Your tax dollars at work

A few moments ago, I just about fell asleep at the wheel keyboard.

You should all be very pleased to know that I am really working hard for the money your tax dollars right now. No spurious blogging for me! At least for the moment...

Although I wish I could say the same about some of my colleagues:

Moron: I nearly couldn't find a parking spot before work this morning!

TurboMoron: Tell me about it. Yesterday I went out at lunch, and then when I came back there were no parks anywhere.

I had to park 5 blocks away and it took me 25 minutes to walk back to work. So on my timesheet I put myself down as returning to work at the time I parked. If this place can't provide me with decent parking, let them wear the 25 minutes it took me to walk back here.

Yes, these people have jobs. And no, they haven't yet been sacked as a result of WorkChoices - worse luck.

I know it’s only words, but...

Does anyone else see a problem with the increasing use of the descriptive phrase ‘same-sex attracted’?

It just comes across as a means of avoiding using words like gay, homosexual, queer, lesbian, dyke, poof, etc.

Sure, these can be confronting words, given they are so strongly overlaid with negative connotations in general use. And for many people I’m sure it is less scary to use what would appear to be a value-neutral adjective rather than identifying with a whole ‘category’, ‘label’ or ‘type’ of person.

I don’t think I’m being overly defensive when I venture that avoiding using the established terminology just because of existing negative connotations is a kind of surrender (not that I could claim a spotless record of defiance and non-conformity anyway).

What makes me particularly uneasy about it is the possibility that the phrase is being used (even if subconciously) to try and placate, or avoid stirring up, people who might take offence at a bold declaration of a homosexual identity.

I guess there is always that argument that ‘queer’ is an identity, whereas ‘same-sex attracted’ is just an attribute. I’m a bit ambivalent on that one, because it still seems like avoidance to me.

It’s as if by using the self-descriptor ‘same sex attracted’ one is trying not to scare other people:

“Oh don’t worry, I’m not a fag or anything. I’m just same-sex attracted.”

And in this hypothetical conversation, let’s take a look at exactly who it is you are compromising yourself for? Who is it that you are worried about offending? People with latent homophobic tendencies. These people are not worth the bother, I say.

Cop. Out.

Which is not the same as a gay cop, but I just can't resist a visual gag.

Machine gun blogging

George W Bush offers his assistance to survivors of cyclone Larry.

So is he proposing to apply the same skills and knowledge that he brought to the Hurricane Katrina aftermath?

Run for your lives Queenslanders!!!

I saw John Howard relaying this on the news this evening and I reckon even he had trouble supressing a smirk.

Unrelatedly, here is a collection of really crap phrases and terms I come in contact with daily and hate:

1 'Forward strategy' - who is going to have 'backward strategy'? Apart from historical revisionists I guess....
2 'Forward planning' - see above
3 'Strategic planning' - what other kind of planning is there?
4 Any use of the word 'savvy'
5 Continued use of the phrase 'surf the web'

Even more unrelatedly, if I am to base my opinions and beliefs on what I see on Channel 9 (and why wouldn't I - the Government appears to think there is nothing wrong with us accessing fewer sources of news and opinion) then the Commonwealth Games consists solely of swimming events and the only country competing is Australia.


Huzzah for blind nationalism! Insularity and jingoism can't possibly do us any harm, can it?

Natural disasters, crimes against the English language, sport and cutting edge media policy analysis. What more could one want in a blog?

Happy 50th post to me.

Phoney-phobia

As far as I can see, there are two great mysteries of baby naming:

1. Naming Australian children after US states; and
2. Taking perfectly good names and spelling them phonetically.

And here we see a confluence of these two mysteries:



Jorja?!?!?!?!? Get sum tayste yooo e-littaritt fules.

Some people don't deserve children.

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Zzzzzzz...snort..cough.. huh, what?

Oh, I must have drifted off.

Last thing I remember I was reading something about the Commonwealth Ga...YAWN...zzzzzzzz.

Crying at the discotheque cinema

Stupid Brokeback Mountain.

Made me break my 3-year record of not crying in public.

How am I supposed to maintain my super-butch, motorcycle-ridin’, short-haircut-sportin’, King Gee wearin’ persona when Heath Ledger makes me blubber? Huh?

So, a couple of things:

1 How Heath Ledger got all the award nominations is beyond me. His performance method appeared to me to simply involve wiring his jaw shut, scrunching up his face and kicking the dirt a few times.

2 Could they have laid the soul-destorying abject poverty on any thicker? I was waiting for Michelle Williams to sell her kidney and start cooking dust for dinner, ferchrissakes.

3 I felt like punching the people in the seats behind me who chuckled and giggled for far too long when Michelle Williams discovered Heath and Jake gettin-it-on.

4 Heath’s character was a jerk! So it made it very hard for me have any sympathy for him and for most of the movie I failed to connect with the plight of the main characters (‘cept for Michelle Williams, who I felt gave the finest performance). My big wuss-out emotional response only came when Heath visited Jake’s parents downonthefarm.

5 Heath and Jake (or their characters, if you like) shoulda just upped and moved to San Francisco or New York. They could of walked right into a happy gay commune-like environment like the one in Tales of the City. Problem solved! Scenery probably not as dramatic though. Not as many sheep, either.

So onto the next ‘mainstream treatment of queer themes’ movie, Transamerica. The LovelyWife and I are planning a trip to the south coast next weekend. I wager it might not be showing at the small-town cinema...

Fat Tuesday, last Saturday

Observational blogging from the lead of the mardi gras parade.



The thing about mardi gras is that anything goes. Just when you think you've seen it all and nothing could possibly catch your eye...

There's always someone with a bigger, better and louder bike than yours:



Or, there's always someone with a better dressed bike than yours:





Or, just when you think you've seen your favourite outfit:



You see one that just takes the cake (no, not the guy on the right trying to get himself into the photo):



You find yourself a bit intimidated by being marshalled to a meeting point next to the hardcore B&D types:



But then someone breaks the ice by telling one of the rubber girls standing up high on the flat-bed truck that from the ground, we can see her tampon string poking out of her fishnets...

It did feel a little odd that people were standing 5 deep alongside the marshalling area, taking a bajillion photos of us all just standing around, or queuing for one of the five portaloos they'd allocated for about 2000 people (some organisational genius there):



And we were a bit bummed that the chicks next to us got on the front page of the paper, but we didn't:



But all that doesn't matter when there's 300,000 odd people going mental for you to rev the tits of your bike... happy to oblige! So much so that poor Nordberg (that's my bike's name) just about overheated.



Looking up to see every balcony packed with people (in a few cases, all nude), kids hanging from street signs and every last person with a smile on their face.



You don't get that too often.

All those suckas who reckon mardi gras is dead can stay the feck at home. Turns out we had good time without you.

Friday filth

I tell you what I don't agree with, people taking work with them into the toilets and (presumably) carrying on with reading/editing whilst carrying out their 'business'.

Filthy, filthy, filthy.

Made even worse when they are seen carrying circulars or communal magazines/resources in, particularly when that person is first on the distribution list.

Foul I tells ya.

Random crap I found on my phone