue that this isn't point. What right do we have to judge others for their parenting? How is it any of our business? How does the behaviour of a child who is sitting quietly in a restaurant affect those two old ladies? I'm not sure that it does.
The day after I eavesdropped on the two ladies, a young mother came into the bistro with her son for a bit of lunch. Following the meal the lady approached me to say 'I'm just going to leave my son in the play area for a bit. He will entertain himself with the Playstation and I'll be able to see him anyway'. As it turns out the lady couldn't see her son from where she was, as she had made the trek to the Sportsbar and TAB at the far end of the hotel. As a result, a few of my colleagues and I expressed disappointment at once again being left in charge of child minding duties.

Are these two scenarios different? Do I have a right to judge the lady in the second case given that her parenting decisions directly impacted me? Or should I be content with being angry at her for leaving me with the responsibility of minding her child rather than casting judgment upon her? Do we only judge others so that we might feel better about ourselves?

In the grand scheme of things I guess none of these questions really matter. Why are we told not to judge others anyway? By deciding not to judge others don't we thereby judge others for not doing as we do? Or to put it another way, are we judging others for judging others? Whatever. Something to think about. Or not. Or you could just listen to Tim Minchin's take on the issue - it's certainly more entertaining, more articulate and a hell of a lot funnier than this post...

Yes Daddy, he's gonna take real good care of me...

2008-06-24T23:51:00.007+10:00

It's time to turn a cursory eye toward the music industry once more with one Usher Raymond IV firmly in our sights. Now I've never been the world's greatest R&B fan but Usher's new song 'Love in this Club' grabbed what little appreciation for the genre that I had left, took it outside and initiated physical contact upon its person. Let's start from the beginning.

If you are looking for themic originality you probably already know that you aren't going to find it in an Usher song, but surely it's not that difficult to write a song about something - anything - that doesn't involve night clubs and hot women.
But look, it's ok, Usher's intentions are good - he is going to look after this girl, buy her drinks and if things work out they might even make sweet, passionate love together. Strike, he will even ensure that his mates look after her mates so that the two of them can enjoy a worry-free night together. Alternatively you could posit that all he wants to do is ply her with alcohol and fuck her brains out. And if you are still in any doubt as to his real intentions, listen no further than Young Jeezy's inspired contribution, containing classic lines such as 'it's going down on aisle three, i'll bag you like some groceries' and 'i'll be like your medicine, you'll take every dose of me'. Seriously, do 'the ladies' really fall for this sort of thing?

Let's turn now to the musical content. Again, no one is expecting Usher to whip out some prog-rock masterpiece but come on, how hard is it to not plagiarise? If you do happen to feel the need to steal a sample that comes packaged with an entry-level digital audio workstation like GarageBand, at least make it a little less obvious by way of a little pitch-shifting or something. Furthermore, if you insist on stealing a riff, at least make sure it's a good one. It's like being at a high school cross-country run and watching the fat kid cut through the trees in an attempt to shorten the course, only to slip down a muddy enbankment into a sewage run-off.

Let me finish by saying that I reckon this guy has the right idea - get rid of the shitty synth and the cliched club-beat and turn it into a piano ballad with some well-placed triplets and the song actually sounds ok. Unless of course you like your lyrics a little better than 'you know all you gotta do is tell me what you sippin' on, and I promise that I'm gonna keep it comin' all night long', in which case you could go for the best version yet - Usher-free Usher...

Welcome to sensitivity street...

2008-06-17T13:22:00.003+10:00

Well I'm back online after a few hectic weeks of computer-less and internet-less living. Last week we moved house to Eltham in Melbourne's north-east and I have to say it's a lovely part of the world. With our move to Eltham we find ourselves in the distribution area for the 'Diamond Valley Leader', the local newspaper, and I couldn't help but notice the front page of last week's edition.
This lady, Linda Keays, has her photo plastered over the front page of the paper as the spokesperson for the concerned residents of York St, a street which is home to Eltham's Le Pine funeral services. The thrust of the article is that Ms Keays, along with 26 other residents of York St, is calling for the local council to crack down on people who attend funerals at Le Pine and are forced to park illegally in 'no standing' areas due to limited parking spaces. According to the article 'Mr Keays said it was also difficult for residents to get in and out of their driveways when the street was so choked with parked cars'. You have to give the woman credit - not everyone would be willing to put their name, face and address to the suggestion that police should crack down on people mourning the death of a friend or family member just so the individual in question can get to the shops. I know Eltham is a long way from anything but I'm pretty sure this lady's moral compass might need a bit of an adjustment...

On bread rolls and violence...

2008-06-03T22:21:00.004+10:00

At work the other day we had one of our regular visits from the local community house. These excursions see a bunch of the intellectually/physically/situationally challenged residents of the house escorted by their carers to our reputable establishment for a bite to eat and a bit of quality time. Now I'm not writing tonight about the conduct of the residents - in fact the disabled people that come into the pub are invariably among the most polite and pleasant guests that we have.
No, I'm writing tonight about the less than appropriate behaviour of one of the two carers that happened to be escorting the residents this day.
So the story goes that this particular lady ordered her meal with Jo and some five minutes later returned to the till to order a bread roll to come out first. Jo politely put through the order and continued serving other customers. Less than two minutes later the lady was back demanding that her roll be brought out to which Jo replied 'it's on its way - it's just going through the oven now'. The lady stormed off back to her table.
Another two minutes later and Laura happens to be clearing a table immediately next to the table which the carer and her posse were sitting at. The carer walked over to Laura and grabbed her forcibly by the arm and pushed her against the wall yelling 'Go in the kitchen and get me my roll now!'.
As you can imagine Laura reacted quite strongly citing (correctly) her right not to have physical contact enacted on her person, and consequently a game of verbal tennis erupted.

My colleagues and I spent the rest of the day talking about the event and apparently the other carer - the sane one - told Jo that our psycho-friend is 'on her last legs at the institution', but it really got me thinking - if this 'carer' was happy pushing around a complete stranger after a bread roll wasn't cooked in the ten seconds after she put her order in, how does she treat the people she is supposed to be looking after if they happen to upset her? I'm sure looking after disabled people is a tough job, but man, I think this lady might be in the wrong industry...

On death and atheism...

2008-05-28T13:00:00.003+10:00

Some of you might have already run into magic/comedy due Penn & Teller in your travels but if you haven't, it's a couple of hours on YouTube well spent. Penn Jilette is the voice of the duo, and a big voice it is too - he's loud, opinionated, smart and funny as hell. Apart from his work with the duo bearing his name, Jilette also has a video blog entitled 'Penn Says' which sees him ranting about various things, not least of all his love for all things atheist.
Now as you might be able to tell from my earlier post regarding the Westboro Baptist Church, I'm highly sceptical about 'the whole God thing' and this post by Mr Jilette really struck a chord with me.

Now I'm sure you are more than capable of watching the video yourself so I won't bother to give you a word-by-word account of what he says, instead let me get straight to it. Penn makes a great point about the unenviable position that a theist would have to hold had they been in his position - that God was responsible for crippling and ultimately killing his mother. One might justify this position by claiming that 'things always happen for a reason' or that 'she is with God now' and that consequently we should not mourn but rather be glad that the loved one has reached the eternal 'goodness' of Heaven, free from pain and suffering.

Something feels very wrong about that line of reasoning - maybe it's the fact that it reduces the human life to the equivalent of a queue at the bank - we are merely waiting for our number to come up. Maybe it's the fact that it completely downplays the function of human emotion, in particular the important process of grieving - 'she is with God now, she is in a better place. It's only a temporary thing so I'm not really grieving for her'. Maybe it's the fact that a (supposedly) perfectly good God cripples and then kills and innocent woman and we are supposed to just accept it as 'divine will'.

I think I'm going to be sick...

People are dumb...

2008-05-19T23:01:00.007+10:00

When you work in the hospitality industry it often pays to double check customers' orders just to make sure that you are both on the same wavelength. However sometimes even one's best attempts to get inside the customer's head are foiled by acts of sheer stupidity. One such incident occurred at work this evening;

Me: How are you going?
Customer: Good. I was just wondering, would the Tuscan Lamb Salad be a big enough meal for me?
Me: It depends. If you are hungry it might not fill you up.
Customer: Ok, I might get a bruschetta as well then thanks.
Me: No problem, so that was to come out at as a main course with the salad?
Customer: Yes thanks.

For clarification's sake, the bruschetta at our reputable establishment, as at most eateries, is normally served as an entree. Now following the above exchange I finalised the sale and printed the docket through to the kitchen for preparation. Before doing anything else I assured the chef that the docket was correct - one bruschetta for entree, for someone else on the same table, and one for main, for the customer in question. Just to be sure, I went to the table and double-checked;

Me: Sorry sir, I'm just making sure - you wanted your bruschetta served with your salad, yeah?
Customer: Yeah that would be great thanks.

Ok, simple enough. Or is it? Fast forward about 10 minutes to when the entree bruschetta is being taken out. Upon placing the bruschetta on the table Emily was greeted with the words 'there is supposed to be another one of those'. After explaining to the men at the table that the docket listed the second bruschetta as a main course, she was told that she was wrong - it was for entree.
Now at this point I was starting to get more than a little frustrated with proceedings. Emily and I headed back to the kitchen and asked the chefs if they could prepare the second bruschetta to come out as soon as possible and explained the stupidity that was unfolding. The chefs prepared the second bruschetta and Emily took it back out - problem solved. Or was it?
Fast forward a further 10 minutes and Emily gets called back over to the table and is met with the unbelievable; 'this bruschetta was supposed to come out with the main course'.
As if that wasn't enough, try this one on for size; 'This one has gone cold, can you bring out another one?'

Even if this guy's ego was so precious that he couldn't own up to the error of his ways, surely he would have said something when his bruschetta came out as an entree. But oh no, he just let it sit there and get cold before asking for another to be made up for him.

Tell me the world wouldn't be a better place if hospitality staff were allowed to tell fuckwit customers exactly how dumb they are...

MAFMADness...

2008-05-16T00:14:00.003+10:00

Now let me start by saying that I'm a firm believer in the age-old adage 'shit happens' - people make mistakes, I know that, but oh boy, this is a big one.

So the TAC have this competition right, it's called MAFMAD, otherwise known as 'Make a Film, Make a Difference'. It calls for budding young film-makers to create their own short films which will 'make your mates think twice before taking risks on the road'. You can get all the details at the MAFMAD website so my description need not be too involved.
Anyhoo, last Wednesday evening I happened to be viewing the much publicised 'fuck'-fest that is Gordon Ramsay's 'Hell's Kitchen' and during one particular ad-break I chanced upon a commercial for the aforementioned competition. While the placement of this ad is far from remarkable, follow it with this ad and the situation changes somewhat.
Now if you ask me, the ad for the Suzuki Swift is already a perfect example of irresponsible and exploitative marketing, but place it so that it follows an ad which campaigns for safe driving, especially among younger drivers, and, well, I'm genuinely speechless.

Actually I'm not. The dead-shit in the ad knows that the roads are slippery; he knows that there have already been accidents so far that day, and he has been told in no uncertain terms that the conditions are 'treacherous'. But oh no. Mr I'm-too-good-a-driver-to-let-the-conditions-affect-me goes ahead anyway. And still we wonder why young guys drive like fuckwits and get themselves, their passengers and others, killed. Well here it is Your Honour - Exhibit A.

Shame on you Suzuki for exploiting stupid young drivers in order to sell your product, shame on you Channel 9 for not having the brains to check your ads-playlist before hitting 'shuffle' and shame on you MediaWatch for not putting the story to air at first opportunity...

Mr Reznor strikes again...

2008-05-08T23:37:00.003+10:00

And so the blog-tacular coincidences continue. Just weeks after I wrote about the generosity of Nine Inch Nails' Trent Reznor, he ups the ante. Two days ago the next NIN album 'The Slip' was made available for download on the band's website for, wait for it...$0. That's right, free.

Now I've already sung the praises of Mr Reznor on this here blog, but as someone wrote on the NIN message board 'it's a good time to be a NIN fan'. 'The Slip' comes only two months after 'Ghosts I-IV' - does this guy do anything but make awesome music?! - and its release was accompanied by the following message on the NIN website;
'Thank you for your continued and loyal support over the years - this one's on me'.

You're welcome Mr Reznor and thank you for your continued generosity...

God hates fags...

2008-05-07T00:57:00.005+10:00

Oh boy. Where do we start with this one? So there is this guy, Fred Phelps, who decided to start his own religious organisation; the Westboro Baptist Church. Those of you who are avid Chaser fans might have already heard of these guys, but indulge me as I explain.

The teachings of the WBC focus on the wrath of God and His ultimate and unwavering quest to 'punish the wicked for their sins in hell for ever', with the 'wicked' seemingly containing a highly improbable percentage of homosexuals.
In fact, as you have probably already observed, the main thrust of Phelps' doctrine is that 'God Hates Fags', a statement lifted almost directly from Leviticus 18:22 in the Old Testament; 'Do not lie with a man as one lies with a woman; it is an abomination'. Furthermore, according to Leviticus 20:13 'If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They must be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads'.

Now I don't need to go into a whole lot of detail but suffice to say that any organisation that advocates and rejoices in the killing of people based on their sexual preferences has a fair bit of explaining to do. But let's shift gears for a second...

Christianity, as with most major religions, reserves within its teachings, a special position for scripture, in this case the Holy Bible. The Bible is seen as the word of God - a moral code by which we should structure our behaviour and our lives. Specifically, 'the law of God is perfect' (Psalm 19:7) and should be followed accordingly.
Ok, all well and good - so God says that sex before marriage is bad (Hebrews 13:4), so we don't do it. But what about when God tells us that we should kill our sons if they are stubborn and rebellious (Deuteronomy 21:18) - it's not so clear-cut is it?
Now I don't care if you say that it isn't supposed to be taken literally, this is the word of God and so a good Christian should obey it. If He tells you to kill you son because he is stubborn, then you should do it; just as you didn't lose your virginity until you got married at 28.
You see, this is a great example of Interpretive Christianity - taking the bits of the Bible that you like while skimming over the rest of the unpleasant stuff. If the law of God is perfect, then any of God's laws is as valid as the next - what right do you have to pick and choose? If you believe in any of the laws given by God in the Bible then you must believe them all - including the ones that say;

We must kill those who work on the Sabbath (Exodus 31:15)
We must kill those who worship other gods (Deuteronomy 17:2-7)
We must kill those who blaspheme the name of God (Leviticus 24:16)
We must kill adulterers (Leviticus 20:10), and of course
We must kill homosexuals (Leviticus 20:13)

I could go on forever but I'm sure the point is clear - either start being consistent in practicing your faith, or get rid of the Bible as a source of authority and/or your faith entirely.

Now for those of you that haven't picked it up yet, I'm not advocating killing your children, your gay mates or your 'happily married' neighbour who is visited every day at 12:30 by the postie for a bit of 'put the package in the postbox'. I'm merely pointing out the abhorrent implications of Christian religious beliefs practiced in strict and consistent observance of God's laws. For God's sake don't go down that path, the world doesn't need another Westboro Baptist Church...

Sweet Adelines? I don't think so...

2008-05-06T17:40:00.006+10:00

I had the pleasure of spending last weekend in beautiful Hobart-town, Tasmania. Despite my fears of sub-zero temperatures, the weather was near perfect and I had a jolly old time.
We were there in support of our lovely friend's musical endeavours - she was singing in the national finals of the Sweet Adelines International competition, representing the Melbourne Chorus. The chorus won the competition and will go to Nashville, Tennessee next year to complete in the international finals.
I write today not about the brilliance of the Melbourne Chorus (which was unmitigated incidentally), but about the somewhat ironic name of the organisation.

I'm sure that among the 30,000 members of SAI there are a handful of pleasant women but our weekend in Hobart certainly didn't reflect that. The majority of the singers were obnoxious and rude and looked as if they had inadvertently sat on a barber's pole which had subsequently lodged itself firmly between their more-than-ample butt-cheeks. I'm all for an organisation that empowers women - especially those of the amply-fleshed and amply-aged variety - but who do you think you are?!
As we tried to check out of our room on the Sunday, we had not one, but three such women try, knowingly, to push ahead of us in the queue. Or try this one on for size - as we waited for the lift on the Saturday night, our lovely singer-friend introduced to one of her fellow chorus members who turned first to Sharon - smiling - and greeted her. She then turned to me and remarked coldly 'Guys don't like singing' before promptly turning her back on me to continue talking with her friend. Since when did having a vagina become a prerequisite for being able to enjoy music?!
In hindsight I should have retorted thus;

'Excuse me?! So you are saying that because I have a penis I'm automatically unable to enjoy any sort of singing? Perhaps I should just go and watch some footy on TV, or maybe have a beer, or maybe I should just go and kill something - you know, Neanderthal-style. Here's an idea - why don't you take your head out of your fat arse and get back in the kitchen...'

Sweet Adelines? Well maybe, just not in my experience. Granted, these women can definitely sing, but man, time for a slice of humble pie methinks. Or maybe just a slice of humble...

BB brilliance...

2008-04-26T22:40:00.003+10:00

If this guy doesn't make you double over in fits of laughter and/or make you want to find the nearest train bridge and jump from it then I don't know what will.
For those of you fortunate enough to have avoided being bombarded by the multitudinous number of ads on Channel 10, this is Travis; one of the housemates from the upcoming season of Big Brother. Leaving questions of the show's creative or educational merit to the side for a second, let me just say this; this guy will single-handedly make people watch Big Brother.
Regardless of whether you think he is an outspoken but interesting guy, or more probably just some annoying fuckwit who sounds like he has had his bollocks ripped off in a game of tug-of-war with an angry rottweiler, you have to admit that watching this guy embarrass himself on national TV is an appealing thought...

'G'day guys my name's Travis...Traaaa-vvvisss!'

*Finds nearest railway bridge*

Hospitality that should be...

2008-04-26T22:04:00.003+10:00

It would seem that the doctrine of universal cause and effect is well and truly in tact. Following my recent post regarding the nature of the hospitality industry, we received a written complaint at work about the perceived lack of hospitality provided by the staff at our reputable establishment. It would appear that customers are more than aware of the deception employed by hospitality staff;

'Today our school group came for a morning tea and I have to say it was appalling. The staff really didn't want us there'.

Following the complaint, the venue manager of our reputable establishment placed the offending email on the staff noticeboard with the following addition;

'If you have forgotten, I will remind you all - we are in the hospitality industry'.

Coincidental much? Just imagine the complaints that would come in if hospitality staff were allowed to say what they really thought...

Hospitality that isn't...

2008-04-23T17:53:00.007+10:00

Hospitality is a funny fish. For an industry that concerns itself with looking after people, its employees spend an awful lot of time whining about said people. It seems to be an ingrained characteristic of the industry - a culture of deception whereby customers are treated with respect when being spoken to by staff, but as soon as they are out of earshot, you can bet your bottom dollar that there'll be a whole lotta bitchin' going on. So in an attempt to end the deception, at least temporarily, I propose the following; International Say-What-You-Like-To-Customers-Day. A-like so...

Waiter: What do you want?
Customer: Can I get a couple of menus?
Waiter: I'm guessing you didn't read the sign then?
Customer: What sign was that?
Waiter: The one that tells you to wait at the door until you are seated. You know, the one that you had to sidestep to get in the door?!
Customer: Oh, sorry.
Waiter: Yeah I bet you are. Learn to read fucktard.

Or maybe this one;

Barman: Yep?
Customer: Um...I'll have...um...can I...hmm...can I have a beer?
Barman: Yes you can. However, we have 7 beers on tap, 15 beers by the bottle, and 3 different size glasses into which to pour the beer so unless you are going to be a little more specific, you won't be getting anything.
Customer: Um...ok. I'll have...I'll have a draught thanks.
Barman. Ok. So you have chosen the beer, well done. Now, unless you haven't noticed, there are actually other customers waiting so could you do me a favour and hurry the fuck up and choose which size glass you want?!
Customer: Um...ok...I'll have a pot thanks?

*Barman pours a pot of draught*

Customer: Actually...can I make that a VB?
Barman: Are you for real?
Customer: Sorry.
Barman: Yeah I bet you are. Make up your mind fucktard.

Or perhaps this little beauty;

Waiter: Hi.
Customer: Just a table for 22 thanks.
Waiter: Excuse me?
Customer: A table for 22 thanks.
Waiter: I heard what you said - I was giving you the chance to turn around a walk away.
Customer: Sorry?
Waiter: So you are telling me you have 22 people waiting to come inside, but you don't have a booking on the busiest night of the week?
Customer: Yeah...just near the play area if you wouldn't mind?
Waiter: You had better leave - I don't want to find out if your stupidity is contagious.

So there you have it folks, International Say-What-You-Like-To-Customers-Day. Let's see if we can't get some support for the cause...

I have a secret...

2008-04-23T11:10:00.004+10:00

Yes it's true; I have a dirty little secret. I quite enjoy stealing from homeless people, pushing wheelchair-bound people down stairs and making fun of retarded people in public.

Ok, so I lied. The truth is, I'm in a relationship with a notable age-difference. 'How much of an age difference?' I hear you keenly ask, ready in anticipation of the magic number; ready to judge; ready to declare your oh-so-learned ruling on whether such a difference is acceptable. Well guess what? I don't need your valuable insight into the unwritten law of relationships; I don't need your holier-than-thou pronouncement of acceptance; I don't need your blessing. Except that I do.

You see, in a perfect world people would not cast judgment upon each other, particularly for superficial things like the colour of one's skin, sexual tendencies, or indeed choice of partner. Naively I have chosen, whether consciously or otherwise, to believe the age old adage; 'Do not judge others, lest you be judged yourself'. I would love to believe that by keeping an open mind and not casting judgment upon others, the favour would be returned unto me.
Sadly, in this far-from-perfect world, my reciprocal system with only two variables is wrong on both counts;

As the eminent and explosively funny musician, comedian and would-be Middle East peacekeeper Tim Minchin once said 'If you open your mind too much, your brain will fall out'. That is to say, it's all very well to keep an open mind about things, but you would have a hard time arguing that people shouldn't cast judgment on Adolph Hitler just because he didn't really invite too many Jews to his Sunday afternoon tea parties. Unless of course his tea parties consisted of shoveling said Jews into mass graves.
Just because I try not to judge people doesn't mean they won't judge me; that's just absurd. Rather I should really concern myself with the question; 'Why should I give a fuck what people think?'

So there you go; the secret's out. Except that it isn't...

Hats off to Mr Reznor...

2008-04-22T20:34:00.011+10:00

In a world of greedy record companies, ring-tone sales and cross-media infiltration, a big 'ol tip-of-the-hat is in order for one Trent Reznor - the man behind the hugely successful, and frankly awesome Nine Inch Nails.

In May of last year Reznor put a message on the NIN website publicly damning the Universal Music Group, the owner of Interscope Records to which NIN was signed. You see, Universal had priced NIN's new album 'Year Zero' at $35 in Australia, for the simple reason that NIN had a 'real core audience that will pay whatever it costs when (NIN) put something out'. Reznor was suitably unimpressed by this blatant attempt to rip off his fans and at a concert in Sydney late last year he told the crowd to share his music online, saying 'Steal it. Steal away. Steal, steal and steal some more and give it to all your friends and keep on stealing'.

Mr Reznor has gained a real reputation for being loyal to his fans, and the above incident is only one piece of the pie. Following 'Year Zero', Reznor released 'Y34RZ3R0R3M1X3D', an album of remixes of the tracks from 'Year Zero'. Notably though, the album also contained the multi-track files from 'Year Zero', allowing fans to create their own remixes of the songs.
I'm not sure if I've heard of a more generous act in the world of commercial music, and if there has been, I would like to know about it.

The release of 'Y34RZ3R0R3M1X3D' marked the end of NIN's contractual obligations to Interscope Records and the start of NIN's operations as a 'totally free agent, free of any recording contract with any label'. On the 2nd of March the sixth NIN studio album, 'Ghosts I-IV', was released exclusively at the NIN website and a month later it was made available in music stores around the world.
The first nine tracks of the album are available for free download with a 40-page pdf booklet of album art. Alternatively, the entire album is available for direct download for a measly $5 US from the NIN website, or if you are prepared to part with another $5 US you will get the direct download, as well as the album in its double-CD glory and a 16-page booklet mailed to you.

I know that the online distribution of albums has occurred before, and I know that Trent Reznor has probably already massed a sizable fortune without needing to charge people much for the new album but man, how good is the gesture? The fact that his music is so great is just a bonus...

Paid by addicts...

2008-04-21T23:28:00.000+10:00

I often consider the ethical implications of having my wages paid by sad old ladies who have nothing better to do than play the pokies at all hours of the day, and indeed night. I can't help feeling that there is something fundamentally wrong with the idea of living off the pensions of all the old dears that frequent our reputable establishment. However I, and I suspect the majority of my co-workers, try not to get bogged down in the morality of it all.
I mean, it's bad enough that we have to deal with screaming kids, whining mothers and the social-life-killing hours that hospitality work entails without worrying about the ethical considerations of our employment, right?

My ongoing attempts to resist joining the ranks of the addict-attendants (aka gaming staff) have been treated with some disdain by the upper-echelons and this has prompted me to consider my position - if my being hesitant to work in gaming is due to an ethical commitment then surely I'm over my head already.

Here are some lovely factoids for you, courtesy of the Australian Government's Productivity Commission;

State governments in Australia collect around $4billion a year from the gaming industry.
The average Australian adult loses $260 a year through gambling.
The average Victorian adult loses $350 a year through gambling, the highest of any state.
18 to 30 year olds spend the most on gambling of any age group in Australia. In fact, the 18 to 30 age bracket contributes almost 3 times as much to the treasury than the 60 to 69 bracket does.
Men lose more money on gaming machines than women, and indeed on gambling in general.

When I think of gambling, I think of frail old ladies sitting at the pokies for hours on end, day after day, night after night, and my (somewhat limited) observations of the gaming room at our reputable establishment serve only to reinforce that view. So where are all the young men?

Regardless of the location of the hitherto invisible, gambling-addicted young men, I'm starting to feel a little better about myself. Not only are retired old ladies tucked up at safely at home, far from the call of the evil pokies, but they are at far less risk than partially-employed young men.

How do I get my gaming license again?