This is funny

Just found a new website called "New Grounds", a huge ass collection of flash animation.
Check out this series, http://www.newgrounds.com/collection/youareafuckingmoron.html

Basic premise, pointing out why certain (eg Jessica Simpson) people are fucking morons.

It make me laugh, boy!!

My Dog TJ

Our dog TJ (she's the one on the left, Calvin is in the middle and Bish is on the right) is geting old.
We also have 4 cats, but unless they are hungry or cold, I never hear from them.
As rule TJ won't eat her breakfast unless she has had a walk. As an additional special condition she also won't eat her breakfast unless it has milk poured on it (breakfast for everybody is cat and dog biscuits respectively) and not just girl milk but milk with true flavour.

So this morning I had got TJ her special biscuits, taken her for a walk and poured on the full cream milk... she followed me around because I had distracted her while making my cup of tea.

I don't know who's crazier, me or her.

7 with one go

Last night a titanic struggle was renewed for fishing supremecy between myself and my good buddy Graham for the Fishing Trophy.
I won and also took out the most fish award with 7 to his 3.
Funny story this, our rules are simple you can only cast out when both parties are ready or if the second party gives permission to the first (fair play).
We got to our fishing site and were all set to go when Graham discovered a birds nest in his line. I waited for a minute or two and Graham said 'cast away'. In less than minute I had hooked my first one and landed it before he had even wet his line.
That has just got to suck, I thought to myself. To be honest though I did share this though for the rest of the evening. Especially as I continued to real in fish after fish.
I had a great time.

However, I do not disallusion myself to believe all fishing trips are like this. I got lucky and thanked the fish god properly for this bounty.
Still, you have to laugh...

Hurricanes loss to the Brumbies

My team didn't do so well over the weekend, but I will not abandon them just yet.
I noted with pride that the pre-finals game plan of "cripple as many key players as possible" was exectued with gusto.
Like most crowd activities, it does need a critical mass, some spark to be applied for frenetic combustion. Sitting in sub-zero temperatures, drinking beer and trying not to hurt the ears of the young people nearby - not necessairily the best environment.

Well... so the crowd didn't really fire, it was still good fun. Even though we lost. And it was cold.

Super Ninja's

We Gemini's are thought to be impulsive by nature, a customer profile perhaps most sought by telemarkerters;
"Hi Mr Rose Eater, I'm Chang, calling from the ..."
"Fuck off and Die, Shit face" #Click#...

Hows that for Impulsive!!! I could have said "eat shit and Die". Decided to mix it up a bit. I'm that kind of guy.

Anyhow, my buddy Ash gave me a call the other day to 1; welcome me back home and 2; see if I wanted to play vollyball as a ringer for his team (the Super Ninja's). My impulse got the better of me and I said yes, turns out it the game wasn't until 9pm. I'd been back in the country for 2 days.
But it did sound like crazy ass fun and beer was sure to be involved and possibly volleyball. I said yes, I will be a Super Ninja. I didn't tell him I haven't played Volleyball since the 80's, as that may have hurt the ambience of camerardiry.

I won't give you a thrilling blow by blow account of the game, it was indoor vollyball not beach vollyball - nothing thrilling on the uniform side there. But I will expose a personality type I'm sure you'll find in every social sport leauge - Sport Billy-

Sport Billy is the kind of dickhead who doesn't think any of us should be there for either fun, the atmosphere or the promise of beer and Singstar kareoke. Oh dear me no, he's the kind of guy who chases every point, he's a colied spring of action, who could've made it big (if only there weren't people out there with actual talent) but is instead playing in a d grade social comp.
My friends, I met such a guy on that night of Volleyball.
He was a tool.

Scenes from a Mall

So today, I had the chance to grab some lunch while at a local Mall. If your interested it was some sort of generic pan-asian cuisine.
It filled me up.

So anyway, I'm sitting there eating hurriedly, surrounded by children and 'young adults' when I spy the movie theatre with its list current features. I'm aware there has been a decline in movie going patronage, people claim the DVD has much to do with this. I propose that movies today are a steaming pile of shite.
Its currently some sort of Easter School Holidays for the wee 'uns and for their viewing pleasure we had on offer;
Shaggy Dog
She's the Boss
Ice Age2
March of the Penguins
Failure to Launch
Yours mine and Ours
Worlds fastest Indian

May I offer the following as way of critical assessment;
Shaggy Dog - It wasn't funny the first time. Tim Allen sure as hell won't make it any funnier.
She's the Boss - And yet I still don't care, unless... nope PG-13
Ice Age 2 - Note to Hollywood, Queen Latifah as comic relief - works better when the aim is to actually produce any unfunny character, not the consequence.
March of the Penguins - Not the next film in the Batman franchise, boy was I disappointed.
Failure to Launch - Succeeds to Suck.
Yours, Mine and Ours - Blah-Blah parents get married, Blah-Blah odd couple set up, blah-blah kids from each previous family, Blah-Blah for some reason they get 'revenge', blah-blah you could have brought 4 beers from your friends with the money you spend on this crap.
Worlds Fastest Indian - .... yeah, I still don't care.

Every minute I spend with bored kids in public spaces make want to put that microwave on high for 30 minutes and hold it to my crotch. The children of all ages in this mall food court were as you can imagine, acting like kids usually do. They were irrating the hell of the adults sentence to mind them.
I tell you what partner, I've had 2 days off in the past 6 weeks - the last thing I would want to do on a holiday is hang around some dribbling fuckwit with the table manners of a council worker, the vocabulary of a Sun Herald newspaper and the conversation of morning/drive time radio DJ.
I have no idea how teachers or parents manage it.

Farewell to arms

So this the last hours and minutes of San Diego.
A storm has rolled up from the south, carrying rain and fantastic vistas across the Eastern Pacific. I’ve been chased from one side of the country to the other by rain.
How pleasing to be free at last of work, to have an end to the week.

How great it will be to get home at last. There is just one pillow in the world I’m after and no 5 star hotel can do better than the pillow sitting on my bed.
I’m looking forward to my cats, my dogs, my wife. Its always hard coming home, it takes me a day or two to get use to Karin. She is not a very flexible character, but she has learnt to try and keep the house in a semblance of tidy. But I’m always in a bad mood once I step off the plane. One of my theories is the absence of personal space.
So many and such a small area, that and I hate airline food and have been screwed around a good few times while travelling for work.
It does make wonder when the ‘Jet Age’ died, because to tell you the truth – I missed it. These days there are no cocktails, people in sharp suits, looking suave and smug and exciting. And don’t hold a mirror up to me kids, ‘cause you are sure as hell not going to see me looking any better than the dishevelled zombies usually hanging limply in a chair throughout airports anywhere in the world.
But there is no faster way of travelling. My suggestion (thus legitimising my complaining) is for someone clever (that ain’t me by the way) to invent some kind of virtual world total immersion thingy. For example say your stuck on a flight for 8 hours, would you rather a; sit there eating shitty food, in a crappy seat with bad airconditioning that messes with your ears…..or……slip into the holodeck or whatever and go fishing or rockclimbing or whatever you think will take up 8 worthwhile hours of your life. It’s the least they could do I tells ya.
I just think that would be fun, I just hate wasting my life in pressurised tin cans, watching tiny movies and drinking heavily.

People and good art

I took the train to Washington DC yesterday.
Which I could tell was a lot eaiser than driving. Don't get me wrong, I can drive quite happily in both styles, but the roads around here are mostly beltways with a scary habit of keeping you always an equal distance from where you want to go.

So Washington by train. The hotel dropped me off and all was well at BWI Light Rail. The rain that had been holding off gave up and started in ernest. Lending a pleasant, get into a gallery or meseum asap air to the day.
Union Station was without a doubt a train station, I could tell that at once. The funny thing about arriving in a new city, even one as familiar to the eye as Washington, is without a map - you have no idea where to go. It turns out that from Union Station a five minute walk will take you to the Capitol Building and from there to all the more famous sites.

The Capitol Building is as impressive as it seems. I made my way down to the Grant memorial and from there looking back up the hill, could see where the presidents are inuagirated. Quite a sight. After consulting my map I chose the right hand side and dropped in on the National Gallery of Modern Art. To my surprise there was a DADA exhabition in progress. Complete with a Dada orchestra giving lunch time performances. I know little of Dada, but can report the following;
1) Dada was a generation movement
2) Mostly by people who were disgusted by the power structure that killed so many millions of young men in World War 1
3) They were really angry

For example the Dada orchestra was non-sensicle, 16 pianos, 4 drums, fire alams, alarm clocks and no structure or melody. Which struck me as a great way to piss people off. To just really get under the skin of the audience. Especially if that audience is being ernest and trying to find the deeper meaning to this cacophany. I lasted about 8 minutes.
Radio Dada is not on the air.

Just missing the Arctic

Have finally seen and touched the Atlantic ocean. I can now say with a straight face that I have seen the Indian, Pacific, Great Southern and lately the Atlantic. To the best of my knowledge that leaves only the Arctic and seriously, I'm okay with that.

in the footsteps of Cornwallis, Washington, McCellan, Lee, Grant and Sherman

Today I am in Norfolk, Virginia (Richmond is the capital, Norfolk was where Jefferson Davis was imprisoned after the Civil War).
The drive from Baltimore to Norfolk was along the various penisulas that so many soldiers have tramped in many a war. Not far from here is Yorktown scene of the British surrender to the continental army. Out around the corner from my hotel is the Hampton Roads and the location of the primary eastern seaboard naval yards. Also where the USS Merrimack was refitted as the CSS Virginia.
Toward the end of this peninsula is the stretch of water on which the USS Chesapeake and HMS Shannon slugged it out for the first major victory of the Royal Navy over the Continental Navy during the War of 1812.
We drove almost parallel to Sherman's march to the sea and crossed the Rappahannock not more than a few miles from the Wilderness and Manassas.
I confess its an odd feeling to be on such ground, a good deal of the drive was past farms and shabby looking houses. Almost as soon as you drive into Virginia from 'The North' there is a lack of wealth. though I'm told it won't be too long before the suburbs start their inevitable creep south.
Unlike Australia, we would not have driven more than half a mile without seeing a house or store of some description. In Australia you can drive for hours and hours.
As for Norfolk itself I reserve judgement until tomorrow, tonite I'm off in search of a beer and dinner. Tomorrow its off to the coast and my first look at the Atlantic...

You ever see GoodFellas?

Just had lunch in Bar that looks like the mob built and runs.

Very dark (for clandestine meetings), low ceilings (for short Mediterranean types), good wholesome food (Cheese Burgers and beer), there woods are nearby and several express ways (should you need to drop a friend off in the Woods for whatever reason, he can always hitch a lift back into town - assuming he still has his thumbs).

My friend who took me there talked it up as a great place to go for lunch. I've made a mental note to laugh at all his jokes and never say anything 'disrespectful' about his mother.

I wish I were in Dixie...

Hurrah! Hurrah!
This week I'm over in the East Coast for a change. Baltimore, Maryland to be precise. Which is as fine a place as anyone should be. Tomorrow its up stakes and over to Norfolk Virginia for a few days then back to Maryland before shipping out via Washington for San Diego.

Main things I have noticed - fewer Mexicans than in San Diego, as much congestion on the roads, food is better overall, Americans as a rule are still the politest people I know of, the weather is very similar to NZ (West Coast is more similar to Aus).

Yesterday I got the chance to visit Annapolis and the Naval acadamy. I confess a strong interest in Early American History right up to the Civil War, so it was a real treat to visit the state house of Annapolis. Famous for the following, was the Contenintal Capital for short time, was where congress ratified the Treaty of Paris (ending the revolution and giving British recognition to the new Nation) and interestingly where General Washington resigned his commission after the ceasation of hostilities.
Much has been written of the qualities of General Washington, but I never knew this of him. Quite a selfless act all things considered.