skip to main |
skip to sidebar
Forged in the fiyars of Mount Awesome,
in the beginning there were 10.
5 were given to the Metatron and his Arch-Angels,
to carve out the planes of existence.
3 were given to the Grecian Gods,
to sup upon their ambrosia.
2 were lost,
one to the all encompassing chaos
and the other swallowed by the third draw down.
And one was left on Earth,
left hidden until such time as it was needed.
I was digging through the cutlery drawer at work last week, making my ritual tea before facing a day in the office, when it happened. Its perfect weight slipped into my hand like any other, and suddenly some fuck-tard cranked up the goddamn Enya music. There was light everywhere and I squinted around, looking for a choir singer to slap. A strange tingling sensation was creeping up my arm. "What the hell is this?" I thought "I feel lighter, stronger, faster... slightly less hungover. Can it be? It IS!!! I have found the Spoon of Destiny!!!" (Enya paused for a dramatic Da da daaaaaahh!!!)
As the light dimmed I saw that my surroundings were different. They hadn't changed. I was still in the drab little kitchenette, but it was as if I had been staring at the candlestick when suddenly the talking heads snapped into focus. My perceptions had shifted. I could now really see what was around me. All 40 ninjas!!!
We stared at each other for a moment then the lead ninja stepped forward and gestured. He wanted the Spoon. He did not need to say "or you die" because it was pretty obvious he would have said "and you die". The air quivered with their murderous intent. I stretched the Spoon out towards his hand, thinking this my only chance, but at the last instant I added a small flourish to sayonara the Spoon from my life. A simple flick of the wrist... Clang! A still spinning shuriken deflected from the Spoon and into the leaders eye. He fell dead instantly. The ninjas stared at me. Then leapt.
"Aw crap" were not in fact my last words, but I felt they would be at the time.
The Spoon completely failed to take over my body and dance death like you've never seen. Great spurts of light, as if from lasers with the word 'UBER' printed on them did not blast great holes in chests or incinerate my opponents. A defensive shield, like a perspex dome, sprang from the floor to protect me... no wait. It didn't. Nope. I was alone.
I had nothing to lose. I attacked.
My first blow with the Spoon struck near the base of a ninjas sword as he swiped at my legs. This deflected his swing much further than it should and his blade swept under my outstretched foot to take off his brothers leg mid-calf. The second random swing connected with a stab aimed at my torso and the blade slipped past to bury itself in the chest of another about to lop off my head. Another overbalanced a black assailant into the path of a vicious swipe that would have opened me shoulder to hip. I whirled and spun and fought just like you'd expect an unfit computer geek to fight. Flailing wilding with no skill whatsoever. But despite nonexistent style the Spoon always connected. No direct hits you understand. It was a spoon and their swords would have smashed it. But the Spoon seemed to have more mass than was possible, it was light yet its momentum carried it further than it should.
This continued for a time and the bodies mounted around me. I was standing in a circular firing squad letting their bullets rip by me. The Spoon was always in exactly the correct position, no matter how madly I danced. More than half were down when they finally withdrew. I carefully climbed out of the cairn of bodies. They stared at me, then the Spoon, then back to me. I took a step. In unison they threw smoke bombs at the ground and vanished.
I put the Spoon back in its draw. Its time had not come but I would know where to look when it did...
You know that feeling you get when you stand on the edge of a cliff? Especially when there's a railing but it sits just below your hip. You can lean out over the abyss with a moderate impression of safety, but you still have all your weight low to the ground in case of earthquakes. You know the feeling I'm talking about. Something tugs at your centre, pulling you towards the edge. It's the void sucking at you. It's not vertigo and it's not entirely a fear of heights either. Why are we drawn towards something we have an inborn1 visceral fear of? What is it?
Read on dear reader, and I will tell you... in a bit.
Extreme sports can be placed into two categories: those that involve a great height and those involving some form of acceleration brought on by an outside source (e.g. a wave, a mountain, the lack of a plane floor). The general consensus for why they are considered enjoyable is that they give either an adrenaline rush (brought on by a heightened sense of danger) or a sense of emotional achievement through completing a difficult task via the use of l33t skillz. These reasons are partly true.
Of the x-sports, climbing belongs in a league of its own. Like the others it requires utmost concentration and precision, but unlike them it must be completed slowly. It is also the only one that provides you with the aforementioned sucking sensation continuously, without pause, for the entire experience2. So why do it? The sense of achievement, sure, but also to stand on the roof of the world. To sit in the sky.
Other x-sports use a smooth, controlled, high-speed descent to create an experience that adrenaline junkies will scour the world for. The emotional rush mimics the physical rush that the body is put through. Surfing, skiing, rafting, sky diving, jet boating, bungee jumping, even car racing or water-slides (to stretch the definition) all share this smooth, near frictionless quality. The whole body moves in a vector rather than being jerked around by the comparatively cumbersome striding motion.
So why do we feel (and suppress) the need to throw ourselves from cliffs or buildings? To glide down mountains of rock or water? To throw ourselves from bridges and planes? To sit in the sky?
We do them because we yearn to fly.
You know it. I know it. It's not a secret. It's not even important. It just is...
Maybe somewhere, way back up the evolutionary chain, we were birds. Or reptiles with wings. And that snake in our spine remembers what it was like to fly. And occasionally, if we are very lucky, we get to go there again. In dreams.
People have dreamed of flight for thousands of years. Some scholars even argue that the ancient Indians and Egyptians3 succeeded in building flying machines. But as the evidence is written in Sanscrit it is a little difficult to verify. Probably the most famous 'modern' flight-tinkerer was Da Vinci, who spent much of his life examining the flight of birds and designing machines with which to mimic them. I'm sure there were many others but two bicycle making brothers are usually the next quoted, and after Orville and Wilbur Wright everything escalated (historically speaking) quite quickly.
But I am not talking about flying a plane. The plane flies. You just sit there. I'm talking about flying, superman style. Just you. In the air. And this is where dreams come in.
Did you know that a third of the dreaming population dreams of flying? My own are something akin to the perspective of a Kangaroo, if it were the size of a bus. I'll sprint along the ground until I can feel the wind pushing against me then bound into a floating long-jump that is straight out of Naruto, on landing I'll bounce into a larger arc, then finally rebound into an leap the size of the Sydney Harbor Bridge. The closest I've seen to the experience is the Hulk jumping around in the 2007 movie.
In fact, sometimes, as I'm drifting off to sleep it's just possible that I'm making my dream a reality. I've read that the feeling of falling is quite common when going to sleep but just hear me out... I sleep on a reasonably thin but firm foam mattress over wooden slats. A couple of months ago as I drifted off to sleep it happened. I literally crashed back onto the bed. "Old news Benny" I hear you say "happens all the time". Not like this! It was hard. It was loud. And it freakin' hurt! It was so loud that, and I swear that this is true, I actually had to lift my mattress to check that I had not broken a slat on landing.
But enough about my awesomely cool super-powers. I need to mention one last thing. One last person in fact. The only man who I feel deserves the moniker "The Man Who Flew". Because he did. No plane. No pansy wings. No weak-ass 10,000 feet scared-shitless jump out of a plane. He actually flew.
Before Armstrong or Uri there was Joe Kittinger. Joe Kittinger did something so unbelievable that he makes Chuck Norris look like Taylor Hansen. If you take nothing else from this mad ramble you must at least WATCH THIS CLIP. Watch it now... I'll wait.
Have you watched it? You aren't allowed to read more unless you've watched it...
Okay... Joe Kittinger (henceforth known as Captain Big-Rocks), from a height of 31km, looking down at the entire planet... jumped. Jumped onto the Earth! He reached super-sonic speeds (989km/h) with nothing but a flight-suit and a set of adamantium balls... and he lived. He walked away! He flew. For real real. Not for play play...
I need to say something to sum things up here but I can't. My mind is numb. I am just filled with awe...
1 Experiments using what are known as "visual cliffs" have shown human infants and toddlers, as well as other animals of various ages, to be reluctant in venturing onto a glass floor with a view of a few meters of apparent fall-space below it. Read more here.
2 Sky diving would only provide this sensation when you are about to step out of the aeroplane.
3 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_astronaut_theory
The story itself is shrouded in the mists of time and so complicated that historians had to separate it into different sections to make any sense of the seemingly meaningless events. They believed that many different stories were happening at the same time and so recorded these accordingly. They were wrong of course but the records are missing before a point just after most of the action had occurred. This is attributed to the fire that destroyed the King's palace when the city turned on him for allegedly poisoning Snow White. The fates of the players that are known for certain are recorded below:
The Witch and Rumples (as Rumpelstiltskin was affectionately called) started up their very own family business, a drug cartel which created and dominated the market with their highly controversial drug, "Magic Apples". Very popular among middle-aged women, the user would fall into a deep sleep until Mr. Right came along to wake her. Because magic is completely undetectable by conventional methods, tracing the drug proved impossible for the authorities and so all items produced were shipped and sold. Rival crews soon lost interest in competing with the Witch and Rumples duo. In hindsight, they decided, they really did want their children more than money.
The couple really hit the jackpot, though, when the Witch cast a new strain that was lethal. "Magic Apples" doubled its consumer base overnight for they had finally found a way to sell into the largest age group of the drug market. Young people. Because if there wasn't a reasonable chance that it would kill you, they weren't interested.
Reputedly, if the drug was taken in exactly the right dose you were taken to the brink of death, "the whole bright light thing and St Peter saying 'What the fuck are you doing here?'", before you were sent back to your body to spend the next two months recovering in hospital. The resulting high from a near death experience was alleged to last the rest of your natural life. Needless to say, all other illegal drugs soon became obsolete and 'Magic Apples' were eventually used under prescription by depression sufferers.
The Witch and Rumples raised Snow White's child as their own and he grew to be a shrewd businessman who never took a drug in his life. He met a nice, if lazy, girl by the name of S. Beauty and they started the 'Big Misunderstood Wolf' demolition company with some money from the cartel. However, the ruthlessness of the drug industry was never quite left behind and police received reports of several squatter families going missing, including the (unfortunately named) brothers Pig and the entire Riding-Hood clan. No charges were pressed but the demolition company was under strict surveillance for the next few years.
Events did not run nearly so smoothly for the royal family. When the Prince discovered Snow White and his father, the King, experimenting with a crossbreed of positions sixty-eight and seventy from the Karma Sutra he slipped silently away to plan his revenge.
After a lengthy meeting and discussion with absolutely no-one the Prince decided to stab Snow White. Only this violent act could quench the fires raging in his spurned soul. Yet he needed a way to do it in secret, she was too famous do just vanish quietly, and those seven midgets kept visiting. The Prince talked himself hoarse (to his pet skull affectionately named 'Wilson') and planned the perfect crime. He could kill her easily if she were already dead! That night he visited an apothecary and in the morning Snow White woke to find a basket of apples waiting for her (incidentally, believed to we Witch&Rumples 'Form of death' mark 2's). Thinking the joke was in rather poor taste she took a bite only to fall into another death-like sleep.
On the evening of her funeral, the Prince crept into the crypt and revived her. He drew the knife, trembling with anticipation, to her sobbing last request "... a final kiss for lost love, please, I beg you". "Why not?" thought the Prince "I'll snatch her life away just when she thinks she can seduce me, crush her hope, crush her soul! What better vengeance?"*. He leaned down to kiss her one last time and jerked back after only a moment with a strange taste in his mouth. "What's that my love, you leave no poison for me?" Snow White cackled, "I take the antidote every night". With moments left to live, the Prince's final thought 'Screw the bitch' rushed across his mind as his knife rushed though her heart and he collapsed. Shocked, Snow White gripped the blade as if to draw it out before muttering her eloquent last words "You bastard", then she too toppled over.
It is interesting to note that later, when the media arrived, they vastly misinterpreted events.*This information is conjecture and was assembled through examination of the surveillance tapes.
Decade nostalgia is something we are all familiar with, even if you're a younger genY and know it only as 'nostalgia' because you haven't been alive long enough to earn the honorary 'decade'. Have you noticed that it always seems to gravitate to what was on the television? Rarely has anyone brought up the Ninja Turtle playing card Plague of '92, the Great Marble Crisis of '93 or the Yo-yo Epidemic of '95. Probably because you had to be there. "I collected alot of marbles and this one time I beat this guy with a really tricky shot using my favorite cats-eye" does not a gripping tale make.
Over the past few years I've occasionally revisited my childhood sandy-eyed morning TV haunts via the internet or the dodgy (read: holy) Chinese video store down the road. I was shocked to discover that some of these monuments to a bygone age, these pillars of creation, have succumbed to the ravages of time. They have been eroded away to mere shadows of the monoliths in my memory. It was a sad, sad realisation.
But I took solace when I found there were still others that could pick up my shriveled soul, melt it down, cast it into a tuning fork, then smite it with a mountain.
Case in point. He-Man. If you can watch this clip without a shiver running down your spine then you need read no further- you are not welcome here. Most of the clip is pretty mundane but when he shouts (ahem) "I have the power" the echoes do something to my inner ear. A sympathetic roar sounds in my own head. It's beastial in its intensity. Like a lion screaming a challenge. And it... is... awesome...
One thing I didn't remember though, was that He-Man had a moral at the end of each episode. These were generally lame, though they did seem to send conflicting messages on occasion. Might is Right (where you have the right to do anything because you've got all the might) is apparently not the paradigm to live your life by... but He-Man was the mightiest mofo out there and he did whatever he wanted? Whatever. I could have turned it off after the intro and still walked away with a happy-ending stagger.
Another show that tried to indoctri...teach our generation was Astro Boy. Astro is almost universally loved by everyone my age that I've ever met. I loved Astro. He had lasers (in his fingers and butt???) and rocket boots and for some reason he couldn't do anything fun with his clothes on1. He was great. So it breaks my heart to say this but, I'm sorry buddy, you belong to the past. In the cold hard light of my twenties I see Astro as the whiniest whiner to ever whine his way across a small screen. Everything about the show was great except his kicked-puppy voice and his sulky emo attitude. I wanted to grab him and shout You can fly dude! Existential dilemmas can go get donkey-buggered!
Of course if we're talking about robots then the Transformers must get a mention. Say what you like about the 2007 movie, it would not have worked without Peter Cullen. Digital effects- seen 'em. Action sequences- meh. Bumbling but likable sidekick kid- please. The whole 144 minute experience hinged on these 19 seconds2, a simple tip of the hat in our direction. Optimus remembers us.
The 2007 mutant children of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles didn't. Which is probably why their DVD is being used as a coaster the world over. The first Turtles movie was one of my all-times as a kid and then poor market research into target audience led to the monstrosity that was TMNT. So you too, my renaissance painter friends, belong in the past. But in a good way. It is better that you aren't here to see your bastard children face-planting the box office.
Another set of anthropomorphic animals whose sole purpose was to kick-ass were the ThunderCats. They were continually picking fights with this rather sick looking old guy named Mumm-ra, who'd obviously been in a horrible industrial accident involving fire. Not that sporting really, when they all looked like Greek gods.
The lead character, Liono, accidentally went through an instant aging process so he was really a boy trapped in a mans body (I missed the irony at the time) and he had this cool sword that had an eye in it3, and it was the source of his power, and it got bigger when he played with it, and he didn't even go blind once! Thanks Thundercats for your valuable life lessons. I dropped by these guys a while ago and aside from the incredibly annoying Snarf character (the token cowardly gimp) the show holds up pretty well. I didn't get that far though so will have to go back to see how they're doing.
In hindsight, I now see that Robotech and Astro were my first forays into Japanese animation aka 'anime'. A recent viewing reminded me that there was one theme that the Japanese boldly dealt with while others feared to tread- relationships between boys and girls. And also, how incredibly frustrating said relationships could be. Rick Hunter (pictured) may as well have been named Johnny Kickass for how much he busts his ass every episode, flying around pwning the alien menace, protecting life as we (will) know it, rescue missions and dog-fights. And after working up a hard earned thirst does he get to kick up his feet and relax with his woman? Does he get any love for his efforts? I mean anything? Hell No! And this was also a valuable lesson. Even a guy who saves the world daily suffers from mixed-signals. Even he can end up in the friend-zone! Unless he acts. But Rick is too much of a gentleman (read: loser). And it doesn't help that he is 'seeing' the biggest tease ever, who views him as a brother. Rick mate, build a bridge, get over it, burn it to the water line. Problem solved. The action scenes were pretty cool though so definitely worth a look if you're in the neighborhood.
This one'll test you. Does anyone remember the Mysterious Cities of Gold? A group of kids explored the new world looking for El Dorado? They had a a cool ship that sailed itself and then ditched it when they found this pimpin' golden condor to fly around? Anyone? Anyone? This one sucked me right back in and I watched it all the way through to the end... where everything got weird. The plot was a reasonably straight forward set of exploration, meet new friends, run away from bad guys, cut-and-paste any kids show here kinda deal. All until the last 4 or 5 episodes when they (warning: spoiler) found the city of gold (end spoiler) and then had to fight off aliens who were going to destroy the world!!! Bet you didn't see that one coming.
Lastly, Monkey. Is there anything I can say about Monkey that you don't already know? No? Sucks to be you then cause I'm saying it anyway. Monkey was such a manly (monkey) man that he started life without the aid of a mother, he wasn't born, he was hatched... from a rock! On his quest to right the wrongs of the world (via busting heads) he outfoxed demons4, faced down the armies of Heaven4, rescued his mates4 and all while babysitting a completely trousers priest (and God how I wish)4. What attracted us most to Monkey was his winning personality which was a combination of amiable idiot, indominable spirit and a barrel sized can of Whoop-Ass. So what if his shows were repetitive? So what if the dubbing was some pretty seriously stereotyped Engrish? So what if he never actually reached India? I point out one of the shows own great-sage fortune-cookie morals: "Happiness is a way of travel, not a destination". And Monkey would be welcome on my trip any time.
1 Because he was a genius
2 For anyone who remembers the original movie anyway
3 The Eye of Thundera
4 Then kicked the sh1t out of them
Public transport is useful. It decreases the environment impact of moving large numbers of people and is necessary for a modern metropolis to get people into and out of commercial and retail areas. Here's a hypothetical situation: public transport doesn't exist. You start your first job and you can't afford a car. Logical conclusion: unless you are within walking/riding distance of your new job then you are going back to work in your Dad's dirt factory... and so is everyone you grew up with. So a decent public transport system must be in place for a city to become a city, to rise above being a bunch of towns held loosely together by sheep and a need to prevent inbreeding.
Public Transport is useful, no-one refutes this. Everyone complains about it*, true, but no-one has been stupid enough to suggest that we should do away with the whole system.
It's useful and necessary but Oh My God is it boring. I used to take a book to read on the 15 minute (that's right, I said 15 minute) bus ride to work because I just could not handle the silence! I don't know what the social norm is where you're from (my non-existent reader) but Sydney people do not talk to strangers on buses. It's like we're all 8 years old again, repeating Mums rule over and over in our head while desperately avoiding eye contact in case someone tries to offer us candy or a lift home.
But why should this be so? The chances of not liking someone with enough charisma to start a conversation on a bus must be reasonably slim? Oops, I've just answered my own question... What if you do like them? People don't want the obligation of remembering another name and the associated background noise. It's not that they don't care, it's that they don't want to care. We want attachment-free conversation. Preferably with someone we will likely never see again. Even if you have nothing in common there is always small talk. But small talk is only useful with people you know and will remember. So it's pointless. So why bother?
This sets a worrying social precedent. If no-one talks on buses then people who try must, by default, be a hammer short of a picnic**. So even those who want to try something different are herded back into line by the slightly worried expressions of their listeners. It's a vicious cycle that feeds on itself, eating all sound. The alternative? Plug yourself into an mp3 player, fix a glazed stare at a point approximately 3 meters through the person in front of you and put on your best I'm-practicing-for-when-I'm-dead expression. If this maneuver were graded I'd be in the 'uber l33t' category, no question.
Despite my l33tness, I'm annoyed at the whole situation and have had enough. So I've decided to do something about it...
Roughly 20~30% of the aforementioned zombie window-starers (myself included) go to work with some form of mp3 player to keep the deafening silence at bay. So it is safe to assume that these people have at least a passing interest in music. And what is music but a way to communicate with people? In it's rawest form it is the epitome of a social activity, a group of people coming together to appreciate the musical talent of a band/singer***. It's a social activity that doesn't have to be done socially. Therefore, all (or at least some) people listen to music as a replacement for conversation.
QED
But how do we differentiate these people from those who are legitimately using music for escapism, to avoid contact with people? Until now there were no external indicators and so everyone played it safe and left eachother alone. But I, in the words of Bauldrick from BlackAdder, have a cunning plan...
It is laughably simple but it may just work for that. Here are the rules:
- Purchase an iPod shuffle (approx $100AU)
- Fill it with (what you consider to be) an awesome selection of music
- Place the Shuffle-Shuffle logo on it (preferably as a circular sticker over the play button)
- Wear it in plain sight while in transit (preferably on collar or sleeve for maximum visibility)
- Upon meeting someone else wearing the Shuffle-Shuffle logo you must immediately swap Shuffles
That's it.
Ponder the possibilities for a moment.
It's true that a Shuffle is not a small investment. At $100 it's at least a medium sized purchase. But if you are swapping with another then you really don't lose value in the transaction.
You should also keep your head-phones for hygiene reasons.
Personal taste is nearly irrelevant. This is why we used to listen to the radio people! In the off chance that we hear a song we like and discover a new artist we enjoy.
And what of the benefits? - You know that the person wearing the Shuffle-Shuffle logo is part of the community and will be interested in at least swapping stories about how they became involved or the music they've heard.
- You are no longer a weirdo because you are already connected.
- You may discover an artist that you have never heard of and really enjoy.
- Its something to do on the bus other that stare at that stain on the seat in front of you.
If you're interested drop me a line. I'm going to make the stickers up soon and can be found on the 39-anything buses on weekdays.
Oh, and if I'm going to write about public transport I should put out a shout to the awesome 9am L94 driver. You rule mate and if I ever see you at the pub I swear I'll bring you a couple of beers to thank you for having such an awesome attitude 24-7. You really are an inspiration.
* (SIX 400's IN A ROW!!!!)
** T-shirt idea number #14- "I start conversations on buses"
***DJ's and classical music can communicate in a different way but no less potently
Last night I had a few post-work beverages with the dirtiest, horniest, top 3 funniest little man I know. Through some quirk of nature, or possibly much training, he can direct his voice. I know what you're thinking. Everyone directs their voice Benny you retard, you point your head and speak! And I would have agreed with you before I met this man-boy. We can be having a conversation about some chixors while standing on their feet and they will never hear a word. This probably developed as a survival tactic considering the content of his conversation.
What's strange is that he doesn't talk softly or unclearly, it's just that every word he says travels directly to your ear and no-where else. Somehow his voice stealths its way along a narrower corridor so that, while we are all blaring AM radios, he is a laser-disc personal stereo. Why anyone gifted with such a voice would choose to use it in the way he does I do not know, but it's certainly entertaining. I'll suggest a career in espionage when I next see him.
I didn't mean to talk about my friend for more than a sentence. I've wandered off topic, which is interesting because that (sort of) is the topic.It's Saturday morning. And there's one thing about Saturday mornings that usually holds true... They are preceded by Friday nights.
Many years ago (okay 6), I saw Irish comedian Jimeoin talk about the stages of drunkenness. I think it was the usual act-like-an-idiot for gags kind of routine and the only one that I really remember is Stage 2: I am the greatest pool player who ever lived. I remember it because my mate Hangover and I use "Stage 2" as an accolade when either of us is playing like a drunken-master... Also off topic.
I am not here today to talk about Stealth's voice or Hangover's pool playing, I am here to talk about hangovers.
A great man once texted his mate "It is only when you have a hangover that you truly appreciate not having a hangover" while working in a bottle shop, with a caterpillar under his tongue, on a Saturday morning, and it was raining.
A brief timeline 
- Stage 0 (aka Ground 0) - Your body finally realises that you have been willingly poisoning yourself (for up to 12 hours straight if it was a reasonable session with a BBQ and friends) and so knocks you the fsk out before you can do any more damage.
- Stage 1: At some point this TKO evolves into a protective sleep. Even unconscious, you know that the world can only offer pain and so you flee from it.
- Stages 2 through 6 are all about the pain of waking up and "I will never drink again" and other boring stuff. But I didn't go through that today so will leave it for another time.
- Stage 7: You waited and waited and finally your stomach content has thickened to something resembling tar. You can feel it. Sitting there. Solid and unbreakable. All the bad juju is escaping your body through a series of earth shattering farts. (Ironically, Hangover just texted me to let me know that people are fleeing the country to escape from hers.) You know everything is going to be alright. It is now safe to eat.
- Stage 8: This may be unique to me but I usually go through a stage of near-drunken giddiness once I have crested the wave of a hangover. I know that it's not over yet. But I also know that it soon will be. And this makes me completely euphoric for a time. It's a like titration in my brain where that one last drop of indicator completely tips the scales and makes everything go pink*. It is a very nice feeling... perhaps even better than the drinking part.
- Stage 9: Sailing in calm waters. Nothing done today but you're okay with that.
An integral part of the hangover is the attention span of a special-needs goldfish (see Stealth and Hangover anecdotes above) but I did learn some interesting things this morning. Did you know that sleep among species in inversely related to the animal size? Rats, with very high Basal metabolic rate, sleep for up to 14 hours a day whereas elephants and giraffes with lower BMRs sleep only 3-4 hours per day. Did you know that? I didn't know that! How can that make sense? Elephants must need huge amount of energy to move around and they hardly ever sleep? WTF mate?
I also learned the proper use of the apostrophe and will now promptly forget it again.
And I once again learned that Dylan Moran is the funniest man alive.
*That is some top banana nerd talk right there
I've decided to do something selfless, something for the betterment of mankind, something that may go overlooked for many years but will one day (years after I have died) make me immortal.
It came to me in an instant, this thing I must do, while I was standing in the kitchen making dinner to the sweet sounds of Jose Gonzalez. "What if I die tomorrow?" I thought. I could get hit by a bus or kidnapped by terrorists (desperate terrorists) or I might develop a need to breathe exclusively and loudly through my mouth and have to kill myself? What then? It will be lost to the world.
A tear ran down my cheek at the thought.
But then there are the ethical issues... Should I release it to the world? My impending doom means that I must, else it be lost forever. Is the world ready? Will it ever be? What can I do to slow the raging storm that will come about when the secret is passed on? ... I thought about this and decided that there was only one solution...
I will hide it in plain sight.
1 cup grated cheese3 really large (or 5 really small) zucchinis grated4 bacon rashers sliced5 eggs
1 cup self-raising four
1 large onion sliced
1/3 cup of oil
Mix all together in large bowl. Add to Large baking tray. Bake at 180degC in normal oven for an hour or until dark brown.
Use this knowledge wisely, grasshopper.
Australia- The National Crisis #1337.
If you walk up to anyone outside of Australia and ask what they would expect to find here I'm reasonably sure you'd be told about how Aussies all feed Kangaroo's in their backyards, wear corks in their hats and round up horses when they aren't fighting crocs (or shagging sheep if you're talking to a Pom). Of course, this is assuming they know where Australia is.
We take a certain national pride in the outback lifestyle, even though nearly all of us are far removed from it. Gone the way of the Tassie Tiger are most of the practices that gave outback living such a manly glamor, or near-destitute pallor, however you look at it. Though a few of these social dynamics still survive, such as mate-ship, language and communal drinking (yup- we're claiming it).
One that is sadly in decline is that of creative swearing. Australians were famous at one point for their inventiveness with language. "Sticks like shit to a blanket" , "cold as a dead Dingoes Donger", or "useless as a one-legged man in an arse-kicking contest" are just three examples off the top of my head. Terry Pratchett, in his book Last Continent made a point of poking fun at the way we could string together curses until they were works of art (and name places Didjabringabeeralong).
I can't remember the last time I heard a truly original swear. Actually, wait no, I can. That's the point.
A couple of years ago I was living with Vego and Hangover, both lovely girls I'd invite to my mums birthday party. Vego, being a vegetarian, had a habit of grating carrot on everything to fill in the gap where the meat should be... works for some I suppose. Anyway, here's a question, have you ever forgotten to clean a grater (specifically used for carrot) before going to bed? It happened all of (about) twice in the time we lived together and let me tell you, that shit does not come off short of incineration. Overnight, the carrot dries to the grater to form some sort of heat-sealed paint job a new car owner would pay extra for.
One day, Hangover tried to clean said grater to the loud declarations of "F@[king Grated Carrot!!!" which wasn't very creative, but was certainly original, and we soon found it useful for almost any situation.
Now if I could just figure out how to use it in a sentence with alliteration...
So the question is, why are we here? Or, more pertinently, why am I (since no-one cares about you)?
The character Elliot on the TV show Scrubs has a line about acting normal in front of people but "...I'm just this big mountain of cuckoo who's about to erupt and spew molten crazy all over [people]..." and I can totally relate.
So these be the crazy pages and may come to include anime and book reviews, anecdotes, ninjas, t-shirt design ideas, parts of a story/webcomic I am writing and basically anything I think is interesting enough to warrant the attention of absolutely no-one.
First up. The title. 'Seven Sneezes' is very nearly Eight Sneezes- and is thus the mythological threshold of a very happy place. Make sense now?
Forged in the fiyars of Mount Awesome,
As the light dimmed I saw that my surroundings were different. They hadn't changed. I was still in the drab little kitchenette, but it was as if I had been staring at the candlestick when suddenly the talking heads snapped into focus. My perceptions had shifted. I could now really see what was around me. All 40 ninjas!!!
