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Friday, 06 April 2012

Currently
In The Night Garden Welcome To The Night
see related
Resurrection; what WAS the point?

Happy Easter to yooo
Happy EASTER TO YOOOOOO
Happy Easter dear Yeastus
Happy Easter to yoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
Lots of things puzzle me about easter, and crucifixion and being dead and getting better, but mainly I am puzzled by the purpose. I mean, what happened after Jesus died? OK. He went to the deep south and battled all manner of demons and no doubt gave them an absolute fucking flogging and taught them very severe lessons and then got better and went to heaven.
But THEN what? I would have thought that demons and do-badders may have laid low at least for a while licking their wounds and the planet would have been a fairly jolly place, at least for a time.
Nope. Not even a bit. Rome still carried on and there was slavery and plagues and people died of cancer and gall bladder infections and wars and little babies died for no discernable reasons.
In fact it hasn't changed a zot since the big day, except that gall bladder infections are less dangerous, at least in 'developed' nations that have health care for all.
And I am worried about the Jews too. Presumably before Christianity they all went to heaven if they were good because they were the chosen people, but after Jesus died all bets were off and they weren't chosen anymore. Was there a cut off day? Would a Jew living in, say, Rome who had the misfortune of dropping off this mortal coil a day after Jesus went to sit with daddy, have been more than a little disappointed to discover that, upon arrival at the Pearly Gates, that he was directed to the 'down' escalator?

JP

Tuesday, 03 April 2012

Random

American Politics
What the fuck is a 'gubernatorial'?
OK. I have googled and I have binged(bingged?) and I am none the wiser. I am a bit the same way about 'quantum physics' and 'string theory' (more later on that). It seems to be a made up word from the Latin. To Govern. So big Arnie is 'The Gubinator'? Gee. I bet I am the first to come up with that. Never mind. I hadn't heard it.
The Arnie Trilogy! 'The Terminator';'The Gubinator', and 'The Impregnator'.
Anyway, we, those that Americans call 'foreigners', do follow your elections. Mind you, we should be more interested in what is happening in China, but they are way more difficult to read, being inscrutable and we (I) don't speak anyof the multitude of languages that are popular in China. To be fair,there are significant elements of what the Americans consider to be English that are a bit tricky too.
I understand that Americans are worried about the personal freedom to, amongst other things, kill each other to punish ethnicity.
String Theory
The essential idea behind string theory (and this is REALLY heavily plagiarised) is this: all of the different basic particles are really just a variation of one'fundamental ' particle. An electron is a fundamental particle. So is a quark. As I understand it protons and neutrons are made up of quarks. But I might be wrong.
ANYWAY.
All these fundamental particles are really not particles at all but a string. If it is a particle, it isn't any more than a point. An electron sort has no internal structure. Hey! It's fundamental; what could it be made of. So it is doomed to be a 'point'. And a 'point' can't really do verymuch. It can move. But if it is a string, it can do allsorts of interesting stuff, like shimmy and oscillate. And if it can oscillate, it can oscillate in different ways so it can be a quark or a proton. And if this is right, we and everything else is made of itty-bitty teensy-weensy strings!
That was a 'WIBF' moment. I am trying now to work out whether I should think any more on this.
Health Care
We have a health care system here in Australia called 'Medicare'. What it means is that poor people get free or nearly free health care from the public system. Folk who have a bit of money are asked to supplement the free health care with private medical insurance or if they choose not to are required topay a tax to cover – in part - their public health cover. I happily pay for private insurance, or as happily as I pay any taxes. I went to the doctor this morning, and it cost me $75 dollars (about$US 12,500). I will get back about $40 from medicare. If I was poor(er) I wouldn't have had to pay anything. My doctor gave me free medicine too.
I am not on a 'death list'
Tattoos
Once upon a time, when I was young,tattoos were a fairly rare thing. They were found, mostly, on large hairy men with big bellies and few teeth. And sometimes on men with salt in their hair.
There was also a small, shifty looking man who was called 'Tattoo' who used to call out 'de plane; de PLANE' and sure enough de plane would appear as if by magic. I don't know whether Tattoo had a tattoo as he remained fully covered and that was a good thing.

Just about everyone in the whole world, 'cept me, seems to have tattoos now. And so they have lost their menace. Gormless, weedy men show of their illustrated arms with pride. In truth, I am surprised some of them have the strength to lift the ink.

I expect that tattoos will go out of favour as the abominable offspring of Gen T mature. Well grow older anyway. They will see the faded marks on the faded bodies of their parents. Tattoos are not fine wine. They do not age with anything approaching dignity. They droop and they fade. And the D & M thoughts of drunken teenage mind are unlikely to seem quite so profound and poignant at 45 and sober.

Movie Reviews.
The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel
See it! Judi Dench, Bill Nighy, Maggie Smith, Tom Wilkinson and other wondrous actors. Old folk getting laid and rediscovering themselves and sometimes all at once. Funny and clever. Take yer kiddies. They will hate it.
We WILL go to India.
Hunger Games
Crap. I mean, I am not opposed to teenagers being killed. Verily, I am melancholic with a genetic memory that we, humans, may have at one time sacrificed our young. To who? Who cares!
Teenagers murder each other in a sort of pro-Republican parable.

Saturday, 18 February 2012

Currently
Australians: Origins to Eureka (Australians Vol 1)
By Thomas Keneally
see related
Whitney and the Vodemort wand

Whitney Houston was a a very pretty black woman who could sing and was a hopeless junkie. I never bought or even illegally recorded a Whitney Houston song. I never slept with Whitney Houston either. As far as I know, she never wrote any music. There are lots of folk who are dead and who didn't write any music and who I didn't sleep with either. I am pretty much over Whitney Houston. I have slept with women. Some were pretty. Prettier even than Whitney Houston. Some of the people who are as dead as Whitney Houston that I knew I would rather see again than have Whitney Houston resurrected. I am pretty much over Whitney Houston.
I am 56, and I live in a neat suburban house in a neat suburban street in capital city. We own our neat suburban house because my MIL died a few years back and the child-bride decided, against my advice, to pay it off. She was her mother anyway. This decision was a good one. It meant that I could retire before I was 55. Well it was good from MY perspective. Child-bride is less convinced about it now because I am at home quite a bit and I am not, by any stretch of the imagination, ever going to be called 'tidy-guy'. Well I call myself that; 'tidy-guy put the seat down'; or 'tidy-guy is wearing undies'. Or 'tidy-guy opened the dish washer'. These are the things I might say. And smile beatifically. Aglow with pride.
One of the good things about being retired is that I can take naps whenever I want to, and I can get up early if I want to. Getting up early in the morning is good because sometimes there are exciting and interesting shows on the telly. Like 'Wagon Train'. And 'Thunderbirds'. Sometimes interesting shows like this clash and I am all in a dither as to what to watch. The channels synchronise their addies so the 'previous channel' button is fuck-all use.
And the very bestest thing about getting up early is that I don't have to because I am retired and can stay in bed if I so choose. But I am an early riser by nature, and am forever seeking the metaphoric worm.
Even though I am retired, there are lots and lots of things to do. There is a garden that needs tending(although my idea of tending mainly involves looking at) and adventures to be planned. We are in the process of planning an adventure in that sampler pack of the USA, Las Vegas.
I am practising saying 'Viva' and may let my hair grow and tease it into a grey bouffant
We will go to Hawaii too because it's in America and we want to see lava flowing. Last year we saw glaciers flowing in Alaska and there was a great deal of 'oooohing' and 'aaaaahing' for sure. So now we want to see really hot rocks flowing.

We also found out that La Palin isn't as loved as publicity machines may indicate. Certainly not by tour guides anyway. And if you ARE atour guide in Alaska you should note that it may not be best to be boasting about hunting and killing bears if you are tour-guidingAustralians. You will get comments like 'what did that bear do to you?', and 'I wanted to see that bear', and 'did you eat it?' Andwhen you say “yes. I ate some of it, but left the rest for the other bears” thinking that will make it OK, don't look startled when someone, who may or may not have been a fuller-figured 56 year old retiree who lives in a neat suburban house in a neat suburban street in capital city says something like “just what the world needs is cannibal bears; you bastard”
My golf is a thing of shame. A fuller-figured 56 year old retiree who lives in a neat suburban house in a neat suburban street in a capital city needs a hobby and the hobby I have chosen is called golf. I am not sure why it is called 'golf' however it may have been derived from the old Scots verb " to gowff" meaning to"strike hard." In any case it was a poor choice mostly resulting in a chest-pain-inducing festival of folly.
Mind you, whoever 'you' may be, there is a peculiar joy driving against the traffic on the way to an early morning golf fest and glaring happily (yes, I see the contradiction) at hapless mindless folk driving blindly to work.
I have a magic wand that I bought at a Harry Potter exhibition to help me with my golf. Well it won't improve my golf. No magic is that strong. Rather it is intended to imbue with sorrow and dismay the persons against whom I play. The wand is a 'Voldemort'.
And it goes alright too.

Tuesday, 21 June 2011

Visiting

I hadn’t seen him for years. I had been away doing stuff to earn money so that I would only have to do stuff that I wanted to when I turned 55. We met in a pub and I was surprised to see him. He was obviously not well, and I paused to ask another in the group “what’s wrong with the Dog”? “He’s got lung cancer”. Oh, I said.
I was then berated at length by Dog for not coming to see him. I had, as it happens, heard that he had died of a hearty a few years back, but I thought it best not to mention that given his current circumstances. He’s a fractious man at best. So I just said I didn’t have his contact details. “I’m in the fucking phone book” he said and so he is.
I have been visiting him about once a week, and we argue about things which seems to make him happy although he can hardly talk so arguments are pretty easy to win. He is naturally argumentative. While I was there yesterday, he got a phone call from the person who will organise the final stage of his palliative care, and that meeting has been brought forward a week, to today. He has taken what he describes as ‘a turn for the worse’. This means that he requires oxygen 24 hours a day, and cannot walk more than ½ dozen steps at a time.
It is strange and it is disturbing to watch someone dying. He hates that he has lungs that are full of shit and he can’t just cough it up. He knows that he is dying. Well we all are; he is just doing it really, really quickly. He seems OK with it. Although I think having visitors helps him not to dwell on it. The cancer is always there. It is omnipresent and in it’s way omnipotent. He has not, as far as I am aware, discovered God. His hair is mostly gone; his beard is wispy. He is grey. He has lost his appetite. He takes a lot of morphine.
We talk, briefly, on what we used to do. He was possibly the worst behaved person I have ever met. We went fishing and played sport together. I reminded him of how much better than him I was, but that led to what appeared to be a near fatal bout of hacking so that’s a subject to steer clear of. Our memories clearly diverge. His are more precious than mine at this stage.
He was a rum drinker of renown. Well we all were. And smokers too. He had stopped smoking, he told me. But then he got a cough and went to the doctor who told him - as he put it - ‘you’re fucked’. I am not convinced that this is an accurate record of the conversation. I had expected that an oncologist might be a little less fierce. Perhaps not.
I suspect that he believes that he could have done more with his life. He has a son (at least one) who has been in very significant poo with the law, including offences related to the discharging of a firearm. OK; not too bad on it’s own but when the discharge is into another person, it’s not too flash.
Women seemed to fall in love with him quite readily, but they seemed to fall out of love with him quite quickly too. His behaviour, particularly centred as it was around strong drink, did not lend itself to cementing long term relationships. I don’t think any of those who loved him have been to visit him. At least he hasn’t mentioned it. I think he is saddened by his son.
It’s hard to know what to talk about. He said that he gets visitors, but that they are often drunk when they turn up. I can guess why this is. It’s not easy, and it’s the sort of thing that one decides to do when full of strong drink.
We are going away for a little holiday today, me‘n the missus. We will be gone for about 5 days. I don’t expect that he will have died by the time I get back, but I know he will be worse. And I’ll pop over, I guess. But I think I’ll mainly be talking to myself. I’ll tell him that he was the greatest fisherman I ever had the pleasure of wetting a line with, and what a good cricketer he was.

Tuesday, 07 June 2011

Bath-salts for boys

Yes sirreebob; decisions have been made and it’s north. Me’n the trophy wife are going north, North to Alaskaaa on a flash-as cruise ship and we’ll go to other places too but the first bit is mainly Alaska. We are visiting heaps of places including the delightfully named ‘Skagway’ where I hope to bump into my very own American idol and it’s OK if I give her one. I checked with the child-bride and she seemed strangely relaxed about my plans, hopes and ambitions. Can never tell what’ll worry ‘em and what they’ll be OK with. As I have discovered, painfully, in the past, she’s usually pretty far from being OK with this sort of planning.
What I have discovered is that women are made happy by the little things. Yes, yes big things like a swish cruise go OK, but little things like driving them home when they want to be driven home, going to a movie with kissing innit, going shopping without looking at the watch every 12 seconds and letting them look longingly at puppies are real brownie-point getters. And telling them they look nice. Even when they don’t believe you. Just don’t giggle when you say it. Hand holding is a good ‘un and they like a wee cuddle too. Especially if it doesn’t lead immediately to sticking your hand into their pants. And making women happy means that you yourself are able to do the sort of things that make men happy. Although within reason. Everything in moderation unless you are drinking beer when moderation takes a definite back seat, and you can use it as an excuse. It doesn’t work as an excuse except to yourself when you are drunk, and will often lead to a lecture or worse but we are genetically programmed to drink beer so how can it be our fault? This is an discussion best to hold privately without involving the lecturer.
After I played golf yesterday, I decided a nice bath would be in order. Mostly I am a shower guy but we have a nice bath with water jets so I thought why not? I used some of the bath salts that perch beside the bath and they smelled of roses. I do like roses and even have a rose in the garden but it’s not a particularly blokey smell. I have given some thought to what would be the sort of luxuriant scent that a bloke would like to wallow in and I have decided a nice rum/leather combination would fill the bill. Not girly-white rum but a strong manly dark rum like, like…well bundy is the very best there is. And the leather should have an underlying, subtle, sweat scent like a saddle because that drives the chickies wild. Well I imagine it does. I don’t like horses very much, but I do like cowboy movies and cowboys get cute chicks and they ride horses so I am guessing it works.
I briefly toyed with that most blokey of scents for, the fart, but decided against it. There would probably be sufficient fart-residual in the saddle-leather; beans being, according to my movie research, a favoured treat for cowboys. On it’s own, the fart can be a little bit overpowering.