Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Asylum Seekers: A User's Guide

Written by me.

Brown people - providing comedy fodder through their misery for over five hundred years!

Saturday, October 24, 2009

I have been saying this for YEARS

Look! Here it is people. From snopes.com. Read carefully and live the rest of your life free from ignorance.

You don't figure out dog years by multiplying the dog's age by seven

And I already knew this, because sometimes dogs live to, like 20, which would mean they were "really" 140. And since no human lives to be 140, and the whole "dog years" formula is supposed to give us a point of comparison between human and dog ages, that would be...

FRIGGING STUPID.

Thank God for Snopes.

Monday, October 19, 2009

Who's Gonna Drive You Home...Tonight?

There but for the grace of Cthulhu...

I used to LIVE in this house.




That was 10 years ago, but my mother and sister lived there up until June this year.

Of course, THEY knew how to keep the place in good order. Unlike these new owners, who seem to think they can leave their trash lying about any old place, park wherever they please etc.

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Monday, October 12, 2009

Regrets

What is my number one regret? The lies I've told, the friends I've hurt, the manslaughter of the childhood friend I covered up?

NO

My number one regret is that I have been neglecting my faithful blog readers. Both of you. Ha ha ha self-deprecation!

Anyway, I was away for a little bit decompressing from a rather frantic personal and professional period, visiting family and lying down etc. I'm back now, blogging for your delectation.

What's been happening since the last update?

Well, there have been more writings, obviously. Check them out:

At newmatilda.com:

Thoughts on rugby league and great 20th-century statesmen

Thoughts on the Victorian government's affaire grande with the religious right

My thoughts on silly immigrants and why the athletic ones are better

At Crikey:

My first stab at investigate journalism; I managed to smuggle out the minutes from Hey Hey It's Saturday's production meeting prior to their second reunion special.

Please note: not only did John Blackman comment on that last one, he almost knows my name! I am pretty special I think you will agree.

So in other news...a new project! Gather Around Me, with Australia's hippest young pop culture vivisectionists Ben Pobjie and Cam Smith bringing you their thoughts through the magic of Montenegran internet.

GAM will feature random musings by Cam and myself throughout your long, otherwise-stultifying days, but the main meat of the site is in our regular podcasts. There are two up so far, check 'em out. You can also subscribe through iTunes.

Also, following my gig way back at the Emerging Writers' Festival, I have a piece in the EWF Reader, a collection of writers writing about writing. To quote the EWF:

"The Reader is a new collection that combines highlights of the 2009 festival with general writing information and new creative works across various writing forms.


The Reader is about the craft, the approaches, the techniques and processes; the discipline(s), the forms, the experiments; the inner life, the social life, the lifestyle; the ups and downs, the tricks and the tribulations, the fun and the failure…

The Reader is Artworks, Illustrations, Flash Fiction, Fragments, Interviews, Short Stories, Sketches, Songs, Sonnets, Haiku, Poetry, Plays, Photos, Comics, Couplets, Verse, Recipes, Rants, and Memoirs.



The Reader is Steven Amsterdam on writers’ workshops, Clem Bastow on freelancing, Jen Breach on writing comics, Mel Campbell on pitching to editors, Kathy Charles on shameless self-promotion, Stephanie Convery on writing Black Saturday, Olivia Davis on fear and writing practices, Lisa Dempster on how much writers earn, Koraly Dimitriadis talks to Christos Tsoilkas, Caroline Hamilton compares writers’ festivals and music festivals, Stu Hatton on his mentorship with Dorothy Porter, Jane Hawtin discusses publishing academic research for a general audience, Andrew Hutchinson recalls the Emerging Writers’ Festival, Tiggy Johnson on parenthood and writing, Krissy Kneen on not writing about sex, Benjamin Law on failure, Angela Meyer reviews books for writers, Jennifer Mills on the politics of publishing and engaging with readers, Anthony Noack on good grammar, John Pace on re-drafting your screenplay, Ryan Paine on the role of the critic, Ben Pobjie on writing comedy, Robert Reid on the role of the contemporary playwright, Aden Rolfe on the emergentsia, Jenny Sinclair on the landscape of her book research, Chris Summers talks to Lally Katz about theatre writing, Mia Timpano on how to cultivate the ultimate author profile photo, Estelle Tang on Christopher Currie and blogging fiction, Simmone Michelle-Wells pens a letter to her younger self, Cameron White reviews alternatives to Microsoft Word.

And new creative works by Maxine Clark, Chris Currie, Chris Downes, Claire Henderson, Kirk Marshall, Scott-Patrick Mitchell, Alice Mrongovius, Meg Mundell, Warwick Sprawson and Cameron T"

Nota Bene: "Ben Pobjie on writing comedy". Yes! After reading the Reader, you will know how to be funny, like me! I'm not even joking, y'all! In bookstores now!

More soon, you sexy readers.

Friday, October 9, 2009

Deep in the Enchanted Woods...(cross-posted in Gather Around Me)

Some news has recently come to light that will CHANGE YOUR LIFE.

I am serious. I know you thought the moon landing would change your life. I know you thought September 11 would change your life. I know you thought a long-term relationship or a fulfilling career would change your life. You were WRONG.

Because - and I hope you're sitting down - it has been revealed that there is a city in Sweden inhabited entirely by 25,000 lesbians.

I would like to point out at this point that this story was carried by both the Xinhua AND Harbin news agencies of China, so you can be sure of its veracity.

Founded in 1820 by a man-hating widow, who decided for some reason to build a medieval castle while she was at it, Chako Paul City is apparently a great tourist attraction. Only for women, though, because if you are a man, you will be beaten to death (or, depending on who you're talking to, "half to death") by gender police as soon as you arrive. It is also guarded at the entrance by two large blonde women, so it sounds devilishly hard to sneak into.

The men of China have cottoned on to the enormous potential of this place, since the women are apparently only lesbians because of their desperation at the lack of men - which makes the "kill every man who comes here" policy somewhat odd, but anyway - and Sweden has been besieged by inquiries from lonely Chinese men asking how they can visit Chako Paul.

That's the Chinese for you. Crazy-brave, and true romantics at heart, willing to travel halfway around the world and risk a fatal beating for the chance to get it on with a Swedish lesbian. I salute you, men of China.

I think the most exciting part of this is the realisation that the castle from Monty Python and the Holy Grail REALLY EXISTS. And in fact, I sense a chance for a really great blockbuster movie, combining elements of Some Like It Hot, Sorority Boys, Alvin Purple, and Lost Horizon.

Snap to it, titans of Hollywood!

Perhaps we should leave the last word to Claes Bertilson, a spokesperson for Sweden’s Association of Local Authorities and Regions (SALAR), who says, " I find it hard to believe that you could keep something like that a secret for more than 150 years".

Hard to believe, Claes? Perhaps for YOU.